Oren's Birthday

First off, there are many pictures to go with today, but I don't feel like loading them onto the computer and fixing them up right now, so I'll just post them later.

Our day started bright and early at 7:00. Jeff felt refreshed as he was sleeping in; I was ready to crawl back in bed as it was much too early for me. That's what happens when hubby gets up at 4:30 every morning while I crawl out at 8 or 9. Oh well. After getting everything ready for a day at Michelle's house (extra diapers, undies, snacks for the trip, etc) we jumped into the car, met my parents at their house, then caravan-ed over to the base for Oren's birthday party.

Marie and I (and Jeff, a bit) helped Michelle get lunch ready. I did lots of chopping of veggies and fruits, Marie did deviled eggs, Jeff helped to cut up grapes. For lunch we ended up with: a huge pot of all-beef bun-length hot dogs with buns and all the fixin's; a delicious potato salad that Mom made and I added some flavor to (she had made it with light mayo and complained it was too bland); a veggie salad with cucumber, tomato, yellow pepper, and green onion (Michelle will be putting the recipe up on her food blog); fruit salad with all sorts of fresh fruits, cool whip, cottage cheese, and Jello mix; deviled eggs; and pink lemonade. I of course ate too much, and thoroughly enjoyed every bite!

The cake Michelle made was absolutely fantastic! The party was pirate-themed, so the cake was an island with a stream and palm trees, and a treasure chest candle. The border around the bottom was made of gummy sharks. So cute! I learned a lot about fondant and edible spray paint and piping gel and fun decorating stuff like that.

A little after 2, the guests arrived (Michelle's friend and her daughters; the other party guests were Mom's kids and mine). They had a treasure hunt, looking for pieces to treasure map puzzles; and there was a pin-the-X-on-the-treasure-map game, even Zaylee got to play-it was adorable!; and there was a parrot pinata. Zaylee was beyond adorable when she got to hit at the parrot. Michelle told her to hit the bird, so she was swinging at it with a bat, saying, "Bad bird! Yucky bird!" over and over. It was too funny!

Oren was dressed up like a pirate, courtesy Marie, a roll of crepe paper, and some tape. Marie is pretty creative, I was impressed with the results. After the games we had cake and ice cream. When it was time to cut the cake, Michelle didn't really want to cut into it, because it looked so nice. But she reminded herself that when her clients are like that, she's like, "It's a cake! Just cut it!" So she did, and we were all glad, because it was great!

Zaylee was having a lot of fun all day; and a lot of meltdowns! She really isn't used to having so much going on, and she was having a hard time dealing with it. When I would bring her in to use the bathroom, she would yell and scream at me and throw a big tantrum. At one point she had some candy from the pinata in her mouth, and another piece in her hands. I didn't want her eating too much candy, so we took the piece in her hands, and she threw an royal fit! So I took the lollipop out of her mouth too. Boy, she didn't like that. It took quite a while for her to calm down after that insult.

I think that Jeff's inability to turn down any of Zaylee's demands (she's a Daddy's girl, and he gladly obliges) is turning me into the bad guy. I don't want her to have candy, he offers her candy, I tell them no candy, he gives her candy while I'm not watching, I take it away. I mean, honestly, she's throwing a fit - the last thing she needs is candy! But he says that it will make her stop throwing a fit, so it's totally alright for him to give it to her. My thought is that giving in will teach her that throwing a fit is an acceptable method of getting what she wants, and that is not what I want to teach her. He gives it to her anyway. Hence - Daddy is the good guy and Mommy is the bad guy. Grr. >:-/

Sorry, just a little vent there. I'm better!

Anyway, we finally got around to leaving at around 5. Michelle gave us their old entertainment center (lovingly referred to by Michelle as "that monstrosity"). We're just glad to get the TV, VCR, and DVD player up off the coffee table. Now Thomas can't sit there and bang on the DVD player and make the movie skip over and over again while we're watching something. And Zaylee can't repeatedly open and close the DVD player and put stuff in that should not be going in. And we can now use our coffee table as a coffee table (minus the coffee, of course). Happy stuff.

The kids slept on the way home, which was nice, and now they're both snug in bed, sleeping away. Which is where I want to be right now. So I'll end this post with the promise to put up some pictures in the near future. Good night.