A Big Surprise!

Yesterday, the Rowe family, along with Chad and Aunties Caitlyn and Shannon, went to see Big Hero 6 in the movie theatre.  Little did Ethan and I know that the trip to the movies, arranged by my sisters, was a ploy to get us out of the house so that our friends could set up a surprise house-warming party.  We were, as Madeleine would say, MANGERLY surprised. 

The party was complete with drinks, dinner and desserts, plus a piñata that our friend Neva made in the shape and color of our old house.  In whacking the piñata with a stick, we Rowes were encourged to exorcise all the bad energy of the condo and the hurdles we jumped through to sell it.

Unfortunately, not all of us Rowes thought it was fun to hit the piñata.  Madeleine took her turn third, with the help of Ethan:

When Madeleine failed to immediately burst open the piñata, rather than get in line to wait for her next turn, she opted to run upstairs and sob in her bedroom.

ME: Madeleine, what's the problem?
MADELEINE: (wailing) Daddy made me hit it TOO SOFT!

That mean old Daddy.  He only made you hit it too soft so that HE could be the one to break it open.

Once the first tear in the house had occurred, I tried to entice Madeleine to come out of her bedroom and collect candy.  But she informed me: "No, I'm not EVER eating ANY CANDY ever AGAIN!"  Apparently her desire for sweets won out over her resolve to pout, however, because before I knew it she was tramping down the stairs to the play basement to gather up her goodies. 

Once the adults were ready to grab some food upstairs, Ethan put Julia in charge of the kids in the play room.  He instructed her that if anything was happening that she thought SHOULDN'T be happening, she was to run upstairs and let us know. 

About fifteen minutes later, Julia appeared upstairs with this announcement: "Uh, it's CHAOS downstairs!"

Turns out the chaos in mention was people pretending the Barbie dolls were dead and chucking them across the room, so I think it was a good call on Julia's part to come and alert us.

Despite the piñata drama and the chaos, all Rowes in our household had a really nice time at our surprise party, to the extent that Julia even announced, out of the blue, this morning, "That was REALLY NICE of our friends to throw us a surprise party yesterday." 

Agreed!


Today we were back to routine-mode rather than party-mode, as we headed off to church this morning.  A lot of the kids were absent due to the holiday weekend, so for most of the service Julia and Madeleine were the only children up in the Sunday School pew. 

While the choir sang the "Se imnoumen" hymn and the congregants knelt in prayer, Madeleine was apparently occupying her brain in an alternative way.  During the complete silence following the completion of the hymn, before the priest began chanting, Madeleine turned to Julia and asked loudly, "Julia, what comes after eighty-nine?"

Good thing there were only two kids up there, one of whom was named Julia, so that it was completely apparent which kid had uttered the question.

At any rate, Madeleine was quiet and non-disruptive throughout the rest of the service, so I guess I can't complain too much!