Theme: “Can you make it past twelve?” A sleepover party. 

Invitations: Since it was October, I used an orange cardstock, but you could use any other color. I inset a square of a black and white circular illusion pattern, then on top of that a white square with “Can you make it past twelve?” written on it. I did the same on the inside, except the white square had the party details on it.

Food: Pizza, Chips, Gatorade, Cake and Ice Cream, and Breakfast cereal. (There’s no need to get fancy with food, when kids are thrilled with these!) TIP: I use drink bottles with lids and some way to mark them so kids keep track of their drinks instead of wasting them.

Favors: Items found in the scavenger hunt, equally distributed between bags. Pop Rocks, Test tube candy, pens, and a framed party photo. TIP: Get cheap wallet-size frames at the dollar store - some even come multiples to a pack. Take a picture of each guest with the birthday boy, using a digital camera. While the kids eat cake, upload and print the photos and put them in the frames to go in the goodie bags.

Events: Eyeball Glow T-shirt craft, Bottle marker craft, Glow scavenger hunt/secret code, silly string fight.

Eyeball Glow T-shirt craft: I bought a black t-shirt for each attendee, and painted a large solid circle with glow-in-the-dark t-shirt paint in advance. (So they wouldn’t have to wait all night for a drying shirt.) When the kids arrived, I handed them a tub of permanent markers and instructed them to design an Eyeball on their shirt. I had a paper with several examples nearby in case of creative block. They then changed into these shirts for the rest of the party.

Bottle marker craft: Using pony beads and pre-cut plastic lanyard string, each boy designed a distinctive bead marker to tie onto their Gatorade bottle. Be sure to have primary colors. I also had glow-in-the-dark pony beads.

Glow scavenger hunt/secret code scramble: I bought glow-in-the-dark plastic bugs, eyeball shaped bubble tape, and other such small toys at the dollar store. Then I found a symbol code in my son’s book of secret codes. I wrote a message in code, and then transferred one symbol onto each item. (Some items had “dummy symbols”.) I took a careful count of the items, so we’d know when we’d found them all. (I had my younger son hide them, so he wouldn’t feel left out of the hunt, or be competing with the older boys.)  You could hide them indoors or out, depending on the weather or your situation. The boys had to find the right number of items, decode the symbols, and then unscramble the message. (The message was “time for cake!” So, then we had the cake and ice cream, opened presents, and had freeplay until midnight.)

Silly string fight: This was the “make it past twelve” part. At midnight exactly, I let the boys run out into the yard and spray each other with cans of silly string. With one can each, this lasts only a couple of minutes, but is quite noisy. (Again, dollar store came in handy for these.) This was followed by bedtime. I thought that might be a problem, but it turned out most of the boys were tired by then anyway. I usually have a 15 minute “whispers-allowed” period, and I don’t think I even had to tell them when the time was up.

The rule for the morning is “quietly play gameboys if you’re up before 8am”. Nobody was up before 9am. I fed them regular breakfast cereal and bananas and juice, and then let them have more freeplay time. Pickup time was 11am.

Another note: My son received numerous Blockbuster gift cards for his birthday. I guess this is the “safe gift” for teenage boys. I was at first disappointed, because we rent movies from on-demand. Then we were reminded that Blockbuster rents and sells game system games. (They also sell popcorn, candy, and a few other items.). My son really enjoyed combining several cards to have enough to buy a new game and a couple boxes of candy. So this is not only the safe gift if you don’t know what to buy, but also age-appropriate, and “cool”. (Also, I don’t think you have to have a Blockbuster card to buy, not rent.)

“No, I said reindeer look like antelope, not cantaloupe!”

Concept by Leiham Helm, Artwork by Aidan Helm

My oldest just turned 12 today. Holy cow! It barely seems possible - except that he’s almost as tall as me now, so there’s really no doubt he’s growing up. We had a sleepover party on Friday. The theme was extreme sports. He had 8 boys come, and 7 spent the night, and they were all very well behaved. I was SO happy. My big party tip of the year, which worked out really well: Buy cup cozies and write each person’s name on them. Slip these onto drink bottles with lids. We had 0 spills, 0 shared drinks, and 0 drinks thrown out because we weren’t sure whose was whose.

