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10 Birthday party ideas during a pandemic that will keep their heart smiling even during these difficult times.

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Our daughter’s 7th birthday is a month away and we had planned to celebrate in the biggest way we know how…Walt Disney World. This trip had been planned for years and she felt very special that we chose to do it on her Birthday. We are not going to risk going to Disney right now so I have been researching ‘birthday party ideas during a pandemic’ like crazy. Here’s what I’ve found:

Virtual Birthday Party Ideas

By this time, some people are tired of using virtual technology to see their friends. They’re using virtual meetings at work, virtual happy hours with friends, Zoom meetings for school, and even virtual bingo with the grandparents. But, that may be the only way you’re able to see friends and family, so let’s make it fun!

Dessert Party:

Set up a Zoom call with all your friends and family to share a treat together. Throw in some kind of challenge like ‘best dressed’ or ‘craziest Zoom background’ to help get your guests in the party spirit.

Movie Night:

Host a virtual movie night with Kast. Using Kast, you can have everyone pop some popcorn and snuggle in to watch a movie and have a live chat during the film. This free service streams movies from third-party providers. Find out more info on how it works here.

Game Night:

Games are one of the things we’re missing most right now. Thankfully there are a few different ways you can play games virtually. We’ve enjoyed playing Jackbox with friends for years at our home but did you know you can play it virtually too? Another fun one is MURAL where you can play different drawing games like Win, Lose or Draw, Hangman, and Pictionary.

At Home Birthday Party Ideas

There are lots of fun ways to make a birthday celebration extra special while you’re unable to have friends and family visit. A good theme can make a party great!

Disney Theme Night:

Knowing that we were going to miss our Disney vacation this year, I wrote Magic Kingdom Movie Marathon with Themed Treats. Having worked my college program in Fantasyland, I have a special place in my heart for the Magic Kingdom. I rounded up a list of the ride attractions that have a corresponding movie and found a treat that you can make with your family. Add in even more fun by bringing the mattress down and all the pillows and watching movies until you fall asleep.

Mystery Box:

If you have older kids of reading age you could get a mystery box sent. We played a game from Dispatch where you had to solve a mystery using the clues they sent you. It took a couple hours and we were really entertained the whole time. I haven’t played this board game version yet but it has good reviews on Amazon.

Quaren-Tea Party

Have everyone dress up in your finest attire, jewels, and makeup. Break out the fine China you have been saving for a special occasion. Make little finger foods (or pick up from the grocery pick up). Enjoy some high tea with British accents and all! We love doing this. Getting ready is just as fun as the actual tea party! If you want to make a full day of the event, you could start with a special invitation waiting outside their door when they wake up. You can have a crown crafting sesh and practice walking with books on your head. Learn how to set a proper table for tea from a YouTube video or play Lookabout (a Victorian tea party game).

Art Party

There is so much you can do with an art-themed party. One of my favorites is having a Canvas and Cookies event. All you need is some paper, brushes, paint, and cookies. Find a painting tutorial (similar to this one) and have everyone paint a picture together.

Adventure Birthday Party Ideas

During a pandemic, it’s not a good idea to congregate in large crowds, but there are still places we can go safely to celebrate a loved one.

Camping

Most private campsites are too congested for me. The proximity of the RVs always seemed too close pre-RV. Fortunately, there are a few other options.

HipCamp:

HipCamp is a website similar to Airbnb where you can find more secluded camping. The sites are often on somebody’s farmland. With this site, you can see how many other sites are at their location and how many acres they’re spread over. Hipcamp also makes it easy to directly talk to the host so you can double-check to make sure your site is not going to be anywhere near another person.

Having a toddler, I wanted to be sure we weren’t constantly worried about her trying to make friends with our neighbor campers so we’ve booked a few places within 2 hours from our home.

A friend or relative’s property:

Think about some of the people you know. Maybe you have a friend that has a lot of land that wouldn’t mind you setting up primitive camp for a weekend. The key to camping is to get away from all the distractions of home. You may be used to having a pool and paid activities for the kids when you camp but there are lots of ways to camp with kids. Camping without all the amenities maybe your favorite!

Backyard Campout

Set up your tent or popup at your house! Get all the typical camp foods and s’mores to roast over the campfire (or grill if that’s what you have)! A change of scenery is the goal here, so make it as elaborate of a campout as you want. Don’t have a spot in your yard? Set it up inside or even build an indoor fort. There are tons of ways to camp!

