Another Epic Sleepover

To use Brooklyn's word, it was an 'epic' sleepover we had last night - me and seven of my grandkids - ages 4 - 9 - got together for our second sleepover and it was soooo much fun!

Practicing the experiments the day before the sleepover

They all arrived around 6:00 pm.  I had set up a coloring station with rolls of coloring paper taped to the table and pots of crayons in the center.  At some time during their stay, each of the kids occupied themselves with good old fashioned coloring.

Charlie, Aidan and Tate

 Then the puzzles were brought out and worked on.

The two year olds, Quinn and Tate, only stayed for an hour or so, leaving with their mothers, under protest.

Some of the kids gravitated to the computer during their stay but there was so much to do that the computer didn't get the workout it ordinarily would have.

Kenzie and Charlie

The first 'real' activity was walking across the street to play at the playground.  They love 'Grammie's playground'.

Back at the house again we dove into our first experiment - making sparkling eruptions in glass vases using baking soda, food coloring, vinegar and glitter.

They loved this activity as you can see from the expressions on their faces.  They worked in teams so we had four 'eruptions'.

Kenzie and Charlie did theirs first - Kenzie has just added the vinegar - look at all those bubbles!

Next, Sydney and Brooklyn did theirs.  Brooklyn added the glitter and then Syd poured the vinegar in.

Then Max did his while sister Charlie 'supervised'.

And finally Elly and Aidan had their turn.  The 4-year olds sat on the table so they could reach things more easily.

After the excitement of the sparkling eruptions ended, we decided to see what would happen if we microwaved a small bar of Ivory Soap.

Wow!



It was lovely and puffy and dry.  The kids broke pieces off and marvelled at how big that little bar became.  Aidan asked several times, "Can we eat it?"  I guess he thought it looked like whipped cream and should have been edible.  I let him break off a piece and he washed his hands with it.

So then someone wondered what would happen if we put food coloring and sprinkles on top of a bar of soap and then microwaved it.   So we had to try it to find out.

Well, it really puffed up but as you can see from the right side, the glitter and food coloring stayed intact and didn't mix with the soap at all.   An interesting lesson learned.

All this activity was making up a bit peckish to I told the kids we'd make our own ice cream while waiting for out pizza and wings to be delivered.

Here Brooklyn is seen shaking the bag of cream inside a larger bag of ice and salt.  Each of the kids took a turn shaking the bag and I was left to finish off the final five minutes of shaking.  I won't double the recipe next time!

The kids were amazed at how good our home-made ice cream was, as each took a turn (and a clean spoon) getting a taste of it directly from the bag.

Then our pizza arrived at we had a quiet time watching Puss in Boots and eating pizza and wings.  It must have been close to 10:00 by this time but no one seemed to be feeling tired yet - except Grammie!

One more experiment, after the movie was over and food devoured.  We tried to make 'fairies in a bottle' but it flopped and our 'fairies' were more like ugly trolls.  The kids didn't mind though because after all, the jars did glow!

Production line for the 'fairies/trolls'.  Gotta shake those bottles.

 Our final activity before heading to bed was blowing up the glow-in-the-dark balloons.  The kids loved these and took them down to the dark basement and played hide and seek with them.

Here they all are, ready for bed and playing with the balloons.

Finally, by 12:30am, they were all down and asleep with the balloons by the beds as night lights.  I was too wired to sleep and too tired to do anything else so I just lay in bed listening for any sounds from the sleeping kids.  The last time I looked at my bedside clock it was 3:15.   Then just before 6am I heard a crash!  Aidan had got up to go to the bathroom and banged into something.  That did it - we were both up for the day! so we went downstairs and snuck a cupcake while nobody was around.  (no lectures on nutrition please - this was a party!)

By eight everyone was downstairs and feeling hungry.  I filled them up with bacon, pancakes, chocolate milk and orange juice.

Our final activity, which they did one at a time as they woke up and made an appearance, was to make bottle cap fridge magnets to take home.  I had printed out a bunch of pictures of them previously, small enough to punch 1" circles of their heads.  We glued the pictures into the bottle caps and added a magnet to the back and put them on the fridge.

