PARTY!! (Part I)

I can hardly believe it. Hannah is now four!

Hannah was so excited for her birthday party.

The day started out hectic. Hannah had her final dance class in the morning. The kids and parents are absolutely awesome. We debated trying another studio next year, but we may just stay put because it looks like nearly everyone else is. This dance class has created more of a social network than I imagined.

We handed out our invitations a few weeks back and another family had been planning to have their daughter's party on the same day, at the same time. Instead, they changed their daughter's party to the day after Hannah's. On the morning of the party, the girl's dad thought he'd be funny and tell me to watch out for rain.  This would be a disaster.  Our plan for entertainment was to inflate a giant waterslide my parents bought for the girls and let the kids run around in the backyard.  At first I thought he knew something I didn't.  Ha, ha, he said. Just kidding. Does it look like it's going to rain?

Well, no. 

The day was beautifully sunny, hot, and of course muggy. Perfect for a little dip in some nice cool water and a slip down a fun slide.

So I went home and got the kids and house and food and party favors and balloons ready with a lot of help from a friend (Thank you, Deanna!), my aunt, and Craig.

Once the kids were dressed, I took the photo op:

Hannah and her friend, playing pre-party.

Then my cousin's wife, her mom and two kids showed up early from Houston.My cousin's wife loved holding Cohen, who is trying to escape!

Her mom eventually joined us in the kitchen as we cut up melon and made cold cut platters and veggie platters and fruit dip and... well, you get the picture.
A few of the food items as they went out:


As we were in the kitchen preparing, we started to smell something foul. We ran around checking diapers and couldn't figure it out until we realized we were cutting cheese.  Swiss cheese does not smell good when you cut it.

Things were looking good.  Put some family photos on the mantel, finally.
And we laid out the party favor buckets with some lei's Hannah just had to have when we went to the party store.

As we worked hard inside, Craig was busy getting the outside ready. First, the new canopy and seating went out:


And then the humongous waterslide.
And the balloons were starting to go up around the fence line. It was a little windy but warm. My neighbor calls and tells me she sees Craig working so hard in the yard and they are really excited to come to the party and try out the waterslide.

So Craig goes to take his shower and emerges fresh and clean.

He needn't have bothered, y'all.

He was about to get one courtesy of Mother Nature.  She is very temperamental here in Texas!

Ten minutes before the party is supposed to start, the heavens unleash a fury. A full-on, rip-roaring, thunder-clapping summer storm.

Craig walks out, takes one look out the window, and groans. The canopy is about to set sail. He runs to the door followed by my friend and my aunt. And what did I do?

Took pictures, of course! :)

Yeah, ummm.... some good advice: before you put up a canopy, read the directions and make sure ya know how to take it back down in a hurry - just in case.

So Craig is trying and trying and trying and the wind is lifting this thing up into the air and he and my aunt finally get the legs shorter, but they still can't collapse the center and the rain is pounding down. Craig yells for my friend to go inside because she doesn't have a change of clothes. I know what you're thinking.  I should be helping too.

But what do I do?

Take more pictures, of course. :)

My aunt is drenched. She probably needs a towel. Right after I get a few more shots in...

And off to the left of this picture? A sno-cone machine and a popcorn machine we rented for a whopping hundred bucks. That's okay -- all we had to do was move them inside to the counter and we were still good to go.

Craig, on the other hand was still outside trying to figure out the canopy. He's such a handyman.
See him looking over his shoulder at me?

Hmmm. Probably thought I could be doing better things with my time than take pictures of him wrestling the canopy.

It was so darn funny.

Now, you might be thinking this is turning into a major disaster. As far as we knew, we had fifty people heading over to our house for a b-day party and a waterslide and the whole thing was not going according to plan. And if we thought things couldn't get worse, we were wrong.  The lights go out.

The repercussions were crazy! Many of our party guests were stuck at traffic lights that weren't working, and only two families on our guest list made it within 45 minutes of party start time.  I thought for sure people weren't going to show because of the weather.

But they kept streaming in with the water.  I had no electricity. This was bad for several reasons.  Jenna gets social anxiety. When she gets this way the ONLY THING that calms her is the TV. Ah yes. Great conditions for a party.

At least we had the cold-cut platters so we could actually feed people as promised. And Craig went ahead and fired up the grill beneath the roof of our patio and grilled the hot dogs. Meanwhile, I was scrambling my brain trying to figure out what to do with all those kids. I didn't really have a back up plan.

Thank goodness for Hannah's new room. The bunk beds were a hit--even if the kids were swinging from them like monkeys! We did have tape the nose on the clown and I tried to get creative with some other made-up games, but most of the kids were having fun running around upstairs in the game room and the girls' room.

The power was out for two hours.

No slide. No movies. No popcorn and no sno-cones.

STAY TUNED FOR PART TWO!!!