rekindling Friendships and Cleaning Closest

This weekend was a lot of Fun! My godson had his 5th birthday party on Saturday, so we headed over there for a Harry Potter party. Ben’s Mom, Karen, had a full slate of Hogwarts activities for them from Quidditch to Potions class and gave them all report cards for their “term”. All of the kids eyes grew round when they poured their green goblets of vinegar into the cauldron of baking soda and everything got fizzy. They they had to add from bowls of catsup, oats and flour to thicken out the mixture. Erin had great fun making a big pot of goop!!! Some of the younger kids were a bit more hesitant.

Sunday afternoon we headed over to PEI to reconnect with some good friends of ours from University who also have kids. Both families have been making excuses with busy schedules for far too long now. Tracey and I actually had some business to discuss, so I put her logo on CD rather than send it by e-mail and took it over as my excuse. It was great fun and the Confederation Bridge makes it so easy to get back and forth. There was the 39.00 bridge fee of course, but we did fill up on cheaper PEI gas!!

Today was much harder. Nick started work officially (though he’s been back at the new job for over a week now) and so he headed off early. I have already tackled Erin’s closet but now it was Bethany’s turn.... and my little pack rat had stuffed all kinds of clothes and toys in hers!! Trying everything on, including a big pile of hand-me-downs took over 2 hours. 5 year olds just don’t really have the patience for that so we had several bouts of tears and Erin saved the day more than once by being the “fashion critic”. The nice thing is, we discovered a whole bunch of clothes that she is about to fit or can just now get into!! Even though she has grown much faster than Erin this summer, there is a wealth of stuff to fit into that is pretty nearly new. I will round it out with some new turtlenecks and t-shirts, along with the exciting socks and underwear, but it won’t be as drastic a shop-up as Erin was. I tuck away a bit each month towards clothing, but as I shopped around for bargains last week for Erin (who is hovering between a size 16 and a ladies small just to get the sleeves long enough) I kept thinking of that thread on one of the pattern groups about designers all being millionaires! LOL!! We have a wonderful second hand store here in town that many of us with fast growing kids rely on to keep the clothing budgets from being unbearable!

After the Great Closet Tidy came the Great Muffin Bake. Nick is bringing muffins for the staff at his school for a speacial breakfast event, so the girls helped me bake 24 double chocolate muffins, 30 carrot muffins and 32 oatmeal and raisin muffins to go with the 28 blueberry muffins Nick made on Saturday. Having the oven on all afternoon i the warm temperatures was a bit much, but we endured.

Tonight is batching up charts again. I have a baby-sitter coming in tomorrow and Wednesday for two meetings, but I am still looking very much forward to having everyone off to school by next Thursday... I can’t even find the floor in my office again! Surely there are LOTS of other parents out there who are counting the hours????