Update

I'm a little behind. I've had a busy week backing into Josh and Eliza's new car and holding Brennan's hand through the anxiety of it all especially after finding out about our $1,000 deductible. I've had better weeks!

Before that though, we had a really nice visit from John and Jamie. They're not used to snow and fortunately they managed to get here and back between storms. They came bearing gifts that were a big hit with the kids. The boys got a little helicopter and airplane with a launcher. The girls each got a package of about 12 boxes of little craft projects to do. Grandma kindly helped them dig into a couple of projects. We mostly hung around here and enjoyed their company, but on Monday Jamie and I took the 3 big kids to "Enchanted" which we all loved! We're so grateful we got to have them for the weekend!

This morning was Abigail's birthday party and of course, my camera was dead when I tried to turn it on and evidently those were the last two we had, so much to my dismay -- no photos! We did the breakfast/pajama thing from 9:00 to 10:30 this morning. It turned out really cute. Thanks for the ideas! Everyone of the guests came so we had 10 invitees, plus all our kids and Chloe. I asked Anna and Chloe to be my party helpers and that was the best thing I EVER did.

While Brennan and I were cooking and serving the food Anna and Chloe (all on their own) asked each girl to stand up and tell everyone their name and what name they wish they had. Yeah, I never in a million years would have thought to ask that question, but the girls didn't hesitate and all of them had a ready answer. Brennan and I were in the kitchen DYING laughing, quietly, of course. "My name is Danielle, and I wish I had the name Kiarra." "My name is Meg, but I wish it was Princess Power." etc. It was hilarious. There were about three of them including Abby that were perfectly happy with their own names.

Anna also got all their attention at the beginning and said, "Okay, we have one rule here...You HAVE to have FUN!" Killed me.

Also during breakfast Brennan was keeping the girls entertained by his antics offering them hot sauce for their pancakes, or handing them a piece of bread when they asked for a pancake. The girls ate it up.

After we fed them, we had them each decorate a big T-shirt with fabric paint so they'll have a new night-shirt (thanks for the idea, Bobbi!). Then Abby opened gifts and then they all decorated a cupcake to take home. We played a Valentine's variation of fruit-basket for about 10 minutes before their parents' picked them up. It was really fun, they are a really cute, sweet group of girls -- I hope they stay that way!