We have been working hard this week to prepare for our El Cinco de Mayo fiesta on Saturday, so my poor blog has been neglected. Our Relay for Life event is May 30 – 31, so we thought we’d have a pequina fiesta and use it as a fundraiser for our Relay for Life team, Team Scott.
A number of local businesses have helped out by donating food and/or money to offset the cost of the party which is so awesome. That way, the donations our friends bring can go directly to this great cause. Unbelievably, all I did was ask and provide a formal request letter on RFL letterhead. We ended up with gift cards from Giant and Safeway, chips and salsa from a local Mexican restaurant, empanadas from a local Bolivian restaurant, a pinata from my local Freecycle site, and (cough, cough) some cerveza from our local spirits store.
Yesterday, we worked on:
- Decorating our donation box: So easy. I found a box, covered it with brown paper, and let Maddy and Owen go to town on it. They used bingo dotters, which kiddos love to use for anything and everything. Sounds oddly similar to our good ole sensory box, but they wouldn’t let me touch him. Kids are so funny.
- Tissue Paper Flowers: Ours are not as beautiful as the ones I found on this site, but they’re still pretty, and they’ll work for the ladies’ hair and for decorations around the house. Not to mention that just by being two squares of tissue paper and a pipe cleaner, they were easy enough for Maddy and Owen (okay, so he kept making tissue paper balls) to make, and with a little imagination, they’ll “beautify” our fiesta.
- Food Prep: My little ones love the kitchen, so they’ve been helping me mix, cut, organize, and store the food we have planned. Sure, it’s not always pretty having six extra hands in the kitchen, but they’re learning (I hope).
Today we:
- Picked up our Pinata: We picked them up (woo-hoo! A Dora and a car–how fun?!), repaired them a little, and tomorrow, we’ll stuff ’em!
- Copied Coloring Sheets for kiddos: I found sombreros, maracas, tacos, pinatas, and other fun ones here. We’ve found that for most of our parties, if we have a “coloring spot” set up, with washable crayons and markers, some little ones will inevitably find their way there for a quiet minute or two.
- Eyes of God Craft: I remember making these at camp when I was little, and they should be pretty easy to do at the party. We glued the sticks togehter, and tomorrow morning I’ll make some with Maddy and Owen. These may be good for the older kids who come.
- Decorated: We put up some easy decorations today–repaired our squished sombreros, and found some bright streamers and hanging hot peppers. . .
- Grocery Shopped: We are planning a hot-pepper eating contest, so we organized the peppers and figured out how we’ll set it up. The kids are facinated by the fact that the produce worker told me to cut them while wearing gloves and so am I. Yikes! Hoping this one goes okay. . .