Avon home party?

It has been years since I went to a home shopping party, such as a Tupperware party.  Years.  When a friend recently asked me to an Avon home party I decided to go.

First of all, I've never known an "Avon lady" to hold a party, but it was fine.  There were lots of expected items such as the ones on display.  The catalog held a lot more items I hadn't seen, such as toys, clothing, and even underwear.  Kind of one-stop shopping for the busy woman, I guess.  Second, I needed a couple of Avon items anyway, so it was a good opportunity to do a little shopping.  The hostess had delicious cookies and ice cream sundaes too, so it was very good use of my time. :-)

Summer party!

Our ward (church congregation) has parties . . . just because, and plenty of them.  This was the first time we've ever had a large water feature for a party and it was a huge hit with all the kids and some of the adults as well.

Birthday week

We have birthday girls and today was their party.  It was pretty low-key--swimming, water balloons, piñata, and lunch.  Can you tell they had an excellent time?

Cinco de Mayo dinner

The three wards meeting in our church building had a joint Cinco de Mayo potluck dinner tonight.  There were a lot of people there and a lot of food!  During dinner there were question and answer games and music, then after everyone had eaten, there was a piñata for the children.

Obviously the invitation writer had a great sense of humor.  It was just my kind of party.

What do you think this is?

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It's the beginnings of a piñata for a party this weekend.  This has 3 layers of papier mache so far and I think I'll get 1 or 2 more on tomorrow.  In the afternoon I'll have the girls decorate it, then I'll pop the balloon, enlarge the hole in the top, fill it with goodies, and figure out a way to hang it up.

St. Patrick's day party at Activity Day

About twice a year I plan a "round robin" activity day party for the girls and theme it toward whatever holiday is coming up.  The basics are always the same and the girls always like it a lot.

I made four stations around the house:

Don't Eat Patrick (Pete):

A reading station if they finished an activity early:

A station for writing letters to our ward's missionaries:

And last of all, a snack station:

The thicker frosting was minty and the thinner was just buttercream.

Our group is small enough that we all went together to each station except for the letter-writing station.  Then some of the girls read while the others wrote.

I love this kind of activity because it's really easy for me to set up and the girls like it.

A first for my girls

My girls are ten years old and had never been to a slumber party but that changed this weekend.

I didn't know if they would be home at 11 pm or if they'd make it all night, but it was the latter.  They went to sleep about 2 am and not surprisingly fell asleep on the way to the Saturday rodeo.  During the rodeo, too.  How can you fall asleep during a rodeo??

Anyway, they had an excellent time and I'm glad they went.

Christmas Eve

Today the girls had a cookie baking party hosted by . . . me.  I invited a couple families of school-aged children to bring their favorite cookie recipe and come over.  Luckily I thought to make a batch of cookie dough for spritz cookies so they would have some cookies to shape and decorate as soon as they got here.  Those are the green ones in the picture.

We also made some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (the guests were amazed at the huge container of chocolate chips I have--it's about 5 pounds) and some lemon cookies (minus the lemon because I didn't have any, but plus lime juice and orange zest).

I made a pot of hot chocolate and piled a plate with cookies.  We ate those, then the kids played outside, then took plates of cookies home with them.  My girls thought it was very fun.  You can see the cookies on the plate Caroline made for Santa.

Dh took ds to the airport in the big city.  He's going to spend Christmas with his mother and sisters.

I took the girls and went to Costco.  I know, I know.  But it wasn't as crazy as I thought it was going to be.  The main thing I needed was some tamales for dinner tonight.  I picked up a few other things as well (huh--just try not to).  The girls tried some fun food samples and had a good time.

When dh got home, he took the girls to Best Buy.  Elizabeth has been saving money for a number of months and has enough to buy an iTouch or a Kindle Fire or something like that.  She's leaning toward the Kindle, and today is the day for the purchase.

Tonight we'll enjoy a delicious tamale dinner (I know it'll be delicious because the tamales were being sampled at Costco ;-) ), then dh and I will negotiate about going to the late night church service at the Catholic church in our neighborhood.  Last year a man sitting near us fainted and the paramedics worked on him in the aisle during most of the service.  Maybe it would be a little less "interesting" this year.

Merry Christmas!