Fast food branding makes children prefer happy meals
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn12431&feedId=online-news_rss20
Interesting study, but this is just another example of how you need to be careful what CONCLUSIONS you draw from a limited study, and how easy it is to impose your beliefs on the results.  The first paragraph has it right: “A study has revealed that pre-school kids prefer foods wrapped in McDonalds packaging over the same snacks wrapped in unmarked packaging.” That’s all the study revealed - that the kids in the study preferred the food in marked packages.

The spin-off conclusion is “The study also found that children in homes with more televisions were more likely to show a preference for the branded meal, suggesting that fast-food commercials exert a strong influence.” The number of televisions doesn’t mean the kids necessarily saw more fast-food ads! Maybe they watch PBS, or videos, or play X-box on those TVs. And maybe parents who put more televisions in their homes are also more likely to voice their opinion that name brands matter. (Since those parents obviously like to spend money, that’s not a stretch, is it?)
Additionally, there is the fact that these packages had something “extra”, and that the extra was shiny-happy. What they should do is instead of plain brown wrappers provide wrappers decorated with another happy theme - but one that isn’t recognizable as McD’s or any known cartoon character. THAT would be a test to find out if it is the brand (McD’s), or the lack of branding, that created the preference.

“Nutritionists hope that curbing fast-food television ads will help reverse the obesity epidemic among youngsters.” Obesity among youngsters is best combatted with parents who provide healthy meals, limit snacking, and encourage exercise. It doesn’t matter WHAT the TV ad says if Mom refuses to buy it. It doesn’t matter how healthy the advertising is if Dad serves fried chicken twice a week. And none of it matters if kids have unlimited access to chips, candy, and soda. Anyone who knows me, or my children, knows that I believe in being involved in my children’s lives. This means that any habits they have are my responsibility. At the tender ages of 9 and 11, that is appropriate. By the time they’re old enough to make decisions on their own, they will have a habit of making good decisions.

On my way home yesterday, my usually ad-free (or at least sparse) Christian radio station was peppered with ads for Vacation Bible Schools, Youth Conferences, and multi-band music events. I remember the excitement of the times we went to those things as kids. A lot of growth happens there…but it is often not at the times it is planned for. I recall that it was the times between the speakers, after lights out, and in the bus on the way home that we did the most thinking about what had been presented.

Some people think they have to entertain kids 24/7 (or at least while they’re awake). Every moment should be planned out so that the kids never get bored. Conferences should be filled to the brim so that people feel they’ve gotten their money’s worth. But kids need time to ruminate on what they’ve heard, and to internalize it. Kids and teens can dig deep, and can BE deep. They don’t always know how to express it, but they feel the spirit within them and they form beliefs and foundations, and they wrestle with engimas and contradictions. But, they need time away from the distraction of something new every moment in order to do these things.

I remember one youth group night when I was leading, that I gave everyone a set of 5 questions and told them to find a spot where they couldn’t see each other and answer them. No one would have to share their answers. Otherwise rought-and-tumble teenage boys can be awfully insightful, I learned!

 So, I encourage those of you planning these events to PLAN alone time. Structure it, if you have to. But include it. It could be the most meaningful part of your event.

1. If you write your last name on the tags of all your children’s clothes, you won’t be able to read the size labels later.
   Solutions: Write the name elsewhere, if you really need to see the size. Or, use a thin sharpie.
   In our case, I don’t need the size so much as I need to know WHICH child. So, in the future I will either use initials or a different color for each child.
2. Sending emails to camp isn’t very satisfying. Our camp had the option to send postcards or emails to your child. (You can’t talk by phone.) I emailed. It was nice for ME to think I was communicating with them, but I found out later they didn’t get the messages the same day. (And messages sent the next-to-last day didn’t reach them at all.) I don’t think they really read them, and I didn’t get any response from them of course.
   Solution: Unless my  kids say they liked having their name called at mail time, I think I’ll write a short journal instead and share it with them in person when they get back. That way, I can get their reaction to each thing I wanted to share with them.
3. Make the packing list more specific. When the clothes are going into the suitcase, we were mainly worried about “5 shirts, 5 pairs of shorts”, etc. Now that they’ve come back, how do I know we got everything back? Sure, our name was on it…but if someone else in another county took it home, they may never try to contact us. Next year, I will make a “packing for home” checklist to include in my child’s bag. This will list each shirt/shorts/item specifically. That way, if someone doesn’t have their Kawasaki shirt, they’ll know to look for it BEFORE they leave camp.

Anyone else out there have any tips for sending your children to summer camp?

