Now what am I going to do with my time?!?!?!?! :D

Well Alicia just phoned and said she is back home safely in record time. My house is a mess, the kitchen a disaster, the place is covered from basement to top floor with confetti! There are streamers, cards, paper balls, paper balloons, everything, everywhere!! I need to wash all the bedding and I have MOUNTAINS of laundry that I ignored in favor of being a host!! The windows are covered in tiny hand prints that are being silhouetted by the setting sun..... but I'm content! I'm really amazed and satisfied that everything went so well! ;D The last month has been... well..... busy??... to say the least!! Alicia came in early December. She left on the 10th. On the 13th Rex and I went away for a short weekend. On the 15th Mum arrived, 25th was Christmas obviously, on the 29th Mum left and Risa, Alicia, Victoria, Annalee, Jack and Alex all arrived!! We had a lovely New Year's Eve party and on the 5th of January celebrated Alicia's 40th birthday ALL DAY LONG!! We started with 40 gifts, all wrapped and displayed on our table. We'd decorated the room with a homemade banner, streamers and the like ( oh yeah, and MORE confetti... ) and there was general merriment and mayhem for quite a while! We made Alicia's favorite breakfast ( well, poached eggs anyway !) and we watched her go through all of her loot!! At about 1:30 hubby arrived home early from work to watch the kids so we could go and party some more!! ;D We headed first to the spa where she got a massage and a pedicure!!! It was wonderful fun and I think she enjoyed it!? : D After that we hit Taco Bell ( I know, classy eh?! ) and THEN Cold Stone Creamery!! Hooo boy! ;D Whilst pigging out on ice cream we drove on over to the laundromat. Yeah.. I thought I'd do a quick load....!! Actually they had a little thing I like to call a POOL TABLE and she loves to play pool, so we stopped in there for a quick game!! Pretty early on Alicia sunk the 8 ball, so I technically "won"... we continued playing though and at the end I asked her to please help me sink the last two ....!! She finished the game so we sort of both won ...in one game! ;D After our game we headed to Hy Vee where, unbeknownst to her, Alicia's hubby had ordered a cake and roses and I was going to pick them up! Well we had a couple of other things to get too and she wanted to get some stuff for her trip back home.... so I let her wander off..... I went to the customer service desk and told them I had a little "message" I needed them to share. ahem. They picked up the mic and said over the loudspeakers..... "Attention Customers! One of our customers are celebrating their birthday today! Happy Birthday Alicia Bayer!! 40 today !!!" :D

Oh MY!!! I was so thrilled and laughed so hard!!! I told everyone we came across that she was 40 and didn't she look MARVELOUS!?!?! All that sort of nonsense!! :D After our trip to the store we went home for a while to relieve poor Rex of the 6 kids!!!! He was getting a liiiiiiittle frazzled! ;D We cleaned up the place, made dinner for everyone but ourselves and put Jackster and Alex to bed! Once they were sleeping we got ourselves dressed up a little more and headed BACK out to a fabboo restaurant in town. Again I burst in with "This lady is FORTY!!! Doesnt' she look FANTASTIC!?!?!?" I was a tad deflated when the waiter said "Yes. Two?" LOL!!! I guess it worked out though.... the margarita she ordered was apparently wonderful and the free Tequila shot at the end of the meal was a nice birthday treat too! ; D

We got home about 10:30 and tried to stay awake until midnight to see the day through to the end, but Alicia had a baby who was calling for her around 11:40 and I ended up falling asleep on the couch! A pretty successful day none the less!! :D

Here are some pics!! :D

Anyway, as I said, they are now back home, Risa is back in Canada and Rex is at work. It's just me and the kiddies and ALLLL the pets. I suppose I COULD get out the vacuum and start on the confetti!?!? :D

Looks like a pretty sound start to 2009 though. I'm enjoying the heck out of it so far! ;D