Murder on Mysteria Lane

 
 
 
My moms group ladies came over last night and we had a murder mystery dinner party. It was so much fun! There were 10 ladies who played characters based loosely on the show Desperate Housewives. Each lady was emailed ahead of time telling her about her character and how to dress. They were to arrive in character. From there the next clue was given to them. It essentially was an introduction of their character to read to the group. Each person had a nametag so that you could keep track of who was who. Once everyone had read their introduction round 2 clues were handed out. In this round there are 2 clues in your envelope. One to let everyone know and one to conceal about yourself. While we were hashing these outs, appetizers were served around the bar in the kitchen. Each lady then could interact with the others. Some were given personal clues from other players. Some were loud about their thoughts on who they thought committed the crime. After this, round 3 clues were handed out and dinner was served. We all sat down at the dinner table and feasted on lasagna, salad, and veggies. We discussed the case and kept in character making accusations and trying to get everyone to tell us the information that they knew. Before dessert each person was asked who they believed the killer was. They all made their guesses based on the facts they had collected. Round 4 Reveal envelopes were handed out and read over dessert. It was so much fun! My character was the hostess with the mostess and I did my best. I was NOT the killer!

All of the materials were purchased from Host-party.com and were then downloaded. It gave the set up and the plan for the evening. The game lasted about 2 hours and then we spent the last hour as ourselves enjoying each others' company. I definitely want to host another one sometime!

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Playdate

 
 
 
 

Today's playdate was a Chicka Chicka Boom Boom theme. It's Ian's favorite book and he has been dying for his friends to share in his love of all things Chicka Chicka. So we set up our front room with a tall palm tree with letters and our tables for our crafts. The first craft we made was a puzzle. I scanned the board book cover and then cut them out. We then took a glue stick and covered the entire back before placing large popcicle sticks across it not quite touching so that we could cut them apart after they dried. The moms took an exacto knife and sliced them apart and instant puzzle! and Super Easy! You could do this with just about any picture for any themed playdate.

Our second craft was a shaker bottle. I bought these palm tree picks from Oriental Trading company, had each child put one in a dried, empty water bottle and added the alphabet in bead form to make a cute shaker. You could also add glitter or confetti or anything really. We glued the tops on so that they wouldn't let the contents spill out and we let them dry while we made our snacks.

Our snack was a Chicka Chicka coconut tree. We used a wafer cookie as a truck, 4 green apple slices as the leaves, 3 grapes as the coconuts and Alphabits cereal as the letters. The kids gobble this up and it was pretty darn healthy. The wafer cookies are sugar free and less than 40 calories each, plus the fruit and cereal. So really a great healthy playdate snack that looks really cute.

We then took our bottle shakers and went and watched the Scholastic Chicka Chicka Boom Boom video. The kids enjoyed shaking and dancing around and watched the video multiple times since it's so catchy!

 
 
 
 

A Wild Hair...

 
 
 
 

Okay so it's really Where the Wild Things Are and it really was for a playdate, but I went crazy decorating! I was hosting a lunch pitch-in and everyone was told to bring a casserole. I was trying to come up with something for the kids to do for a craft and I thought that casseroles are sort of wild beasts and they could easily be seen as a bit scary so why not go for something like Where the Wild Things Are. So I found some vines at the dollar store and hung them from the ceiling since book said that is what happened in Max's room. I also put some trees up and made pictures of the scenes from the book. I drug out the Wild Things plushies and added them, too. It looked like a forest if you used your imagination. (Which leads me to an aside. I had decorated for this over the past week so that I wasn't rushed today and the owner of this house came by to do to an impromptu unannounced inspection this Thursday. I'm sure she thinks I am totally crazy!)

So for a craft I had the children all make and decorate a crown so that they could be Kings of the Wild Things. I also had them make a paper plate "wild thing" mask. They had a lot of fun. I heard a lot of roaring and screaming and squealing!