I feel like I have been MIA a lot on here lately and I'm sorry. To all 23 of you who actually read this blog. (Wait, I'm not sure I even have that many followers!) Anyway, we have been really busy here at the Hemphill house. So busy that we recently had one of those days where you wake up hoping that everyone has a clean pair of underwear and at least two clean socks to wear. Notice I didn't say matching socks. Or clean clothes. I have been known to wear something, see it is dirty, never change and then say, "It happened after we left the house."

What have we been up to? Mostly enjoying the warmer weather we have been having, taking advantage of the week off that Brandon had, me leaving him with the kids for two days and two nights to hang out with my best friend at the beach (he planned it, not me and I adore him for that!), then enjoying the same beach with Brandon and the kids, running back and forth between home/school/activities and honestly, I can't remember what else! Oh, I had a birthday. Enough said. They aren't fun anymore.

We have also decided this past week to start house hunting. I found a steal of a house online that I thought possibly could just need some painting and maybe new carpets and a wooden fence to replace the ghetto chain link one it has (like the one we currently have), but once we entered the house and the real estate agent told us that she has to leave the door open due to the smell, I got worried. One of those "we bought a house, couldn't sell it so we rented it out" cases gone bad. Just think puppies who peed, people who smoked, water leaks in bathrooms and that's just the stuff we know about. Even the agent was ready to get out of there. Yesterday we looked at a house that Brandon found and liked it. Didn't love it, but it would work. Hopefully I will go look at at least 2, maybe 3 more on my own this week.

In other news, Christopher had his first taekwondo belt test today and passed! He now has an orange stripe on his belt and to celebrate we had spaghetti and make him a chocolate cake with orange colored glaze. We wanted to make sure he knew how proud we are of him and that was what he wanted. He's already started talking about doing it again with yellow colored glaze when he tests for the yellow striped belt. I'm so proud of him!

Sophie is still taking dance and is as funny as ever! Yesterday, I ran to Walmart (to get something for MOPS that nobody even touched) and Brandon told me that the class was to work on doing a pleia and Sophie had her heels together doing it, but the girl next to her didn't, so what did Sophie do? Start pointing and telling the teach that "she's not doing it right!" Great. Later she was spinning around (one of her newest favorite things to do) and she got in trouble because she wouldn't stop. She likes being dizzy? Crazy kid!

I guess that's about all. That I can think of now. My eyes are so blurred over because I've been looking for bedding for Sophie's new big bed... that we have not bought, but I like to be prepared for when we do. It's hard to find something I like. It's quite a commitment. Maybe it's because I don't want pastels or something that is mostly pink. She likes blue. Hope to come back soon with photos, but not sure what we even have photos of. Oh yeah, our little trip to the beach. I told you I was tired!

I need some advice. And in order to get this advice, I have to confess something. It may shock most of you, and I'm pretty sure that 95% of you reading this will totally disagree with me and/or not feel the same way as I do and I'm aware of that. Please do not hate me. Here goes....

I despise this part of being a parent. It goes right down there with potty training. They stress me out beyond belief! Now I feel that I need to say this, I LOVE LOVE LOVE to have people over and would do it every week. But in a way that means I don't have to clean house and light candles and have a bath before you get here. (I have had 30 minutes warning for people I have never met and told Brandon if they are ok with no makeup, a dirty t-shirt and a cluttered kitchen/house then I'm ok too. True story!) It just means that you are extra welcome in our house and we think of you as family! : ) You have to be ok with toys on the floor, a non-fancy meal and my kids yelling, "GROSS!!!! THERE'S A BEAN ON MY PLATE!!!" or you can't come over. We entertain casual style at the Hemphill House. This does not ruffle a single one of my mother hen feathers. But throwing my kids a birthday party will make me want to pull every single one of those feathers out, dress like a wolf and scare the mess out of anyone around me.


I'm pretty sure it's because everyone else that I know will go above and beyond in the planning and decorations and themes and invitations and cakes and more and I just can't do it. (Wendi, I'm going to go ahead and tell you that I know you are the exception because we have talked about this.) And most of you can do it on a budget. Which makes it worse. Or maybe you don't do it on a budget and great for you. But I fear that you will see the lame party that I threw and that not a single thing is handmade (I have made the cakes before, just not every year) or hand chosen, but it is all store bought and not special ordered for just my child and leave telling your best friend, "I just went to the tackiest birthday party ever!!!"


I'm not here to judge/be jealous/talk bad about you and your parties, I'm here to ask how you do it? I didn't throw Sophie a party this year. I had full intentions of doing it and Christmas was so busy that I couldn't plan ahead for it in December and after Christmas was over, the last thing I wanted to do was have a big gathering 3 weeks after Christmas that involved even more toys being brought into our tiny house that was already bursting at the seams. That and we were sick. The whole month. The day I was "going to" have the party I woke up and felt like I'd been hit by a mack truck and was so glad I never planned it. Poor kid! And please give her the pity party the next time you see her. She deserves it. I'm a terrible mother. (Note, I wanted to throw her a tea party with only the girls she finally has for friends, but was stressing about what the moms would do with their sons during the party and so I decided to just give up and have it at Chickfila because they do everything! Even the party favors! Never happened.)


Now, Christopher's birthday is coming up next month and he's going to be 5. That's right, FIVE. He has had a party of some sort every year. It may have just involved friends at the park with pizza and cake, but it was fun and he loved it. This year we want to do something different. We had originally thought about going to Montgomery to have it at the zoo because at the time we thought we'd be moving far away and wanted to have just our family get together for one last b'day party. But now that we are staying I'm thinking we will just have it here. Bowling maybe. He wants to and I'm ok with it.


Here's where the question comes in, (I know a lot of talk for one question) how do you decide how many kids to invite to the party? I really like the idea of "the age of the child determines the number of kids to invite." Do you stick with just the birthday child's friends or do you invite your own friends too? Where do you draw the line? Because we could easily have up to 60 people at this party! Do you let the child pick and hope no one gets their feelings hurt? Most everyone you know has siblings by this point so that doubles or triples the number of kids running around. I'm totally cool with kids running around (because we won't be at my house!), but then here's another question... (sorry!) do you give party favors to every kid that comes or just the one that is the closest in age because that is the one who is the birthday child's friend? 


Which leads me to another question that I'm pretty sure will offend everyone I know, especially the Southerners, but why do we give party favors? Do we feel the need to pay everyone back for buying our child a gift? If I buy your child a gift I don't in any way expect you to give my child something too. We are here to celebrate you, not me. Wait, isn't that the Southerner coming out in me too? We are a confusing bunch.


Which leads me to another question.. (I'm full of it today!) is it wrong to write "NO GIFTS" on the invitation? I've seen people do this, but people bring gifts anyway. Doesn't that annoy the parent who didn't want gifts? Were they just being "nice" or did they really not want more gifts? At this age I don't really care if he gets more gifts because he is old enough to get the whole birthday thing, but I'm just curious what you all think about it.


Ok, I think I may have just lost a couple of my "followers" OR given some of you a heart attack OR totally and completely offended you and you will take me off your list of "blogs to read" and never come back again, but I just had to ask. I need to know what I'm supposed to be doing about all of this.

So, help me out here ladies. I need it when it comes to this party stuff. And please, do NOT be offended by any of my questions, I need to know how to do it and not feel stressed about it! I love my children and want to celebrate them, but not freak out when I do it. Maybe it just means having it away from home, grab a couple of balloons and a cake on the way. Let me know! : )