Family Slumber Party

It all started with Taylor's surgery. After surgery, Taylor got to sleep in Mom and Dad's bed for awhile. One night Shelby told me that she really wished she could sleep in Mom and Dad's bed. Now I'm sure you can see why we don't allow kids in are beds unless they're sick . . . because we'd have every single one of them in our bed each night. It's not that we don't love them, but our sleep is much too important. That's when the idea came to me . . . I asked Shelby if she'd like for us to have a family slumber party some time. She immediately lit up and got extremely excited. So from there, the planning began.

First we set the date. We wanted Taylor to be able to enjoy eating all the fun junk food that you get to eat at a slumber party, so we had to wait until after she hit 2 weeks past her surgery so that she would be allowed to eat regular food. Then one night Shelby decided to make invitations for Taylor and Payden. It was cute. Then Taylor got a little jealous cause she wanted to make an invitation, so we had her make one for Shelby.

Next came the food planning. We decided on hot dogs; nice and easy, and perfect since we don't have them very often. Of course you've gotta have chips and soda, too . . . yeah we really went for some healthy food. :) Then there were the snacks to eat. Tom and Shelby went to pick them out while we were at HEB and we ended up with popcorn, M&Ms, gummy dinosaurs, Jolly Ranchers, and some chocolate covered trail mixes. Then he got ice cream, whipped cream, and bananas (to go with the hot fudge, caramel, and peanuts at home), It's a guarantee that when Tom picks the food . . . there will be a lot.

Finally the night of the slumber party came. The girls were sooooooo excited. We started off with dinner.


Next the girls REALLY wanted to paint. They've been dying to paint since watching Barbie paint in Barbie Rapunzel. I have a picture, but I made them strip down to their undies, so I don't think Shelby will appreciate me posting the picture. They had a lot of fun and of course got paint and water EVERYWHERE. Shelby painted a beach scene and the earth in outer space while Taylor painted her normal colorful world, which she colors everytime she draws. Payden painted a little here and there and then of course had to "help" Taylor paint as well. At first there were a few squawks, but then Taylor just let her do it.

While the girls painted, Tom and I played Rock Band 2. Then it was time to get pjs on and get ready to watch the movie, Dinosaur. Can you tell how much our kids love dinosaurs? :) While the girls got ready, Declan and I had some play time. I can get him laughing so much. It's so cute and so much fun.


Then it was time to start the movie and time for Declan to go to bed. This is Tom trying to get a shot of the movie. If you look hard enough, you can see one of the monkeys from the movie.

When I went upstairs with Declan, the girls had to put away the candy so that they wouldn't get tummy aches.

When I got downstairs after feeding Declan . . . at about 8ish . . . this is what I saw. Tom was definitely the party pooper. He's just lucky we didn't use the whipped cream on him! Poor guy though. You can tell when he's stressed because he starts sleeping a TON. In fact, I had to wake him up around 9ish the next morning so we could go watch him play basketball. Sleepy boy.

The girls were sitting up and messing around while watching, so I told them to lay down in their sleeping bags. Shelby kept telling me they couldn't because they were still watching; I told her they'd still get to watch, but they'd be laying down. Now I knew there would be no snoozing off before the movie ended . . . my girls just don't do that. Once the movie, I tucked in the girls, turned off the lights, and then waited. Now Shelby I knew would have no problem falling asleep, but Taylor and Payden are the kind of kids who have a hard time settling down if they're not doing their normal routine . . . heck they have many nights where they cause lots of problems even when we do their normal routine.

Now Taylor was laying down like she was trying to go to sleep, but would then pop her head up, look around, and then lay back down. Eventually she buried herself in her sleeping bag. Payden on the other hand wasn't even trying to sleep. She was playing with Kleenexes (she was sleeping next to me and with my allergies I have to have the Kleenexes handy), sticking her legs up in the air and wiggling them around. At 9:02 I decided to give her until 9:10 and then I was going to take her up to her bed. At 9:04 I couldn't handle all her wiggling and took her up. She begged for me to take her back to Shelby and Taylor, but I knew it just wasn't going to work. I rocked her for a minute and tucked her in and then headed down to wait on Taylor to go to sleep. I thought she was finally asleep, so I got up to get a water bottle - another must with my allergies. As soon as I walked by her, she popped up. I asked her if she wanted to go upstairs to sleep, too, and she said yes. I was proud of her for realizing that that was the best choice for her. It was only about 15-20 minutes after I put Payden to bed, but she was already conked out. Now Taylor still goofed off and came down for a bit, but finally settled down. By the end of the night, this is what our slumber party looked like.

I figured it would be that way - Shelby downstairs with everyone else in their own beds. Now of course the night was still kind of crazy with Declan waking up to eat a few times and Taylor getting out of bed (she's still not 100% and one of the remaining problems is for her to sleep well) and Tom going upstairs and then coming back down because Taylor was bugging him in our room and then of course I had my normal can't-sleep-because-of-my-allergies problems. Next time, Taylor and Payden won't get the chance to try to sleep downstairs . . . sorry girls. They can have sleeping bags to lay on while we watch a movie, but they will definitely be going to sleep in their own beds.

Despite all the craziness, we had a lot of fun and are excited to do it again.