What was I THINKING???????

I suppose once a year I can be willing to do something so insane that I may risk being committed. But only once a year. And I've officially hit the quota for this year having hosted what I can only call the sleepover week to end all sleepover weeks! You've already read about Julia's. Now it was the boys turn.


Austin and Andy celebrated their 7th and 5th birthdays together by inviting young men over for a Camping themed sleepover. Now, I say I survived, but the truth is, we should check in with Kevin to ensure he did too, as I put him in charge of the implementation of this party after I planned it and then exited stage left with Julia so the boys would have the house..er tent to themselves.


So Kevin and a total of 8 boys did fun boy things like a camping inspired craft that used way more glue then the instructions indicated (I think that was a boy thing), a flashlight hike through the dark of the neighborhood in search of goody bags strategically hidden in bushes and trees, Popcorn buckets filled with sour gummy worms, musical sleeping bags and ghost stories in the dark in the tent set up in the backyard. Unfortunately for Kevin (ya right) he had to work the next morning and really needed to ensure a good nights sleep. So instead of sleeping in the tent with the boys, we recruited "6th grade Camp Counselor Zach", who is Austin's friend Easton's Big brother . He gamely hung out and slept in the backyard tent with the younger boys so that Kevin could get a good nights sleep upstairs and so that the closest I needed to get to sleeping in the backyard with the boys was on my couch in my living room under the open window facing the tent!


I can officially state that 5-7 yr old boys giggle louder and longer than little girls. They were up till midnight before they stopped their burping, farting and kicking antics and finally fell asleep. I can also attest to the fact that nature calling in the middle of the night is definately a boy thing as well. At Julia's sleepover, beside the little girl that vomitted all night (yes, i did say that!) not a single little girl got up to relieve herself. While on the flip side, 7 out of 8 boys got up somewhere between 4-4:15am, unzipped the tent, trudged across the lawn, walked into the house leaving the sliding door wide open, and walked into the bathroom to "pee" before then walking back through the house, out the sliding glass door leaving it wide open again so I would have to get up and shut it, and trudged back to the tent to sleep. I guess I can be thankful that they didn't take the camping theme too seriously and just "pee" in my flower beds! Oh, and wait, did I say they went back to the tent to sleep? Oooops. Apparently 4:15am is close enough to morning that they decided sleep was simply an elective at that point. I drew the line at them getting out of the tent at that point and told them they had to stay in there until the sun came up...so they managed to play more farting, burping kicking games for another 45 minutes before they mercifully fell back to sleep about 5am. And yes, when the sun came up at 7:15 so did they!

So as exhausted as I am following my night of very little sleep, I am tickled that each and every one of those boys obviously had a fantastic time. In the top picture, from left to right, Andrew Fish, My ANDY, My AUSTIN, Chase Pritt, Robby Boster, Easton Hamilton, John Fish, and in the back, Camp Counselor Zach Hamilton.