a sleepover! YAY!

5 yr.old Granddaughter has been wanting to have 8 yr. old cousin over for a sleepover. Friday night I told her I would "host" her sleepover on Saturday night while her parents went out for a "date".

"A sleepover! YAY! Can she come tonight?"

"No, tomorrow".

The next morning at 6 a.m. she crawled in bed with me and whispered, "is it time for the sleepover yet?".....(Oh Boy!! I better make this really good!!!)

I planned a crayon-themed evening. 3 1/2 yr.old grandson was included for dinner and crafts.

This was the menu 5 yr.old decided on:

Tostadas with lots of olives and sour cream

Mandarin oranges from a can

Tropicana lemonade

Ice cream cones (with peanut butter cup ice cream)

Then on to crayon craft time:

I usually spend a lot of time telling them "leave the paper on the crayons!" and "don't break the crayons!" BUT...tonight, I told them to peel all the paper off and break them into small pieces. WHAT??? You should have seen the looks on their faces! I think they thought this was the best part of the whole evening!

Remember as a kid when you shaved crayons between sheets of waxed paper and ironed it to make "stained glass windows"? None of the 3 had done this before and kept asking "what are we doing?" "What's this going to make?" "Just wait and see...."

These kids have done a lot of crafts, but I don't think I've ever seen such an enthusiastic response to an end result before. When the protective paper was peeled back and they saw the first "stained glass window", there was actual clapping and squeals of "can we make more please?"

Then we put all the broken bits into a muffin tin and melted them into rainbow muffin crayons.

OOOOH! look how pretty they turned out!

Now, since we broke up all our crayons how are we going to color? With new color books and (still one of the best things on earth) a giant box of new crayons!

Then it was off to bed for brother and a bubble bath for the girls.

Getting ready for bed (why is this fun at a sleepover but dreadful any other night?)

Making a nest of blankets and pillows on the playroom floor and settling in to watch their new favorite movie

By 10:00, all were sleeping (including parents home early from their date) and still plenty of sewing time left for insomniac Mimi.

There's nothing quite like excited, giggly, happy grandkids is there? (and a new box of crayons, too, of course...)