birthday princess bbq

i love how my final recap of the weekend comes as the next weekend is about to begin. oh, well.

sunday was the teen's birthday bbq at the casa. we kept it simple - burgers, hot dogs, chips/veggies and dip, with the ice cream cake i ordered from baskin robbins. it was such a low-key event that we didn't even get the grocery shopping done till that very morning. crazy, huh?

as the bean and i got home, the hub was just about to take the teen and her two sleepover guests to donut man for some morning sugar. lucky for me, i caught them in time to place my order for a really healthy breakfast - a custard-filled, chocolate-topped gut bomb that was almost as big as my damn head. mmmmm. i munched as i checked out the dollhouse moon bouncer that had been delivered while we were gone.

then i strapped the bean to my back and went about setting out bowls for chips, mixing up the dips, and doing some general straightening up. i also put together some skewers of that bacon-wrapped asparagus i'd enjoyed so much at disneyland the day before. and by the time the first guests arrived - boys! - we were ready. the suckiest part was that it seemed as though we were about a mile from the sun that day - the poor air conditioning unit was crankin', and yet it still couldn't keep up with the intense heat of the day. bleh.

the teen and her friends stayed out in the back yard, huddled on chairs underneath the outdoor umbrella. as i scurried outside with more folding chairs, i somehow lost my balance and ended up dropping one right on my fucking toe.

i gritted my teeth and smiled at the kids as i walked calmly into the house, and headed right into the nursery, where i shut the door and hopped in circles, quietly howling in pain and muttering "walk it off, walk it off, walk it off." holy shit, but my poor toe was hurting.

(later on, i had to repeat this process as i hugged my gram good-bye and she accidentally stomped on the same toe. oh, the pain.)

it wasn't long before i noticed the teen and her girlfriends sneaking around outside with cups of water, coming up behind the boys and drenching them and then running away. ha! it was cute, and i half wished i was on the other end of one of those sneak attacks. and then the hub picked up the garden hose and aimed it at them all, squealing with glee inside the moon bouncer. the teen was quick to follow his lead as soon as he put the hose down, and i cursed the fact that i'd walked right by a display of water balloons earlier at the grocery store. they would've loved that.

we had a nice turnout from both families, plus almost all of the friends that the teen invited from school. unfortunately, the bean wasn't handling the heat very well and was unusually fussy for most of the day, so i had her strapped to my person despite the heat. nothing like 100-degree weather with a little human heater attached to your chest.

yes, she's wearing a tutu. at least she took off the mickey ears and orange sunglasses.

the ice cream cake went over pretty well - the teen laughed her ass off when she saw it, as did her friends. she'd mentioned putting a picture on the cake in passing one day, but she had no idea that i'd actually ordered it, and she thought it was cool. and it was yummy - cookies & cream ice cream with a chocolate cake base.

before my parents left to meet up with a prospective buyer for their old ford explorer, i snuck outside to take a look at their new ride - a honda crv in "green tea metallic." it's really cute, and totally suits my mom. look how proud she is of her new hoopdie!
as the afternoon slipped into early evening and began to cool off slightly, we went outside to take a few silly pictures with my cousins.
and the running joke of the day was our constant cheering and use of spirit fingers. mm-hmm, yeah. don't ask.
even the bean found her spirit fingers.
here's the teen with some of her loot (yay, wii love presents!).
this was a sure sign that the party was over:
a couple of the teen's girlfriends hung out for a while after everyone else had left, so the hub hooked up that wii for them to play, and we ordered some pizza for dinner. the afterparty, such as it was. ha!

and birthday princess weekend finally came to an end. whew!