Just a little ray of sunshine : May 3rd - 9th, 2021: Birthday party planning is not for the faint of heart

Too many posts have started this way lately, but it's because it's true.... I STINK. Not sure why I ever allowed myself to get behind because once you're behind, that little devil on your shoulder says "what's one more night of not writing?" aaaand here I am, so many nights later not having written because I listened to that little devil. 🙈 I'm not even sure how many weeks behind I am, but it's time to be as brief as possible so I can just get caught up!!

Monday, May 3rd:

While Maeve was at school, I spent most of my downtime doing some birthday/birthday party planning. But then the real party started after school! As kind of a last minute thing, we went over to the Pylant's house for some slip n slide fun. Amanda's sister was still in town, so the 3 of us got to enjoy playing some bananagrams while the kids had a ball with the slip n slide. We were having so much fun that we ended up staying for dinner and it was DELISH! It's not everyday I get to eat salmon and Amanda made us some goooood salmon with baked potatoes perfectly done in the instant pot. Who knew you could make baked potatoes in there!? I didn't until that day! Ya learn something new everyday. While we were in the kitchen working on dinner, I overheard Rowan talking to John (her son that is his age) saying, "I live in America. We live in America." 😂 I didn't even know that he knew that because I feel like I haven't even mentioned the word America before to him. Usually I'm just talking about how we live in Tennessee, but I guess at one point or another I have talked about America and I just don't remember it! 🤷‍♀️ It was too funny and so random. Then I got another laugh on the way home when I was telling the kids that something they should probably start doing now that they're getting older is to say thank you to whoever the cook is if we have dinner over at someone else's house. Maeve's response was, "I think we can do that when we're a little bit older, because we're still kinda too shy. She's (Amanda) still a little new to me..." 😂😏 I suppose she has a point considering when we're over there, all the kids are upstairs usually while us moms are chatting downstairs. So really she does just know her kids and not her so much if we're being honest. I guess I can cut her some slack... 😜

Tuesday, May 4th:

I wrote nothing down for this day so that must mean that it was just a same old, same old kinda day with school and youth activities and yada yada.

Wednesday, May 5th:

We spent a good few hours out running lots of errands hopping around to get allllll the birthday party stuff we needed. I kid you not, planning a friend party for your one of your kid's birthdays is not for the faint of heart! I don't even feel like we planned that elaborate of a party, yet somehow so much of my time and energy was sucked away this particular week planning it all out and buying everything we needed and of course the cake making and set up, etc. Whew! We'll see how many friend birthday parties I end up doing over the years, because I certainly won't be up for them every year unless they're super low key. 😅 Anyway, of course the errands were made extra fun when Rowan pooped his pants in Walmart. That was a fun clean up and Maeve was left outside of the bathroom to "watch" Nolan because heaven knows it would not have worked well to have him in there with me toddling around probably getting poop on his hands! We all know you can't keep baby hands away from anything, no matter how disgusting it is. I wasn't really thrilled at the idea of them being out of my sight, but I felt like I kinda had no other good option. Luckily they were both alive and well still when we came out of the bathroom. 🙏😅

Unfortunately that wasn't the first poop fiasco of the day, because I should rewind and also mention that before I went to hop in the shower with Rowan (he's kind of obsessed with showering with me or Adam any chance he gets now 😂🤦‍♀️), Nolan started getting fussy in the playroom. I had this thought that I better check and make sure he was fine before getting in the shower and it's a freaking good thing I did, because lo and behold I found him with his diaper off and to make matters worse, the diaper had poop in it! Sooo there was he was with an exposed poopy bum, but by some miracle not much had gotten on the floor. 🙌 That boy clearly cannot be trusted anymore with just a diaper on his bottom and no pants or shorts over top.... 🤦‍♀️

I got a text from my Aunt Deb while we were out and about saying that she was in the area. So once we got home we were delighted with a brief stop in from her. She was so sweet to drop off a little surprise birthday gift for Maeve - some candy and a McDonald's gift card - which of course Maeve was giddy over. It was even sweeter that she also gave me some pretty flowers as an early Mother's Day gift! She knows how to spoil us!! The kids just love her and it was SO cute to see Nolan reaching for her a few times and walking over to her for a hug! And then Rowan was putting on a little show for her jumping around like an excited little maniac. 😂Pretty sure she was just eating it all up that they loved seeing her! So fun that we live close enough to each other that they can have a relationship with her too. 🥰

