Sponge Building Blocks

So, you know those cheap-o kitchen sponges you can buy?  Turns out you can cut 'em up and use them as building blocks, too!  Might be a good busy bag idea.  Jack had a whole afternoon of fun with these things. 

Jack's LEGO Party

So, due to blog issues, I'm totally late posting pictures from Jack's November 17th birthday party (SIX years old!  WOW!).  But here they are.  The LEGO fanatic wanted nothing else but a LEGO party. 

This is the photo we used as the background for the invitation.  Original idea found here. 

I had this semi-brilliant idea for a photobooth.  The kids decorated their own LEGO heads,
which we glued to large popsicle sticks so they could use them as masks.
For the background, I glued a bunch of foam circles onto green tagboard to look like a LEGO base.
Unfortunately, I should have made the background a bit bigger. Next time I'll know better!

We used yellow square paper plates, cut little tabs for the tops, and added Sharpie faces.

Treat bags in primary colors, with foam circles to look like LEGOs.
I got the idea from this website.

"Magical Monster Slime" for the favor bags.  Recipe found here.
It was supposed to be a Halloween thing, but I thought it would be
something new and fun for party favors. 

My very talented husband spent hours putting together a LEGO pinata.
Destroyed in less than 15 minutes!

Found a LEGO cake recipe, using marshmallows, from this website.
Mine didn't look as good as Betty Crocker's!

 

"La Fleur" Playmat

I made this "La Fleur" playmat when Kate was a baby (after purchasing the pattern from this website).  I finished it right as she began crawling at eight months (of course!).  So, considering that fact, and all the effort I put into it, the playmat has never actually been a "playmat"... but a wall hanging instead.

Look at how cute Kate was!  Those eyes!

The playmat's actually had quite a journey.  We moved from California two-and-a-half years ago, and stopped in Idaho to visit my family for two months before coming to New Mexico.  Sometime during that trip, a jar of tahini burst open in the little trailer we were pulling behind the van and spilled on the playmat.  Try as I might, I never fully removed the stain.  And, since Kate's sharing a room with Jack, the playmat is hanging in Maggie's room for now.