Sleepover

We didn't have a friend birthday party for Amelie this year - just a special meal, cake, and presents with family. She asked for a sleepover party after going to one at her friend's house, and we said yes for a (very) belated birthday. She invited her cousin Ellie and three friends from school. We actually traded James and he went to stay the night with his cousin Ben so he'd be out of the girls' hair.

Her original plans were to have a scavenger hunt at the park for party favors, eat Chinese takeout, show her friends the playhouse, and build a fire in the backyard and toast marshmallows for s'mores.

Well, it rained almost all day and then was chilly and muddy, so they just opened favors and toasted the marshmallows inside over candles instead.

They did go out to play in the playhouse - and got terrifically muddy. I had to rinse shoes off in the sink afterwards - and then they weren’t dry yet at 2am (more on that later) so I threw them in the dryer.

Leah snuggled down with everyone to watch the movie that we started about 7:30 or 8:00pm with dimmed lights and popcorn. HOW NAIVE!

Then they rocked out with the instruments in the basement.

There were chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast and a mad scramble for a bunch of misplaced belongings when the parents came to pick them up.

And (almost) everyone stayed up incredibly, unbelievably late - the last ones finally caved about 3:00AM.  One of the moms texted me a picture of her kiddo conked out on the couch about 20 minutes after leaving our house.

Aunt Barb texted me this picture - apparently Ben and James went to sleep at regular bedtime:

Poor Sam is somewhat shell-shocked. He said maybe MAYBE we'd consider it again when she is 10.