Today I Don't Feel Like Doing Anything...

This was an exceptionally busy week. I had a hearing on Tuesday and a mediation of Friday (my first solo!) and in between my bosses were demanding deadlines on new projects by the end of the week--which  made for some very late nights for me. Everyone in the office was swamped and the Big Bosses were becoming visibly agitated at having to compete with one another for assistance with their matters.

On Tuesday the moved my mother, which was definitely a positive thing, but I had to work in a couple of trips to bring her new things that she needed, which added to the chaos.

And then there was PS's birthday and the party. Lesson learned: never try to plan a murder mystery party in two weeks. Especially when you have an unpredictable job that could explode at any moment. I had gone shopping the weekend before, but I had to do pretty much everything else on Friday night and Saturday morning. It was A LOT of work.

I had originally planned to try to make a cake, or, more specifically cake pops, in a shore fit of lunacy in which I forgot that I am completely incapable of decorating anything. My test batch of cake pops last weekend were too wet so they wouldn't stay on the stick and looked like delicious little balls of bird gak.

By Friday it was crystal clear that there was no way in heck I was going to be baking anything, and I had resigned myself to picking up a cake from Costco.  But then a friend called and I was venting about how much I had to do and she said, "I can help! Just let me know what you need.  I can come over, I can do food, I can do the cake." (I have given this friend a lot of free legal services lately, and I think she really wanted a way to pay me back.)

And so I said, "Can you make a Jack Skellington cake?" Thinking something like this:

And she made the most awesome Jack Skellington cake I have ever seen that must have taken more hours than I can possibly imagine:

Yay!  She was a huge life saver!

And then about 5:00 Friday night, my brother called to tell me he decided to come down.  He was originally coming this weekend, and then he called last week to say he couldn't and then he called Friday night to say he changed his mind again. So that added to the chaos a bit more.

Saturday morning, DH drove PS to a robotics competition 45 miles away, so I didn't have them to help out. My brother went to see my mom, but at least he took all of the other kids with him, so they weren't underfoot while I was cooking and cleaning and decorating and costume making and murder mystery clue assembling.

I don't know how we managed, but somehow we pulled it all off. The house looked hauntingly awesome, the kids managed their own make-up for their costumes, the food came together, and all of the kids claimed to have a great time.

Since it was a murder mystery party, DH made a backdrop for mug shots to take all of the kids pics as they arrived.  We had prints made while the mystery was being unraveled and gave all of the kids a book of their mug shots as party favors:

The party was a success, and I am exhausted. I swear I'm going to spend the entire day in my PJ's catching up on the new television shows that start this week. Definitely time to recharge.