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Showing posts with label Party Ideas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Party Ideas. Show all posts
For the first time I put together a Reformation Day party, and I think it was a success! I thought I'd share some of the things we did in case anyone else wants some ideas for next year.
Before I get into it, please check out all my Reformation Day posts here! Over the years I have shared a ton of book suggestions and other resources for learning about the Reformation as an adult and with your kids. Every October we spend time studying the Reformers leading up to Reformation Day!
1. Reformation-themed snacks. My sister brought worm pudding as a play on the "Diet Of Worms" which was the counsel where Luther made his famous statement about standing on the word of God! We also made edible hammers out of marshmallows and pretzel sticks. Aside from that we just had fall snacks like apples and pumpkin dip, along with popcorn, and chocolates!
2. Watched a movie about the Reformation. This year we did the Martin Luther Torchlighters animated show, and before the party I had my kids watch a short documentary called "On The Shoulders Of Giants" as an extra.
3. We colored the Lutheran rose symbol. This is a symbol that Luther invented to represent different doctrines, and it was fun to talk about it together while the kids colored! Here is more information about this symbol.
4. Reformation Day games.
Pin 95 Theses On The Door. We played the classic "pin the theses on the door" - I kept it really simple and just drew a dry-erase circle onto the center of our glass door, and blindfolded the kids so they could try to pin the theses printable papers onto the door (we got the printables from this guide).
Five Solas Target Practice. For a second game we drew concentric circles on the driveway with sidewalk chalk, and then wrote the five solas, one in each circle. The kids had to try to toss a stone into each sola circle. It was trickier than it sounds!
5. We sang "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God". This is Luther's most famous hymn, and we've been practicing it! It was nice to sing it together as a group!
6. Reformation Day craft. I wanted to include some sort of Reformation Day craft, since my kids are still at an age to enjoy that sort of thing, but we ran out of time! This year we were going to do a printing press activity, which I got from the guide from Brighter Day Press, but if you have rubber stamps at home I think that would also give the same idea! You can read more about what the printing press had to do with the Reformation in this post.
7. Reformation Day shirts. My kids still had Reformation Day shirts that I've made them in the past, and of course we all sported our shirts for the party! Not necessary at all, but fun!
(Me in this year's Reformation Day shirt. I didn't make this one, I got it from Sola Gratia Co!)
We had a really fun time, and the kids are already asking that we do another party next year! This party was obviously focused on elementary school kids, but I am storing away ideas for how to make a Reformation Day party more "grown-up" as they get older.
For first birthdays I always went a little over the top, and because of the effort I put in and the memories of my sweet little one-year-olds loving the presents and cake, a lot of the first birthdays are making the list. However, I've done several less elaborate party themes that were still fun and cute (and cheap!), so you can see all of my party ideas by clicking here!
Without further ado:
This was Wyatt's first birthday party, and with him being my oldest and this being my first opportunity for a themed party, I put a lot of thought and crafting into it!
This birthday party theme just came to me one day while I was reading Eric Carle's book to Clyde! It was probably one of the easier parties that I've done.
This party takes the cake (pun intended) for being the easiest party in this list! Just add a bunch of pink and yellow decorations, get some lemonade-flavored treats, and you are good to go. I even had a little yellow dress for Gwen to wear for her party, and she looked too cute.
I really had a vision and invented this theme for Clarice's first birthday. This one may be near the top of my personal favorites list, mainly because of the PERFECT cake my sister made for the party!
I really struggled with picking a theme for Georgie's first birthday, because it fell right during the fall. I wanted a really cozy vibe, but something that looked girly too. I saw a donut board on a different blog, and decided right there to get Derek to build me one and just go with that. It turned out so pretty!
I am going to cheat a little and add one non-birthday party to this list, because I think the decorations were so cute and could be used easily for a birthday party theme! This was actually our 4th gender reveal party, and it was so fun.
When we do themed parties, I tend to do them thoroughly, because most years we don't do formal birthday parties at all. Most years we celebrate quietly with a birthday cake, a family outing, and presents before watching a movie as a family. I suspect that the quiet birthdays will be just as special to my kids someday as the years we did a big party.
Happy Saturday!
This year was my oldest boy's 10th birthday party, and as his birthday approached in February, we knew we wanted to do a special "double digit" party for him. Our kids don't get birthday parties every year, and with five of them we've had to think about which ages we wanted to plan to be party years. Hitting the double digits is a special year, so we were thinking about what we could do to celebrate Wyatt.
Our options for parties outside of our house were limited, with most places requiring limits on the number of people or requiring everyone to wear masks. So we decided to do something creative at home instead. What we came up with was a Nerf gun war/capture the flag birthday party inside our house!
