Post party

For Julia's actual birthday, we did what she wanted and went off to McDonald's playland. She and Allie pretty much disappeared for over an hour into the tubes and tunnels. Then we came home and had a small chocolate cake, after she blew out the candles of course.

We had pretty much the usual birthday party planned for Saturday. Greg's parents weren't able to make it, but we still expected my parents, my sisters, and their men. Then my mom got sick, so she and my dad weren't able to come. And my brother-in-law Mike had to work. So our much appreciated but much abbreviated guest list included only my two sisters and Pam's boyfriend, Jeff.

The misfortune continued. The weather was unexpectedly cooler than we've been having and it actually rained off and on (mostly on) for a good part of the day, so we scratched Julia's 4th Annual Birthday Party Water Fight. We still had a very nice time and Julia got a bunch of new things to play with. And the dresses! Julia told everyone who asked that she wanted dresses for her birthday, so I believe she got 7 or 8 new ones. She didn't know which one to wear first (and she did change into one immediately, of course).

Because of my sister's insane work schedule, our guests actually left after only 7 hours. They drove a total of 5 hours in one day for a 7 hour party. You can see why they were much appreciated! Julia and Allie immediately buried themselves in her new toys and we settled in for the evening. Shortly before 8 p.m., I glanced up from a magazine to realize that Julia had fallen asleep on the couch.

She's mostly given up afternoon naps and she certainly wouldn't have taken one yesterday. She was too busy asking to open her gifts. Anyway, I scooped her up and carried her to bed. She woke up enough to protest that she didn't want to go to bed, but I think she was asleep again as I pulled up her covers. It was a wonderful day for her and for all of us.

This morning, my in-laws called and offered to have the girls as their guests for the week. We'd actually planned this same adventure for them earlier in the summer and it didn't work out, but this was unexpected rescheduling. We said yes, of course, because the opportunity for them to swim and be spoiled for a week is wonderful. I'm also trying to refrain from gloating about a week of being able to visit grown-up restaurants and see R-rated movies.

I'm going to pretend here that I didn't have a few tears as they drove away.