I totally gave her permission to kick me square in the butt ...........

Last Monday, not yesterday, Kacka Lacky, TN had our annual Christmas parade. I had agreed to walk with the girls in the parade because the gal who owns the clogging studio where they take lessons needed some adult chaperone's. It was cold, which was to be expected. The clogging studio got a super position in the parade sort of near the front of the line. The girls got lined up...the truck with Christmas clogging music screaming out the back of the truck bed, the "pro-cloggers" to clog all the way through the parade, the girls with the banner saying who we were, and then all the girls walking and throwing out candy...in that order.

It started to rain just as we were about get the show on the road.

.......that and the truck battery with the blaring music was dead.

Immediately the gal who owns the studio runs over to me and Ms. P and asks us if we have jumper cables. Which we don't cause she wrecked her vehicle hitting a deer and she had a rental car and I am just generally unprepared and in constant need of supervision when in the presence of any vehicles.

It has started to pour down rain now and we have lost our position. Our bags that have all the candy to throw out have gotten wet on the bottom and the bottoms literally start to fall out of the bags, spilling candy all over the streets where we stand in the pouring rain.....it's 40 degrees.

I had pathetically persuaded Ms. P into walking in the parade with me so I wouldn't have to walk all by myself not knowing anyone. um, yeah....I totally gave her permission to kick me square in the butt right in front of God and everybody.

The truck did get jumped off and despite losing our spot we ended up slap in the middle of the line in the parade. The SECC pro girls did clog all the way through the parade in the pouring rain. We did get sopping wet beyond all wetness in 40 degree weather. It was insane. In the end, it was a night I would surely remember as a sacrifice for my girls. Not only that, but even in the pouring rain Kacka Lacky town folks STAYED for the parade. I would have totally bailed if we had not been in the parade. But piles of folks lined the streets with their kids waiting to grab as much candy as possible. Our girls had a ball. I can actually say I had a pretty good time too.

D had the biggest umbrella known to man with Cole and Z waiting on us to come around. They got three full gallon sized ziploc bags of water-logged candy that night. Most of which hit the garbage the next morning for failure to dry in a manner that was eatable.

Ms. P's husband should have been in the parade he was waving us on bigger than the wavers in the parade. He was clearly excited and it made me happy to see his excitement. Her two boys, not quite as excited.

Meg and I agreed if we could get one of our kids to marry the other and have some children... some day...we could gab on about this night when we are older and grayer than we are now....cause it was surely epic.

We had to walk back to our cars at the end of the parade. Most of the mom's and a few teens could have passed for Alice Cooper.

It was till pouring down when we decided to just stop walking and call D to come pick us 6 drowned girls up under the shelter of the local car wash. He did.

My car smelled like wet vermin for like two days after that. I despise Febreeze cause it kills my sinuses, but it works so I used way too much of it.

We all got home, took hot baths, and put on warm fuzzy pajamas with slippers. It was an awesome way to end an unthinkable parade situation.


..........................
Quotes from parade night:

.....the Baptist church handing out cookies and hot chocolate earlier in the night before the parade.

D - CB, do you want some hot chocolate?

CB- No it's too hot, I don't like it too hot.

D- CB, do you want a chocolate chip cookie?

CB- No, I don't like chocolate chip cookies?

D- Well of course you don't. These are made with goodness and love by kind Christians, you probably want devils food cake.
____________

CB in the car on the way home...

CB- Yeah and then Zachary pushed me down in the street and my hat got grinched. (drenched)


____________


This is not our city parade, but gosh, it's funny....and worthy of parade catastrophe mention for sure. Listen to the folks distress when Rudolph meets his fate.

"You're tearing Rudolph!!!"....oh man...it's just ...a little funny.

This goes back to my previous blog about why do we do abnormal things at this time of year?

....like striding in pouring down rain in 40 degree weather to the equivalent of a Christmas version of Cotton-Eyed Joe....and pulling an extremely over-sized baby deer with a birth defect on an under thought out parade path that tortures town folks and little children into night terrors about it's death by gouging of an over zealous stop light.

...anyhoo, Happy Tuesday.

How about a little T M I...........

OOOOooookay, here's what happened,

Z had a game this past Saturday in Etowah. Since Etowah is located near Athens, where the Mayfield Dairy Corn Maze is located, we made a day of the time away from home.

This is an aerial view of the maze, it's ......awesome. Going to a corn maze in the fall is the epitome of southern fun, I swear.

