Sidney's 10!

Happy Birthday, Sidney!

We celebrated Sidney's tenth birthday this weekend.

On Saturday, she invited her BFFs from next door and from her class over for a little party. Sidney is a big fan of iCarly, so we used the show as inspiration for the day.

We started out with a little activity. As anyone who watches the show knows, Carly's older brother Spencer is a crazy and creative sculptor. We broke the kids up into two teams of four. The ultimate goal was for each team to work together and create a sculpture. The had to "find" the hidden building materials first, though.

Both teams were given an envelope. Inside was a riddle. The answer to each riddle was a location either inside the house or out in the yard. The teams had to solve the riddle and retrieve the bag of building materials from that location. Here's an example:

I'm never, ever lonely, you see

My branches are visited by birds and bees

We're a living fence, not bound but free,

Me and three trees just like me!

Where am I?

(Answer: The bag was hidden under one of the four Crepe Myrtle trees bordering our back yard.)

Here's another:

Don't look for me outside the house,

For inside's where I stay

I'm rather like a giant box

Between a lamp and a fireplace!

Where am I?

(Answer: Inside the antique wicker hamper in the living room.)

When they brought each bag of materials to me, I gave them the next riddle. The kids had a great time with this and recovered all four bags I'd hidden for each team.

Next, each team member was given one of the bags of materials. Inside they found any combination of the following: Ribbed paper cylinders, colored Popsicle sticks, puff balls, plastic beads, various shaped buttons, crepe paper, pipe cleaners, foam number stickers, and colored feathers. It wasn't a race or contest of any kind, but each team worked together to create a sculpture with the contents of their bags.

~Team A at work~

~Team B, building away~

And, here are their final products:

Sidney helped me make the flowers for this cake. She's getting very good at twisting her wrist as she pipes the royal icing, giving the flowers their petals and shapes.

I cut the stars from fondant and attached them to bamboo skewers with royal icing. In hindsight, I wish I'd tinted all the skewers with purple food coloring instead of just the three longest ones. But, there was a last minute design change...

The kids beat the tail off a fish-shaped piñata and took home loot bags stuffed to the gills with candy. I'm sure their parents were happy about that!

It was a fun day and everyone had a great time!

We finished out the day with our wonderful neighbors from next door, who spent the evening with us grilling out and chatting.

We love you, Sidney!