Almost Sleep Over

I survived another year of the "almost sleep over". This has become an annual, summer-time tradition where the girls invite two or three friends each to come over from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. to have some summer fun. It works out well for me since I can send them home at 10:00 completely exhausted and not have to worry about an equally long night. The girls always have fun playing in the pool and just being girls. I do their toenails & fingernails and pamper them a little. For dinner, they stuff themselves with pizza and top it off with an ice cream bar. They end up putting so many toppings on it that it is hard to eat! We round out the night with a movie & popcorn. This year my girls wanted to have the beads out. These are special beads -- you create designs with them and then iron them together. The beads melt together making a coaster-type product in all sorts of fun shapes & designs. Some of the other girls had never done this before and it was the hit of the night. They did beads for hours. It was so fun to listen to them talk and giggle while making their creations. There were 7 girls total and they all made me promise that next year they could make it an all-nighter! EEKS! Seriously, I am so thankful that my girls have such wonderful, well-mannered friends. Don't tell the girls, but I enjoy our annual party as much as they do!