What a crazy day we had today!

We started off the day at a birthday party at the Y for one of the girls' homeschool friends.  It was a surprise party, so that was soooo exciting!  The guests all hid behind a big curtain until Sarah came in, and then they ran out with the big SURPRISE!  The kids had a great time swimming and decorating T-shirts, and even the boys were included in the fun.

It was a pretty low-key party, just some family and friends and no presents.  My kids had each made a nice card and we attached a pack of stickers, temporary tattoos, and coloring sheets to them. 

I have to say that the no present thing was pretty nice.  The girls took such care to make their cards-- they wanted them to be so special because that was the main gift.  I really like that we got to focus on something other than the material stuff for a while!

We headed right from that birthday party to another one 30 minutes away.  Well, actually, we got about 3 miles away and had to go back to the Y for the girls' bags that they forgot.  R needed her bathing suit for the second party as well as the first, so she had packed 2 suits and towels.

The second birthday was for a girl that R knows from Sunday School.  I thought it was sweet that Katelyn had invited her to the party since they don't see each other outside of church, and they weren't even in the same Sunday School class this year.

R had a BLAST!  There was a bounce house and it was a High School Musical theme-- how can you go wrong???

While R was at Katelyn's party, A went over to play with my friend Jenifer's daughter Katie.  It was great that A was able to have a playdate just for her.  She said that she had a lot of fun playing LIFE, building a tent, playing hide-and-seek and sledding down the stairs on sleeping bags!  (OMG!!)

A and Katie have known each other since they were infants and they are both second children.  They also both tend to be a little shy and want to test the waters before jumping in.  They got along really well today and she was just so thrilled to be a big kid with a playdate!

M and C slept for most of the time that the girls were gone.  I should have done some tidying of the house or something equally productive, but I kicked back and relaxed and watched reruns of Gilmore Girls.  The quiet in the house was amazing!

So, that was the gist (I thought it was jist, but my spell check rejected it) of our busy day.  Hubby is still at work so I am off to tub everyone before bed.