Well, About Mandy's party...It was great! :) The day started out pretty rough, but it ended
much better. Mandy left around 9:30 on Friday, well around 9:20, Jake drove around our house, and of course Mandy was standing at the front door to see him. She immediately asked me, "Why is Jake driving around our house?" I had to come up with something quick...."Ugh, he is hunting???" She then forgot about it and then Mrs. Tate showed up and she left. I called Jake right away and asked him why he did that, it was a close call. So then I let Mandy know that I called Jake and he said he was turkey hunting, she believed all of it! :)So, then I started working as soon as she left! I got a lot of the house picked up but then needed to start on her sombr
ero! I got the sewing machine brought up and I sewed maybe 2 inches on it and something happened to my bobbin...I couldn't believe it. So, I put it aside and decided to hot glue it anyway. That worked very well, except for a few blisters on my fingers now from touching hot glue!Around 11:00, I went to pick up Mandy Culwell from her house. It was my first time driving without anyone in the car, well except for Audrey. :) As I was pulling on her street I heard this beep noise..I had no clue what it was and started looking all around. Well, it ended up being my gas light...I was out of gas! I couldn't believe it! :) So, Mandy and I loaded the decorations into the van and went to the gas station. I was pretty scared though, because I've only pumped gas once and it was 3 years ago, so Mandy and I worked together to figure it out. We had already decided if it took too long we would ask for help. We did it though! Just one thing minor we messed up on. :) But we were off now, the tank was full!
After cleaning up more we decided to start on the cakes. We really didn't know how it would all work. I wanted to make a sombrero cake for her, but was sort of throwing a lot of different sized pans together to get it to turn out right. So, we made the mix and then I started pouring some of it into a deep dish pizza pan we have. Then divided the rest into the other 2 pans. When I went to put them in the oven, I realized that the pan was much too large to even fit in our oven. So, we baked the cakes with the door open partially. About 25 minutes later, I started smelling something burning, so I w
ent to the oven and we noticed it was on fire a little bit. Our two smaller cakes were volcanoing over and they lit on fire in the bottom, so I took all the cakes out and shut the door of the oven, I wasn't sure what else to do, and after a minute the fire was out, then I put the cakes right back in....well, after I scooped out almost half of the batter of the 2 little cakes. (Mandy Culwell ate the batter!) So....what do you think?? Was our day pretty crazy so far????From that point on things got a little better! :) We finished baking the cakes, got the house decorated, had the food ordered, we just needed to pick it up. So, after David got home from work, we went to get the meat, so around 4:30. Well, we got there and the man was packaging all this raw meat. I couldn't believe it. I had ordered 8 lbs of COOKED steak for the tacos. Since they only speak Spanish and my Spanish isn't the greatest, I guess we both got confused. So, we sat there for 20 minutes while they cooked all the meat for us. They were so nice and understanding. I was stressing though, because everyone was at our house already and I knew I had to call Mandy soon to have her come home, otherwise she would be at the restaurant....
By 5:00 or so, we were back home and I went immediately into my room to get in the "crying mood" to call Mandy. It's easy now to make myself cry...so I did and then I got it real quiet and I called Mandy. I told her that the little girl I was babysitting had broke something on our amp that David just bought. I told her how sorry I was and that somehow I'd make it up to her and we would have a fun night tonight, but we couldn't go out to eat. She told me it was okay and to stop crying, she said, "Dont cry Danielle, it's okay" I couldn't believe she was believing it.
Well, around 5:30 Mandy came up the driveway and we all took our spots! We had it planned so she would walk in the house and not know untill she came into the dining room, then we all jumped up and said Surprise! Her immediate reaction was turning beat red and turning around and going out of the room...no one got any good pictures! :( She was completely surprised though, I couldn't believe it, but I was so happy! She was too, she was still asking about the amp though, thinking Audrey had broke it.
David made us all the tacos and Bob helped him serve them. There was tons of food, but it all got eaten, I think we had around 30 people at the party, maybe more. After eating we decided to do the pinata! Each person while hitting had to have a bandana over their eyes and the sombrero that I made on...which was very funny looking! :) Not many people wanted to participate so we had to make them do it, after it was done though, they said they liked it and were happy they did it! :) I can't remember who the one was that actually broke the thing completely open. I think it was a group effort...many of them were very good hitters! Lora Tate won the prize though. I had marked a piece of candy saying WINNER and whoever found that piece won the prize...a bag of Combos...fiesta flavor of course! :)
After the pinata we played Musical Chairs...mexican style. David sat in the van and played the Mexican Hat Dance for us while we went around the chairs...we had lots of people play this game...but instead of just walking around, you had to do a little dance around. It was very funny...not really a dance, but you had to put one foot in front of the other and jump around sort of. :) We were trying to get some people out of their comfort zone. :) It was a lot of fun though! Collyn Hunt ended up winning that game...it was down to 3 Hunts...Zach, Collyn and Abe. Collyn's prize was a pair of maracas...which was funny because to those who wouldn't dance around we had people handing them maraccas to shake as they went around, that was their punishment! :) Zach and Abe were two of them that had to carry them!
Then it was time for
cake and presents! Most of the people had to leave by then, it was close to 9:30 or 10:00 I think. For those who were still over we ended up playing Apples to Apples, in three small groups. It was fun...or at least for me it was. Then the next group of people left, by then it was 11:15 pm. Now only Kayla and David McKinnon and John Paul were left. I think we ended up staying and talking till' 1:30 with them. We showed them movies on our computer that we'd made and talked about other things, like why guys enjoy throwing bugs on girls??? Something I'll never understand...........
Overall it was a great day, or should I say night, the day was a little rough! :) Mandy enjoyed it and I dont think she cried once...which is what I wanted. I knew it would be tough without having my Mom here and I didn't want her to even think about it. I can't imagine how that day will be for me, but I dont want to dwell on it. 
(Most of the group that left at 11:00)Oh, one more thing....the Naylor Family in OK gave Mandy a great birthday present! While she was out shopping she received a message on the cell phone from them. They sang a very neat Happy Birthday Song to her. Actually she said it made her cry, so she did cry, but it was a happy cry! :) Thank you Naylor Family...you guys mean a lot to us!
-Danielle
