4-Year-Old Math Prodigy

Recently in our family, Sonic the Hedgehog has been quite the obsession fan favorite. Naturally, as parents we use that 'love' to come up with way to teach our little ones skills, namely MATH. With first grade and preschool respectively the current scene for our kids, we had to figure out a way to work on math in a more imaginative way.  Therefore, ‘Sonic Math’ has become a regular problem solving game between the 4 of us. Example: “ If Sonic has 4 rings and gets 3 more rings, how many rings does Sonic have?” The preschooler loves to participate even though her question asking skills typically need a bit more work….Until last weekend. She Blew. MY. MIND.

Upon her request while on a road trip (details to come) she wanted to do Sonic Math. After I asked a question, she decided it was her turn. And this is what followed….”If Amy Rose (another Sonic character for those without Sonic loving peeps in their house) had 17 rings and landed on the spikes and lost all of her rings, how many spikes did Amy Rose land on?”

WHAT! This 4-year-old cutie patootie just came up with the MOST complex Sonic Math problem I have ever heard. I mean, this is genius level math. Like Calculus much?

She got too embarrassed to say it again, so we never really got the answer she came up with in her head. Maybe someday she will shine her calculus loving math mind with the rest of us. Until then, it’s My Little Pony, PJ Masks and Minnie Mouse until the cows the come home.

Have you kids every asked or said someth
ing that blew your mind? And, I'd love to hear your answers to the math problem!

A Sonic-themed Birthday Party

For the last few months, my son has been loving everything Sonic! I wasn't even aware that Sonic still existed, wasn't that a Sega Genesis game we played back in the day?? Needless to say, he found one video and was hooked. This kid talks day and night about Sonic, to the point where we can now have family debates over who Sonic's BFF is... Well, when his birthday was approaching, I didn't even have to ask what kind of party he wanted. Sonic the Hedgehog!

I actually found it more difficult then I thought it would be to get good ideas for a Sonic party. We decided to have it at a nearby park with a great playground so that made the planning a little easier. These invites were a hit. When Luke saw them for the first time, his whole face lit up!

We reserved a large gazebo at the park which also housed a few tables. We had one table for gifts/favor bags, one for food and a few for sitting.  We kept the decor simple and I think it worked. A Happy Birthday sign, some crepe paper, tablecloths and of course Sonic Rings!

The favors came out really cute. I found a printable of Sonic's face and cut them out. I used dollar store bags and tissue. In hindsight, I would have only used one color of tissue. It almost turned into an all out war over who got which color, even though the same items were in all of the bags.

Each favor had a pencil, an airhead candy, a now and later candy a light-up yo-yo and a ring pop- which we called Chaos Symbols.

The food table. We just did snacks due to the time of day but made sure to have Sonic Rings, aka funyuns. 

I made cute little Sonic cupcake toppers from a printable.

We gave out invites to the kindergarten class and it was great to have a lot of them show up!

Present Time!

 These balloons were a huge hit!

Sweet cousins.

On Luke's actual birthday, we took donuts to school for everyone in his class. He wore his new Sonic shirt and even got a crown for the day.

The night before his birthday, I put up a few of the decorations from his party and he loved it!

These two....

The big 6-year old.

These Sonic Rings came out so great. I am not much of a crafter so anything I do HAS to be just easy. I just got Styrofoam rings from the Dollar store and wrapped yellow crepe paper around it. Super easy, but a great result. One of the kids from his party even asked to take one home!

And I was able to reuse this banner from last year.

My Sonic....

Thank you to everyone who helped out and came to wish Luke a Happy 6th birthday!!

A Minnie Mouse Themed Birthday Party

When you ask your daughter what she wants for her birthday and her answer is "MINNIE!!!",  you make sure she gets a Minnie Mouse birthday party. When Chloe turned 3, we had a nice party at our house with family and a few close friends. We even had a few out of town cousins join in for the fun. 

This girl just LOVES anything Minnie and it was so fun watching her face as she checked out all of the Minnie decorations. I used the same color theme as her 2nd birthday, so there were a few things I was able to reuse. 

Here is our mantle with the favors and her big letter 'C' that hangs in her room. Before she was born, we bought big cardboard letters for her initials and since we didn't know if we were having a boy or a girl, I wrapped them in orange yarn.  Once she came, I spray painted the orange letters hot pink and I love the result. 

The favor bags turned out really cute. The hot pink tissue bags were for the girl guests and the light pink were for the boys. The bags added a nice pop of color on the mantle.

Happy girl.

Of course, had to get them both in a picture.

 This birthday banner turned out really cute!

These little Minnie heads were A TON of work, but were so cute! While the green heads were fairly easy to cut out, those little pink bows took a lot of time. But I loved how it all came together.

A look from outside the kitchen.

I found a really cute bow cookie cutter and just knew we had to make Minnie Mouse Bow rice krispie treats. They were a hit!

For her cake, I made a Minnie Mouse dress out of cupcakes.

A few white circle stickers on pink cups can go a long way for a Minnie-themed party.

Some of snacks.

More snacks!

The birthday girl!

We had some Minnie Mouse coloring pages on the table for kids to color.

Present Time! I love how the kids are sitting in a line waiting to watch Chloe open her gifts.

We spent the rest of the party outside on the slip n slide and in the kiddie pool. So much Fun!

Thanks to everyone who made her party such a fun time and filled my house with LOTS of Minnie Mouse gifts!