Girl Party!!!

What a great weekend! :-)

Our family loaded up and left home at about 10:00 and headed for Colorado. We made pretty good time and had minimal stops, so I was able to dump James off at the campground at about 4:30 and make it all the way to Jamey's house (thanks to 29 green lights and only 4 red which must be an all time record--and yes, we really did count!) just after 6:30, I think. Wa-Hoo!!! That's a first. We usually come dragging in sometime after 8 or 9 o'clock, so this was GREAT! Just in time for a larrupin' meal of hot dogs and burgers. Of course, later on we had to do "the chip thing," as called for by Haley. We did "the chip thing" several times over the weekend, even making it our entire meal one time. Don't waste too much energy trying to figure it out. It just means that we ate chips and salsa and guacamole (not ME) and queso dip and Jamey's fantastical 7 layer dip. Haley just felt it necessary that such an event should have an official title and called us all to participate in "the chip thing" over and over again. We humored her. She has forever lost her position as movie-picker-outter, so it seemed best to just go with her chip thing. ;-)

I don't remember a whole lot about Friday night except for total and utter chaos. We had four moms and 14 kids, total. The kids were just as excited as we were about the traditional gathering and it was really showing that night! Everybody was good, for the most part, just really excited. And when you have 14 kids in one house (let's say 13--little Lillie can't be blamed for any of it yet!) it translates into utter chaos. But that's okay; the Hays are blessed to have a nice sized house right now with a basement to lock the--oh, I mean send the children to play in. ;-) We played games and had a great time and finally called it a night sometime after 2:00, I think.

Saturday... Hhmmm. Can't think of what we did. We ate and played and just had a nice relaxing day. I put on a 3-2-1 Penguins show for the kids in the afternoon, buying myself a great 20 minute nap. :-)

We had a TON of food and it was rather disturbing to see how little of it was left at the end of the weekend. We had brownies and popcorn balls and peanut butter chewy thingies and lemon bars and these amazing chocolate chip cheesecake bars and some pumpkin chessecake and... oh, who knows what I'm forgetting, but we ate a whole lot of everything! CRAZY. But it's tough to party without good food. ;-)

On Saturday afternoon Tammy and Cathy (and her two boys, of course) and Genesis came up for a few hours and Sister Karen and MANDIE (!!!) and her two kids came over to visit, too. FUN!!! It brought our total attendance (ha!) to 27! It was SO great to see Mandie have even just a little while to visit. What a perfect addition to the Girl Party!!! She'll have to make it an annual thing. ;-) Oh, and Tammy is PREGNANT!!! I know you all know that already, but it seems more real to me now that I've seen her with my very own eyes. It's somehow exciting all over again! Ha! She looks GREAT!

We had let the kids stay up and talk in bed the first night (they were way too wound up to sleep anyway!), but that meant they were all working on less sleep than usual AND they had been running themselves ragged playing all day. So on Saturday night we put them to bed with a NO talking policy in place. Then us girls when downstairs and I whipped up on Haley in some more games. :-)

We then headed upstairs and watched our girl movie for the weekend. Like I said, after last year's episode Haley has been banned for life from ever being able to pick another movie. And YES, Nicolas Nickelby is THAT BAD. Darby O'Gill isn't a good way to save the night, either. Anyway, we went with a good movie that we had all seen before and thoroughly enjoy so there wouldn't be any chances of a repeat of last year's bomb. :-)

I was priviledged to sleep in the living room with one of the world's great monologers, so we didn't get to sleep until 3 something, at least. I kept waiting to see the sun start peeking through the blinds! Ha! Haley insists that the conversation was 50/50, but since I'm ragging on her about everything else, I'll blame the irresponsibly late night on her as well. What are friends for, anyway?! :-)

On Sunday morning Haley and Emilee headed back to Denver for their afternoon service and Jamey and I spent the morning getting ourselves and kids cleaned up for church there in town. We had a good little service, even without a pastor. The guys got back from Men's Retreat just after service ended, so we went out to eat, then headed back to Brother Dustin & Sister Jamey's house to spend the night. We played some games, but I hadn't thought to pack our traditional ones, so after I Buy we didn't really know what to do. We tried Clue, but James faded fast on us and quit before the game was even over, ruining it for the rest of us. Creep. ;-) Dustin and Jamey and I stayed up and talked until about 1:30, I think, then we CRASHED. I say that because I'm sure they were just as tired as I was and I was BEAT!

In the morning we followed our traditional departure plan: leave around 9:00 and go to Mardel, since that's when they open. We didn't come away with a cart full this time, so that's good! Just a creation book that was 50% off and a new Veggie Tales CD I talked James into. He thinks he bought it for the kids. ;-) We had a nice drive home and got here before it was dark, so that was GREAT! Enough time to get the van unloaded and start getting some things done in the house. And that's about it!

Okay, now for some pictures. I shoulda' put 'em in with the text, but I'm too lazy tonight. ;-)

Brother Dustin's kid ;-) came into the girls room and attacked them one night.

He finally got kicked out of there, so he headed into the boys' room and attacked them! Ha! It was so great!

Haley came bearing gifts. Anybody who knows anything about Haley's gifts just cringes any time she pulls out a bag and says, "Here, this is for you!" In fact, this one got passed around the table a few times before I finally gave up and opened it. And lo, and behold! It was CUTE!!! Wa-Hoo! I love those cowboy boot stockings!

The kids had a tea party one day. There weren't enough girls interested in participating, so they had to rope some of the guys into it, too.
Zekiel Boy got there too late to get a cup and saucer, but he didn't seem to mind using the creamer thingy! (It has a real name, I'm sure, but I can't think of it. Mom will share, I have no doubt!)
And it looks like Anna got cuffed! Weird. Boys sipping tea and little girls walking around in handcuffs.
There was just enough snow (crusty ice stuff, really) in the back yard for the kids to sled a little bit, though it didn't last for long. It's a FANASTIC sledding hill... except for the abrupt halt at the bottom! Ha! One or two turns apiece and they called it quits. I don't blame 'em!
Looks like that's about it. From the pictures we came away with it looks like it was a Kid Party more than a Girl Party! It was both, really, we just don't have to pictures to prove it because one girl took pictures, another girl forgot to, one girl sent her camera to Men's Retreat with her husband, and one girl likes to blame all of her problems on Fuji. (Em, you've got to make sure Haley sees this post somehow--she's gotten so much honorable mention here! Ha!)

Anyway, there you have it! The Girl Party Overtaken by a Kid Party!