Since we have limited space in our house, and since I knew this party could get crazy, we limited our invites to just immediate extended family and one close family friend that we knew would be game for a crazy Nerf war. And it did get crazy, but it turned out to be so much fun!
We basically played capture the flag, with the teams divided between the upstairs and downstairs of our house. In order to make our house feel like an appropriate environment for a Nerf war, we took down all our breakables, hung up plastic sheets to divide some of the rooms, moved the larger furniture so it could serve as barricades, and planted buckets of darts in strategic places as reloading stations.
For food I made cupcakes, layered finger jello, multi-colored white chocolate fudge, and snacks foods like pretzels and Chex mix, with chili for the main dish. We also bought little single-shooter dart guns from the dollar store as favors for all the kids!
Each team took some time to hide their flag, and each team had a designated "jail". People were supposed to freeze for five seconds after they got hit by darts, based on the honor system, and they could be "captured" and walked to the jail (the bathrooms), where they had to wait five minutes, or until a jail break. The flags had to be hidden in a place where they were visible from three directions (thought that rule got a little tricky). Everyone got a green or blue bandana and glow stick bracelet, so we could see who was on which team even in the dark. The first team to bring the opposing team's flag back into their territory won!
We also came up with a Nerf War Playlist to accompany the mayhem (it's a pretty great playlist, if we do say so ourselves).
We made sure to split up the adults and kids evenly among the teams, and I'm happy to report that no one was injured! We played three rounds, and we had a blast! I think it was especially fun for the kids to have the adults playing the game too, and I think it will be a good memory for everyone!
(Some affiliate links in this post! Just on the books you know, so I can buy more books...)
"So Martin Luther nailed his 95 points to the church door, and there is a thing called Reformation Day now."
"Reformation Day?" Wyatt asked.
"Yes, and it's actually on the same day as Halloween."
Gwen looked thoughtful for a moment. "Mom, can we celebrate Reformation Day this year?"
And just like that, we were celebrating Reformation Day this year.
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I already explained a few weeks ago why we choose not to celebrate Halloween in our family, so I am not sure why it hasn't occurred to me to celebrate Reformation Day. Reformation Day is on October 31st, which is the day that Martin Luther nailed 95 theses to the door of a church in Wittenburg. He was mostly arguing against the practice of indulgences at that time, but he came to realize through this process of studying the Bible that our salvation is purely by the grace of God. We contribute nothing to our salvation, because we have no righteousness of our own with which to approach God. Christ took the punishment for our sin and gives us His righteousness when we put our trust in Him, and our salvation is completely through His sacrifice and apart from our own works.
You can read more about the Reformation on your own (that was a very surface-y explanation above), but the bottom line is that if you are part of any Protestant Christian denomination, it all started right here. With Martin Luther and other Reformers, who studied the Bible, through their study rediscovered the truth of the good news of the Gospel, and brought the church back to the firm foundation of the Word Of God.
This is YOUR history, and you are still reaping the benefits of the work the Reformers did in bringing the truth of the Gospel to light.
I think that is worth celebrating for sure!
As a mom, I really want my kids to know Christian history, and the heritage that has been passed down to us through the sacrifices of people like the Reformers, who fought and died for the truth of God's Word. I think in Protestant circles, we tend to get a little disconnected from our history, and I'd really like my kids to have a sense of the history and heroes of the faith between the end of the Bible (around 96 AD) until today. I explain these things to them, but I think making a celebration of this part of our history is a wonderful way to help personalize it for my kids. As I was thinking about how to celebrate Reformation Day, I was trying to think of some ways to have a little fun while we remember our Christian history too. Here is how we celebrated this year!
1. Reformation Day Shirts
Several months ago, I stumbled across Diet Of Worms apparel, which makes clothing for "little (and big) reformers". I laughed out loud at their "It's Hammer Time" t-shirt, and I ordered one for Wyatt and a "Sola Fide" t-shirt for myself. They have since gone out of business, so I took some inspiration from them and made t-shirts for everyone else in our family myself! Here is what I put on the shirts:
Sola Fide - Latin for "faith alone". This is one of the five "solas" of the Reformation.
Image via Facebook
1517 - The year Martin Luther nailed up his theses (this year was the 501st anniversary!).
"On This I Stand, I Can Do No Other" - This is what Luther said at the "Diet Of Worms", which is actually what they called a church council/trial held in the city of Worms, when church leaders asked Luther to recant his writings. The full quote is here:
“Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason (I do not accept the authority of popes and councils because they have contradicted each other), my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God. Amen.”
The kids loved their shirts and asked to wear them again the next day! This was fun for me, because it was a like a little Reformation Day present/surprise I could give them.
Speaking of the Diet Of Worms...
