End-of-Year Fun

I was sad that we missed all of Eli's year-end celebrations this year because of our New York trip, so I was excited to participate in Elina's celebrations.  First I went to watch Elina at her field day.  Elina's favorite activities were definitely jumping rope and hula-hooping!

Although she was very focused when she played the Cup Game where you have to figure out which cup the toy is hiding under.

Then I coordinated Elina's little class Pizza Party.  The kids had fun eating pizza and all sorts of yummy treats.  I wanted to set up little games for the kids (like Minute to Win It games), but the teacher said the schedule was too tight with other events so I couldn't do them.  Boooooo.

When Elina came home on the last day of school, I had this "sign" for her on the driveway on the way into the house.

Then this was her special after-school snack!  Her favorite little donuts (just like her dad).  I let her eat as many as she wanted...I'm pretty sure she ate more than 5.  

Remember those games I couldn't do with Elina's class?  Well, I saved them for our little end-of-the-year get together with AJ and her kids!  We had a blast playing all these Minute to Win It games...and they made for great pictures, don't you think?

Here were the games we played...

A Little Fruity--Each person had to balance 5 Fruity Cheerios on the end of a popsicle stick in his/her mouth. This was actually harder than we thought.  The Cheerios kept sticking to our fingers so it was hard to pile them up on the popsicle stick!  Each time I got a few on, they would start to topple over!  

Noodling Around--The kids lined up penne pasta at the edge of the table and tried to pick them up with one piece of spaghetti held in their mouths.  I loved watching how focused the kids were during this activity.  It was so quiet and they were just staring at each piece of penne.  It was so neat!

Chocolate Unicorn--Each person had to balance 5 chocolate snack cakes (Ding-Dong knock-offs) on his/her forehead.  I could not get this to work for the life of me.  I really think my forehead is uneven.  The other kids did it so well and my pile was always about to topple over.  It was nuts!

Face the Cookie--Each person had to put a cookie on his/her forehead and then, using only facial muscles, had to bring the cookie down to his/her mouth to take a bite.  I tried this 5 times to no avail.  I don't think any of our cookies ever reached our mouths!  BUT AJ and I thought the Oreos were a little heavy.  Maybe a Nilla Wafer would work better for next time....

Nose Dive--We put Vaseline on each kids' nose and using only their noses, they had to transfer cotton balls, one at a time, to another plate. This was so fun to watch!  The kids had so much fun with it, too.  (A lot of the pictures are blurry because everyone was running too quickly!  And I included an obscene amount of videos because it was so darn cute!)

I really liked AJ's strategy though.  She said that as long as you don't smash the cotton ball onto your nose, you can just blow it off your nose when you get to the other plate!  (I just thought I'd share that little tidbit in case you ever want to play Nose Dive with your friends...)

We really had such a blast playing these games.  I think we will definitely do it again with B around.  I'm going to have us do one game before bedtime a few nights a week during the summer because it was just too much fun!

And just to add more year-end fun, I also made summer-themed cupcakes....Teddy Grahams at the beach.

Honestly, they were supposed to be WAY cuter with drink umbrellas in them.  But I just didn't have the time (or energy) to run to Party City just for those umbrellas last week.  So we had to live without the umbrellas! The kids didn't know any different...they just gobbled them right up anyway.  That always makes me happy!

And I'm just super super happy that it's finally summer!!!