The glory of a birthday sleepover...they can only come as often as once a year.

Y'all....I'm getting worse than old. Check me directly into the nursing home, skip the assisted living facility, I can barely survive a slumber party. I have friends who've done it....several times (Hello, Kim, Michelle, and others) and I admire them. Maybe they can come paint my toenails in my hospital bed on Sunday visits at "the home".

I did have a good plan....Friday night....getting up early for school and having a full day of activities already....but girls, they have lots of energy, I don't know where they store it, maybe in their purple, glitter-y painted toenails.

They thought those foam toe holders were a hoot!! However, please also look above and notice that orange nerf blaster gun thingie of the boys. Yep. Girls may be girly girls who love raspeberry scented foot lotion, body glitter, fashion shows, fixing hair, coloring flip-flop magnets, iron-on butterfly decals, etc......but they still know how to play hard when it comes down to it.

So, although it wasn't on my "itinerary" of things to do at the sleepover, they broke out the nerf guns and went to town taking hostages and putting them in various holding cells.

Which caused for the smudgery of the purple glitter-y pedicures I had just spent 40 minutes producing. At one point in the night, when Broken Leg Boy's leftover crutches came tumbling down half a flight of stairs, I made a rule of no romping with nerf guns after 11:30 p.m.

Because I like to open another window of fun when I close the door on gun shooting after hours, I offered to allow the birthday girl time to open presents. And I threw in another round of punch!! Simply because I'm crazy and at this point had realized there wasn't enough Xanax in the world that would make me do this again, so you might as well make the best of this one shot at sleepover success.

This year, we opted to ask the party guests to NOT buy Tyner Beth gifts. Seriously, we have enough toys, books, movies, board games, etc. to fill a few hundred shelves at the Toys R Us.

I talked with Tyner Beth about the whole "it is better to give than receive".... she understood and although a bit apprehensive at first, she warmed to the idea quickly. Instead of gifts, we asked everyone to bring school supplies (since school just recently began) and Tyner Beth is going to donate them to her school's principal. She had fun unwrapping....isn't that the best part anyway, ripping into a gift??

And she received LOADS of school supplies to help out those who were unable to bring in all the needed items. Who doesn't love a brand new box of Crayola Crayons???? She was happy with our decision, but I know she will feel even better this week when she drops them off at school, and even better in 30 years when she has a child of her own to tell the story of the gift of giving.

On to other important matters: The cake. The cutest sleeping bag cake of all time.

I didn't have a lot of suggestions for the "cake girls". So, I just passed along these few facts TB requested via email.

"Mama, tell them I want good colors....you know like "hot" blue, "hot" green, "hot" pink, "hot" yellow (etc.etc.) (which translates into normal words such as "aqua" or "lime".....) And I want it to have polka dots."

"Okay TB, is there a certain shape you'd like or design on the cake?" At which point we are looking at the Dessert Box blog and I'm saying how totally neat their Karoake machine cake was....

She pipes up and says, "oohh, mama, tell them to surprise me and make me something really cool like that."

And indeed that's exactly what they did. They made her something really cool. An all "hot" colored polka dot sleeping bag for her sleepover party.

Isn't that just the cutest thing, all folded back waiting for a little girl to climb right in??? And please notice the details. It was "zipped" up and the zipper has her initials!!Fab job, ladies. It looked, smelled and tasted FANTASTIC. I can't thank you enough for your creative talents!!! They have been added on my side bar blog list.....definitely worth taking look.

• It was a wonderful night, really. To listen to little girls giggling. To see them smile when we would do one craft or another. To realize that fun is what you choose to make of it, even when nerf guns are involved and you can only find two foam bullets.

• I enjoyed it. I'm not ready to do it again this weekend, but I enjoyed it. And I don't guess I have to check into the nursing home just yet. But if any of you gals feel like coming to give me a pedicure anyway, I'll be glad to take you up on that offer. And by the way, I like cucumber melon foot lotion, and prefer a french pedi, but will settle for a pop of color, but nothing glitter-y. And while purple is a favorite of mine, I don't necessarily want to see it on my feet.

And don't forget the punch. And any extra medication you can find in your cupboard.