Crazy Fun Night!

The title says it all! In honor of the Jackson's coming from North Dakota, we hosted their friends for an evening of fun. Cassie had some girlfriends over but somehow I missed getting their pictures before they left for the night but I got the rest of the kids. It was a great night with pizza, flashlight tag, video games, and a sleep over for Zack and Mackenzie. That's when the fun really got started! Let's just say that 12 and 13 year old boys travel differently than 9 and 10 year old girls. It cracks me up! All the girls arrive like they are staying for a weekend with bags of hair supplies, sleeping bags, pillows, stuffed animals, and other accessories. Boys arrive in what they are wearing. Some have sleeping bags and a pillow others, what they are wearing. It is hilarious. When Bill and I decided to head to bed we checked to make sure everyone had what they needed. Let's just say we put every sleeping bag we own to use. Most of the boys didn't even want one, they wanted to just sleep on the couches. I should have known then that they were not intending to sleep at all!

When Bill and I finally went to bed we did a quick mental head count to be sure we had everyone we were supposed to have. I swear I am a responsible parent but it was a bit of a whirlwind! We checked off all 15 kids mentally and then went to sleep at 12:30, girls tucked in with a movie in sleeping bags in the family room and boys playing video games in the basement.

At 1:45 I heard lots of loud sounds coming below our room in the family room. Thought I should go tell the boys to keep it down so the girls could sleep. It was the girls! They were running around, eating Doritos and Cheese Puffs, singing, dancing, and being crazy girls and going strong with Erin sound asleep in the center of it all! I strongly encouraged them to get to sleep I was assured they would shortly.

When I heard people waking up at 6:45 I thought I would encourage them to get a little more sleep. Come to find out that at least 1/2 the boys NEVER went to bed. The entire night! Others went to bed at 4am. No wonder they didn't need sleeping bags. Not to worry, we set our security alarm so no one went outside! They had a blast and were out playing basketball by 8am.

Needless to say by noon the boys that were left were dropping like flies, passed out cold on the couch. The kitchen was full of empty pizza boxes, doughnut boxes, coke cans, basically it looked like a PG version of a frat party. I didn't have to ask anyone if they had a good time, it was obvious!

So glad that they were all able to get together with Zack and Mackenzie. It was crazy but I have to tell you Bill and I had a ball. It was a wonderful feeling to go to sleep with a house full of nice, good, well behaved kids having a "wildly fun kid night"!

Lily's birthday was the next day so we did a quick candle in her brownie and sang Happy Birthday!

I LOVE McKinley! He is a party animal and this shirt is his party joke!

Faith and Paige are so cute and had such a great time.

Lindy, Lily, and Mackenzie in Lily's traveling hair salon! She was whipping out hair styles all night!

Erin before she crashed!

Noon on Saturday.....

Zack and McKinley were snoring! Kyle made it until 4pm and then he took a power nap so he could make it through dinner with the rest of the Jackson clan that evening. Thank you everyone for coming and making this a special night.