Birthday Party and Such...

The Party Setup
All Decked Out....Compliments of the Big Girls

Birthday Girl

The Guests

The Party After the Party (A Tea Party)

We had a fun and relaxing day for Kai-Kai's 6th birthday. I had worked the night shift before so wasn't really sure how I was going to hold out and pull it off but I didn't have to worry. My husband took a bunch of the littlest ones out to pick up the last of the party supplies, my second oldest swept, mopped and did the last minute pick up, I worked on baking the cake and some Finnish sampyla (buns), and dishes, and our oldest decked the place out. She did much better than I could have ever done. I told the girls that this is it, decorating now officially is their job! They love it and I love it!

The nice thing is we have enough family to have plenty of kids to come as the "real" party guests and of course moms and dads and siblings are welcome to entertain the rest of us and we all feel like we got to have "friends" over, not just the birthday kid. :) Another nice aspect of family filling the whole guest list is Mom doesn't have to stress about anything needing to be fancy. Family doesn't care....you're supposed to be able to just truly relax in the presence of family and they still love you the same, whether we pulled it off perfectly or not.

We missed Joni (my sister) and her family this year though! We have enough kids the same age that we usually have them for most of our parties too but this year they are overseas!!!


Okay now some fun stories. We have plenty of these usually, I just forget to post them:

Funny little Izzy story: Tonight, looking out the window and seeing some very dark clouds in the sky, combined with it just getting dark for the evening, gasped and said, "Oh! Look! A ma...ma...matado (tornado) is comin' to bonk down our house! Better hurry downstairs!"

And....I was just finishing a poopy diaper on our little guy when I noticed Izzy straining and grunting. I personally had just had my fill on poopy diapers for the day so I asked her, "Hey! What are you doing? Are you pooping?" She turned and nodded. I told her, "Quick! Go poop in the potty chair!" And her quick reply, "Uh-uh! I'm not potty-trained...I'm NOT!" I told her, "Well! I think it's high time to get potty-trained!" And our Kai-Kai then gave her input on the matter: "You know what though? The potty chair for is when you aren't potty-trained. You know why? 'Cause there's no water in it!" Good big sisterly advice! I needed to say no more. :)

And, some fun big girl stories...I forget to post these. Sometimes I get too focused on the cute little kid stories that go on around here. These big girls are just getting to be a hoot, I'm telling you! So I just have to share some of the fun things they come up with:

Today, making a birthday cake and decking out the house for Kai-Kai's 6th birthday, we just kept a rolling dialogue, the oldest two and I. One of very many humorous conversations:

Molly, putting up streamers and curling pink ribbon, decorating the cake and such, decided to cut up small pieces of the curled pink ribbon to put right on the cake. It was darling. Viva, obviously a little concerned for the safety of us and our guests, asked, "What if people think these ribbons are edible and try eating them and...choke?" Molly: "Oh, no one's that dumb!" Viva: *sigh* "I guess that means I stand alone!" (in other words, admitting she was a little....dumb...?) And we laughed and we laughed....and Viva looked blankly at us and said, "What?" But this is all just a part of her humor. Sigh, what I have to live with, my big girls developing their own sense of humor and I have to hear it all the time....we do really have a good time with it!

We just got a couple of free, super cute kittens. I know! More pets!!! These girls have a way about them sometimes...that's another post in itself! So, anyway, after we had had them for a week or two, one of them appeared to be ill with something. It just slept, hardly did anything, didn't play, eat much, drink much, etc. The girls were highly concerned. They were bugging and badgering us to bring it to the vet. We tried to explain to them that by the time the diagnostic labs would even be back the cat would either be dead or recovered...it just isn't worth putting tons of money into it at this point...let's just wait and see. We have so much food that falls on the floor that they gobble down before we get a chance to sweep it up..we had just had chocolate cake about the time it fell ill. I was pretty sure it was something it ate.

We had girls begging and pleading, scheming and plotting, "I will sell my Nintendo DS...and all the games....and give up the DSI that I will earn for getting my black belt in karate...and all my next year's Christmas and birthday gifts..." was a couple of the girls' promises. Then as I was doing laundry, one of the girls came downstairs with the cat and said, "Now look, Mom. You gotta see this. Watch what happens when I put this cat down...it just curls up in a ball and doesn't do anything." She puts it down on a pile of laundry, which it proceeds to roll down, and pick itself up, and walk away. She says, "Hmmm, well, now watch it. It will just sit down now..." It didn't. It kept walking around, quite perkily... She didn't quite know what to say. She just said, "Hmmm, he looks pretty good now!"

News spread fast throughout the household and minutes later, the one that had promised to give up her Nintendo DS...and all the games...and the DSI she was gonna earn... ran downstairs all excited. She said, "Wow, he's looking just fine now! I am so glad I didn't actually sell my DS...and all my games and stuff. That would have been such of a waste of money!!!"

That story has much more...mostly including Dad and Viva bantering about bringing the cat in (Viva) and practicing being a vet and trying to diagnose the illness herself (Dad's argument). Somewhere along the way, they discussed the possibility that the diagnosis is probably the Tamiflu...which then Viva triumphantly announced the next day, "I am going to tell Dad that I've diagnosed it! It was the Tamiflu!!!" not realizing that Tamiflu is actually an antiviral medication. I had informed her of this but she apparently wasn't listening. We've had some fun, at their expense (cause I think Dad was in on the original possible diagnosis of maybe Tamiflu), with that diagnosis!!!

We have a really bantery household...we rib each other all the time!