And for my laugh of the day: not even sure what the problem was, but in the evening Maeve said, "it's a girl problem!" to Adam, signifying that she wanted me instead and then a few minutes later, Rowan was also having an issue with something and said quite confidently, "it's a girl problem!" 😂🤔 Leave it to him to always copy his sis, whether it makes sense or not. 😏

Thursday, May 6th:

Somehow after spending hours out the day before, we still managed to need to go out to almost all the same stores AGAIN to either return stuff, or keep looking for other things... I don't even know, but I'm just glad that on the second go around we ended up with everything we needed. 🙌 Hallelujah. I'm just proud of the boys for doing so well with all our running around so many stores. It was a lot and they were little troopers and had fun looking at all the birthday party stuff! Rowan had me laughing big time when we were in the pick up line after school and he saw the no phone sign in the grass and thought it meant you aren't allowed to be on the phone while in that grassy area. 😂😂 He said, "It's probably because you might drop them and lose them in the grass..." Can't blame him for his logic on that one! It also doesn't help that he sees me on my phone all the time anyway while waiting in that line, so why would he think it's a rule for me to not be on my phone...!? 😅 Oops. I might be discreet, but I am guilty. I'm obviously not the only parent doing it though, considering they put those signs out halfway through the year. Sadly it probably has not changed a thing....

Thursday night I got my first stab at making one of those balloon arches that always look awesome! I had no idea that you make those with a kit, which does mean it's less complicated than you might think, however it's not totally fool proof! I got through stringing on half of the balloons before Adam pointed out that it was looking wonky and that's what I realized it does indeed matter that all balloons go on facing the same direction. 🤦‍♀️😩😭 Soooo long story short, I had to start over and it took me waaay too long to get that thing done and then even longer to get it hung up right on the wall. It took way too much tape and finagling that Adam and I both swore to never make one of those again. 😅 Of course we also wrapped all her presents too, so she could feel the magic of her birthday first thing in the morning. It was kind of a late night... no rest for the weary!

Friday, May 7th:

Hard to believe Maeve woke up a SIX year old!! I must say, even though it takes a lot of work to put on all the fun for birthdays, Maeve is one of those kids that makes you really feel like it's worth it!! She was smiling ear to ear and so stunned to see how awesome the rainbow balloon arch looked all put together. She was also super excited that on her birthday it happened to be a dress up day for school and she got to be a little 80s chick for the day! So much fun. Also sent her off with the packaged rice krispy treats that are birthday themed and she said that all the kids in her class said they were soooo good and that she should bring those every year. 😂 While she was at school, I had a hay day at home making her Zombies themed cupcakes and a couple batches of homemade frosting to use for those and her rainbow cake. I made the first batch and it didn't taste good AT ALL and it was quite the fiasco to try and overcome the extra sugaryness and keep it the right consistency. It wasn't thick enough by the time I fixed the flavor, but luckily I made a better second batch and decided to just mix the 2 in the end and that worked out well. It certainly looked like a bomb went off in my kitchen for a while, but Rowan had a fun time helping me along the way!

Maeve's birthday request was to leave school early, so I picked her up an hour early and was shocked to see cars already lined up at 1:30pm. 😳 Who has time to sit there for an hour!?!? Good Gandhi. We had to go inside to get her and I got to watch her little legs walking as fast as they possibly could down the hallway to get to us and it was one of the cutest things I've ever seen. 😂😍 Her fast walk when she gets excited is just the best! When we got home, Maeve and Rowan were both excited to help put all the Zombies 2 cupcake toppers on top of the cupcakes. Then of course part of the festivities was watching Zombies 2 with popcorn. It was certainly a day devoted to Zombies 2! After Adam got home from work, we headed to Culver's for dinner and then had cupcakes and opened presents back at home. She was so pleased with everything and was being super cute saying thank you after opening each of the presents that were from us. We got her a cool pink snake flashlight and a glow in the dark fort building kit and then Rowan got her a pink light up monster truck. 😂 Cute girl was excited to open and see it, but truth be told it is getting played with more by Rowan and Nolan since then. 😏 She got a bunch of doll clothes and accessories from Gram and Gramps and a couple activity books from Grandma and Grandpa. She also loved that she could read all of her birthday cards mostly by herself! Little girl is growing up. I feel like it's been a big jump from 5 to 6 - she just looks so much older, skinnier, and is so much more mature! It kinda kills me that my little girl is starting to slip away. She's not seeming so little anymore! 😭