2. Worm Pudding
As a play on the Diet Of Worms, we had a "diet of worms" in the form of gummy-worm-and-orea-pudding! I thought this was really funny and clever of myself, ha! My kids were a little young to get the joke I think, they just enjoyed the pudding.
3. A Sausage Dinner
This is in honor of a different sausage dinner, and a sermon preached by a priest there, which kicked off the Reformation in Switzerland. You can read more about that here. (Sausage dinner not pictured, but it was really good.)
4. Reformation Day Books
I first toyed with the idea of celebrating Reformation Day last year, for the 500th anniversary, but I was hugely pregnant, and to be honest, I wasn't sure if my kids were old enough to "get it". This year my oldest two are 7 and 5, and I have to say, it's been really pleasantly surprising to me how much they understand about what the Reformation means! The got an idea of what we were celebrating just through conversations together, but I wanted to find some books to drive it home. These are the two I picked:
Reformation ABC's - This is a thorough book for kids, covering a different aspect or hero of the Reformation for each letter. We didn't read this whole book, since it's probably geared for kids a little older than my kids, but we read several pages, about the Bible, Luther, Hiedelburg and Westminster. my kids were excited when they recognized a catechism question on the Westminster page!
The Life Of Martin Luther: A Pop-Up Book - This is a pop-up book (obviously), and my kids asked me to read it three times! It's the story of Martin Luther in a nutshell, and the pop-ups make it so fun. The only thing I'd change about this book is a line on the last page that mentions Luther introducing "new ideas" - I would rephrase that "biblical ideas" - but other than that, it's just perfect!
5. Reformation Reading For Me
This whole celebration of Reformation Day really started with my reading challenge this year. One of the categories was to read about church history, so I picked up a couple books about the Reformation. I have been a Christian since I accepted Christ as a child, and I grew up in the church, and it was shocking how much of this history I DIDN'T know! If you want to celebrate Reformation Day with your kids, I highly recommend familiarizing yourself with the history too! Not only has is been helpful in teaching the history to my kids, but it has made me pay more careful attention to different verses in my Bible reading, and really enriched my own faith this year.
The Reformation: How A Monk And A Mallet Changed The World by Stephen Nichols - This book is short and sweet, and most importantly, very readable! I found this whole book really fascinating, and learned about how I've benefitted from the sacrifices of Reformers I'd never even heard of. This is a must-have primer on the history of the Reformation, in my opinion.
Why The Reformation Still Matters by Michael Reeves and Tim Chester - If the book above is about the history of the Reformation, this book is about the nuts and bolts of what the Reformation was really about. A lot of the theology discussed is more subtle than I originally thought, but the distinctions are so, so important. I'm almost done listening to this one on audio, and highly recommend it!
Also a heads up - one of my favorite podcasts/websites has a free "Reformation Day Celebration" for download! I haven't had a chance to watch it yet because our internet was out last week, but it's still available here!
Also a heads up - one of my favorite podcasts/websites has a free "Reformation Day Celebration" for download! I haven't had a chance to watch it yet because our internet was out last week, but it's still available here!
Stay tuned for Reformations Days in years to come, because I have more ideas already spinning in my head for next year!
Have you heard of Reformation Day? Have you ever celebrated it (and how)?
I highly encourage you to give it a try next year! We had fun with it!
Georgiana turns one year old in about a week! I might be in denial a little bit.
We are going to be buried in boxes and renovations on her actual birthday, so we decided to have her first birthday party a couple weeks early while we are still in this house! It seems fitting to have her first birthday party here, since this is where we brought her home when she was just tiny.
Our last party in this house. I am a little sentimental about it. We've celebrated so much here, from our very first gender reveal party, through all the kids' birthday parties, and now this is the last one. I can't believe my tiny little baby is almost one year old!
I decided to go with a autumn/donut theme, because it was easy to pull off. It ended up being perfect to celebrate our sweet girl and send this house out in style.
I got most of the decorations from the Target dollar spot and Hobby Lobby. My friend Danae did the lettering for Georgie's wood sign (which will now live in her room at the new house). I told my sister I wanted a simple sprinkle cake this time (she's the master cake decorator in this family), and she made it come to life!
The centerpiece of our donut-themed party was the donut peg board, which Derek made for the party (I got the idea from Ashley's gorgeous baby sprinkle). It all came together really well! I am so thankful for my family and friends who helped me put it all together this time. I love going all out for the first birthday party, and this one was so easy with everyone's help!
I let Georgie have a taste of cake when we took birthday pictures a few weeks ago, so at the party it didn't take her long to remember that cake is pretty good!
It was so good to celebrate one last time in this house, with our dear family and friends. I'm glad we had a chance to celebrate our baby girl here. I might have cried a little after the party was over. It's bittersweet, leaving this house, and watching your last baby turn one.
But good things are on the horizon too.
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