best. sleepover. EVER.

with all of the traveling we did throughout the summer, i never got the chance to fulfill a promise i'd made to the bean and one of her BFFs, my co-leader's daughter.  after the bean had a sleepover at her house, we'd vowed to reciprocate and have one at our house.  she loves having friends come over to hang out (i mean, who doesn't?) and once school started and our routine was back in place, we finally found a good time to have her over for the night.  the old lady was off visiting her special friend for the weekend, the hub was out for poker night, and it was perfect.

there weren't any good movies out for us to see, and i didn't really want to have them glued to a screen the whole evening.  and so while the bean was at school that day, i headed out to target to do some brainstorming and find some activities to do.  i found some cute looking craft kits on sale, so i scooped those up, along with a bunch of fun erasers from our local daiso store.

the next thing i tackled was going upstairs into the attic.  i knew we had to have a tent smaller than the massive 10-person one we'd brought camping, and i was right. i found it tucked way back in the corner, still packed in the original box, just waiting to be used.  i dragged the air mattress down too, because why not?  and then i proceeded to spend the better part of the next hour trying to figure out how to put that damn tent together.  because it's several years old, it wasn't one of those quick and easy ones that you just toss up in the air and it pops open.  nope.  this one had poles.  lots of 'em.  i was so proud of myself when i finally got it all assembled with the air mattress in place.

although she was already super stoked about the sleepover, the bean was over the moon when she walked in the door and saw all of my prep.  she ran right over to the tent with a book in hand and spent a little time reading while lounging on the air mattress.

it ended up being a crappy way to find out that the air mattress i'd lugged down and inflated had a hole in it somewhere.

gah.  i was so annoyed.  i know we have another one somewhere, but i couldn't find it after a quick glance around the attic on a second trip up.  and so i grabbed the only one i found, which was only twin-sized, and texted my co-leader to see if she could bring theirs too.  luckily, she had easy access to it, and the sleepover was saved.

after her friend arrived and they spent some time catching up and hugging and squealing and all that kinda stuff, we dove right into the first activity of the evening.  i'd printed out the recipe for nestlé toll house cookies and told them that they were going to make a batch of them all by themselves.  of course, i stuck around to supervise and to offer assistance if needed, but for the most part those two huddled over that recipe and measured out the ingredients and mixed the batter and got everything done all by themselves.  i handed each of them a cookie scoop and gave them each a cookie sheet and let 'em go to town.

while the cookies were in the oven, i showed them how to roll ground beef into little burger patties.  i'd already seasoned it, and they had a blast making their own sliders.

they were beyond excited and about as proud of themselves over those cookies as i'd been with that tent.  as they should - they came out perfectly, and were super delicious.

by then, i was done for the night.  i reminded them to brush their teeth and then i left them alone to bond and do their thing for the rest of the night.  in any other case i wouldn't have cared what time they went to bed, but unfortunately they both had a somewhat early morning and had to get some sleep.

everyone was out of the house by 7:30 the next morning, headed off to saturday activities, but i managed to send BFF out with a couple of eggos and a promise to do it again when we didn't have to rush around the next morning.

you know what that means.  next sleepover, they're making me breakfast.  muahahahahahahahaha.