You can’t beat a long weekend.

This weekend, we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly.

(We are very thorough people, especially when it comes to our fun.)

We spent Saturday evening, swimming and bribing the girls to re-discover their excitement for diving and going down the slide into the pool.  Lynn was the only brave one, but somehow we were all rewarded with ice cream treats from Arctic Circle.

Sunday, we went to my parents house where we cooked giant marshmallows (very delicious by the way..  I should know, I think I ate the most.) and cooked hot dogs.  The kids played, we visited, and then enjoyed quite the fireworks display.

Monday, we spent the day at Merrill’s parents.  We were in the pool for nearly a solid 5 hours.  It was awesome.

Ashley has quite the tan (she is my girl!!!) and cute little blonde streaks in her hair (see, MINE!!).  We ate, swam, ate, played, dove, went down the slide, played sharks with Dixon, raced (I lost by a body length to Merrill EVERY time), went after the dive toys..   see, too much fun.  We came home and changed to head over to Brooke and Austin’s to play volleyball and watch more fireworks.

It was quite the full weekend, and we loved every second of it!

Another one...

Here comes the "too much info" train...
Woooo!! Woooo!!
I cannot sleep tonight (this morning, really..)..
Being a woman is awesome.. insomnia, headaches, and blessed cramps.
If I were preggers, I would have funner discomforts.

Here's 1 for July..

This one was not a template, took longer than I would have liked! :)
I saw a digi lo in July's CK by Paula Gilarde, titled, "Pedal On", and LOVED it!! I scraplifted the main foundation, and had to go and download just about ALL of her digi elements..
Well worth it!

4th and such..

We celebrated the fourth, at home, under self-quarantine. :)
We had a simple fireworks display, Merrill was so impressed with my selection from Target.
(Read that with much sarcasm.. they were all pretty much duds.)
It came complete with parachutes..


Sparklers.. and other fun fire-worky things..


Even Peyton joined in..
See the look of panic on her face?


Hot metal stick, shooting sparks.. Yeah..
She dropped it in my lap, and I opened my lap up onto the blanket..
A new memory is born.


Here's my Merrill (heart)..


We ate cupcakes and popcorn (as shown below)..


The awesome selection of fireworks really meant nada..
We just had a good time being together!


Sunday, we sluffed church, again..
Well, I shouldn't say "we", me and the kiddos. Merrill was playing the role of "responsible adult". ;)
Ashley slept, coughed, and then coughed some more so hard that she vomited during the night. Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep..
What is sleep anyway?
Last night was a re-run of that episode.
How do you say that strange word? Slll-eee-P?
Her inhaler is nearing empty; how I wish it actually had a gauge, like my gas tank. :)
I decided to take her into our doctor today.
Then sleep depravity kicked in, and another voice told me I was overreacting.
Then I decided that I really should.
This morning I found that, I had indeed, missed the last refill on her inhaler by less than a month.
I was taking her.
Luckily I was able to get into our physician this afternoon annnnd....
Our little mystery is solved!
Her fever was indeed "something", not Roseola. An upper respiratory infection, perhaps? Anywhoo, the virus ended-up settling in her sinus, to develop into a lovely, snotty, sinus infection.


3 bottles of Amoxicillan, and my refrigerator looks like it is ready for an outbreak.
Looking forward to doing that one thing tonight, where you lay down on a nice, soft bed, then you close your eyes and relax, recharge your batteries and so on.. I can't seem to remember what it's called..

Christmas in July..

Christmas sprinkles are good for somethin' around here in July..
I kinda neglected the decorative fourth of July musts in my arsenal of sprinkles and such. I admit, I wasn't really planning on making anything special for the holiday after the day I had decorating a bazillion cookies, but this morning when I woke, I had the urge for chocolate cupcakes and loads of butter creme frosting..
So I went for it.

My personal tip is to grab one, and eat it over the kitchen sink, with your back to any doors or hallways, that way the kiddos can't see, and then, you don't "have" to share. You can quickly deposit the evidence into the sink, brush the crumbs nonchalantly from your mouth, and no one is the wiser. ;)

But I didn't have sprinkles.. well, I did. In my Christmas mix. So I got the red and the white.. no blue in this house though.. plenty of pink! ;)

I love to use Betty Crocker's Super Moist Butter recipe cake mixes..
At the risk of sounding much like Paula Deen, a stick of butter makes everything better!
It makes a very moist cake and or cupcake.
I like to fill 'em..
As a young'un, my mom had a cool electric cookie press that had the "filler" attachment. That contraption kicked the bucket a looong time ago. I prefer to use my 18 inch decorating bag and my very large 4B Wilton tip. This bad boy has extra capacity, so I just fill it, and go.
I stick the tip into the cupcake until I see no more silvery tip, and squeeze until the top of the cupcake looks like a mini Grand Canyon. Or, sometimes I hold it and stop once it feels sufficiently heavy.

See my little chocolaty Grand Canyon?

I color the rest of my frosting, and because I am lazy, fill the same bag, unwashed with my colored frosting. I pipe it onto the tops and cover any trace of the frositng injection.

We all love them!

Happy Fourth!!

Happy Fourth...

Before you begin your reading of this blog post, keep in mind the state of my mind..
I have had it up to here with many things.. (envision my hand at the level of my eye, which puts it at roughly 4 foot 8; my stature is 5 foot 2 and a half.. don't forget the half.)

1- this mystery illness that has had Ashley being a slightly different version of herself since Monday evening.
2- Peyton's sleep habits. The sleep habit that has her head on top of my own, and her feet in Merrill's face, instead of in her own bed. I have been so sleep deprived, that I usually wake, to find her in our bed, not knowing how or when she got there.
3- Girl hormones. Can't they just learn to get along already?!
4- Fireworks.

My rant today, is addressed to my dear, patriotic neighbors.

Dear Neighbors,
While I too, am ecstatic to be a citizen of this country, I am not ecstatic of the hour in which you choose to set off your celebratory fireworks (both legal and illegal).
I am well aware of the parameters in which we are all allowed to ignite the colorful and loud things made in China, but propose that we limit them to the day of the fourth itself. Why celebrate three days before and three days after the fourth?
Last night, while I was barely awake, trying to enjoy time with my husband, time I wished were alone time ;), I couldn't enjoy it. My 17 month old daughter was tossing and turning, she had stopped honking our noses and repeatedly demonstrating where our eyes were, but she was awake. Not asleep. I will tell you why the sandman wasn't able to take her off to dreamland.. your fireworks. With every "pop" her eyes would pop open themselves, and she would then sit up, then eventually settle down, only to be disturbed by another "pop". Cycle repeats, and I lose it even more.
That was fan-tastic.
It was nearly 11 pm. I was tired.
I still am.
I would like to suggest that we enjoy deploying our fireworks (I have them, I like them too..) on the day of the fourth, during the times that are reasonable... after 8 am to roughly noon-thirty.. a break would then commence for my youngest offspring's nap time, and the lighting of the fireworks my be continued at 3 pm until.. well, I'll be generous and say 11 pm. I think that is reasonable.
Now don't think of me as your neighborhood bitty, think of me as a mother on the brink..
I have no where else to go.
I do not have the desire to infect the rest of the nearby population with Miss Ashley's "mystery illness" (there is no sign of a rash.. yet.), and therefore, will not be visiting ANY public venue. The driveway of my own home will be sufficient this evening as we light, and enjoy, our LEGAL fireworks, during the agreed upon hours.
Thank you for your neighborly consideration.
Mindy Pitcher