On Bangs and Birthday Parties

As I was decorating the cake for Jared's 11th Birthday Party, my thoughts drifted back to 1987 when I was in middle school and my mornings were spent in trying to tame my bangs into that perfect 80's wave. You know, curl bangs with curling iron, style the top half of bangs up and back, spray with aquanet until a stiff wall forms, form the bottom half of bangs into a perfect curl going down toward forehead, spray with aquanet, put every stray hair in it's place, more aquanet, when sure that bangs are perfect, spray more aquanet. After years of early morning frustration, some time in High School, I stumbled upon the concept that my hair actually looked a lot better if I would just let it do what it wanted to do. I distinctly remember getting compliments for how my hair looked with friends asking what I was doing different and I would reply that I just let my hair do it's natural thing. So, other than reflecting on my personal responsibility for the deterioration of the ozone layer, what does this have to do with birthday parties you might ask.

I used to try to create what in my mind was the perfect birthday party experience for my children. You know, a theme with decorations, games, goodie bags and cake all based on the theme. But, somewhere between the volcano cake and the Barbie dress cake, I lost my love for cake decorating and actually shed tears as I threw the Barbie cake in the sink and started over. Since then, the cake part of the birthday party has been very stressful and I usually have a friend come over, if not to help make the cake, just for moral support. Then it happened...on the day that I made the worst cake of my career as a mother, Jared, after seeing the cake for the first time said, "Mom, you did it again!" And I thought, "What, ruined another cake?" But upon further questioning, he said something to the effect that I was the best cake decorator ever. In that moment I realized that to make the perfect birthday party experience for my children I could really lower my expectations considerably. So, ever since that day, I have let the cake decorating happen naturally, just like my bangs. However, although not aerosol, a can is still my favorite creative tool. I know many people will cringe when they read this, but I just love frosting in a can, not for the taste, but for the ease in which I can create what my kids deem as the perfect cake.

Happy Birthday Jared! I hope the $1 foam swords and frosting-in-a-can-cake really made you as happy as you looked. As for me, I was much happier than in past years and really enjoyed the no stress party.

Back to School

Krystal is presenting her history report about the mummification process. Her project includes a "stone" sarcophagus, a "wooden" coffin, a "gold" coffin, the Barbie mummy she made, canopic jars with organs made from clay, and plenty of furniture, food, and jewels to last for Barbie in the afterlife.
Jared's presentation was about the Great Pyramid at Giza built during the reign of the Egyptian king Khufu also known as Cheops. Jared was interested in the architecture of the tunnels and chambers of the inside of the pyramid. He did a great job researching online and presenting what he learned.
Clarissa talked about the games and toys of the Ancient Egyptians. Chris helped her make the wooden horse with wooden wheels. She told everyone that two of the games the Egyptians used to play were leap frog and tug-of-war, which was followed by a tug-of-war game outside, boys against girls of course. Much to everyone's surprise, (and heavily debated afterward) the girls won. There were about 9 girls and 7 boys, but the boys were older and bigger. Those girls are tough.
To make learning how to count change fun, we played candy store and Clarissa was the store clerk.
Krystal's mummy during mummification process. These are the jewels and amulets that were put inside her wrappings.
After using math to make some homemade playdough, the girls learned or practiced new words by forming the words out of playdough and making a figure of what the word represented.
Amber started Preschool this year. She absolutely loves it. Preschool is taught by the mothers in the group, each of us trading off weeks. There are four other kids from church in her Preschool. So far they've learned All About Me and about Fall. Amber is learning to write her name and loves doing her schoolwork (workbooks that she picks out).