Party 'Til We Drop

I love celebrating, but a party every day for a week is a little overwhelming; I couldn't keep up. We spent ALL day Saturday cleaning up our badly neglected home and had to postpone our traditional Bloomquist Harvest party until last night for F.H.E. Fred's traditional Jeopardy game was a hit as usual. One of the column headings this year was, "Jordan's Driving School", so he was present even though he wasn't. We tried papaya for the first time and Mikayla is the only one who put it in her mouth and didn't head for the sink. Majority voted a big, NO on that Harvest Basket addition. There was a big, cumulative thumbs up for the coconut, grapes, pineapple, and kiwis. We also had a mango, which we have all tried before and some of us like with salt and chili powder, but this year it was bruised and overripe, so none of us enjoyed that this time around. Mikayla wants to try plantains next year. Not extremely excited about that adventure, but its tradition!

Ben and Renee's Harvest party on Friday was such a fun, festive way to start the holiday season. My children loved being with cousins; and having access to so many fun things to do. I didn't get to visit as much as I had hoped because there was a full agenda and we were all so busy taking care of kids, but I'm hoping lots of family will be around for Thanksgiving so we can get our fill of just sitting around talking.

t was nice to be able to sit and visit with Josh and Becky on Saturday night, after their stake conference session and all of the kids were in bed. Their children stayed to here to play and it was a wild and crazy cousin party for the first hour with 12 kids (what I always wanted) running through this 1500 square foot house. The activity level was only compounded by my procrastination at getting my Harvest gifts ready to deliver, so my kids headed out too close to "trick or treating" time, which gets confusing since half of the people we deliver to don't celebrate Halloween and don't answer their doors after 5:00. It also created a bit of mayhem at the front door as my children were running in and out delivering to immediate neighbors and trying to load everyone into the car to deliver to other friends, and the Jones children were filling the entrance "investigating" all the hubbub and the neighbor children were descending en masse on our front doorstep. There were sweet, innocent little people in charming costumes being jumbled and jostled about by too many older youth and teens who were anything but sweet and innocent looking and as so often happens on that night, my emotions started churning with the whole moral dilemma of trying not to be an anti social Grinch and at the same time keep the influence of the "world" at bay and as almost always happens I quickly lost on both fronts. After only 40 minutes I reached the "internal conflict" breaking point, and immediately shuffled all my little "wards" back inside and away from the front door and windows and grumpily turned off the porch lights and bolted myself inside. With emotions threatening to spill out and the pressure not to let them in front of all these eager, excited children who are luckily not feeling the same things, I tried to contain them in the back of the house, away from the door, which continued to ring. Amidst all of that, Ashtyn started crying (the kind that propels you into panicked action) from upstairs. Someone had turned on the ceiling fan and she had climbed to the top of Abe's very tall bunk bed, where the blades and her little forehead collided. She had a cut and a nasty goose egg by the time I got to her and the poor little girl was beside herself. I brought her into the kitchen, yelling for Fred and she just lay in his arms while I made an ice pack and held it on her head. When we finally got the swelling to go down and she was able to stop crying, Fred tried to cheer her up by giving her a big ice cube to suck on. I didn't think that was the greatest idea but when I tried to take it away from her she became possessive and I wasn't about to traumatize her again. At that point I thought it was probably a good idea to settle things down so I gave directions for everyone to get in their pajamas so we could start a "movie party". The drama of the incident had already gathered and subdued the hive of activity so there was instant obedience. I took Ashtyn into the twins room to help her undress, as she still needed TLC, and since her ice cube was starting to drip, I went back into the kitchen (8 feet away) to get her a glass and didn't make it back before she was screaming again. This time, she had somehow managed to wedge the ice cube, lengthwise between her upper and lower teeth (like Cinderella's Gus). I tried to dislodge it, but I couldn't get it to budge in any direction for a good couple of minutes, which felt like an eternity to both of us. It finally started to melt from the warmth of my hands and I was able to take it out, but not before we were both a little traumatized. By that time all the other children were dressed down and we started the movie, which they all seemed to enjoy, while I continued cleaning. The instant the movie was over it was like someone had pushed the energy button and I became a little faint hearted :) and immediately succumbed to the double feature-so-they-are-easily-contained rule for negligent mothers. Most were easily convinced and the few who weren't, played together nicely in the upstairs bedrooms, so I was able to accomplish everything that needed to be done to prepare for Sunday. I know Josh and Becky had a nice time and we were so happy to have their sweet children here, but under the chaotic circumstances they may all have Bloomquist scars for life! :)

Compared to that eventful weekend the following happenings of the week, which seemed momentous at the time, seem to have lost some of their impact:

1. I finally finished all 800+ pages of Ivanhoe! Glad I read it--glad to be done.
2. We are losing a councilor in our stake YW presidency to a ward calling during a week in which my president just lost her father in law. Both changes were completely unexpected and I think we are all struggling with the different implications.
3. Saturday afternoon, 15 minutes after Sophie discovered that her tooth seemed a little loose, it disappeared with a drink of water.  She was completely traumatized by perfectly good body parts, unexpectedly falling off and by the image appearing in the mirror which, with big tears in her eyes, she deemed "creepy".  We had to have a family therapy session for the next few hours and finally coaxed her out of depression by the anticipation of "the tooth fairy" and her involvement in drawing a picture to explain why there would be no tooth to trade.  Her fragile self image has  been restored and now Lily is eagerly looking forward to the day that she gets "a green dollar".  Losing a tooth at 5 is awfully young for my kids, but they are twins :) so we shall see.

"That about sums it up for me".