Busy, Busy, Busy!

From about mid-March through mid May my life seems to get just crazy busy.  There are a lot of things I just have to let slide in order to get it all done.  This last week was one of the most crazy.

First I have to say that ORIGINALLY things were NOT planned to go like this.  We had planned to have Darly's birthday party ON HER BIRTHDAY last Sunday.  But due to most of the girls she invited having to attend another event we rescheduled for the 22nd.  Then I found out that the person who had scheduled the intruding event on my baby's birthday almost rescheduled her event for the 22nd because of weather...but luckily she remembered my email about Darly's birthday party and decided to just keep her original date.  WHEW as I wasn't prepared to reschedule Darly's party for the original day at the last minute.

Currently I'm in charge of costumes for Darly's play  Thoroughly Modern Millie Jr and we've been trying very hard to get the kids costumes picked out.  Trying to do this with their very busy rehearsal schedule has been tricky, but we were finally ready to do our Costume Parade (an event for the director to see the costumes and make any changes).  That day was Saturday (yup the day before Darly's party!)

I first learned that there was NO WAY that I was going to be able to fit all of the costumes in my car.  So I asked one of the other moms to bring some in her car...whew!  This made my life much easier.  Another thing I did was to bring my folding wagon.  Rolling the costumes in was so much easier as I could carry a lot more at a time and less stress on my back.

Except for some stress with getting the room set up... we had 30 minutes to get all the costumes into the room and then set up...things went very well.  The director LOVED the costumes (even though some of the boys forgot to bring the suits they promised me they would bring in.  "Oh I have my own suit Miss Renee...I can bring it tomorrow."  no show... "I forgot")  Grrr  But we made it!  I sent bins of accessories home with the mom who had brought some of our costumes to the parade and then I LEFT the rest of the costumes in my car...they're still in there!

I had a party to get ready for and no place to put all those costumes.  We took hubby's car to Church yesterday because there wasn't room for the 3 of us in my car that is loaded with costumes.

Hubby's Sunday School class ran long (as usual!) so we had to run out of there and get home for last minute prep before the party started at 1pm.  We wolfed down our lunch and set the table.

here's the rundown on the party copied from Facebook...
First clean the house you've been neglecting due to your busy life. ;o)

then come up with a menu:
Menu:
Breakfast foods:
Mini scones, Mini muffins, and English muffins. add in Fruit & Yogurt
Lunch Foods:
Mini quiche, Chicken Salad Finger sandwiches & Cheese Pinwheels  add in Tuna salad & GF crackers
Dessert:
Mini Cheese cakes, Shortbread cookies, and Mini Lemon Cakes
and lots and lots of different tea flavors!

Then scour the internet to find recipes for all this stuff!

Then go shopping and hope you can buy some of this stuff already made!

Then start making the stuff you couldn't find (why doesn't my store carry the mini muffins this week?!?!)  Freeze the stuff you can freeze.

Day before, thaw all that stuff you froze!

Morning of... pull out everything you need and go to Church.

When you return start cleaning like a mad person (how did this place get so dirty?)

Heat the foods that need it.  Get the water hot.

Party starts... start serving the food.  Oops!  forgot the English Muffins...no one seemed to mind.  Too lazy to make the sandwiches so just put out the salad & crackers...that went over very well.  (we added Tuna salad too)

and I think they got full when I served the lemon cake, only one slice was half taken (they took half and left the rest).

No one went home hungry...possibly for a long while. ;o)

Try to talk birthday girl into cleaning up all the mess.

long for a nap!

We had one party guest who is gluten free (GF) and another guest who is a vegetarian (she eats fish though), so I chatted with the GF mom and she offered to send over some yogurt, I bought some fruit.  I made the quiche with a potato crust and the cheese cake had no crust at all.  So GF guest had plenty to eat.  Then for our veggie guest all the food was meat free except for the salads and she could have the tuna salad.
Everyone enjoyed the food...  I put out two plates of muffins & scones, one was emptied the other came back pretty full...I think the girls just took from the first plate.  All the fruit was gobbled up.  Yogurt was half gone.  Quiche was gobbled up, one guest asked for another (which I had in the kitchen).  Both salads were gobbled and I had to refill the Ritz crackers for the girls.  (they may have been eating them w/o salad too)  The cheese pinwheels were not gobbled down.  Even though Darly tried to talk her friends into them, they didn't seem too interested...that's okay!  more for me! :D
Cheese cake & cookies were a hit, but the lemon cake, not so much...I think that perhaps they were full by the time it came out.  and it wasn't as pretty.  Oh well there's dessert for the week!  In fact I should put it in the freezer for Wednesday.
I made a "Devonshire cream" recipe of cream cheese, sugar & whipped cream that was a huge hit.  One guest was eating it with a spoon (but she was the GF girl, so she really had nothing but fruit to put it on).  I figure I might get asked for that recipe.

Now that the party is over, I need to get those costumes out of my car and reorganized.  Then I can return the costumes we aren't using to the costume closet.  and get ready for Darly's confirmation retreat this weekend.  :p