Madelyn's 8th birthday: Good News, Bad News style

Here's a helpful hint for all of you: try not to have a baby in December. (Madelyn was supposed to be born in January, btw.) At first it will be alright...but sooner or later said baby will want to have big birthday parties, and if her birthday is four days before Christmas you've got a real problem on your hands.

*Note* I've already gotten about one thousand suggestions on how we should not actually celebrate/have a party ON Madelyn's birthday, and in years past I have had her parties a week or two before, but this year every other weekend was already booked solid. And we already celebrate her half birthday in June. So there.

Anyway!

Little Miss Madelyn turned 8 on December 21st.

 

Look! She got Li Shang and Mulan dolls! ♥

And a dress-up wedding dress and veil. And books clothes and Barbies and mermaids.

She had school that day (usually they're out for Christmas break by then...). That girl does love her birthdays. She was soooo excited. She got to bring Jolly Rancher candy canes for everyone in her class.

Even though her 6th birthday party at our house was complete chaos (her 7th was at a bouncy house place), I'd agreed to give her a big princess party here. It might be my last chance to do something like this for her before she grows up and is no longer into that stuff. So I'd been getting ready for it for months, buying things and making plans.

For what comes next, I would like to refer you to this book:

Good News, Bad News by Jeff Mack

It follows a little mouse and rabbit on their attempt to have a picnic, but things keep going wrong. It is remarkably like how the party went!

Bad news: I was up till 2:30 am the night before, sewing Christmas stuff. It was just an extremely busy, hectic week already and I was FRIED. Nowhere near to being party ready.

 

Good  news: I managed to get things cleaned and decorated with 2 minutes to spare before the party started at 5:00pm.

Bad news: I'd yelled at Madelyn (which made her cry) because she was supposed to be helping put toys away in Luke's room and instead she'd just been sitting there doing nothing for 20 minutes. She gets so overwhelmed by getting asked to do even simple tasks and it is so exasperating.

Bad news: Mark hadn't had a chance to de-ice the front porch earlier in the day, so I spent the first 10-15 minutes of the party outside, breaking ice and shoveling it off the porch so people wouldn't slip and fall. Also, one of the moms got so stuck in the snow in the street in front of our house that one of the dads had to come borrow my shovel to dig her out.

Good news: The delay meant that Kamryn (who'd forgotten about the party till I called her at this point) got there in time to participate in everything.

Bad news: The first activity was supposed to be making necklaces and bracelets (with pony beads and elastic) but I couldn't find the beads I'd bought!

 

Good news: I finally found them in my [incredibly messy] room. 

 

Good news: The girls all made beautiful jewelry and had fun doing it.

Bad news: Madelyn stood up to show me her necklace, which wasn't tied off yet, dropped it on the floor and half of the beads fell off. She started crying....it just wouldn't be a birthday without a meltdown or two!

 

Good news: The girls then got their nails painted and looked very glamorous indeed.

Bad news: One of the girls insisted on painting her own nails and in the process dropped my (new, I might add) neon pink polish all over my floors!!! It was time for ME to have a meltdown!!! I cleaned it up very quickly but had to scrub pretty hard for it to come off the laminate. I think there's still some on the chairs...Oy.

  

Impromptu flexibility contest....

 

Good news: While the girls were busy, I went and prepared Madelyn's room with princessy dress-up things to surprise them with.

 

Bad news: Luke came in a few minutes later and destroyed everything, and I had the girls all lined up to come in before I'd realized it. So I had to stop them and go and redo it all. Ugh.

Good news: The girls had a blast picking out pretty things to dress up in.

Bad news: I had intended to finish the edges of all this satiny/silky/lamé fabric (that the girls were taking home with them) but had run out of time, so it was all fraying everywhere.
OH WELL!

Then came the fashion show!

Top l-r: Madelyn, Kamryn, Ellie, Gracie

Bottom l-r: Kasia, Luke, Ashley and Emma

I should probably mention that a couple of her guests are hyper enough to be worth 3 girls a piece...even under normal, non-party circumstances...the noise level was unbelievable.

 What sass!

 Presents (this one was a GINORMOUS makeup kit....oh boy)

Good news: Mark got off work and got some Pizza Hut for everyone. Did you know that some 7-year olds are capable of eating 2x the amount of pizza as I am? Those girls ate through almost two whole large pizzas. With tons of ranch dressing. And root beer.

Bad news: We were running late and parents were already starting to arrive.

 I squawked at Mark to HURRY UP, let's do the pinata! *&^!%@*$!

Good news: At some point during the party, I'd managed to get the cupcakes frosted (just slapped it on, you can tell) and the little Cinderella decorations on.

Bad news: I FORGOT TO GIVE THEM OUT!

We didn't even sing Madelyn happy birthday, and after the party I realized all the cupcakes were still on the counter. Fail.

We cleaned up, and then Luke discovered a baggie full of beads on the counter and so dumped them out. 

He's so helpful that way!

Birthday girl had to finish opening her pile of presents from that morning (spoiled!!).

 

And then we FINALLY sang "Happy Birthday". Madelyn holds the belief that a person doesn't turn a year older until the candles on their birthday cake are blown out. So she turned 8 at last right before bedtime.

Shwoo!!!

And that is why this is the last Big Friend Party we're having at my house (for Madelyn at least--Luke had the good sense to be born in September) and why I had to go and stare at a blank wall for a while after this day was over. 

The end.