Peace and Quiet

It has been a long weekend. Fun, but long. I never thought of our house as quiet really, until you put about 20 people in it all talking and kids running and screaming... That was noise! My folks came and brought kids, Steph and Jeff and family came, Mark's mom and sisters, and my friend Amanda and her girls. Boy, am I glad I cleaned.

But everyone is gone, the kids are playing quietly in the backyard. (Halfway through that sentence I had to rescue Nathan from a big bad garden spider... ) And I am left in semi peace to write about the party.

We had a blast! My family got here about 11, while I was making an emergency run for more cake decorating spray. The kids played; Mom, Steph, Jeff (a little), and Marie helped get food ready; Morgan ran various errands for paperware from my closet; Dad went to the store to get mustard. Mustard is essential when you are eating hotdogs! I think I would have freaked out quite easily if Steph hadn't taken over the veggie prep and fruit salad making. They were great, and it was nice to have all the help. I was working on the cake, like I thought I would be doing at that time. Darn fondant palm trees didn't want to cooperate.... We took a million pictures of the cake, I will post on my cake blog after this. We had lots of different salads, yummy lemonade with cherry juice mixed in, juicy beef hotdogs... I ate too much, although I think everyone else did too.

Then we had cleanup, thanks again to my wonderful family for doing that for me. Mark's mom showed up and Oren was so excited! We had told him he was having a special suprise visitor for his birthday. When she walked into the backyard, he was off like a shot and jumped at her! :-) Amanda wandered over and we started the party. Like Steph mentioned we had "pin the x on the treasure map", "cannonball" toss, a treasure hunt with puzzle pieces, and a parrot pinata. Zaylee really was adorable hitting that parrot... We had little door prizes like cheapo sunglasses and silly putty, and we had put together little loot bags with eyepatches and pirate pencils, stickers, fake jewels. The kids had a blast!

Marie wrapped streamers around him, it actually looks pretty good.

Candy Grab!

Blowing out the candles.

Today was one of the few times we have been early to church this whole year. We don't really like 9:00 meeting time. Mom Willford and the girls spent the night, so I had help with the kids to get ready. It was a very pleasant morning, good lessons, nice and peaceful. We ate all the leftovers for lunch, so I don't have a really full fridge. Still plenty of cake left though! They took off around 3:00 to head back home, it's a 4 hour drive for them. We enjoyed having them here, it's always nice to see family.

But now I can sit back and enjoy the quiet. I don't have to talk, or clean, or cook. I would love a nap, trying not to be hyper in a noisy and busy social situation is exhausting for me. Unlike Oren, I don't have meds to keep me calm.

Now, what do I do for Nathan's birthday in August?