Cool mom or glutton for punishment? You be the judge.

Alternate post title:
Yes, I am insane. Why do you ask?



Yesterday was Brielle's birthday, so tomorrow night, she has invited 17 of her closest friends to our house for her Birthday party.

Yes, you heard me correctly. I said 17.

seventeen.

SEVENTEEN!!!


Seventeen 10 and 11 year old girls will be spending 4 hours at my house.
Now, before any of you start giving me a hard time about allowing her to invite that many friends, I will let Brielle explain the situation.

"Shannon, Stacie and Lauren are my best friends at school, so I want to invite them. But if I invite Lauren, I need to invite Kelly because they're good friends and I don't want her to feel bad, and Katie invited me to her party, so I should invite her but then I should probably invite Hannah because Katie doesn't really know any of the other girls but if I invite Hannah, then she'll tell Kailey and Kailey is friends with Kelly too, and if I'm inviting Kailey and Kelly, then I'll need to invite Isabelle, Jessica and Natalie, and if I invite Natalie, then I should probably invite her little sister Rachel too, and I need to invite all my friends from church, Kristi, Danielle and Melissa, but if I invite them, I don't want Becky and Alicia to feel left out because they carpool with the other girls and I'm sure they will find out about the party, then I still need to invite my friends from dance, Shannon and Tiffany, and Morgan is in our same group for the recital, so I should invite her too.........."

(all names have been changed mostly because I can't keep them all straight in the first place)

I decided it was easier to let her invite all 17 than to limit her to 12 and listen to her stress over who to cut from the list.

Anyway, we plan on doing the normal party things, however, instead of pizza, Daddy will be grilling hot dogs for the girls. He even promised not to burn them.

Brielle wants to make her own birthday cake. She saw Amber's tie dye cake a few months ago, and has been anxious to make one.

We're also going to have the girls watch a movie. They are going to watch Pee Wee's big adventure. Only one of Brielle's friends has seen it, none of the rest have.

Actually, we wouldn't really need to have them watch the movie, they can just have Max recite the whole thing for them. (I won't even tell you how many times he watched that movie while we were on vacation) It's really cute when he repeats the Large Marge part of the movie. Or as he calls her Lahwge Mahwge.

So basically, the movie is approximately an hour and a half.
It will probably take a half hour or so to eat.
Cake - 15 minutes.
Opening presents - 25 minutes

The girls will be here for 4 hours, that leaves about one hour and twenty minutes left to come up with something to entertain these girls.

We had originally thought about letting them play outside for a while, but it looks like it might rain.

I thought tie dyed t shirts would be a fun activity, but I know that at least one of the girls will wear a new outfit that would be destroyed when the dye fight breaks out.

I need HELP!!

Please, do you have any ideas for things we can do with all these little darlings?

The activity must be inexpensive, easy, not too messy, and completely legal. (emphasis on inexpensive, legal is negotiable)

I've already made a few suggestions shot down by the Birthday girl, such as.............
1. Pictionary marathon .
2. Pulling out the cleaning supplies and playing "Who can wash the walls the fastest?"
3. The quiet game.
4. Anything involving duct tape.

Activities we are still considering include:
Making magnets with craft foam.
Making pom pom ball creatures.

Please, any suggestions you have will be greatly appreciated.

Extra points will be given for creativity, and legitimate use of duct tape.



Now, for those of you still think I'm crazy for having this party I completely and wholeheartedly agree with you. However, I will be carrying a note pad around with me and taking notes. I figure I should be able to get at least 5-6 good posts out of this party.

(with my luck, they'll probably be quiet and well mannered the whole time)

(Wait! That would be a good thing wouldn't it?)

p.s. Max's Birthday is on Monday. We're having a party for him on Saturday.




Sidenote.
Nobody correctly guessed the location of our vacation.
We went to Arizona.


I'm quite serious. This was the road on our way through Flagstaff headed toward Phoenix. The really bad part? I did not anticipate snow, and packed accordingly.

Necessity is the mother of invention

What do you do when you're a little kid who is only trying to play your video game in the car, but since you are a little kid, you have a little head and the headphones are too big, and hang down below your ears?










Well, if you are a lucky little tyke who happens to have a very resourceful grandma sitting in the seat next to you in the car, you might just end up looking like this.


































This picture was taken shortly after beginning our very long drive to go on our vacation. Max had toasted himself two waffles and only eaten one of them so my mom put the other one in a sandwich bag and brought it along for him to eat later.
When Max was having difficulty with the headphones, his clever grandma came to the rescue and grabbed the closest thing she could find to lift the headphones high enough to reach his ears.

He traveled like that for over an hour and a half.

When we stopped for the first of many potty breaks a short break, Max got out of his carseat and happened to catch a glimpse of himself in the rear view mirror.

Apparently, he was unaware that he had traveled the last hundred miles or so with a waffle on his head.

To say that he was confused would be an understatement.

(I do need to mention that this turned out to be the perfect solution, the waffle was just the right thickness to raise the headphones to the proper position, and it conformed nicely to the shape of Max's head.
I do, however, have one word of advice if you plan to try this at home. You will need to remove the waffle from the sandwich bag. We first tried it inside the bag, and it kept sliding off the back of his head)



We were on vacation for 10 days. I would like you all to look at these photos and guess where we traveled to. (If I already told you where we went, you don't get to guess, because obviously, that would be cheating)




I will write more about the trip tomorrow. Right now, I need to go to sleep.
I'm still sick.
My doctor managed to squeeze me into his schedule tomorrow morning at 8:20, which is the exact time that I should be dropping my kids off at school.

I just love it when I have the opportunity to be in two places at once.