The Party Wrap

The party is over. And amazingly, we survived. Well mostly - one poor child did end up with a nasty busted lip after a run-in with the swing set. Nothing like the site of blood from a child you were in charge of to get the guilt flowing! (His mother, one of my good friends, was just fine with it but boy, it scared the bejeezus out of me - I thought he'd knocked out a tooth...)

Okay, here's how it played out in the end. All but one child turned up, meaning 7 extras plus my own three. I did have another phone call, about an hour and a half before the party began, from this child's mother who had been planning to attend but had just been informed her kids were probably exposed to chicken pox so they were having to quarantine them - obviously attending a birthday party wasn't on the cards. So in the end, all turned out well.

I'd forgotten exactly how loud 10 children aged 5 through to 8 can actually be. Yikes! Everyone seemed to have a great time. A lot of pizza was eaten. And I spent at least every second minute pouring a drink for a child. One little boy in particular drank so much fizz his belches rivaled a fully grown man. The movie was also a semi-bust, with the appeal of Charlotte's Web being lost of the men of the clan. I'd kind of expected that though, LOL. The kids sort of split up into groups - the girls (6 of them) paired off with Barbies and My Little Ponies and the boys (4 of them) kicked balls over the fence. Much sugar was consumed by all. Good times!

We're all exhausted though. I spent most of today getting the house in order for the influx of little people. I still have to vacuum up the popcorn crumbs before I go to bed (we tend to have an ant problem if we're not careful in summer so we're super-vigilant about crumbs) but God bless paper plates! Right before the party started Hubs arrived home after three days away at live-in training. I think he thought it was meant to be an afternoon party because he seemed surprised the party was just starting and not finishing - poor guy. He's had a rough week and a house full of screaming 5 and 6 year olds probably wasn't what he needed. He has just two days of training left, then four weeks of annual leave over Christmas and much of January. Yay. We both need the break.

We leave Sunday morning for Christmas with the inlaws - depending on how my next few days go I may load up some auto-posts but if I can't get around to it, I may have to take about a week long blogging break. So PLEASE come back (subscribe!) and I should be back on the go from around Dec 27 or 28.

Also, Miss Moo was rather spoiled with her gifts today - although two gifts kind of left me thinking 'hmmm'. One was a Bratz doll. We've avoided all things Bratz on principle since day 1 but I can hardly complain about a present, can I? Mercifully, it was at least one of the tamer ones with a somewhat cute outfit instead of one with a mostly--- you get the picture :P. And I just can't get over the macabre amputated feet thing - but that's just one issue in many, LOL. And the second gift of concern was a set of lipgloss (like seven tubes of the stuff) and pre-teen makeup. It was pretty and it sparkled and she loved the idea of it, but I don't think I'll be allowing her to use it. I just kind of have problems with makeup (even 'pretend'/preteen stuff) on a 6yo. Visions of Jon Benet and all that.

Okay, I'm zonked so I'm going to bed. Snore.

Cheers,
Lizzie