From the department of the really obvious: Comparison Shopping Saves You Money The OFT (some UK business thing) estimates that by searching more effectively, shoppers could save £150m to £240m each year. The report also suggests that shoppers are hindered by “unexpected additional charges which are sometimes added in the latter stages of a purchase.”

Well, DUH! This isn’t just the case online, either. Comparison shopping when shopping in the real world saves lots of people money, while others who do not do so pay more. And unexpected additional charges happen all the time. (Can I tell you how many times Radio shack, and even Kmart, have offered to sell me an extended warranty on a $40 electronic? Heck - it was only $40! why would I want to pay $10 fo rthe warranty and then another $10 to ship it to be fixed? I’ll just buy a new one (probably a different brand) if it breaks once the manufacturer warranty is up!

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Did you know you can Massage away dead pixels? “Nonconforming or stuck pixels can be a nuisance on an otherwise functional laptop LCD. The pixels usually remain green or red without lighting up properly with the other pixels on the display. Unfortunately, manufacturers will not replace an LCD for just one or two stuck pixels; in fact, some require as many as 10 to 18 dead pixels before they’ll take action. There is a solution, though. Take a soft material, like a felt cloth, and gently rub in a circular motion around the stuck pixel. Performing this trick will usually get the pixel to light up properly. Once you find the right location and pressure to illuminate the pixel, hold your finger there for up to two minutes, and voila, no more stuck pixel. “This is a new one on me. And since eldest was just complaining that Gameboy has a dead pixel, I think I’m going to try it out. However, I wouldn’t go willy-nilly suggesting it to just anyone, and these screens can be easily ruined by too much poking and prodding.

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I think we had the busiest weekend we’ve had in a long time. I’m not complaining - we’re a family that doesn’t believe in over-scheduling, so even our busy weekend might not look like much to some people - especially considering that it was a 4-day weekend (for the kids). Here’s what we had going on:
FRIDAY:
• Kids: no school, Little League practice,  Friend Justin spends the night (because it is too cold to have a “woods night”) .
• Maria:No ‘work’, but 2 PC Solutions appointments in Lancaster
* These were for database support - not websites and not Lotus Notes. Additionally, I can go a whole year without going into Lancaster city. So this was a bit unusual for me in several respects.
SATURDAY:
• Take Justin home
• Lego Exhibit at the LMA (see family pictures)
* If you have kids and you’re local, I highly recommend this exhibit, which will be available thru May 20th. Free admission, but metered parking. It wasn’t very busy, and we were there the 2nd day. It is amazing what this artist does with Legos, and how many it must take to do some of these things. However, many of these works also leave some room for interpretation, so it could be a child-friendly introduction to certain art concepts. There’s even a table where kids can build their own art with Legos. While you’re there, go ahead and take the kids to the other exhibits upstairs. They are definitely kid-friendly.
• Visit Lancaster Market
* If you decide to visit the LMA on a Saturday, follow it up with a visit to the Market. (Remember to bring cash, and I recommend using a parking garage.) This was definitely a fun way to pick up lunch, with both low priced foods and gourmet treats. We picked up food from several stands, got lucky with finding a table, and shared some things back and forth. Next time, I’d like to remember to bring drinks of our own, as those were pricey.
* As an aside, Alex and I were both really impressed with recent changes in Lancaster. There seems to be a tendency toward art galleries, cafes, and so on that is leaning towards the more upscale market. I’m sure there are still areas where you shouldn’t walk alone at night, but we felt comfortable during our whole visit.
• Little League practice - Which turned into a mini-blizzard. (Thank goodness the kids whose parents left them at practice also left them with cellphones.)
• Aidan had a “play date” with a friend from Reinholds
SUNDAY:
• Stick a ham in the crockpot for a “leisurely” afternoon
• 8:15 service at Nancy’s church followed by brunch.  We find out that a baby goat was born last night and we end up deciding to visit the farm and inviting 3 ‘adopted family members’, too.
• 10-1 Easter baskets

• 1:30-4 Take ham in crockpot to lunch at Nancy’s and seeing the baby goat (see family pictures)
MONDAY:
• Maria - work
• Alex - am dentist appointment, pm work appt
• KIDS: no school , visited friends while Dad went to the dentist
• Finally colored eggs!

You: Is that the toy that you brought with you?

< Snickering and giggling ensues. >

You: What?

Boy1:  It sounded like you said: Is that the toilet   you brought with you?!

< Both boys burst out laughing. >