Rachel's party

It's almost time for Rachel's birthday party. Even though her birthday was Tuesday and we did a celebration with Gramma here, tonight is her friend party. One guest is here, Jackie from Newaygo. The other friend we have to pick up in about an hour. The cake is done and the kids are quiet....wait a minute, maybe it's too quiet! Actually the girls are watching Rachel's Samantha (the American Girl) DVD that we got her for her birthday and the boys have either joined them or are in the basement playing foosball. I have even partially cleaned up the kitchen.

Of course, plans have changed several times in planning this. We were going to make gingerbread houses. I have 2 kits here plus a Longenberger mold to make more. I thought the boys should make one and the girls each have their own but that would have entailed making 2 from scratch. Mark thought the boys could do one another time and just let each girl make their own so that meant making one from scratch. Then I realized I hadn't bought the real butter required to make the recipe (and I'm avoiding taking all 4 kids into Meijers myself just for butter)...well, we'll just go with 2 houses. Then a light went on...I had some craft kits stored away from previous years that I had used for our preschool dept. at church. 1 of them had never been opened because they are "Shrinky Dinks" and could only be baked in electric ovens and I had gas at the time. There are also kits to make bell doorhangers, angel and tree bells. Rachel said that these would make a fun activity for her and the girls tonight! Whew! The gingerbread houses will be something for next week of vacation.

So in the middle of all the rush to get everything ready for Christmas, we take a break and focus on birthdays! Like we need more to fit into our schedules.

We received our first package of 2 we knew were coming from Dad on Wednesday. Thanks for the ornaments. Pretty soon we are going to need 2 trees and 1 will be strictly dedicated to NASCAR. Big brother's box is supposed to arrive today but when I was tracking it on Wed. it didn't indicate that it had left Utah yet. Now the email with the tracking number is not in our inbox so I can't see if it is coming or not. It hasn't made it yet. The package coming from JCPenney's from Mom arrived yesterday and was promptly stashed away. I haven't even started any wrapping yet.

Well, I better run. I need to get out some glue guns and a few other last minute preps for the party before we officially get under way at 5:30.