Kids at Coal Creek
One of my favorite parts of living on Coal Creek Farm is the amount of space we have for the kids to run free. Even though our house is small we can host a fair amount of bodies as long as those bodies stay outside.
Last May a couple of moms from Ellen's class and I planned an end of the school year party for the entire eighth grade class....all eight of them. Ellen is very blessed with her group of classmates. They all get along very well together and I really enjoy being around this group of kids.
Do I need to tell you I didn't take these photos? Is it that obvious? All of these photos were taken by the incredible All Astonishment's Mrs Mama. She's one of my people. You know, I have people. I have people to do the things that I find impossible, like taking good photos.
The Ninja boy on top is quite harmless, a bit strange, but harmless. The kids started the day off with a water balloon fight.
The little brothers got to play too.
After they were thoroughly soaked they started a game of soccer. Here's the thing, Ellen was one of two girls in her class. The other girl has some serious martial arts skill, but would rather poke her eye out than play a game of soccer, but Ellen LOVES soccer and even though she's very timid and quite shy until she's comfortable around people, if you put her out on a soccer field she's going to have fun and run as hard as she can and she's perfectly at ease.
Mrs. Mama came out a few days before the party and we planned a scavenger hunt. We hid about a dozen tiny toys all around the farm and then she took a photo of the toy. We divided the kids into two teams then handed them a page of the pictures they had to find. We tried to make them really hard, like we tied an action figure in a tree and put a little car by an old tire, but those darn kids figured it out too fast. And we were concerned it would be too hard. If we do this again we're not going to be as easy on them.
This is one of my favorite moments caught on film. Preacher gettin' a little love from one of the big boys.
The kids had to bring a surprise gift for one of their classmates, sort of like a white elephant, but we let them pick one of the gifts and then hand it to the person they thought deserved it. Chuck Norris was one of their big joke topics of the year. Some of the other gifts were a roll of toilette paper and a can of Lysol, a huge paper cube and a hideous fringed t-shirt. They were so funny and creative. The boy that got the fringed shirt wore it the remainder of the night.
In the evening we invited all the families and the incoming new students and their families to come out for a bbq. We finished the night off with a campfire. It was a very fun day and night. The kids left tired and ready for summer.I've hosted more parties at Coal Creek Farm in one year than I ever thought possible. Here's a list of the ones I can remember.
*Volleyball girls and their families end of season chili night
*8th grade party
*4th of July with around 50 people
*Baseball Boys air soft gun war and bbq with their families
*Freshman girls party
*Dual birthday party for Ellen and a friend
*New Year's Day good luck meal
Oooookay, so that sounds like a lot, but really when the action is outside it's just a matter sitting back and watching the kids have fun and feeding them some hotdogs when they get hungry.
8 comments:
What a fun party with the scavenger hunt, soccer, pyramids and white elephant gifts. Very creative and awesome!
You're lucky to have so much space!
The air soft gun war sounds like way too much fun too.
There are only 8 kids in her class? My son has 200! Granted, it's the largest class the school has ever had but that is still alot more then Ellen's.
And all those parties! Seriously can I come to the next one?
How is Preacher doing?
We had a fun family cook-out last night! I forgot how much fun a campfire is and how much better normal food tastes when it's cooked outside. You guys have the perfect place for cool parties that the kids will have great memories of for the rest of their lives.
That looks like fun. We had my youngest daughter's graduation party at our house. There were 50 kids in our driveway complete with a band and a full on Texas style BBQ. Most of those California kids had never experienced anything like it before. They wore board shorts and Hawiian shirts with cowboy hats and ate ribs and potato salad. It was great fun.
That party looked fun! My daughter's favorite birthday party is when we had a weinie roast bonfire at her grandparents in the cold, dark November and they ran arouond in the woods screaming and scaring each other!
Do you take reservations?
This is the first time in my long life that I've read of a class with less students than my own class of 1956. We had 10. 4 girls, 6 boys. Largest class was the class of 1957 and they had 27.
My senior granddaughter's class has 500. Wow
The party looks like loads of fun. And I'm sure you are far more creative than you give yourself credit for.
Can I come play at your house?
You're the kind of mom my kids wish THEY had - you know, the cool kind!
Looks like everyone had a great time. Thanks for the much needed kick in the pants to do something with my kids and their wonderful group of friends!
Preacher is adorable - and he looks so much like my dog too! ; )
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