I made one for the younger siblings who couldn't attend the sleepover and when the kids were picked up around 10 this morning, we gave their mothers a little baggie with their fridge magnets in.

And now the sleepover is just a pleasant memory, and this exhausted Grammie is going to have a nap!

Have a nice weekend and Father's Day.

Now THAT Was a Party!

For awhile now I've been promising my in-town grandkids a sleepover.  Last night was it!  Because my birthday is early next week I decided, unknown to the kids, that the sleepover would be Grammies Surprise Birthday Party.  Seven grandkids between the ages of 3 - 8 were involved - with one of the 3-year olds just staying for the fun, not the sleepover part.

They arrived around 6:30 pm and found a bunch of animal face balloons on the table.  They took them out to the patio to play with where we soon discovered that in the combination of brick, wood and latex, the latex baloons were immediate victims.  It wasn't long before the deck floor was littered with the remains of cute animal faces.  All part of the fun though.

Kenzie, with Max in the background

Dead Balloon Critters

Then we went to the great playground/park across the street from my place where the kids played for about an hour and a half.  I had brought a bubble wand for each of them so we spent a lot of time blowing and chasing them.  It was so nice to see the cousins, siblings from  three families, having such fun together.  Even with three alpha females among them there was no quarrelling, minimal bossing, and lots of sharing and watching out for the younger ones.

The Alpha Girls - Kenzie (8), Brooklyn (7) and Charlie (7)

The gang - Charlie, Max, Kenzie, Elly, Brooklyn, Sydney, Aidan

Brooklyn catching her bubble

Brooklyn's Bubbles

Tire Swing Co-operation

Elly and Sydney

When I thought they had run off enough energy we went back to the house and ordered pizza - I got big points for that and told the ones who had never been to a sleepover before that it's a rule that you have to order pizza for a sleepover.  Excitement galore!  The one who would rather have a jam bun than pizza even got excited because Pizza 73 also deliveres curly fries, chicken wings, and vegetables with their pizza, and he realized he could eat a slice of cheese pizza if he really tried. (I made him a jam bun anyway).

Since it was a birthday party, I had made a bunch of the most delicious chocolate cupcakes with a marshmallow/chocolate/Cool Whip icing.  We put candles on them and everyone blew them out together.  They even sang Happy Birthday to Grammie.

Singing to Grammie

Blowing out the Candles

We played games and puzzles and painted bedroom doorknob signs and worked on melted beat pictures until 10 pm and then headed to bed.

Hard at work

Five of them camped out in the spare bedroom where the television was, while 3-year old Elly shared my bed (Papa was out of town so he missed all the fun).  Well, around 11 the kids came in and said the television was acting weird.  Since  I couldn't fix it, and since Elly was still up and talking my ear off, we all headed back downstairs to resume crafting and playing.  The giggling and noise reached new levels because by now they were all fighting sleep.  It was like New Year's Eve though and they kept asking if it was midnight yet.  They wanted to stay up all night.  I let them have their fun since everyone was getting along so well and I was enjoying their antics.  Finally at 12:40 am we all headed back up to bed.  Ten minutes later Max and Brooklyn came into my room saying that the other girls were still giggling too much so I told them to bring their sleeping bags into my room and camp out with me and Elly.  They did that and within five minutes peace and silence reigned in the house.  Good, I thought, they'll sleep till 10.

Ready for Bed

I was too aware of all the sleepers to get a good sleep myself and finally at 5:30 I got up and headed for the computer to download pictures.  Then at six Max got up.  By 7 everyone was up and hard at it again.  I made pancakes for breakfast and by 8:30 we were all over at the playground again for another hour of fun.

The parents started coming to pick them up and the last one left at 11:45.  I stumbled back to bed and slept for three hours and now I feel much better.  It was worth it though.  Everyone had so much fun. Several of them told me it was the "best sleepover ever" and the "best birthday party ever", and the parting comment from the oldest was "We'll have to do this again".  I agree.  It was the best sleepover and birthday party ever.  And we probably will do it again. 

TV Break - Sydney, Max, Brooklyn

TV time - Charlie

Getting Sleepy - Elly and Aidan

Picture Perfect -Kenzie

Charlie

 Grandkids are great!