We have reached the final week of our ten week summer study of Little House on the Prairie and what a summer it has been! Whilst I do have a couple more posts in the pipeline, this is ultimately my last one posting on our weekly adventures.
This week was all about the prairie party and I wasn’t sure we were going to be able to pull it off in time. However, it all came together at the last-minute (insomnia has its uses!) and a great time was had by all. This prairie party was not just for an end of term wrap up. My little four-year old became my little five-year old this week, so we combined both celebrations into one big party!
It is a tradition in our family that the birthday child gets to go out with granny for the morning to buy a pair of birthday shoes. This proved to be quite useful as it gave us some time to prepare for the party without her (she didn’t know about our plans). Unusually for the UK the temperature was so high we had to keep anything perishable inside, so were unable to set up everything.
We had bought in a couple of bales of hay and straw, which we covered with various patchwork quilts. We also covered the ground near our little house with a large quilt.
I had made the bunting out of the children’s old clothes, simply cutting rectangles, turning over the tops, fastening and threading through some knotted, ripped up material. Professional it was not, but it added some lovely home spun colour to the proceedings:
We laid out my granny’s china:
Set out the girl’s homemade baskets for the planned activities:
Apples for bobbing:
And the Prairie Mercantile:
Gary had also brought home some logs from work which were cut and placed for the children to be able to jump one to another:
Even Raggy joined us for the big event:
A5 returned, quickly changed into her prairie dress up, and was led blind folded to the Little House and its accompanying picnic. This was her just as L10 had un-blindfolded her:
We brought out the food – ham sandwiches, fruit salad and water melon served with pink lemonade:
The littles enjoyed helping themselves to large servings of fruit salad:
After we had all eaten the children settled down to some of the activities. First was button necklace making:
And B2 wearing her necklace:
Next was hair ragging. I thought this would be a real hit, but although she sat long enough to have them done, they were soon pulled out. Always happy to be led by the children, we moved swiftly on….
The one activity A5 had particularly requested was eating doughnuts hanging from the apple tree. So using elastic (to make it even harder!) we hung five ring doughnuts from the branches at different heights:
I suspect much cheating was going on….
The older ones were pros at this doing it every time the twins have a birthday:
The children had a quick play on the logs, with T11 being the gentleman and helping his little sisters:
Although she decided she was better at it on her own:
After the fun on the logs the children insisted it was so hot they absolutely had to do the apple dunking next:
And last but not least we did what all the children had been longing to do since the very start of the party…we opened up the Prairie Mercantile. This was a child’s paradise, full of colourful candy. We had bought an assortment of sweeties and transferred them into the jars we usually use for various tea bags and coffee. The greengrocer local to us had kindly donated some paper bags to fill with the sweets. Thanks Steve!
We had given all of them some pennies each and let them at it. It’s amazing how much more enthusiastic they were towards this activity than, say, the hair ragging:
And at last it was the older one’s turns:
Oh the fun!
Then to finish off what was surely the best Prairie party ever, A5 decided it was time to harvest her kitchen garden. All of it.
And soon it was all picked and the day slowly came to a close with cool baths, cuddles and stories of Dinosaurusrumpus!
Happy birthday to my darling 5-year-old. I love you so very, very much.
For all other posts: http://angelicscalliwags.com/the-little-house-on-the-prairie/
So much fun! And happy belated birthday to A5! What a great party. What happened with the carrots?! Ours turned out like that too, a few years ago. I wonder whether the reason is because the box isn’t deep enough? It’s very puzzling.
In defence of our carrots they were supposed to be baby carrots, although I’m not sure they were meant to be bent! You could be right about the depth as our bed was quite shallow!
W are a family or prairie lovers, I love what you have done with all this.
Fantastic. Our carrots also turned out like this!!
Hi Debbie! Thanks so much for taking the time to comment. Yes, I’m not sure what went wrong with the carrots – the cabbages were almost as bad, lots of stalk and not many leaves. In the end the chickens had a feast!!
Fabulous Fun!!! Love it.
Hello Auntie Sam!
How lovely to hear from you! We are looking forward to seeing you all soonxxx
I love the photo of your youngest eating the doughnut, using her hand! Very comical! What a fantastic, fun party!
Thank you!
Happy birthday sweetheart. Glad you had a wonderful day. Maybe we will see some of your photos up here soon.
Of course, now you’ve taught her how to use the image alterer thingymagingy she can distort her pictures, so who knows what she’ll come up with!
What a PERFECT party. I love every bit of it!
Blessings, Dawn
Thank you Dawn.
Oh Happy Birthday A(5)!!! What a fabulous (underlined three times) prairie party! Thank you for sharing so many of the photographs – everyone looks like they are having a delightful time! Oh my goodness A5 looks adorable in her rag curls – well done to the older sister who pulled that off! (I’m sure I would have made anyone look like a birds nest with those)
There were quite a few photos weren’t there? A little bit self indulgent, but hey ho! I could have put triple the amount, so I think I showed remarkable restraint!!
I have so enjoyed watching your Little House fun! We had done very similar activities last year, but without the fabulous house! I love the donut game, and the deformed carrots!! Our carrots are never more than a 1/2 inch so yours are wonderful!!! Thank you for letting us share in your memories! Holly
Yes, I’m not quite sure what happened to those carrots…..!
Love it! It looks so fun! You went all out and it looks like a memory they will never forget. Wow!
I hope it will stay in their memory, we did have an awful lot of fun!!
Wow, what a perfect birthday party. What could be better. I love all the photos and your descriptions. It made me feel like I was right there. I especially love the country counter candy store. I know my boy would love that.
Yes, surprise, surprise, that was the biggest hit at our house too!!
What a fun party! Love all of the pictures. My son and I are listening to On the Banks of Plum Creek in the car. I will have to have him stop in and look at all of your Little House activities over the past few months.
Thank you Keitha.
Oh what a wonderful party, and great tradition of going out with Grandma for the morning. Happy birthday A(5)!
Thanks Ticia!
An absolutely beautiful party! I LOVE donuts, and I’ve never seen donut hanging before… I must try this with my kids one of these days! Happy birthday to your little girl, it looks like she had an amazing time. 🙂
Oh yes, we do donut hanging at every opportunity in this house! The children are huge fans!
We have enjoyed watching your Little House bloom. What a great way to celebrate a birthday and your summer fun. The doughnuts and apples reminded me of my childhood parties. Congratulations on a job well done by all. That is what homeschooling is all about!
Thank you so much Donna!
What a wonderful and original party! The pictures of C10 bobbing for apples had me laughing. I had never heard of the donut on a string game. We will have to try that for my son’s 10th birthday next week. We have always done a candy filled pinata, which I am getting tired of. Happy Birthday A5!!
Thanks Amy! The great thing about the doughnut game is the adults can join in. This is particularly funny if they happen to be of the competitive persuasion, ahem(!)
What a wonderful and creative party! Such a great birthday celebration for your now 5 year old. (Happy Birthday)
Thanks for sharing the pictures, it was fun to see all your creative ideas!
Thanks Amber! Much fun was had by all, although they didn’t sleep too well that night on account of the sugar rushing through their veins!
What a gorgeous party! Such a clever idea and you must have had enormous fun! We seem to have even more in common Claire… my 4-year old also became a 5-year old this week! So you and I would have been pregnant at the same time! Happy, happy birthday to your little girl! I pray MUCH blessing on her little life!
Happy birthday to your little man!! If you lived closer we could have celebrated together!
You wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere near me when I was pregnant. I don’t do ‘being pregnant’ well!! Best watched from a looooong distance away! (Love, love, love the baby at the end though!)
Thank you! You are so funny! My pregnancy was a just an exhausting blur as I wask working in a paediatric unit at the time and here in SA our shifts are 12-hours long. Take on pregnant woman add 12 hour nursing shifts and you have …. Well… Something that is not organic, hip and pretty to look at… 😀 But I agree… The baby at the end is just the best!
I have loved following along on your Little House study. It looks like you all had so much fun. My girls love LH. We actually live only about a mile from the homestead in Independence ks. The party games were great ideas. I am going to try some for our fall hs party!
Thank you so much! Have you visited the home stead? We are going to a replica one when we go to Ireland. Hope your party goes well!
What a fabulous party! Everyone looked like they thoroughly enjoyed themselves 🙂
Thank you Debbie. We did all have a ball!
Looks like so much fun! Great pictures, and a lovely party! Happy belated birthday to A5!
Thank you!
My son would totally have cheated during the doughnut game. He loves them.
Oh, believe me, there was MUCH cheating going on at chez moi!
WHAT a fun birthday party! I’m so borrowing the elastic doughnuts idea – I’ve never seen it before. All the pics are gorgeous, but that last photo of A5 is my favourite. So beautiful. Well done all of you!
Borrow away! Food is always a great incentive for having fun in our house!
What a lovely party and the tradition of buying a new pair of shoes birthday morning is wonderful. Simple and something to look forward to. I really like this one.
Thank you Julie. They’ve been doing the buying shoes with granny for years. It is a highly anticipated event!
I just LOVE this unit you’ve been doing! Thanks for linking up and sharing your creativity at TGIF! I featured this today. I hope to see you linked up again later today,
Have a great weekend,
Beth
Thank you Beth!
I so want to do this!! Omgosh this is my dream! How did you make the stove? & are y’all going to continue to do this this summer?!?!
Hi Teresa!
Thanks so much for taking the time to comment. It was a fabulous summer, probably our best ever, but no, we are not going to continue with it. We have other plans this summer, although I’m not sure anything will ever top our summer spent with the Little House.