A Busy Week

Prepare yourself, this may be a long blog...

First I have to say... "Shame on me!" I cannot believe that I haven't had time to blog about our Maddie turning 7 years old LAST SUNDAY! She had a great birthday celebrating with our family last Sunday (her actual birthday) and then again with her class at school on the following Monday.

Maddie opening her presents:

Maddie in her "Hannah Montana" wig:

Getting ready to blow her candles out on her Hannah Montana guitar cake:

Maddie's class singing Happy Birthday to her:

However, we still had one party to go, which finally happened this weekend. On Saturday, we had four little girls over for a slumber party. Maddie decided to go with a "cooking" theme this year. So, we started out by making our own aprons.

I made one for Ashlyn and Brooke since they weren't there and Maddie insisted that I put on one too.

Then once we had our aprons on, we started out by making "dirt flower pots" for all the girls' moms for mother's Day! The girls had so much fun crushing up the Oreos, mixing up the pudding mixture and designing their own pots. We even had some extra to eat ourselves.

Of course the best part was licking the utensils...

We also made our own pizzas for supper, followed by baking ice cream cone cakes.

I even got all 5 girls bathed, in their pj's and ready for their bedtime movie by 8:45 pm. We, of course, watched High School Musical 3 and finished off the evening with root beer floats and popcorn.

But by 10:30, all girls were sound asleep in their sleeping bags (including Ashlyn and Brooke, who slept by me on the couch)! The sleepover went really well and I think that Maddie had a fun birthday! One of the funniest parts for me was when the girls all started singing the Hannah Montana song. I was amazed how they all new the words! I even had them sing it for me so I could get it on tape. Check it out:

As for the rest of my week and why it was so busy... it is called preparing for a MASSIVE garage sale! It started out being a small garage sale between one of my friends and me. We do a garage sale twice a year, once at my house in the spring and then again at her house in the fall! It works great and we have good luck selling that way. However, this year, I inviting some other family and friends to bring over anything they might have... you know, "the more the merrier" type of attitude. Wow, did we have more!!!! It almost got out of control and too much. However, we did get it all organized and marked (it took Mindy and I over one full week, working a little each day).

Here is a look at the garage this week while we were organizing. We were playing Where's Dylan? Do you see him?

So, two days of garage sale, one slumber party and a Mother's Day later, I am still moving....slowly though! I did get a small nap in yesterday, but am not getting off to a great start this morning as I sit here still in my pj's, my kitchen is a mess, the laundry room is starting to pile up again and Brooke seems to have caught a bug since she is running a low grade fever...but I'll get there.

I did have a wonderful Mother's Day. The girls made me feel very special and loved - and were really well behaved yesterday, so that was great too! We spent the day with my mother-in-law and Chris' family, which was really nice. However, I didn't get to see my mom on Mother's Day, but I hope to spend a day this week at her house and spend some time with her! I feel very blessed to be a mom to three beautiful children, to have a wonderful mother-in-law that I consider a second mom, and to have the best mom ever - one that supports me and loves me no matter what and has demonstrated to me how to be a great mom!