Kid's Cheese Party - Happy Birthday, J!

My middle son take pride in being able to pick the most obscure birthday party themes that force me to actually dig in my creative brain box verses pinte

rest to design and execute.  Last year, he wanted Cheese.  Yes, a Cheese Party.  Do you know, there are not any Pinterest posts on Kid's cheese parties?  (until now, anyway!)  The only Cheese party you are going to find are those involving wine, grapes, and cute little knives.  So, into the brain-vault we go....Turned out pretty awesome, if I do say so myself.

Invite: Simple printed card that I created.

Decorations:  Everything in Yellow and White

Food:  Grilled Cheese, Cheese Sticks, Cheese Platter, Mac&Cheese, Baked Brie, Mozzarella Sticks  (veggies and fruit so we didn't get too blocked up!) and a cheesecake for the cake.

Games/Activities: 
1) Cheese Tasting.  I bought and cut up 10 different cheeses and created a judging sheet where they had to rank the smell and taste.

2) Cheese making.  This didn't do very well, since i only half listened/watched the you tube video on how to do it.  I didn't use enough milk and well....i tried.

3) Cheese ball Toss.  Each kid got a shower cap, we put a pile of shaving cream on top and then partnered them up.  They had to see how many cheese balls they could get to stick to both their caps as a team.  The winners got bags of candy to share. 

The favors were cheese sticks and baby-bells.

Cardboard Dome, aka Moon Base

As the quarantine order continues, we are finding more and more of those little projects that you pin on Pinterest but never actually intend to do!  The Cardboard Dome or "Moon base" was on ours and since I have an abundance of cardboard (due to my persistent desire to create a little oasis on my back porch), we decided, 'heck, why not'.  Couldn't take more than a few hours, right?  HA HA HA!!!  First, I found the post on Facebook where some family put one together.  They wrote all about some 'instructables' thing that they found to be wrong, so we thought we'd try theirs.  However, they didn't actually write anything USEFUL other than that the instructables instructions we wrong.  Yay.  So, J and I sat down with my trusty friend, Excel, to create our own design.  Guess what?  I'm good at geometry when it comes to sewing, not so much in the 3D world.  Go figure.  Then, my brilliant son says "why don't we just model it off of the jungle gym in the backyard...........yes........mom win.......I’ve taught a child how to think and not what to think and he figured out a solution without re-inventing the wheel.  Now, let me warn you, he still had his mother involved........who isn't very good at following instructions........I eyeballed the dimensions of the jungle gym.......yes, that's right.  Head-slap.  I assumed they were 2ft equilateral triangles.  Guess what they're not?  Yep.  However, we went forth with the plan to make 1ft equilateral triangles.  Armed with our abundance of cardboard and box-cutters (thank you, honey) we went forth and began cutting....

Here is our model:

We cute 40 1ft equilateral triangles.......

We put together 6 pentagons (the 10 extra triangles were for the connector pieces)...

And then began the really fun part.  Putting the pieces together.  Any idea how heavy cardboard can get?  it was falling apart all over the place.  We ran out of duct tape and resorted to painters tape.  Disaster.  

My genius hubby suggested we take a break and order some duct tape for pickup at home depot the next day.  Where does he get these ideas, huh?  so, i ordered the tape.......went and got it this morning and we managed to get it together.  duct tape really is a miracle.  

And, in true Jenna-fashion.....we taped the hell out of it.  Added some extra panels on the bottom to raise it up and ta-da!  

Now, they are fighting over who can fit in it, how high the volume on each of their devices should be, who's foot is in who's face........ahh....harmonious-ness.  i'm done.  Moon base, check.  time for a wine cooler and some gardening!

(bonus picture of what it looks like on the inside)