Party and Cleaning ....

So yesterday was my dd's big birthday party. I have to say, it was a LOT of fun! Build-a-Bear was the first stop. I have to say they did super there with the kids and making the bears and it was a ton of fun! I think everyone enjoyed their time there. Then we took 16 kids through one the biggest malls in America from Build-a-Bear to Rainforest Cafe - which is thankfully a short walk, but we did have to get on an escalator! No one was lost though ::phew::
Rainforest was so wonderful as well - the staff there did a fantastic job as well! And again, the kids, all had so much fun! It was great. I didn't even feel crazy or frantic or like I was losing my mind. Which, when you have a bunch of kids with you, is a great way to feel. Even dh thought it was a great party, and he's not big on parties in general.

After the big party yesterday, I cleaned and organized and packed and folded and put things away.
Things were packed and given to my dh to take to storage. Fabric, yarn, scrapbooking, books, toys, clothes.
So many things to clean and organize.
What's really sad, is you almost can't tell anything was done. The basement still looks crazy - although several piles on the first and second floor are gone, which I'm sure the gp's appreciate as maybe they didn't want to look at our stuff laying around anymore.
The basement, well, the basement is the basement. I'm not sure there is much hope for any asthetic improvement down here honestly. But at least it's more organized now than it was at the start of the weekend.
Of course, I've decided I'm a plastic tub addict now. Came home from the container store with 4-5 of several different sizes, and well, now I am planning what other boxes I would like to get. I need a few more bigs ones, lots of little ones, a couple more for the kids things, and some more for my crafting things.
I never knew i could be organized. I never knew there were reasons for an accessory box, shoe box, men's shoe box, boot box, sweater box, deep sweater box, storage container, large storage container, underbed box, extra long underbed box! So many boxes ... and that was just the sizes available in the simple plastic boxes. I felt a little overwhelmed when I walked into The Container Store today honestly! They guarenteed me if I grabbed the wrong thing, it was easy to return things and get the right size.
Well, let me tell you, I brought those boxes home at noon. By 6 pm they were all filled and stacked (mosty) neatly away.
I could easily go and buy exactly what I bought today again and fill them all up as well ;-)
That was the good part of the weekend. The bad part of the weekend was that dh and I were pretty stressed in general - not with anything to do with the party - just life, and so there was a strain in the air around this house last night. I kind of starting the cleaning binge out of frutration (which really, I suppose isn't the worst thing to do to get rid of frustration!). Then when dh was awake this am I think he realized how much I did last night and he was motivated to help out, and so today we tackled many tasks around this house.
I have to admit, it does feel pretty good to have so many things done .... but when I look around, I have to admit, there is still so much still to do! Maybe that's for next weekend LOL!! ;-)