Samuel's 6th Birthday!

It was quite a humorous day for me.....think "Jon and Kate Plus 8", but it was "Lesli Plus 8" without Kate's organizational skills. It all started several months ago, when my friend called to ask me to watch some of her children while she visited a little boy they are adopting in Guatemala. I was very happy to do this, as I love all her kids like my own. They all play very nicely with my kids and are very well behaved. So I thought that since it was Samuel's birthday, and we'd already have some kids over, well, what's a few more? Did I mention that between my children, and my friend's children, three of the eight were two and under? In one of those flashes of brilliance that I have, that usually don't turn out as pictured, I invited about 10 little boys over to have a Star Wars party. A further flash of brillance involved allowing them all to make light sabers out of pipe insulation, and battle it out. This would all have been well and good had it not been for two things. The first being that my husband works for a living and was unable to make it home in time for the party because something urgent came up that he had to take care of. The second thing was the sudden rainstorm. The second thing was worse. Now the light saber fights were taking place in the family room. The big fat cupcakes I fed them were consumed, well, everywhere. The games I had planned were all outside games, so we had a very unstructured party where Jedis, Clones, and Siths ran amok and staged epic battles in my home. I think they had a ball. I think I missed the mental hospital by a hair, but only because Marianna came over early to talk me off the cliff (and clean). Thankfully, the storm broke just in time to take the pinata outside. They had fun busting Darth Vader's head open, and consuming the mass quantities of left-over Halloween candy that was stashed inside. In the end, no one got hurt, and nothing was broken. And Sam turned six. That would be 27 children's birthday parties under my belt. Unbelievable.