Picnic Pizza Party!!

Today instead of going to playgroup, playgroup came to us. Last week I started planning a picnic party. Today all those plans came together and it was so exciting to see the children having fun. Now for the details:

Last week daddy suggested that the girls make a pinata for one of their projects. (So when the planning of the party was going through my head I realized this would go together so well.) The girls helped me shred the newspaper (1 inch by 6-8 inch strips, or whatever the girls were able to tear):

(Just a side note: Lately Amelia loves turning to the camera and saying cheese as soon as she hears it come on )

Then we made the paste. The recipe called for 1 part flour, 2 parts water and 1 tbs salt to prevent mold. I oopsed, and put 1 part water, 2 parts flour. Obviously, it was a little thick. We added more water to make it: 2 cups flour, 3 cups water (approximately). Which is actually the recipe found at this website.

Amelia wanted nothing to do with putting the newspaper shreds into the paste, so Tabitha and I worked on it. First we sprayed the balloon with vegetable oil spray to help the balloon come off easier after it is popped. A tip found at this website.

We let the first layer dry for 24 hours, the time frame suggested by the instructions at the last website linked to above. The next day Tabitha wanted to help shred the newspaper again:

And yes she enjoyed getting all messy once again. And Amelia still didn't want to help. The third layer was composed of shredded computer paper instead of newspaper, once again a tip from the above website. It sure helped us identify which parts of the balloon still needed covered. Finally, on day four, yesterday actually, we were able to paint the pinata. We had help from brother and sister because school was cancelled due to no electricity and flooding roads.

Yes we used pink and purple!

Last night, when it was dry, I filled it with candy and stickers. Once again trying to stick with the Pp theme we purchased Winnie the Pooh and Disney Princess stickers (but also got Spiderman for the older boy) and peanut butter cups. We also got Smarties and chocolate hearts because we couldn't think of anything else that would be appropriate to stick inside a pinata.

That was about all we did in preparation. I had seen two activity ideas on other blogs, but we just didn't have time for them. While I did prepare these activities I will wait until a later post to share them.

After the children arrived they played for a while. Then I called them over separately to make the own personal pepperoni pizzas. The children applied their own sauce (1 tbs), cheese (1 handful) and pepperoni (2 pieces, except for Tabitha who only wanted 1). We had enough dough left over for the mommies to have a mini pizza to share. Here are pictures of some of the children making the pizzas:

Along with the pizzas we had:

popcorn, pumpkin seeds, peanut butter cookies with chocolate chips and punch. The other mommies kindly provided all but the punch.

And our dining room transformed into a picnic area:

When they were done eating we tried valiantly to smash the pinata. Younger children went first just to make sure they would get a chance. We didn't need to worry. The pinata stood up to all the children's attempts to smash it, plus my dropping/throwing it on the floor. It took quite a few beatings on the floor before it finally opened enough for us to pour the contents out for the children to scrounge for. And here are the pictures of trying to smash the pinata: