Black Light Party

Since December is always so busy we skip having a Christmas Program and wait until January to have a Family Night/day.  In the past we've had a Science night or spent a Sunday afternoon sledding.  This year we had a Black Light Party.
We found so many neat ideas when we did Glow in The Dark Week around Halloween that we wanted a chance to do them when it was really dark.
Now, just to clarify there is difference between things glowing in the dark and glowing under Black Light.  The glowing activities we did all were made possible by the use of Black Light.
Our first obstacle was to determine how we could get enough black light in the rooms to get the right effect.  Unfortunately (in terms of this venture) most of our lighting is fluorescent tubes.  Black light tubes for these (4 ft) run around $13 each at Menards.  After experimenting we discovered that we can just use one bulb in most of the fixtures.  (Our plan is to get more bulbs each year).
I lucked out and found clearance Black Light bulbs from Halloween at Menards for $1.50 each.  We put those in all the ceiling fans we have in each room. They weren't very bright but they did help.

Once all the black lights were put in we were pleasantly surprised at how many things 'glowed' that we hadn't planned ahead of time.

We set up three rooms with activities.  Our biggest disappointment was our Cosmic Bowling.  We tried using Glow in the Dark paint on the pins but since they were colored and not white they just didn't glow. (We are already keeping an eye out for a set of white pins).  We had a disco ball to add to the effect but it just wasn't what we'd hoped for.  Kids still had fun bowling.

We had some neon pony bead and set up a table to make a necklace.  The end of the string was hard to see, but thanks to one of the dad's playing around with a high lighter we got the idea to color the end of the string with highlighter so it would glow. This made it easier to see where to put the beads on the string.

It's hard to see in this picture but the glowing orange in the bottom left hand corner are the beads.

The biggest hit was the glowing play dough.

G Man was pretty psyched that his hat glowed too!  

Even the staff got in on the fun!  D is sporting her glowing mustache! 

The kids thought it was so cool that their shirts glowed!!

This is what happens when a dad has too much fun playing with a highlighter.  Sure hope it washed off her face! 

We also tried glowing bubbles but our bubble machine was broke and couldn't find anywhere that sold them this time of year.

So how do you making glowing play dough and glowing bubbles?  Simple---highlighters!  For play dough simply take the ink insert out of a yellow highlighter and let it bleed  into the water you use to make the play dough.  (we made the cooked version).  For glowing bubbles put the ink insert from a highlighter in the bottle of bubble soap you buy in the store. You could also make a homemade bubble solution and add it to that.

To top off the night we had mini cupcakes and Mountain Dew.  Mt. Dew is supposed to glow in dark (which is the ONLY reason we'd serve something with that much sugar)  but we weren't impressed.  

Overall I think the party was a success!! 

Snow Day #1 (Optimistic that we'll have more )

So the wonderful Nebraska Winter arrives over the weekend.  It comes in with enough force that they make the decision to close school for Monday on Sunday afternoon.   This rarely happens so we know it's not gonna be good out there.
My hubby get the snow cleared by 7:30 am and the first kids arrive by 8.  I'm never really sure WHO will be able to make it so I had to be prepared for anything.
So fast forward to mid morning and we had 17 kids for lunch.  By this time the wind had come up (from out of the North) and it was getting  colder.  It was not a typical snow day that's portrayed on TV where the kids get out their sleds and play in it. We are stuck inside!
From experience over Christmas vacation, we know nap or movie time isn't gonna fly.  We allow them to choose their own activities as long as they are sitting somewhat quietly.  Soon the DS's come out, computers go on and the play dough comes out.  I sneak into the kitchen to throw together Puppy Chow for snack.

Little Red wanders in and asks to help.  She is full of questions since she's never seen it made before.  When this is finished we decide to make some Chocolate chip cookies too.  We no sooner start and we are joined by 3 other friends.  They each add ingredients and get a chance to hold the mixer.  Little Red and  "N" each crack and egg.  Except for a small shell, this task was done flawlessly.  All the ingredients were added. Now comes the fun part--Adding the Chocolate Chips!!  Luckily we were ready for them before the kids had snitched the whole bag!
Each of the four rolled the dough into little balls (yes, we did hand washing before this).  The cookies were soon baked and a big hit at snack.

This is the kind of snow day I remember as a kid.  Warming up the house by baking something.  The afternoon flew by much faster than I anticipated.
Over all we had a good day.  Kinda hope we have another one tomorrow--just not sure what we'll make.