Grace's Birthday!

I can't believe that I haven't been able to blog for an entire week. Grace's birthday was amazing. She was up on 6/7 at about 7:30 fully dressed with her room and the kitchen totally clean. She insisted we all eat breakfast on the porch so we wouldn't make the kitchen table dirty. Her friends were not coming over until 11am. About 10:30 Grace wanted to know where the balloons were. I had forgotten to get balloons and frankly had no idea they were important to her. So I ran out to get 5 millar balloons. We had a party of just three guests but with our 6 kids that still made 11 people counting us. There was absolutely no structure to this party. Grace showed her friends her room. She took them outside to jump rope and then they realized it was too hot. They ate pizza bagels and lemonade and then opened presents, played again, had cake and left. Grace was very happy. Later that night we ALL went to the Durham Bulls game with the entire African Children's choir. They sang the national anthem and it was literally a perfect performance. We made it 5 innings and then the kids all exploded into being annoyed by eachother and thereby totally annoying us. At that point I realized there was too much over stimulus that day. So we went home and I put them all to bed early which made them cry. The next morning they were happy again. We then went to church and heard the African CHildren's choir sing. The kids had sunday school with them and then a lunch with the church african group. All in all it was a perfect birthday and she was very happy. But it was overkill...She told me next year she only wants one party and not 3 (ha)....She also received a couple of gift cards and had to be taught how to shop. This was a huge dilemma for me. Do I teach her to shop? I have to put my other daughters through therapy to get them to stop. Or do I let Grace stay away from the concept until she gets a job and can afford to shop on her own. In the end Sam took her shopping and she had no clue if she wantrd to buy anything. It dawned on me that Sam wasn't the best person to take her shopping. I should have sent her out with someone who wasn't a professional. Soon it will be Ella's birthday and I think she will be harder to hold back. Grace took her money and bought a pair of earrings and a pair of shoes. She seems to have a shoe fettish.