heymae

The BIG Weekend

20
Jul 2009

This weekend was Zane’s 6th Birthday Party! His real birthday is not until the end of the month, but we decided to have his party early since we were having all his cousins over for a sleepover! Looking back, maybe not the best idea to have both GIANT events on the same weekend. We ended up with 12 cousins, and then another 9 kids came to the party on Saturday. Early on Friday Zane got the most Awesome birthday gift EVER from my parents, a TRAMPOLINE!!! He was so excited! It was perfect timing since all his cousins were able to use it also! Although it did cause a lot of this conversation:

Kid- Is their turn over yet?
Me-Not yet, I will let you know.
KId-Are you suuuuurrrreeee their turn is not over yet?
Me-No, I promise I will tell you when it is your turn.
**One MInute Later**
Same Kid-Is their turn over NOW? They have been on for hours!
Me- They have been on for 3 minutes, and if you ask me again, you will lose your turn!
**30 seconds later**
New Kid- Is their turn over yet?!?!
Me- **Burning Trampoline to the Ground**

Friday night was a whole bunch of pizza eating, trampoline jumping, slumber party fun! Unfortunately the kids were having a little too much fun and we did not get them settled down to watch a movie until after 10, and of course only 1 kid actually fell asleep during the movie (Miss Brooklyn) so we ended up with 11 wide awake kids at midnight after the movie ended. At that point it was lights out and we ended up just sitting there until all the kids fell asleep. I think that was the hardest part, as I was already exhausted from a day of errand running and daycare-ing and party prepping. I am always so surprised when I am exhausted at the end of the day and I have to remind myself that I am making a little person in my belly!

Friday Night Pics:

Pizza Time!

Trampoline!

Happy Harper!

Nolan was not at ALL excited.

Arri getting a little tired of me taking his picture…

Adorable Annie!

Getting Snug for Bed!

Now, I was most worried about kids waking up through out the night, but luckily all the kids slept uninterrupted until the late hour of 5:30 in the morning. There is no convincing 12 children that it is too early to be up, or too early to jump on the trampoline. There was also a lot of confusion on when we were going to Save The Princess. Zane’s party on Saturday was a Mario Bros. theme and the kids were having a hard time with the concept that we had to wait for the other kids to get here before we could start the party. I can totally see their point, they are a party enough all on their own! The morning actually went way smoother than I thought it was going to. Ian and I are a great team. We could totally take on Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar anytime. It helped that we had a game plan and each took a different role in whatever task we had. If one of us was cooking a meal, the other would be cleaning and organizing the kids in an activity. The only problem was, it NEVER stopped! There was NEVER a time when all the kids were entertaining themselves and a meal wasn’t needing to be cooked or the house wasn’t needing to be straightened. The weekend was a full-time job for the both of us. My poor body was so upset at me! I think I actually brought on some Braxton Hicks Contractions simply from being purely exhausted! Ian kept having to remind me to eat, which for some reason is the first thing I forget when I am in the Zone.

At one point I am pretty sure Ian lost his mind.

The party was so much fun! We went with the Mario theme, and what is more Mario than Mustaches?

Poor Miss Brooklyn just could not stay awake this weekend!

We played some really fun games including a pin the mustache on Mario game, a gold coin collecting game, a water balloon attack game and a pinata! The whole party ended up going really smoothly and was just the right combination of low stress for me and high fun for the kids!

After the Party was over it was more Jumping, Eating and Silliness! The kids kept it together surprisingly well, I thought for sure we were going to have some meltdowns that afternoon, but everyone did great! We had a great dinner of Spaghetti and Meatballs, requested by Zane. We did manage to get the kids to bed slightly earlier on Saturday Night, which was good because I kept falling asleep on the couch! The kids also managed sleep all the way until 6:30 on Sunday! Score! It was pretty evident in the morning that the kids were tired. I was glad that we had arranged for kids to be picked up in the morning because I don’t think many kids could of made it until the afternoon.


My, how the body language has changed!

After the last of the kids had left, Ian, Zane and I shut all the curtains, cranked up the A/C and chilled. Within a half hour I was dead asleep. Four hours later I awoke to the happiest little boy I have ever seen. Zane has been on a cloud since the party ended, he could not of asked for a better weekend. I cannot get him to stop smiling. Thank you so much to all the parents that let their children come and give Zane such an amazing birthday. I could not of asked for anything better. I may still be exhausted, my feet still hurt and my house is just finally starting to get clean again, but I would not of traded any of it after seeing the sheer joy in Zane’s eyes.

Tags: birthday, family, zane