As soon as we got there and CB saw we were at a farm he was uber excited. I mean it's really an understatement. Sarah and I had sort of already predetermined that CB was going to be a military man when he grew up....but I am not sure now... he may be a farmer.

Made of 1/2 gallon milk jugs...clever I thought.

CB questions everything.

CB- May why does that cow have milk dripping out of his belly?

M- CB, that's the cows boobies.

CB to Skylar telling a secret - Sky, see those white drippy things?...that's cow boobies.....

Sky - Cole.......shut up.

Included in the ticket is a hayride through the farm. Which was awesome, we got to see some guys planting strawberries. It was quite eye opening to see. My photos didn't come out clearly, cause I am an idiot with my camera on the wrong setting. It amounts to a tractor like machine driven by a man with two guys sitting close the ground on both sides of the machine. They are plucking ground with some tool and slamming plants into the holes at a speed that astonished me. I cannot think how many strawberry plants they could plant in a day at that rate. If the hay ride was for only that reason, I felt a little more educated on strawberry farming. I wondered what those guys got paid for such a tedious job. Plus I have had problems with hemorrhoids for about a week and a half now and all that sitting they were doing ....uuuhh I had to shake it off.

T M I fact #1 (too much information)

Also included in admission is:

* Hillbilly Pig Races

This again........southern......kids chasing around pigs with names like "Lee Ann Porkrines" "Squealy Nelson" " Justin Tenderloin" " Pig Diddy" " Clay Bacon"

* Tractor Tire Mountain, Cole loved it!

* Sand Box made with black sunflower birdseed & a separate sand box filled with corn kernels, Cole loved it. He & Sky both left with shoes full of corn and sunflower seeds

* Haybale Mountain, Cole Loved it. Run around on top of the hay bales jump in the hay filled center. Sky jumped in and held her nose.

* "Educational Silos" - cool to look at...I felt no more educated on silos when I left the dairy

Zac in the green, far left...

Sky and Cole bringing up the rear.

D celebrating because he believes himself to be the corn maze master. We got a tad lost and he got us back on track with his mad corn maze skills.

The last check point before heading to the exiting path

...still on the exiting path.....I decided to take a few last photos and lost sight of my people....

....so I started to panic about getting lost here at the last hour and decided to run and catch up.....

Z is hiding around the corner a bit, tucked into the corn where I can't see him..... waiting on me....waiting on me...waiting.....

I am running, round the corner, he jumps out of the corn, scares the crap out of me ....cause the 80's version of the movie Children of the Corn crowds my mind and ...you know....Malachi) I scream in horror.

I pee in my pants.

T M I fact #2

Z is laughing his butt off. I want to laugh but I am having to dig as deep as I can into my hold it, hold it, hold it, cross you legs, files in my mind as I can....

He is still laughing and now realizing I am now going to kill him and running. I get my bladder together and determine to choke him, but as soon as I move my bladder forgets that I have just reprimanded it and I must stop and cross legs again. My mind confirms to me a GYN visit is inevitable.

From far away Z is laughing and saying, "I'm sorry mom, I'm sorry mom, it's just so funny...I didn't mean to make you pee yer pants, it's just so funny though."

My other peeps think this funny too and recreate my screaming horror hold the pee stance.

A- Z! You are yelling that I peed my pants at the corn maze! (...I figured since peeps in Athens knew, I might as well blog about it)

We get out of the maze. I go to the bathroom and try to make "lemonade with my lemons." My people relay they will meet me at the car and are gonna have a snack before hitting the road home.

Cole makes friend with a donkey. He LOVES the donkey and wants to take it home.

D- Here CB, feed the donkey some apple.

He does and then a little more.

CB - eeeww, what's that thing on his belly?
A- CB that's his goober.
CB - eeeww gross

I swear the donkey became overly grateful, if you know what I mean, by the apple feeding.

T M I fact #3

CB- MOM!! The Donkey! LOOK! MOMMA! He has a stick growing out of his belly, I didn't notice donkeys had sticks on their bellies.

A - Ugh, What????
M- Sick!! Disgusting!! Gross!! I am outta here.....
Z- Good Lord! He doesn't even need to hike his leg to pee!
D- I can't eat over here, we have to leave that's just.....disturbing, Good God.....those must have been some good apples.
A- ....no wonder he's "ridin solo."
CB- I don't want to leave the donkey!! He's so cute and soft..... I want to stay, I don't want to leave the farm yet.