Having a birthday during a pandemic isn’t what we’re used to. We can’t have our friends over for a sleepover or meet up at the roller rink. We can still make it special and have fun though! I’d love to know what you’ve done to celebrate with a loved one!

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Fun Things To Do Over Quarantine

Sophie’s Dinosaur Birthday Party

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There are so many fun things to do over quarantine with your family, it’s getting overwhelming. When people say they’re bored, I’m thinking it has more to do with motivation than boredom. Even if we didn’t have kids to attend to, without all of the extra free classes, lessons, tours, concerts etc., we’d still not be bored!

Our family has adjusted to the lockdown orders easily. My husband is a major introvert and because of this quarantine, he’s had plenty of time to re-charge alone giving him a ton of extra motivation to clean the garage and basement! Tasks that haven’t been done in years!

I was already staying home to work part-time and be with our toddler. We had to slightly adjust our schedule with no library music classes or swim lessons but otherwise, life is the same. Thankfully I’d taught our kindergartener at home last year so eLearning has been easy for both of us to adjust to.

I’m telling you this to give you a sense of where our heads are at. We’re doing well. We’re able to take on the challenge of some of these new programs and offerings that businesses are providing. If you are stressed out from homeschooling multiple older children, working at home (or out of the home), and the 100 other things that are making life difficult right now, please don’t feel the need to try a new hobby. Just focus on you and what works best for you right now.

Fun Things To Do Over Quarantine

Games

We’ve been playing a lot more games. Virtual games, board games, and even escape room type games. Here are some of our favorite games to play as a family and as a couple.

Stardew Valley- I know a lot of people are playing Animal Crossing these days but my husband got me hooked on Stardew Valley. We play it on the Nintendo Switch and hook it up to our TV so we can all play together. I’m not a big gamer but with Sims and Stardew Valley I could play it all day without stopping and continue to dream about it when I go to bed. I love it!

Breakout Game- We were contacted by Dispatch to see if we wanted to try out an at-home escape room type game. We were up for trying and after playing the first box for 5 minutes were completely hooked. Dispatch is a mystery-in-a-box adventure that tests your detective skills with a series of physical and virtual clues.

We played The Cat’s Eye which was a two-box series. Once you complete one box, you’ll be sent next. Each box took us 1-1.5 hours to solve so it was a really fun date night after we put the girls to bed! There is one series with 7 boxes we really want to try! The storyline and puzzles were really awesome but we were most impressed with the quality of the props. Everything was so well thought out and looked authentic (like a real newspaper, a magnifying glass or a blacklight to read secret messages.)

Board Games- Our favorite games to play as a family or as a couple are Blokus, Ticket to Ride (including the kid’s version), Rummikub, Yahtzee, Carcassone, Jenga, Forbidden Island, and Qwirkle.

Jackbox– Jackbox Games are becoming very popular right now as a way to play games with people virtually. We used to play this game at our house when we’d have friends over and now we’re playing it over video chat so we can still see our friends. There are lots of types of games from Pictionary type games to trivia games. I like how they have instructions on how how to set up a virtual game with friends as well as how to use their games for homeschool lessons on their homepage.

Screen Time

There has been an abundance of Broadway performances, basement concerts, educational programming, and more all dumped online very quickly. It was awesome to see so many people pour their talents online for us to consume for free. I’d realized it was becoming overwhelming and I felt like It was a job to keep up with everything we wanted to be able to watch/do. The things that we like coming back to the most are:

Books read by our friends- We really enjoy reading books as a family and Sophia is doing an awesome job of reading picture books now. Sometimes, though, we like to hear stories from other people. That’s when we started watching my best friend Emily read books on YouTube. Her an a teacher friend read books every day so their students can have a chance to hear a story and relax.

Mo Willems- We are huge Mo Willems fans. We loved his exhibit at The Children’s Museum, have his books and the Piggie and Gerald stuffed animals. Soph’s grandparents took her to see the play and Lilly is now reciting the books for us over dinner! We were so excited to see that he shares a lunchtime doodle from his studio and talks about his books. We just can’t get enough of him!

Art For Kids Hub- Another favorite for both Sophia and myself is Art For Kids Hub. We both want to improve our drawing but neither likes practicing from a book. Art For Kids Hub is a father and his kids drawing something together. You see both the father’s art alongside the child as they teach you had to draw. There are many levels of drawing so you could learn how to draw an ice cream cone or how to shade a cool dragon.

