Adios, July!!

 Lesson learned...when the child asks for red icing, say NO!   Don't get caught in the barrage of birthday cake request suggestions and whip out a 'sure' not thinking clearly because you've had a migraine the previous night, running full tilt for days and little sleep. You make red cake, why not red icing??   Um, hold up-  NO is the answer.  You can have any color other than red!  NOT RED.   Because no matter how much red food coloring when you start accidentally with white icing (refer to: no sleep, not thinking- above) you will end up with pink, then hot pink, then a whole tube of red color later, you need to add more powder sugar to thicken it up... and VOILA- you're back to pink.  Damn.  ugh.  Oh well, it's deep red velvet cupcakes and too sweet for bees, slightly red, kinda hot pink icing.

Doing that at 3:30 am the morning of probably did not help matters.  So it tasted good at least. The final straw- realizing you forgot to put the #9 candle in one of those cupcakes and sing to the 'Can I have red icing?' child.  Double damn.  Thankfully Ms. B was a helpful big sister and iced them for me after Mass before the party and she applies icing kinda thinly.  Good thing. If I'd have lobbed icing on them in my sleep-deprived state,  kids would have been seriously OFF the walls from the sugar rush. More so than this:

SO that was how July is ending- HA!   Bring it ON, August!!  ~muahahaha~

If the dress fits...

By garsh I'm gonna wear it!  Three sizes smaller than this time last year...hoo frickin rah! 
Bonus it was $5.  Man I love bargins!  ...and not squeezing my arse into a bigger size than last try. 
My excitement makes up for the crappy fitting room pic!

Love my ACE!

July?? WTH happened to June??

No wonder I haven't posted, I haven't had time to THINK for the past month- whew!  I was so ready for summer, but here we nearing the halfway point already!! AACCKK!!    First half of the summer has been filled with camping, vacations, visits, hot days, 4H projects, bad storms and, unfortunately, some sadness.

June started off trekking to Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge spending days at Nascar SpeedPark with the kids +1 having a blast on go-carts, taking out our frustrations on the track and each other. My Knight and I took a few rounds on the Mini-Sprint cars which were not quite fast enough but sooo much fun!  Or was for me as I realized the hat blowing across the track and being run over repeatedly was Knight's favorite light-colored Blackhawks hat....WHOOPS!  haha!  Making it more hysterical was the fact that he didn't realize it was his either, "Some poor SOB lost his hat.  Wait....that's MY HAT!"  he said, while I literally rolled laughing with tears falling trying to get out of that tiny little car.  What a hoot!  Needless to say I was very thankful for the loss of 30 pounds from my arse or I'd had a very difficult time getting in those cars...or any of the go-carts!  The slick tracks were fun for all (except T-man who could only watch) and I found myself in maniacal laughter as I raced my family around the track- 'Oh look, there's my child- Dodge! ZOOM!  MUAHAHAHAH!!'   So fun!   

Tyler had a blas on the small roller coaster in the kid section; due to ZERO lines, he rode it about 15 times in a row both days. This was a neat shot as storm clouds were heading over at sunset. Yes, that is my kid with his arms in the air going, 'WOOHOO!"

View from the top of Mt. Harrison near Gatlinburg

Of course we went to Ober Gatlinburg to enjoy the a day of water and alpine slides and of course the chair lift up to the top of Mt. Harrison. The view is simply breathtaking. I could stay all day up there!

View going back down, 3000 ft up!

Another neat place was WonderWorks (aka the upside down house). That place is a hands-on science center- all kinds of things to do!  Move marbles with your mind, lay on a bed of nails, make beach ball-sized bubbles, fun mirrors and a 4-story climbing/rope obstacle course.  SUPER cool! The kids loved it!  Hard to see in a picture, but a huge dark room filled with a neon structures, ropes and black lights to make the obstacles standout.




It's difficult to get a picture to show exactly how HUGE this room is- it's amazing. Adults could climb too, but I stayed on the ground with My Knight to shoot some pics.

 

All in all, it was a great long weekend!  We had to be tourists and get a picture by the Parkway sign before we left.  Goobers.


After Gatlinburg, the kids went to their dad's for a week....then comes the sadness part.

Stay tuned...

(but don't hold your breath I'll get it posted before August!!)