Monday, October 30, 2006
No Weekend Hangover!
Today I'm feeling..... good! Refreshed. Awake and alert (and after only 1 cup of coffee - so far). I'm chalking up these good vibrations to simply a really good weekend. Nothing fancy, but a stellar family weekend nonetheless.
What made the weekend so good, you ask? Well, first we had Nicholas's final soccer game on Saturday morning, and despite a rocky start (another meltdown sigh) he rallied and played pretty well, even managing to score a goal. We had the end-of-season pizza party afterwards, and it was fun hanging out with the parents. I've met some fun people through the soccer team and I'm hoping more connections can be made even now that soccer is over. I think that one or two of the other moms have friend-potential.
Then we had a successful playdate at our house with our neighbors daughter. For 3 hours. Which is some sort of record with this child. But the kids did great together, which allowed ME the time/space to carve 6 pumpkins in peace. Yes, 6. I spelled out the word "SPOOKY" in pumpkins. What can I say? I get bored with carving faces year after year. THEN, Mr. Chick and I got all dressed up for a Halloween costume party and went out. For some reason I wasn't looking forward to this party, but I was happily persuaded to enjoy myself when *I* won the rock-paper-scissors and wasn't our designated driver for the evening. The hosts of the party went balls-out and decorated their entire house for the event. They made papier-mache spiders - tons of them - and had them everywhere. The snackables were all cleverly made/labeled in the spirit of the holiday. It was all very done. And pretty much everyone who attended, without exception, wore a costume. Which is cool, because I've been to some costume parties where only a handful of people bothered with costumes and everyone else just came dressed as they normally would (which, let's face it, on some people their normal clothes ARE costumes!). Lots of creativity in the costumes. I especially liked the girl who came as a lamp post and ingeniously had the pole covered with flyers and posters and notices that made references to friends and specific incidents. Funny. Mr. Chick (aka G.I. Joe) commanded the beer pong table for awhile, so that was fun, too. Nothing says "Party!" like a good beer pong table. It takes you back. I enjoyed many drinks and had the perfectly happy buzz one strives for when drinking. Not too much, but just enough to relax you and make the evening very enjoyable. And no hangover the next day. Perfect! Plus, it makes you slightly horny and a decent romp is a nice way to end a fun evening.
The next day, Sunday, was Lauren's 3rd birthday party in true Spiderman style. I spent the morning cleaning up the house and picking up supplies at the grocery. What pissed me off, though, is the fact that still DAYS before Halloween most of the good Halloween stuff is already sold out. What's with that?? I couldn't find spider web stuff for the life of me. I had to improvise and make a web out of cheesecloth and got lucky with a tube of plastic spiders in the toy department. Why must I plan for Halloween at Labor Day??! Grrr..! Anyhoo, the few decorations I did turned out nicely and the place looked good for the small party. It was heavy on crafts - pumpkin painting and Halloween and/or Spiderman placemat making - because 3 year olds are still a bit young to corral for games. But I needed to channel their energy, so crafts it was. And as a bonus, I didn't have to put together those lame goodie bags for each guest because they got to keep their pumpkin and placemat. Which is cooler, don't you think - than a bag full of cheap dollar store crap and candy?? I do. As a mom, I loathe the goodie bag and often just toss most, if not all, of their contents when my kids are the recipients. But I digress... the party was successful and much less chaotic than I was envisioning. There were 4 kids plus my two in attendance, and one parent for each kid plus my mom. So a manageable size. We gave Lauren a Cars (from the Disney movie) tricycle and she's been riding it in the house pretty much non-stop ever since. Credit Mr. Chick for that one - it was his idea and he went out and got it for her. She loves it.
The time change sort of minimally messed up bedtime and after the big birthday party day the kids were wiped by 6:45. Normally bedtime is 7:30, but I put them down a little earlier to compensate for Daylight Savings. They were asleep by 7pm. *I* was asleep by 9:30. We all got up a little earlier than normal today, but felt great for having got so much sleep. I even went for a 3+ mile run this morning BEFORE getting Nicholas to the busstop (aka our driveway). So I'm feeling really good, like I always do when I get to run in the morning. At the YMCA, I workout in the afternoons. I prefer mornings. But with the crazy-short morning Kindergarten schedule, it's hard to get there, workout, and get home in time. Plus, we go back 2x/week for swimming lessons in the afternoon anyway, so better to combine the trips into one big exercise extravaganza.
