Party hard

We had Emma's birthday party yesterday afternoon. It was pretty successful, I think. Nothing got broken & there were only a couple of "selfish" moments, where someone didn't want to share a toy. I think the party went pretty smoothly considering the stress that came before it. I, of course, being the huge procrastinator that I am, waited until the last possible moment to get things I should have gotten earlier this week, leaving Jeff at home with the kids while I went and bought some last minute things. By the time I got back, which was a lot later than I had anticipated, Sarah's screaming and Jeff's running around the house trying to get everything finished. I felt so bad. Poor Jeff had to change his shirt because he was sweating from all the stuff he was doing. But we were able to pull it together before anyone showed up. Everyone came except for one person. I think that they might have had an emergency, but I don't know their phone number, so I'll have to wait until school starts next month before I can find out, unless they call me. I'm going to save the goody bag I made for the little girl & give it to her when I see her next.
The goody bags consisted of a package of hair clips that came with a keychain that had a brush and some lipgloss on it. I don't know how they managed that, but oh well. I also got 30 pairs of stick-on earrings and a butterfly wand. The wands were a big hit. Emma has one from my mom and everyone wanted to play with it, so I gave out the bags early so everyone could have their own. Quite a few parents stayed behind, so we were able to have some nice conversations.
The girls played dress-up with all of Emma's playclothes. Some of them even brought their own. Jeff played a couple games of CandyLand with them. Sarah was a good baby for the party. She was just looking around at everyone and making funny faces at them.
Instead of a cake, I made cupcakes and put frosting on them and the girls were able to decorate them themselves. They had fun with that.
Emma got some really nice gifts. She was excited about all of them, but as soon as the wrapping paper came off, she was like, "What's next?" She wanted to make sure all of them were opened before getting really excited about any of them. She received the My Little Pony Dance Studio, and 2 extra My Little Ponies, 2 ballerina Barbies (different kinds), a Polly Pocket set, a Clickits jewelry set, a Princess Activity set, a Dora computer game, Junior Scrabble, and a Funfoam acitivity set. After she opened them all, we got all the toys out of the packaging so the girls could play with them. Well, all except 3 of them. All of the activity & jewelry sets we didn't open because they all small parts, glue & glitter. I told Emma she could play with those when everyone had left. The kids played with the toys until it was time to go. I think all in all it was a great time, but Jeff's thinking next year we need to hire someone to entertain the kids. I said anyone but a clown. Or maybe we'll just have the part at McDonald's. Emma's friend Ryan had his birthday party there.
I wasn't able to get the Bella Dancerella thing for Emma like I wanted, but oh well. It's a hot ticket item this season, apparently. So I'll have to keep looking once we get to CA. Emma played her Dora the Explorer computer game last night and already beat it. I'm thinking we're going to have to start her on some more advanced stuff in order to keep her mind occupied.
Jeff has finals tomorrow & Tuesday and then he came relax (sorta) until we leave on Friday. We're taking a later flight, getting into Sacramento at 11pm their time. It'll be 2am our time, so hopefully the children will be asleep. It should be fun carrying them both through the airport.
We're finally figured out our itinerary for the 2 weeks we'll be there. We're going to drive down to Southern CA on Christmas Eve to spend Christmas with my dad. Then we're going over to Bakersfield for a couple days, then back up to Sacramento to catch our flight home. It's going to be hectic, but we're hoping to be able to see everyone we can.