All For One...

...And One for All!!!

This past week has been a doozy. My Dad flew in on Tuesday. Konie followed him on Wednesday.

Then my Aunt Jan, Uncle Michael, (cousin) Kimberly, and (her husband) Kevin followed on Thursday. AND Saturday, I was throwing a double birthday party with a Three Musketeers theme. Would you like a peek at my To-Do List for the week:

I wrote it out because on Sunday I was having panic attacks about when and how I was going to get it all done. A list helps me like that. Even though I stayed approximately a day behind all week, I at least took comfort in knowing everything had an allotted time.

Konie's arrival on Thursday was an absolute gift from God himself. She cleaned and entertained and never said "No" to any request the girls made. I think she went into a comma each night from how ragged Pace and Mary Aplin ran her. On Saturday morning before the big party, we both stepped out of our bedrooms bright and early to start to work...And we matched :)

I've always been a sucker for a party theme, and Pace and Mary Aplin's request for a Barbie and The Three Musketeers birthday, was a party planning dream for me.

(I hope you can read the poem, because I am super proud of it :))

The invitations were from this seller on etsy. She was great, GREAT to work with and I love her stuff. The only complaint I have is that the actual invitations were smaller than I expected. She had the dimensions written in plain view, but I envisioned them as being larger. I bet she could make them bigger for you if you ask, though.

No I did not make their capes. They also came from etsy, but this seller.

Ok, so after all that set up and all that planning, we began the wait to see if anybody would show up. I had this horrible fear that nobody was going to come and the girls would be scarred for life. Why would they come? They don't know us. And most of the people out here don't strike me as the types to throw a themed kids' birthday party. They probably think I'm nuts. I just had to write a rhyme on the invitation didn't I?

Jeremiah got into the spirit and helped the girls work off some nervous energy as we waited...

And, since we were all dressed, we got a little family picture.

And slowly but surely (thank you Lord), they did come...

And they decorated Musketeer masks,

And played "Disarm the Musketeer" (Our version of pin the tail on the donkey, which Konie manned like a champion)

And ate birthday cake

And danced along with Barbie at the Musketeer Ball

And got scared of that weird Southern woman who is way over-animated

And everyone was so kind and we had such a good time, that I wondered what in the world I'd been so worried about all week.

By the end of the day, we were all feeling a little sugar-loaded, dazed, and confused...

But oh-so-very thankful and happy.