We are all just about into the car and exhausted. Cole can still see the donkey while I am buckling him into his car seat.

CB - Momma, where did his stick go?
A- Cole, I don't know, gosh.....

This concludes our "educational" tour of the dairy.

**We did not feed this animal Pringles BTW

A little Nook....or two, part 1.......

I can't believe school starts back in the next two weeks. This is really our last week at home where noting HAS to be done. I am gonna try and catch up on a few things that require some real effort like putting some photos on a DVD.....UGH I hate freaking doing that.

It takes entirely tooooooo loooooonnng. If the DVD burner doesn't burn like it should, then I want to sever the head off the person who created the photo disk burner by way of flinging the disk at their neck frisbee style....really...... with a round house kick & a through the legs. Let it fly, watch the pretty colors as the disk glides right through my windows or maybe into some dry wall.

We went to Bryson City, NC this past weekend to D's parents mountain house. I LOVE THAT HOUSE. I swear I would have no problem going straight up Little House on the Prairie lifestyle if we lived in that house.

It's an A frame. This means, you get just what you need. A small master bedroom on the first floor, with a just enough room for one kitchen, a table for six to eat at, a small living room area and the first floor is done.

The second floor is a loft with 2 twins and a double all in one room.......just like little house on the prairie........except with air condition when you need it and 1 bathroom......oh yeah and some electricity.

I was relaying this to Z & M. They love the mountain house also but claimed they would die if they had to live there all the time. Yet, neither of them wanted to leave and come back here. They are certainly hung up in the entertainment part of life.....what about my friends, what about sports, what about cable TV, what about the internet, and this and what about that..... all of which had absolutely nothing to do with necessity for real happiness.

I guess I am expecting to much from them. I mean not having a TV and being forced to play games with each other, being outside with each other and having just enough so that it was never about being overstimulated or over indulged.....it was beautiful to me. I swear I could so live there, I really could. Just wipe the slate clean sell it all and start over right there in a spot where we have just what we need and each other.

....no baggage of the mind just the here and now......

We went there for May's 14th birthday on the 6th. It so happens me and D celebrate our anniversary the day after May's b-day on the 7th. So it was a cool time to go. May wanted to go tubing in Deep Creek. We hadn't done that in close to 8 years or so.

We had a ball.

It's Monday and I am still freaking sore as crap......more on that later.

I can't wait till we can all go back over again. No one wanted to leave.

So here's some stuff that happened. May made her own b-day cake, because she wanted to. She wanted to make a dairy free cake so Sky could eat the same thing all of us ate. I thought this was super considerate. I loved her for that....and obviously so did Sky who got to lick beaters and frosting spatula's.

Well, we forgot to bring candles and didn't get any when we went to the Ingles(Engles) We pronounce this grocery store as Ingles, as in no habla Ingles.

My friend Shay called it that by accident when she visited us in the south. She's fluent in Spanish. Since we have lots of Mexican folks here I guess she thought is was a shopping or Spanish market or something and asked us, "What's up with the Ingles?" no habla Ingles I had to laugh because that had never occurred to me before.

So we didn't buy candles at the Ingles. no habla Ingles

In true ghetto fashion we just made our own.

....long wooden stick matches = ghetto birthday candles



...ghetto candles make big scary flames initially, but then it goes away.

....there were two votives we could have used.....but they didn't match that good and we didn't have at least 4 of them for "14."......it's really all about the logic.

.....and all is well in the universe when you sing Happy Birthday really fast so that the ghetto candles don't burn down to the cake before one blows them out.

The dairy free cake Maysie made was awesome. The frosting was delicious and no too sweet. It was gone in two days, no lie.

So D picked out the birthday gift this year. No one knew what the gift was including me.

She got a Nook, an ereader from Barnes & Noble. It was a super nice birthday gift. I should know because he bought me one too for our 17th anniversary. May and I both love to read and these were very thoughtful gifts that we both will surely enjoy. I have mine already loaded up with a wish list to die for.

Nook = go broke if you aren't careful.

So though May has loaded one book already, she fully grasps the concept school books are on me & D. Pleasure books come out of her account....every time she hits the "buy" it swipes my card and in return I swipe money out of her account.

Here's a few other fun pics.....

This will do for today.

I'll post some tubing photos for tomorrow and a few Cole stories maybe :0)

For if you are for us......than who can be against us?!! ...........

