Operation Graduate Part Five: ONE DAY MORE!

Today was amazing. It was the busiest day of Operation Graduates to date, and I'm still working as I type. I'm writing this post in between batches of pictures loading. Sooooooo bear with me! Here are pictures of the wall-caps Dad put in. He sanded and finished them so many times this past week that they are gorgeous!

Aren't they sweet?

I know I promised not to show you any official decorations, but I did think I'd show you a "Rescue" project we did. We had a really ugly candle. A really ugly one. It was all chipped up and dirty and streaky. But I scrubbed it up, painted it with Modge-Podge, and rolled it in a mixture of pickling salt and glitter.

The result?

Kinda pretty.

Enough with the inanimate pictures. :D This is a long post full of lots of pictures so I want to move along at a nice clip. :)

Today was the day for perky, high, energetic pony-tails.

Complete with pieces curling in odd directions and popping out from behind my ears.

Yeppers.

A good day for high-ponies.

...and for flannel-lined pants!

Leah and Aunt Christy officialized the cakes. Thus Leah got the honor of wearing the "Cake Boss" apron!

And of course there was a bit of mistle-toe.

Anna decided to exhibit the white chocolate chips meant for peppermint bark.

^^^^ This was one of my favorite moments of the day....

I was attempting to do a funny picture showing Aibileen's advice in The Help on how to cut onions without crying. (stick a burned match between your teeth while cutting) Well, I decided to do a picture with a lighted match, to be funny, and the shutter speed was really slow so the flame kept crawling closer and closer to my nose. XD Hence the panicked expression on my face! 

Matthew and many others made countless trips to and from our house to the Walkers all day long to get things we forgot, things we couldn't find, things we decided we needed, etc.

While lining up cups for all the cousins, I decided to go all out and draw a graduate's cap on Sarah's. Just for fun. Because Sharpie's are awesome.

The whole line-up...

Mayhem, plain and simple.

This was in the chili-making phase.

We also made or thawed or otherwise prepared:

Cookie-dough-dip

Moose Munch

Puppy Chow

Hot-chocolate stirrers

Gobs and gobs of blue peppermint frosting

Punch rings

Punch

Cheese platter

When I realized how messy it was in the kitchen, I peeped over the half-wall into the living room and it looked so tranquil, I had to snap a picture. :)

Abby, Levi, and Bethany

The ENORMOUS bowl of popcorn I popped for Moose Munch. AND sifted all the "old-maids" out of. To get an idea of its size, realize that's a full-size paint-can in the background.

Lunches, lunches, and more lunches!

After Dad finished the wall-cap project, he started on the stairs. We've yet to finish them off properly since we moved in the house--it seemed too big of a deal to take the stairs "out of order" to do them. But it was done today!

When the sanding and faces were being done...

*Stricken look*

Dishes....

After the kitchen was cleaned up, it was time to dirty-ice the cakes! We ended up with a great big 4-layer round cake, and three or four sheet cakes. Plenty, we hope!

Aunt Christy and Leah put the next layer of icing on...

And I finished the Moose-Munch! At this point there were still two trays in the oven. :) Lots of it!

I took Levi for a mile+ walk, hoping it'd distract him a little since he was getting fractious.

He fell asleep, and when we came home, decided he'd "help" :)

 Somewhere around Lunchtime, Aunt Christy's sister Cherie came down from Pennsylvania with her three daughters, and they were added to the crew!

"At the end of the day, Sarah's my sistah! Course I'm gonna make her a cake!" ;)

Well, that was day 5! We still have lots to do. I'm sitting in the study and it's no way done. But things are shaping up despite our weariness. Decorating is almost done....the cakes are entirely finished...(you'll have to wait to see those too. :)...there are lights and sparkle and glitter everywhere....all we need now is a last minute clean-up, some organizing, and a little more food prep and we'll be ready!

*Deep Breath*

Only 17 hours till the graduation! I don't know whether to panic or laugh or be joyous!

I think I'll stick with the latter two!