We actually had to rush to her dance studio after cupcakes and presents because she had a curtain call rehearsal for her recital from 7 to 8pm. I actually didn't know that until like 5pm, but luckily it worked out and we had just enough time to do all the celebrating! She had fun getting to dance for the last hour of her birthday before coming home and getting ready for bed. Lucky me, I spent the rest of the night making all the rainbow cake layers for the rainbow cake for her birthday party the next day! All I wanted to do was sit on the couch and finally relax, but I had to grit my teeth through the final party prep. Rainbow cakes are also no joke to make!! I almost thought it was going to be a failure in the end, but somehow it all worked out and turned out great, thank heavens!! The lady who posted the recipe I used suggested freezing layers of frosting to make the cake assembly easier. So I had them in the freezer, BUT then I found out from a friend who is majorly talented with cake making that that was a weird recommendation so I scratched it, but in the end I wish I had stuck with it just because I had already layered them up to freeze like that. It kinda made extra work for me in the end to get all the frosting off the parchment rounds I cut... 🙄🤦‍♀️ At least I gained some knowledge in the process and know what to do better next time!

Saturday, May 8th:

It was an early, hectic morning to get all the final party preparations done before the party started at noon. And of course it didn't help that we had Maeve's dance class thrown in the middle of that at 9:30am. It was kinda hard to just sit still waiting for her class to be over just thinking about what was left to be done once we got home. But it all worked out and we got the rainbow fruit skewers made and the rainbow cake finished and then Adam left to go grab the pizza once the girls started showing up.

It was a cute, fun little party and so cute to see the enthusiasm and excitement from a handful of giddy like 5 and 6 year olds. I was totally cracking up because the first activity that the girls did as they came in was to guess how many skittles were in a jar that I had on the entry way table and whoever guessed closest got some unicorn tattoos. There were 152 in there and one girl guessed 30 something 😂 and then legit the other 3 ALL guessed 100 - which is funny because none of them knew what each other had guessed, since they wrote their numbers down. 😳 Like what are the odds? SO I had them guess again to see who would get closest the second time around and I did let them know there were more than 100. Then, no joke, they ALL guessed 200 (again without knowing what each other was guessing).... 😂😂 It was killing me! I guess I shouldn't be surprised that they were stuck on whole numbers like that as 5 and 6 year olds. The third time was a charm when I told them that all 3 digits they wrote down needed to be different, and that did the trick! They were all so giddy with excitement when I told them we were gonna have skittle soda with their pizza and fruit skewers. Thank you pinterest! Cutest little idea I found to put some skittles in the bottom of a cup of sprite so that the sprite would turn that color. They totally loved it! After eating, they all made rainbow bracelets with their names on them, painted some cute little wooden boxes that had a rainbow on them that they got to take home, did a marshmallow toss game with rainbow marshmallows, and then of course we had a rainbow pinata! The girls seemed to enjoy all the activities and one of them even said while making her bracelet, "I am just having the best time right now!" 🥰 So stinking adorable. Unfortunately, right after that when I went to tie her finished bracelet onto her wrist I accidentally let go of it when trying to tie the knot and all the beads went everywhere. 😳🤦‍♀️ Luckily, she rolled with it and remade it and did not make me feel terrible by following it up with "...and now I'm having the worst time ever" 😅Phew, dodged that bullet. Ironically, when I was pouring some paint onto a plate for this SAME girl, I somehow knocked over one of the other little jars of paint and spilled some paint on her box. 🙈🙈🙈Poor girl probably thought I was out to get her!! Some seriously great luck on my part though, like what in the world!? It was one of those "is this real life?" moments for sure. 😂 It would have been helpful if my second mistake could have at least impacted a different girl, but nope. She took it all like a champ and I give her major kudos. Luckily, I also had an extra rainbow box so I at least redeemed myself there and she didn't have to take home a ruined box. ANYWAY, after all those activities, Maeve opened presents and then they finished off with cake before getting picked up. She got some fun little presents, her favorite of which was a few more LOL dolls to add to her LOL doll collection that I swear she barely even plays with, but somehow is still in love with them. 🤔 Doesn't compute for me, but whatevs. She also got a wearable unicorn blanket and thought that was pretty legit. We quickly learned that you can give some pretty dang cozy hugs wearing that thing. Nothing like being enveloped in a blanket while being hugged! All in all, it was a major success and an hour after the party ended Maeve told me she wished she could have another party starting right then. 😂 If only life could just be a non stop party! It was music to my ears though considering all the work it took to put it on! #worthit I must say that I was quite happy to veg the rest of the day and have all that weight off my shoulders!

