The birthday party!

Phew! The only way to describe how I feel is complete and utter exhaustion. I can barely lift my arms they are sooo tired. Nate left yesterday morning--but all was OK, because Aunt Katie (poor unsuspecting Katie!) was coming for a visit and would be there to help with the birthday festivities. All I had to do was make two butterfly cakes (because after all we were having a party for TWO birthday girls), wrap the party favors, pick-up balloons and get everyone to our party destination. That doesn't sound too difficult does it?

Well, backtrack two days to when we decided to hire a painter. Our conversation went something like this, "We'd like to use you how soon can you do the job?" Jesus, "Probably next week sometime, if it's not raining. I will call you when it looks good." The very next morning the children yell up to me in my room, "why is that strange man in our backyard?" I run downstairs and who should be starting to water pressure clean our siding, but Jesus! "I thought you were going to call me next week?" I say. "Oh, well, it's not raining tomorrow so we'll start today". OK, I think, but I have no idea what color to pick--between the birthday party, the renters who want to fill out a non-existent application and then sign a non-existent lease, not to mention see the house, as well as company visiting--I can find the time to pick out colors.

The next morning he was there and I'm thinking I don't have any idea what color. I quickly looked at his color swatches (with Nate just before he left) and just picked the color most like what we had and was done with it! That evening I looked at one of the pillars on the front porch and I could stick my finger right through it. I pushed on the wood and it felt like a sponge--oozing with water. I talked to the painter about it and he said, he would just caulk it really well. I got to thinking--this is not a good solution. So, I decided I would attempt the repair myself. After using my great big non-existent muscles I managed to pull the thing apart and go buy wood to replace it with all by 10:30pm. At which time I decided I'd better draw up that lease so the new tenants can sign it and I can take the house off the market and stop showing it and answering tons of phone calls and emails about it. At 12:30 I went to bed. I wasn't able to make the cakes, but I could do it in the morning. I woke up at 6am and hit the groung running--to make the cakes and start on the project on my house before the painters were back to finish. Aurgh! At 10:30am I was finished with the project and I couldn't even nail in the last 4 nails because my arms hurt so bad from hammering. What little strength I had was gone.

Thank heaven for Katie! The poor thing looked at me in horror when she saw the state I was in upon her arrival. "What is going on?" she asked. She bathed the girls for me, made the 2nd cake, helped decorate it, changed poopy pants and took photos of my birthday girls because I had to miss most of the party due to my forgetting to bring drinks. After running around exercising at the gymnastics center I knew those little bodies would be thirsty so I had to run back home for them. I swear I don't know how I function from day to day!

All in all, the girls were thrilled! 16 of their friends came and I think they all enjoyed it. Vivian was elated to get to go down on the gym floor. She usually has to stand behind the railing and watch. The party leader couldn't believe how fearless she was! Katie said she walked across the beam with her arms up totally confident and she has never even been on a beam before. She loves gymnastics! As do the other girls. I will be so bummed when we leave this place as they have made a lot of improvement. Emmy and Abby have more muscle definition than me and Jake put together!

Next weekend I get to do it all over again for Emmy's party at the gymnastics center. I was thinking we would have a garage sale that morning too. OR, maybe not....

Signing off for now. If ever there was an evening to do nothing but watch TV it would be tonight. I still have a mountain of clean-up to do in the kitchen, however, and tomorrow being mother's day I don't want to have to tackle it then!