
My friend Katie is a cake-decorating GENIUS and lots of fun too, so when Ryan found a picture of a periodic table made of cupcakes online I immediately bribed her with a bottle of Cabernet and an evening of snarky fun in exchange for helping me make my own periodic table for Charlie and Wes's mad science-themed birthday party. As it turned out, she needed a girls' night and Ryan needed some privacy to watch the last game of the World Series, so we had a date. I can claim no credit for the spectacular result, but we sure had fun.
Right before Katie arrived, this monstrosity was delivered to our backyard.

We were so thrilled to find a space-themed one! They said they could deliver it as early as Tuesday for no extra charge, which tells us that there's not a ton of demand for the NASA bounce house. More for us, I say!
And the piece de resistance:

SPACE SHUTTLE ATLANTIS ROLLING OUT ON RUNWAY TWO-TWO AT EDWARDS AIRFORCE BASE AFTER A FIVE-POINT TWO MILLION MILE MISSION TO THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION
Yes, it WAS almost as tall as our house. Yes, we invited the neighbors.
We made the kids wait until nine the next morning to try it out. Needless to say they spent the hours of 6:30-8:59 with their noses pressed to the back window, wondering aloud what time it was.
Finally, it was nine o'clock and we ushered them out the backyard to jump the rest of the morning away while I enjoyed the seasonal weather and made my favorite chili for our guests.
Charlie and Wes and I decorated the playroom door.

Some closeups of my favorites:

Charlie the scientist (top) with experiment, graduated cylinder (left), flask (right)

Test tubes with reaction occuring

Wes's contribution, self explanatory
After everyone was here and had bounced for a little while we all came inside and made slime. I was so worried about this part, because I'm not much a wave-maker when it comes to parties. I would have been happy to let everyone bounce themselves silly all evening, but it was a mad science party, dang it, there was going to be some science. And also, I passed the dirty work of rounding up the kids on to Ryan and he did a really wonderful job. I was a little surprised when ten children obediently filed into the kitchen and took their places around the kitchen table. We know some pretty great kids, is all I'm saying.

The experiment worked (hooray! phew!) and we released everyone back into the wild with plates of pizza, grapes, and popcorn. No one saw them again until it was time to eat the periodic table.
We were so thrilled that Ryan's parents and sister and brother-in-law could come from out of town as well as Charlie and Wes's cousins who are older (seven and eight!) and SO COOL to our two. They and our friends were so thoughtful and generous and love our kids and the whole evening was fun and relaxed and left me feeling so happy and content here with our wonderful community of friends and family.
The after-party, which is when Ryan and I put the kids to bed and eat the leftover cake in front of the TV, was also very special, since we've been like two ships in the night this past week with all of our various activities.
We thought they were coming for the bounce house in the morning, so before church, we all ran out there (some of us in jammies, me and Ryan, cough cough) for to get the last bounces in before we had to leave. It turned out that they didn't come until five, so it was a bouncy bouncy day.
We did not hear one single peep out of anyone after lights out. Not a peep! I wish I could say that was normal, but Wes showing up downstairs in the middle of a movie with lots of swearing asking to be taken to the potty is much more normal.
I'm looking forward to hyping them up even more tomorrow evening and then it's right back to the very ordinary status quo.