The Children’s Museum At Home- The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis is one of our very favorite places to visit. We love learning through hands-on experience in their exhibits. They’ve been amazing at keeping TONS of content up for us at their At Home series. They have everything from crafts to storytime to virtual chats with experts. Our favorite things to watch are their science experiments.

Conner Prairie- Conner Prairie is our very favorite place to visit around Indy. We can go for an entire day or just a half-hour if we want. We love going to see the new baby animals, playing at the treehouse and chatting with our friends in Prairie town. Spring is our favorite time to visit because there are new baby animals being born weekly. We’re sad to be missing their programs right now as well as their summer camp.

Thankfully they’ve been creating tons of content sharing what’s been going on on their grounds as well as some cool information on how prairie life would have looked. Their Conner Prairie At Home program shares videos on crafts, cooking, history, and animals.

Libby- The library was another weekly place we’d visit to pick up new books, join a class, or dance with Mr. Daniel. With them closed, we were unable to get our hands on some of the early reader chapter books Sophia was just beginning to take interest in. Thankfully Libby had us covered with TONS of free books online.

Harry Potter Readings- My favorite weekly treat are the Harry Potter readings on the Wizarding World At Home app. I’ve read all of the Harry Potters multiple times, saw all the movies the night they released, and have been a big fan of the series for a long time. Nothing is more special than Daniel Radcliff reading the first chapter from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Each new reader is so amazing and I just love listening to them read the chapters.

I would love to know what things you’ve been doing at home that have made you smile or have brought your family together. There is so much to be grateful for and I hope that you and your family are doing well. We’re in this together.

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There are a lot of different views on the recent Coronavirus outbreak. No one knows how much impact this virus will cause our country or our world. What I do know is that if taking a little time to plan, shop and stock for an emergency can potentially make my life easier when chaos strikes, I’m going to do it.

My husband and I have two kids, one that is under 2 years of age. We know that the people most affected by the coronavirus are young children and the elderly. We want to be fully prepared for 2 months if there is a city-wide shut down in our area. I am no expert on this topic but I wanted to share what simple steps we’re taking to prepare for an outbreak.

Coronavirus Backstock Shelves

Above all else, we’ve been washing our hands so much. When we’re with the girls, we’re sure to have everyone wash their hands before each meal and when we return from anywhere. I carry hand sanitizer now and when we’re at events we apply the sanitizer several times. It’s not only about keeping our family safe but also helping to not spread our own germs.

Watching the news gives me high anxiety. I know that anything big will show up in my IG feed or a friend will talk to me about it. I have not been watching reports on the Coronavirus because I do not want to be anxious and spread my fear to others. What I am doing is preparing my family in case there is an outbreak where we live.

How Much Did It Cost?

We shopped at Meijer this past weekend and had only one coupon. A wiser decision would be to shop at Costco or Sams Club to save on the bulk items (but we don’t have memberships). Our total for our Coronavirus backstock was $1,011.62. We have a family of four, plus a dog and our toddler is still in diapers. A large portion of this haul was due to diapers, dog food, and medications.

It took us 3 carts completely packed but you could probably get away with two if you don’t have diapers (we also had a plastic shelf to hold our goods which you may not need.)

What Did We Get?

Below is a list of everything we got. This was trying to keep in mind that we couldn’t get fresh produce, dairy, and protein if the grocery store shuts down. I understand it is not the most healthy foods but it’s what will keep us fed (including a couple treats to keep us happier). More things could be added to this list but we already had them or don’t need them. If nothing else, I urge you to get your prescriptions refilled for yourself and your pets, cleaning supplies and flu medication.

How Did We Store It?

We purchased one of these plastic shelves which fit everything perfectly. Our Coronavirus backstock shelves are in the basement with nothing on the ground. We store our extra diapers and medications where we normally keep those items upstairs.

We tried categorizing things so they’d make sense if we were not feeling well and trying to find supplies. Making a box for cleaning supplies and a box for grains helped us keep like items together.

The Girl Scout motto ‘Always be prepared’ has always stuck with me. If you know me though, you know that I’m a minimalist so I was torn on having this excess in my home. When it came down to it, I’d rather have spent a couple hours planning and purchasing these items just in case than not having them at all. They’re all shelf-stable items that we already enjoy eating so if there is no shut-down in our area, we will be happy to not have to go grocery shopping for a couple months.

Let me know if there’s anything you have on your list that I should add.

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