1. After doing our wedding cake and 16 other birthday cakes for our kids what I've always dreaded happened. Janella couldn't do Camryn's cake. If you know how much I dislike baking and my complete lack of icing skills and patience you would know what this meant. I scoured the Internet for advice, bought a tip and decided to make cupcakes. Then I had to scour the Internet again for a recipe. Since it was a lemonade party I found a Paula Dean recipe where she jazzes up a cake mix with powdered lemonade and vanilla. The icing was regular buttercream with frozen lemonade as the liquid. Last Saturday I started making the cupcakes. Batch #1 went fine. When I started in batch #2 everything was fine until after I added the vanilla. That's when I realized that I hadn't grabbed the vanilla but instead I had added Camryn's root beer flavored laxative. I'm not going to lie...I debated on what to do. I'm also going to be honest...if the laxative hadn't been root beer flavored I think I would've left it. I don't think 1tsp mixed in 48 cupcakes would've made a difference, but I wasn't sure about lemonade/root beer cupcakes. Family- that worry was the only thing that saved you.
2. Time passed so quickly Sunday. We didn't even have the kids and I still struggled getting everything done in time. Part of it though was an unexpected trip to town. I was making my 2nd batch of icing when my mixer froze. I was wearing yoga pants that I had cut off into shorts and I had bought these so long ago that they were before yoga pants were cool. Now they are sad, faded uneven shorts that you can tell what colors my house is painted by looking at them. I put a hat on my unwashed for the 2nd day hair and prayed I didn't see anyone I knew. Thankfully I didn't see anyone and bought my 3rd $10 mixer of our marriage and headed home.
3. I had barely got the mixer plugged in when Jay came in and said he needed my help. He doesn't remember when exactly but he went to get last years chickens from the freezer to smoke at school. He opened the freezer and they had frozen together so he unplugged it to let them thaw...and he forgot about it. While cleaning the garage for the party he discovered our freezer was full of about 40 rotting chicken carcasses. He got a dolly and I had to help him take the freezer to our woods. Our yard was so wet that we left deep ruts moving it. Jay has been dealing with chickens and freezer fumigation all week.
4. In the midst of all that I happened to hear jay yelling for Charlie. We had numerous conversations about the last
Time we saw him, was he dead somewhere, etc. Just remember that.
5. Party got started. Things were fine but it was a total whirlwind. Camryn gave Justin the evil eye. My dad got locked in our bathroom because the door handle broke and barely got himself out. Lawson had too much lemonade. I realized I had not paid enough attention to some of the food details and wondered why in the heck I thought 1 can of pork and beans was enough. I love to throw parties but the whole meal thing is becoming more of a challenge for whatever reason. I remember my Mama fretting over big meals and I always wondered what in the world was the problem. Now I'm beginning to understand why she set the table a week early. I'm telling you there is something that changes as you get older. I can't quite put my finger on it but I can tell there are subtle differences in my reasoning abilities. Yes, it scares me but I'm blaming it on the cupcakes (at least I can for this year). That was a lot of extra work.
6. Even with my total lack of food planning the party was a success. Actually I wouldn't say it was lack of planning it's probably that I put more emphasis on the party experience than the food. I mean we put together a lemonade stand...But I wasn't the only one not thinking last weekend. When everyone was leaving I was walking them out and found that Charlie was back. I knew Jay would be so excited. I went back in the house to tell him. Remember our earlier conversation when Jay was clueless about Charlie's whereabouts? Jay said "hey Cade do you remember where we put Charile when we worked with the pigs yesterday morning?" Poor Charile had been locked in the trailer for almost 48 hours! Even the earlier conversations hadn't triggered Jay's memory. In Jay's defense the only time Charile barked was when Jay had taken Camryn out to show her the playhouse at the end of the party. I think he was happy to be out of the rain. He didn't look any worse for the wear. I do wonder if he was thinking "idiot" when he could hear Jay calling for him earlier that day.
We thought that Charlie getting locked in the trailer was the highlight of the weekends events until Friday evening...
7. I had to run to Springfield after work. We had some torrential rains that night. I even ended up in a tornado shelter at the mall. At home Jay and the kids weren't in a warning but they got a lot of rain. So much rain that our yard flooded and created a little river. When I got home in spotted this...
See those white things? Those are the dead chicken carcasses. The flood waters moved them from their dumping ground in our woods and brought them back to us for a 2nd look. Guess what Jay is doing Saturday morning....
Hopefully no one looks at our neighbors house before he gets them picked up. Hey, have I mentioned the house across from us is for sale? Don't you want to be our neighbors??!
