The party must go on, but not exactly as planned.

Thank goodness I got the pork shoulder cooked and shredded before Calvin got sick.  All my other pre-party plans went by the wayside.  I envisioned Twinkle Toes (9), Measle (7), and myself cutting out Christmas cookies and icing them leisurely over the two days before the party.  It didn't happen like that.

Measle and Twinkle Toes did cut out cookies and bake them the night before the party.  We finished around 11 pm.  The icing would have to wait... and wait... and wait.  Big D ended up doing it about an hour and a half before our guests arrived.  He was such a saint.  He confided to me at one point that it wasn't exactly something he enjoyed, but he never complained.  He even made a few avant garde candy canes with red, white, yellow, and even green icing drizzled over them.  No boring green Christmas trees for him and Big D prefers red snowmen to white.  He definitely adds spice to our life.

As you can see, Prince (4) and Queen (2) also got in on the cookie action.  They made a BIG playdough mess, I mean cookies, while we were baking the Christmas cookies.

Calvin has been having breathing treatments every 2-3 hours.  Big D has given him most of them and then I try to nurse him just enough, but not so much that he can't keep it down.  This is a long, laborious process, but we're so grateful he's not in the hospital!  He was quarantined last night in our bedroom during most of the party.

My friend who was going to help me with the tables couldn't come at the last minute because her son got the stomach flu.  My mom came to the rescue.  I'm so grateful for her!  She kept the kids several hours for me during the day so we could care for Calvin and get ready for the party then she came over and made my tables look beautiful.  Martha Stewart has nothing on her, except for some jail time.  The table above isn't normally in this room, but stored behind our sofa in the living room.  We opened up the leaves and my mom brought a few chairs over from her house.  It worked.  We think we had 49 plus our family so we needed all the seating we could get.

The schoolroom was transformed for one night.

The tree with most of the kids' Christmas presents.  I'm hoping an order I placed Dec 9th comes today or tomorrow.  I just saw an email sent the day I placed the order that one of the items was on back-order and they were holding the entire order for 5 business days.  It's going to be close.  Today I'm going to stay home all day and care for Calvin.  No last minute Christmas shopping for me.  Everyone's going to have to give me a little grace this year.