Little Larry Lies A Lot - In case you are wondering, my pants are wet because a mouse pee'd on them."

which translates to this: I've been playing in the water hose without permission, the garage is full of water, my pants are soaking wet and that is why I am now in only my Iron Man tighty whitey's.

..............................................................

We did this family event last Sunday evening called The Amazing Race. Like the TV show The Amazing Race, we competed against other families to accomplish 6 challenges. These challenges were of course, not that difficult. To be included in the event the family had to have a child between the ages birth to 5th grade.....we so had that covered.

The Race was catered by Buddy's BBQ http://www.buddysbarbq.com and finished with a Yancy Praise Party concert.

Check her out here http://yancynotnancy.com/ She's Awesome!

I thoughoughly enjoyed her. She had the kids singing and the parents singing and her wild pink crazy girl guitar was awesome. Skylar had a ball dancing around. At one point she had 2 kids get on the stage with her and play Guitar Hero guitars and pretend to be rockin out with her.

The one little boy I swear should totally be a rock star when he grows up he rocked the fake guitar 100%. It was hilarious!!

I am definitely thinking about getting a CD for Sky at some point.

On this challenge families had to get dressed in one of three groups of stuff as quickly and crazily as possible and have a fun family photo made. I got the goggles, Sky got Bulls-Eye.

Solve the puzzle, write the verse, get your next clue.......

We did the Cha Cha and a few other dances while waiting for others to finish the race.





D attempting his version of the Charlie Brown.

Our last challenge, working on our Family Banner. I love this photo. It's my people doing some real stuff together on purpose and for fun.

Dear God,

Help me to keep my family tight and on a path that blazes in a mighty way in your name. Help us to be strong, willing, and focused Lord. For if you, Lord, are for us......then who can be against us?!!

Amen

I burst out laughing in my sleep.........

This past weekend my sister and her family came down for Memorial Day weekend. It was a good visit. Played some games, swam, road on the boat, ate good and went to church together.....the memories make my heart smile.

Here is a a super funny memory. Now I am not sure I can retell this like it happened....but this junk was so flippin funny I swear I did the laugh that was uncontrollable and loud. You know that laugh where even if you didn't want to laugh you just have to cause it just burst forth.

I swear, no lie, Cole crawled in the bed with me this morning and I was half asleep and half awake and I was remembering this for some reason and I burst out laughing in my sleep for petes sake and made Cole start laughing.

My sister has this dog, his name is Max...or Maxie as CB called him.

Max is a Shih-Tzu like Jenny but he's about 2 years younger than Jenny and is still pretty playful.

So we are on the pontoon and we're pulling Sky and Emma(my niece) on the tube behind us.

Max has never been on a boat and seems a bit wigged out but he's doing okay.

I am sitting in the front of the boat with Leigh and Big Charlie. Max just jumps down off Leigh's lap and starts sort of sporadically running down to the back of the boat sort of zig zaggedy crazy running and fast, his tail is all crazy tucked between his legs...then he runs back to the front of the boat all crazy like.....and I asked Leigh, "What's wrong with Max?"

...about that time he's running full out towards us in the front....and the dog takes a crazy running leap right through the door rail on the boat....the dog never touches the metal...he shoots right through the gap.

We are going about 20 mph.

All I see is the dog running full out like something has stung his butt and it's on fire, I see white hair fly past me and off the dang boat. I jump up and scream "MAX!!!!" I see white hairy dog spread out like doing a jumping jack flying across the top of the lake. Skylar and Emma see the dog and now they are screaming for Max.

At the same time that I scream, Leigh screams, Maysie screams, and Little Charlie screams......

"MAX!!!" or "STOP THE BOAT!!!" or "The DOG!!!!!!!"

.... everybody on the boat is now standing and D is turning around, he's laughing.

The dog is no where to be seen...then his head pops up and he's paddling like mad cause heck, he don't no what the heck just happened apparently and now he's in the middle of the lake with no land in site. I guess he figures he better paddle his furry butt hard.

I look and Leigh and she is busting out laughing and I am rolling my butt on the floor and cause that is the dang funniest thing I have ever seen.

.....wait a minute I have to laugh before I finish this....

Z scooped Max up out of the water and he was okay.

Later that night Max was so out of his element here at out house he dang went nuts on the porch.

Leigh said real casually, "Uh oh Max is fixin to get crazy again."

He started scattin his butt crazy all zig zaggedy again, with his tail all tucked between his legs and ran into the screen on the screened in porch.

We all fell out again, poor dog. He's a good dog just the boat ride had him all worked up. He didn't ride the boat the next day, he had a little day of rest.

