Double Birthday Party!

Why is having 1 party for 2 kids 3 times more work than having 2 parties for 2 kids? The past week ... ehm 12 days has been total chaos .. and I have been planning this party since like December! But alas I was working 3rd shift and had gotten behind on my cleaning .. so yeah had to catch that up (almost succeeded) plus this is my first year with a big yard .. wow didnt know how much work yardwork can be. Oh and then there is the whole cake issue. What do 8 year old boys and 1 year old girls have in common? Not a whole lot. So I had my heart set on doing a butterfly cake for my little Butterfly on her first birthday. Can I compromise on that? No way!!! So anyway my 8 year old son totally was not thrilled with this idea. But I convinced Goobie-kins that a Bee would be a great idea for him (Thank you Thank you Thank you for releasing the Bee Movie recently!!!) but then I needed something to tie it together and now we get a flower. So yes I had to make a butterfly cake and a bee cake and a chocolate flower cake and a mini butterfly as a smash cake ... BUSY. But .. ah there is a catch. One of my bestest friends ever was coming and bringing her husband and her little Buttercup. Her husband and her little Buttercup cannot have gluten which is in almost all cakes .. except of course for the special gluten free ones .. so I baked an extra cake and had part of it for him and cut out another little butterfly of gluten free cake for Buttercup and decorated that too. All that work and I got this display of sugary confection that was pretty much torn to pieces by kids and of course by my little Butterfly. Buttercup however was much more dainty with her cake and left absolutely no mess. Ok so really her mom and dad fed her ..

So anyway there was a lot of fun and of course anytime you get that many kids together (was it really only 5 big kids and 2 one year olds?) there is a bit of fighting .. but everyone survived and some even would say they had a pretty good time. The Swedish meatballs I made seemed to be an obvious hit .. there were none left, much to my 11 year old daughter's dismay and the hamburger miniatures disappeared too.

Now for the aftermath .. my house that I worked so hard to get mostly clean? Yeah not so clean anymore .. and Butterfly was diagnosed about a month ago with difficulty digesting processed foods and sucrose .. so lets just say diaper changes have not been a joyful occasion .. as a matter of fact .. it is bad enough that I am temporarily being not so earth friendly (and not so friendly to my bank account) and using disposable diapers. But I think if you look at this pic you will agree that Butterfly thought it was all worth it.

So today I take a break .. a MUCH needed break. Tomorrow the chaos starts again and now that I am not working, I hope to blog about it all .. though right now I cannot guarantee that. Being a SAHM is seriously busy work .. I work more now that I don't have a job .. but it is all worth it I think .. well so far .. ok so I only have 12 days of experience .. but I do love my kids and I am looking forward to spending a lot of time with them this summer.

Win a free ergo

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Win one here!! Win a Free Ergo Baby Carrier from Along for the Ride

Slumber Party Chaos

My oldest child (R) turned 11 a few days ago. So I decided she could have a few friends stay the night tonight and that we would have a little b-day party. By little I of course mean that there are 20 people in my house.

It took forever to get everyone eating dinner ... I put a tarp down on the floor for the kids to sit and eat on to protect my carpet and they were more interested in playing with the tarp than eating. Eleven kids sitting around the tarp eating tacos or lettuce for the ones that do not like tacos and one 9 month old (almost) throwing bananas from her high chair at anyone who gets close enough. Much fun. A lot of noise. WHAT WAS I THINKING???

So anyway .. 1 girl decides not to stay because she is afraid to be away from her mom. Another girl cannot stay because she has a b-day party tomorrow and one more the parents do not think she is ready. This IS a good thing. R has never even had a friend stay the night .. how was I to handle this group. The boys (2 of them) were not staying .. so now I have a group of 5 girls, my son (A) and my 9 month old daughter (M). A decides to go stay at my brothers because he cant handle 5 girls! Can I please come too???

Overall the party was a success .. the girls are all asleep .. my husband is asleep .. I will stay awake all night as I am used to this. I work 3rd shift. Besides that M keeps waking up which is odd because she sleeps through the night and she has been up 3 times already. I just need to get through a pancake breakfast and the kids going home and then I can sleep .. I hope.