[Abdulina]

Kids enjoy the simplicity of it all and it makes it so much less expensive. Our Halloween Bash that we have each year to raise funds for the oprhanages is talked about all year by the students at the school. Huge hit. But kept totally simple. Bobbing for apples (hit anytime of the year), pinata(huge hit anytime), and a mummy wrap. All the kids play the rest of the time.

Birthday parties. We can not afford to hire someone for all these parties every year. One year Santa bought a moon bounce for the kids off Ebay and it was well worth the $300. Used many, many times already. They cost between $150 adn $400 to rent just once. Typically our parties include the moonbounce though the kids don't spend as much time on that as they do in the house. Anyway, we have cake, icecream, and open presents. Once the kids open the presents, they just go off and play the rest of the afternoon. Now, our older girls have the slumber parties and for Irina's 13th 2 weeks ago, we took them out for pizza( had coupons), had cake at home, opened presents and they stayed up all night. Very inexpensive. Oh, another thing that girls LOVE to do and is so cheap and easy is to make their own scarves. I've done this now two years in a row nad the kids still love this. Get fleece fabric at a store, cut to scarf size, kids cut fringe on it, and then put beads on the fringe. They look "so cool" at school and everyone will ask about it.

The bobbing for apples and pinata are always a huge hit. Oh, and for the younger ones, a dancing game. There are so many little things you could come up with. But from experience we've found keeping it simple is best. EVerytime we have something planned it goes down the drain as soon as they open their presents. All the kids rush to play with the new toys--friends included. Then, we don't see them for awhile. Amazing what a new toy can do to a room full of children. Also, any time you put a bunch of kids in a room, they'll have fun anyhow.

Good luck with the party. We have two birthdays today. We have to get very creative next week and think of something to do for Bojan's birthday. He's wheelchair bound. Urghh. Any suggestions on what to do while sitting still for a few hours?

Take care,