Sunday, May 9th:

It was pretty awesome to have a complete shift and be the one celebrated and pampered following such a busy couple of days for me, with it being Mother's Day! A big party weekend at our house for sure!! Maeve had some cute school gifts to show me and I about died laughing when she gave me a fill in the blank Mother's Day note. She wrote that I was 12 inches tall and weighed 11 pounds. 😂😂😂 I'm just a fat, squatty newborn I guess. 🤷‍♀️ She also wrote that I don't like to clean, which made me laugh because I basically clean all the time and I don't operate super well without a clean house. Turns out, she said that because her teacher asked her what I don't like and she "had to pick something!" that I don't like. I'm just glad it wasn't easy for her to think of things I don't like - guess that means I'm a pretty happy person. 😏 She also gave me a little plant and a cute little picture of herself on a little tile with some ribbon on it to hang it up somewhere. Too cute! Maeve helped Rowan make a cute little card for me too, so that was adorable. Adam made me some crepes filled with nutella and strawberries for breakfast that were delish - our new Mother's Day tradition - and then he also made some chicken and cheese stuffed breadsticks for dinner - another new tradition cause they're that good!! Yum. Adam also got Maeve and I a matching necklace set - they're both dainty gold short necklaces (just longer than a choker) with little circles on them. Mine has a full dandelion on it blowing in the wind, while Maeve's has just a piece of one on it like a piece of mine went to hers. Super cute mother daughter set! He did a good job. 👏 He even altered them both to be shorter, because they weren't quite as short as I was hoping. It was awesome to end up with it being the perfect length! 🙌

It was a nice low key day spent with my people at home. We skipped church cause Maeve wasn't feeling great in the morning - she was fine, but was seriously so mellow and lazy ALL day. Apparently all the birthday festivities just wore her out! I call it the post birthday hangover. 😂 It didn't help that she didn't get enough sleep Thursday or Friday night because she was just soooo excited for everything. I think she only came alive once during all of Sunday when we randomly got going on some Knock Knock jokes. I kid you not that her and Rowan were spitting out the most random, not even for real knock knock jokes for like an hour straight. They thought they were soooo funny, which was pretty hilarious because most of them didn't make sense at all. Adam and I were laughing pretty hard at times. The best might have been when Rowan did the Banana one where you say that one repeat and then he finally ended it with "Orange you glad I didn't say orange!" 😂😂🤔 Too funny. They also loved throwing out "Knock knock. Who's there? Door. Door Who? Dora the Explora!" 😂

Other than that, the only other major excitement was pulling out Maeve's new fort building kit and making a legit fort in the living room. Her and Rowan had fun with it, but we quickly learned that Nolan should never be allowed near a fort and all future forts must be made when he is not present. 🤦‍♀️ That kid simply destroys anything and everything in his path, he might as well have Destroyer as his middle name. 😂 Trouble!

Wellllll, that about does it!! A busy fun week for sure. And now for lots of pics!!

Rowan's face! 😳🙈 He's crazy!!

Nolan surprisingly loves this game 😂

Trouble!!

Walmart shenanigans. These boys are too much sometimes!! 😂😍 They were being pretty silly and it was cracking me up. Poor Nolan basically gets put in headlocks and still laughs. 😂

😍

Braided her hair before bed so it would be crimped for 80s day!

700 hours and swear words later... 😂

Used the cupcake toppers to make the presents look more clearly zombie themed too! Nailed it.

My 80s birthday girl!

Opening presents! She picked out an LOL doll from Gram and of course that was her favorite gift 😂🤦‍♀️

Her haul 🙌

She's so pretty! Love that pretty little face.

These turned out pretty great!

Slaved over this thing and I was pretty pleased with the end result!

The set up! 👆👇

Leave it to Ivy to wail on this thing and have enough strength to break it open! 😂 She did eat 3 pieces of pizza, so she's clearly no joke!

With her party presents!

From left to right: Bella, Ivy, Maeve, Sarah, and Amira. Sarah and Amira are from her Kindergarten class. She invited a couple other school friends that couldn't make it unfortunately.