Kaleya has been into Monster High recently, so we had a Monster High themed bday party.  Monster High is a collection of dolls with characters depicted as the children of famous monsters (e.g. Dracula, Frankenstein, etc.).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_High

We let the kids play outside for about an hour before having food and cake. They blew bubbles, played jump rope, chased each other — all the things that kids do.

After playing, the kids came inside for some snacks and then cake & ice cream.

The cake itself was a Monster High cake and Kaleya specifically wanted the piece that had Frankie’s face. (Frankie is the daughter of Frankenstein and Kaleya is going to dress like her for Halloween this year).

We also had a piñata to open.  Jihad was nice enough to stand on a chair and hold it while the kids took turn pulling one of the strings to see if they would get the one string that would open it.  Kaleya went first, but she didn’t get the right string.  Several kids later – it was found and boy did they scramble to get their treats.

Awesome does not even describe how much fun it was to watch them.  Shortly after, the kids begin to leave.  Thank you all so much for coming to spend the time with us and Kaleya.  What a great birthday!

Of course I have even more pictures than what I’ve shared in this post. You can find them here.

Just a couple of pictures from our outing. We had a nice visit.

Kaleya next to the water

I like the glow on her face on this one.

And, a short video clip of her feeding them.

Then, we were off to the playground.

Next to the slide.

on the playground apparatus

pretty among the flowers

Tonight, Kaleya let me record her doing it. I just think it’s the cutest thing

It is located in a gorgeous old home on Belmont Avenue.

Picture of the Chess Center building

And, the space is divided into areas for play, for learning, and they even have a small library.  It was fun to watch some of the regulars play even though I couldn’t follow along.   One of the members set Kaleya & Jihad up on a computer to do a chess tutorial.  Kaleya knows how a few of the pieces move so she was actually explaining them to me.  Jihad was doing his own thing – he didn’t need me at all

Jihad snacks

Jihad and Kaleya play

You know me…I had to take some pictures in their library.

a view in the libraray

cool chessboard

my librarian self loves the classification

The  club is open two nights a week and a few hours on Sunday afternoon so we will likely join after the holidays.  Kalonji wants the kids in his mentoring program to understand the rules and ways of the game as a way to further stimulate strategic thinking skills.   There may be more chess reported here on the blog in the near future  :-).

O

One week, Jihad even came home and said they were doing a Michael Jackson routine as a whole grade exercise at his school.  How cool.   Nothing like PE was when I was young.

Thanks Miles for showing love to your sister!

Throughout the course of the afternoon we had about 10 kids and 10 adults there and we were so glad everyone came out.  Kaleya and her pals ran around mostly among the rooms upstairs, watched tv, ate cake,  played games and just had fun being kids.  Her true birthday was last weekend on October 16th, so on that day, she had one of her very good friends with her

and they had a great time playing with Kaleya’s new dollhouse

For yesterday’s party, the cake was a Princess & the Frog cake — right now one of Kaleya’s favorite movies – though, from the expression of her face in this photo you wouldn’t quite know it

But, she perked back up – really got into opening the presents and we enjoyed getting to hang out with her and her friends.

Happy 6th Birthday Kaleya!!!!   Can’t wait to do it again next year