How was YOUR weekend??
What made the weekend so good, you ask? Well, first we had Nicholas's final soccer game on Saturday morning, and despite a rocky start (another meltdown sigh) he rallied and played pretty well, even managing to score a goal. We had the end-of-season pizza party afterwards, and it was fun hanging out with the parents. I've met some fun people through the soccer team and I'm hoping more connections can be made even now that soccer is over. I think that one or two of the other moms have friend-potential.
Then we had a successful playdate at our house with our neighbors daughter. For 3 hours. Which is some sort of record with this child. But the kids did great together, which allowed ME the time/space to carve 6 pumpkins in peace. Yes, 6. I spelled out the word "SPOOKY" in pumpkins. What can I say? I get bored with carving faces year after year. THEN, Mr. Chick and I got all dressed up for a Halloween costume party and went out. For some reason I wasn't looking forward to this party, but I was happily persuaded to enjoy myself when *I* won the rock-paper-scissors and wasn't our designated driver for the evening. The hosts of the party went balls-out and decorated their entire house for the event. They made papier-mache spiders - tons of them - and had them everywhere. The snackables were all cleverly made/labeled in the spirit of the holiday. It was all very done. And pretty much everyone who attended, without exception, wore a costume. Which is cool, because I've been to some costume parties where only a handful of people bothered with costumes and everyone else just came dressed as they normally would (which, let's face it, on some people their normal clothes ARE costumes!). Lots of creativity in the costumes. I especially liked the girl who came as a lamp post and ingeniously had the pole covered with flyers and posters and notices that made references to friends and specific incidents. Funny. Mr. Chick (aka G.I. Joe) commanded the beer pong table for awhile, so that was fun, too. Nothing says "Party!" like a good beer pong table. It takes you back. I enjoyed many drinks and had the perfectly happy buzz one strives for when drinking. Not too much, but just enough to relax you and make the evening very enjoyable. And no hangover the next day. Perfect! Plus, it makes you slightly horny and a decent romp is a nice way to end a fun evening.
The next day, Sunday, was Lauren's 3rd birthday party in true Spiderman style. I spent the morning cleaning up the house and picking up supplies at the grocery. What pissed me off, though, is the fact that still DAYS before Halloween most of the good Halloween stuff is already sold out. What's with that?? I couldn't find spider web stuff for the life of me. I had to improvise and make a web out of cheesecloth and got lucky with a tube of plastic spiders in the toy department. Why must I plan for Halloween at Labor Day??! Grrr..! Anyhoo, the few decorations I did turned out nicely and the place looked good for the small party. It was heavy on crafts - pumpkin painting and Halloween and/or Spiderman placemat making - because 3 year olds are still a bit young to corral for games. But I needed to channel their energy, so crafts it was. And as a bonus, I didn't have to put together those lame goodie bags for each guest because they got to keep their pumpkin and placemat. Which is cooler, don't you think - than a bag full of cheap dollar store crap and candy?? I do. As a mom, I loathe the goodie bag and often just toss most, if not all, of their contents when my kids are the recipients. But I digress... the party was successful and much less chaotic than I was envisioning. There were 4 kids plus my two in attendance, and one parent for each kid plus my mom. So a manageable size. We gave Lauren a Cars (from the Disney movie) tricycle and she's been riding it in the house pretty much non-stop ever since. Credit Mr. Chick for that one - it was his idea and he went out and got it for her. She loves it.
The time change sort of minimally messed up bedtime and after the big birthday party day the kids were wiped by 6:45. Normally bedtime is 7:30, but I put them down a little earlier to compensate for Daylight Savings. They were asleep by 7pm. *I* was asleep by 9:30. We all got up a little earlier than normal today, but felt great for having got so much sleep. I even went for a 3+ mile run this morning BEFORE getting Nicholas to the busstop (aka our driveway). So I'm feeling really good, like I always do when I get to run in the morning. At the YMCA, I workout in the afternoons. I prefer mornings. But with the crazy-short morning Kindergarten schedule, it's hard to get there, workout, and get home in time. Plus, we go back 2x/week for swimming lessons in the afternoon anyway, so better to combine the trips into one big exercise extravaganza.
How was YOUR weekend??
// posted by MP @ 8:35 AM 
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