I went to three different birthday parties this week and had a lot of fun And I still have one more to go to next weekend too!

He said

If last weekend was all about music and Danielle and I getting “us time”, this week was all about Emelia and her busy social schedule. She was invited to no less than three different birthday parties—all kids from her class. The first was Thursday evening in response to the double booking of Saturday, Sunday birthday parties this weekend. But, I got off very easy only not working one day of the three parties whereas Danielle the one usually doing the yeomen’s work around this house was in charge of getting Emelia too and from all three of the parties.

The one party I did go to on Saturday was for Emelia’s best friends—better known as ‘the twins’. They had their birthday at the downtown YMCA. As Danielle and the twins’ mother Susan have become very good friends, we went and stayed with Susan to help with the party. You see not only does she have twin eight year old girls, but she also has a four year old and eighteen month old daughters to boot! That’s a lot of girls to keep track of. All totalled, it was thirteen children of varying octaves and noise levels and at best a level of cacophony akin to a riot. It was two hours of energy, tears and volume levels I didn’t know little beings capable of. About halfway through, I was certain that our route back to the house would have to pass by an LCBO for some liquid reprieve.

All kidding aside Emelia had an absolute blast at the party. When it wrapped up and we were packed up and in the car, Emelia looked like she was ready to go to bed for the night at 4:30pm in the afternoon. Of course hepped up on only the finest of refined sugar and goofballs she was in no way prepared to admit exhaustion or defeat. And in fact she even had her telltale too much stimulation hard time getting to sleep last night with a tummy that was upset. Finally, at 9:00pm we had her settled enough that she could get off to sleep.

But the best part was, on a morning we probably wouldn’t have to have done much convincing to get Emelia to sleep in we had two things working against us: 1) Daddy had to be to work for 7:45am; and, 2) it was daylight savings time, meaning the alarm clock went off an ungodly hour earlier than our bodies were ready for it. I know I wasn’t necessarily feeling all too awake for the first couple hours of this morning, but I was certainly wondering if Emelia and Danielle were feeling this same.

If the last few weeks I seemed very fitness focused with the Wellness Challenge at work, this week was the opposite of that. With the winter still pounding us, and all the focus and effort it took making sure I was getting my exercise points seven straight days a week, with the challenge ending last week, I subconsciously decided to take this week off. And my body needed it. Mind you, I sure as heck still ate healthily with the help of the Vitamix and Danielle. But, the gym was certainly a low priority. This week – well tomorrow to be exact – I will get back into gear and my daily routine.

This week I am off to Toronto for a couple days for work which will be some exciting training and the opportunity to meet some of my counterparts from other stores all over the country. As well as tomorrow I am off work which means I get to take in the Keynote for some exciting Apple news which potentially might tell us more about the new Apple Watch!

And with all that in mind and given the busy nature of this past week, it is high time I go spend some quality time getting Emelia to bed so Danielle and I can hang out on the couch and maybe even canoodle?

She said

This week was a busy one to say the least. Last week Emelia received her 3rd invitation for this week and added a 4th invite for the week following. So not only were we dealing with the mountain of birthdays we were dealing with a mountain of birthday presents.

Thankfully because we are close friends with the twin’s mom Susan we had been given ample warning of the girls party to assure that our schedule matched theirs. So I had already picked up the present for the girls weeks ago to match a scented initial pillow that Emelia already had on her bed. She was so excited this week to finally give them their matching best friends pillows. But with additional parties we had to do a bit more shopping for 3 additional little girls.

So one night after Emelia and I had gotten our haircut, all three of us made our way to Indigo and picked out presents for each of the girls. Two of the girls are avid readers so we found each of them books that we felt matched their interests as part of a series so they could continue on after they finished the books we purchased for them. Emelia who has taken a real love of reading has already planned out her next serious of chapter books after she finishes her beloved Ivy and Bean series.

So with presents ready and wrapped we turned to the crafts of making cards for each of her friends and it was a matter of waiting for the parties to happen. But the parties were not the only thing on the agenda for Emelia. On Wednesday she had another field trip with her class. Thankfully Poppa was available and he could take her to Museum London and Art Gallery for their trip. Emelia just loved it, she talked and talked about all the art she had seen, even asking more about camps perhaps in the future on PD days. This of course had her history loving mom and art loving father super proud.

We then made our way to Thursday, the day of party #1 of 3 for the week. Her friend JoJo had first tried to have a party booked for the Saturday but with the twins party already inviting most of the girls in the class a few weeks prior JoJo’s mother quickly shifted to a midweek after school play party. They live very close to us so it made it quiet easy for me to pick Emelia with John working later in the evening. Emelia was having such a great time she was less than impressed that I was coming to pick her up. Reluctantly she came home and we settled in for the evening.

By Friday I was just about ready for the weekend, I had a wee one in daycare who had been ill in the week, the kids fighting the (hopefully) last of the bitter cold so limited outside time and just basically a long week. Friday when John got home we enjoyed a glass of red and settled in to watch the next season of House of Cards and try and take in some us time.

And then Saturday came around. And what a busy Saturday! Thankfully the morning was a slow pace so I could catch up a bit on some sleep. Once I was up for the day we went full speed. Got things done around the house and then got our errands done. Before we knew it we were on route for Emelia’s true highlight of the week. The birthday party of her best friends. The kids had an absolute blast but man can 13 children make a crap-tonne of noise. It was madness. They were full of sugar induced, cabin fever energy and they burnt it in spades. All in all the kids had a blast and the adults were ready for a stiff drink by the end. As far as Emelia was concerned the party ended too soon but we had to say our good-byes and make our way to finished our errands for the day and get her home to hopefully take her energy level down about 100000 notches! She had a hard time settling but we finally got her down for the night and John and I could enjoy some quiet and continue watching House of Cards.

This morning came FAR too early. Not only did John have to work the early shift today but it was daylight savings as well as an aging cat that thinks that she needs to stand at my side of the bed repeatedly in the night and meow and cry over and over again made for a pretty tired camper this morning. Emelia and I took our morning after that at a bit of a slow pace, I got some more things done around the house and then we had to make our way to party #3 of the week. This party was for her classmate Emily at Loblaw for a cooking party. Emelia knew going to the party we had to leave at the half way point if she wanted to assure she could get her gymnastics class in. She was mildly reluctant to leaving but once I told her if we didn’t leave then we had to skip gymnastics then she said her quick good-byes and we got to gymnastics a couple minutes late.

After gymnastics Emelia and I got a few more errands done, including some spring gear for her. Today the sun was shining and we were having early spring like temperatures FINALLY! So we got her new rubber boots and then came home for what I thought was going to be a quiet play for her and a start on my taxes for me. But as soon as we got home our neighbours children came over and wanted to play with her. So Emelia played with Marin and Gracyn for a while and then as quickly as she said goodbye to them the twins came over and asked if she could come and play with them at the school. What a social butterfly we have! She is certainly much more outgoing and confident as of late and we could not be happier.

As I write this we are working on bedtime, John is reading Emelia a chapter in her Ivy & Bean book and we are about to put our tired girl to bed to put to bed a very exciting but busy weekend. Once our beauty is asleep John and I are going to settle down and watch a bit more of House of Cards and crash ourselves. We are partied out!