It's brilliant..............

I had the most amazing Mother's Day ever this year.

The kids and I went to Atlanta, D stayed here cause he hasn't had a free weekend in weeks. He wanted to get some stuff done around the house like repaint our back screened in porch, which turned out fantastic. He wanted to chill out in peace and quiet. Although, Cornelia tried to get him to keep a few kids here for Mother's Day so I could take a few less to Atlanta.

All of the kids wanted to go this time so that wouldn't have happened anyway. We had an outstanding time.

I pulled into Atlanta late afternoon Friday so Mom decided we should go some where to eat instead of cook cause she had just gotten off work. I hadn't planned on eating out with the whole dairy free business yet. I was a tad worried about being one of those freaks at a restaurant who can't eat anything and wants the whole menu prepared special. I decided to call around a bit before we went anywhere to see if a few things had butter or could be prepared without dairy easily.

Pasta Bella - Italian - the gal was completely and blandly unhelpful on the phone.

A- My child is dairy free, I was curious does your Marinara sauce have cheese in it?

Pasta girl - Yeah, everything here has cheese in it.

A- Oh, okay, some marinara's don't so I thought I would call and ask first before making the trip over. What type of vegan plates do you offer?

Pasta Girl - ...salad??............I guess I could ask about about our marinara sauce, but I am sure it has cheese in it.

A- Don't worry about it, that's okay. (cause now, even if she did ask and it was good to go, I wouldn't go there, cause she was completely unhelpful and sort of stupid)

We ended up at Longhorns, where unfreakishly as I could, mentioned that Sky was dairy free. Could her shrimp be cooked without the tomato butter sauce? And did she know if the bread had dairy in it?

The waitress went on her personal mission to find out what could be eaten on that menu safely for Sky. She PEELED OFF THE BREAD LABEL from the box of bread that they fix and brought it to me!! So I could check it to see if Sky could eat it! It was so awesome and helpful. She was very thoughtful and careful and I really, really, appreciated it. The food was great, as were the leftovers we took home.

Saturday we had planned to go to the park in East Cobb and celebrate Mother's Day a day early with my brother and my sister's family. This was the first time we had all been together in one spot since my dad's funeral. It was an awesome day to get together, the weather was phenomenal.

We brought a picnic lunch for our people, a frisbee, woofle balls and a bat, & a soccer ball. The play was good, the conversation was fun, the sun on our skin felt healthy (at least till we got home and mom was burned), we took a small hike on their trail and took piles of pics. My dad would have had a blast Saturday. He loved being outdoors and all of us being together would have pleased him.

We spent all day at the park from about 11:00am to about 4:00pm. This will go down as my best Mother's Day ever. It was so relaxing and easy. No one fretted over what gift to give or who was fixing what for dinner, where to go for dinner, blah, blah, blah....

I loved this past weekend, the whole thing.

Sunday I got up and went to Buckhead Church/Northpoint with my sister and her family. Andy Stanley is the man, he is the coolest dude ever. The man is completely gifted in making the Bible approachable and understandable. He is clever.

He'll say he's going to read "A verse,"..... "but first let me tell you this".....then he fills in all the gaps of history, language, story telling and makes the verse come alive, then apply it to yourself.

It's brilliant.

Even my kids love him. They had the opportunity to go to the middle school worship but both M & Z wanted to go and see Andy. I didn't have to make them go to church, they were dressed, ready, and excited to go. In fact I was going to let them sleep in and they both were like, "No, I am going!" Sky went to hang out with Emma(my niece). CB, as usual, took off into his class room of kids he didn't know without looking back. He made me the sweetest butterfly with his hand prints & fuzzy balls for Mother's Day with a Proverbs Bible verse.

I loved that Buckhead Church excited all of them about God stuff and most importantly.... the Bible.

Stories I have read 100 times seem better when Andy tells them. I always want to run home and read my Bible like a book when I hear him preach. He's awesome and God has truly blessed that man with the ability to make the Bible feel relevant and important for people today who want to be constantly entertained. He's simple in jeans and a button down shirt sitting on a tall stool, with his Bible on a small table beside him...it's all about payng attention to him and the message. The message has consistantly made me feel filled with the wanting to know God better. No wonder his church has blown up like it has.

I am so glad I got to worship with my sister and Charlie, her husband, it was SWEET!!

This put icing on my delicious cake of a weekend.
















......Oh man, I am so blessed!