December Cloverbud Meeting

 Every year in December, we have a little Christmas party for our club.  We try to schedule it in the beginning of the month before things get too crazy because of Christmas and New Years.  I scheduled the meeting for last night at 5:30 and then found out that was the exact same time as the downtown parade.  So, I changed the time to an hour later giving those that were in or watching the parade time to get to the meeting.  We picked up the pizzas, dropped them off at the EH house, loaded the girls in the stroller, and walked down to Main Street to watch the parade (which by the way was a pretty good one and the children ended up with almost as much candy as they got on Halloween..)  After it was over we went back to the EH house to get ready for the meeting.  We had planned on eating pizza and whatever anyone brought to go along with it (nobody brought anything), making an edible craft, and playing two games.  The children were also bringing canned foods to donate to the local soup kitchen. When we got there we found the EH House all decorated for something coming up and lots of white table cloths (not good for a group of children under the age of 10!) so we set chairs around two big tables without table cloths and planned on eating and making the craft there so we would not get pizza sauce all over the table cloths.  We had quite a turnout with several new children that I didn't even know had joined the club.  We ended up with 20 children which is the most we have ever had at our December meeting.  I actually was afraid I didn't have enough pizza but the younger children only had 1 slice and the older boys we only let have 2 (though they certainly would've eaten more!)

 When they were eating pizza, Emelia decided to lean back in her chair and flip the chair over.  I couldn't get to her fast enough to stop her from hitting the floor.  She really scared me!  I picked her up and she of course was crying and kind of went limp in my arms for a second.  But I nursed her and she stopped crying and seemed to be fine.  I could not find any marks on her and she got down and acted normal.  She has been fine all day today so she must've just been very scared too!  When she fell I dropped my pizza (since I was eating standing up with no plate) on one of the white table cloths and got sauce all over it! So I took it home and washed it and brought it back this morning.

We made these for our craft.

Instead of a boxed mix, Chelsea made homemade brownies (the mixes fall apart on me) .To make it a little easier we did not put the icing into baggies to squeeze out.  Instead we gave each child a plate with a brownie, candy cane, icing, m &m's, and a knife.  Then they could spread the icing on it however they wanted to.  We had red and green sprinkles that we passed around.

Our games were pin the nose on Rudolph.  I printed out a Rudolph, glued him to a piece of cardboard, and taped it to the wall.  I also printed out numbered red noses and put scotch tape on the back.  We put a scarf on the children but did not spin them around.  They had fun!  I didn't get any pictures of this game since I was tying scarves and directing children.

The other game was kind of like hot potato mixed with musical chairs.  You fill a bowl with candy, sit the children in a circle, and play some music.  When the music stops whoever is holding the bowl takes a piece of candy and leaves the circle.  Play continues until everyone gets one.  They liked this game and wanted to play twice but we didn't have time. 

I was so thankful to have so much help from Chelsea and the other parents!