It's All About You...No Really...It's About Me This Time...

It's that time of year again!!!

I LOVE the commenting challenge because it forces me to comment on blogs. I'm really good about reading the blogs I follow; I just don't comment near as much as I should. Also, this is a fun way to discover new blogs and make a TON of online friends. 

Today's post is supposed to be sort of an introduction to me. 

Hi. 

I'm Amanda, and I blog. I live in a small community in Alabama with my husband and three children. The children are my codependents. Hadley is 13, Ella Channing is 9, and Layton is 7. They keep me very busy between soccer, art, flag corp, etc. 

Some of my favorite things are:

Dancing while I clean the house. 

Laundry. That's a lie. 

Wine

Checking Fail Blog at night before I go to bed. 

Good bourbon

Trips to the beach. 

Publicly humiliating myself. This one just keeps happening, so I might as well enjoy it. 

Schnitzel

Long walks on the beach

Pina Coladas

Getting caught in the rain.

Ok, the last three are also lies, but it sounded good, right?

I really do love schnitzel. 

The smell of new person. I think new person is probably the best smell on the planet. If it wouldn't break my last thread of sanity, I would totally have another baby just to smell new person for a while. 

Most of the time I blog about the things we do as a family. Sometimes I blog about completely inappropriate things, and sometimes I reveal too much information.

I guess I summed myself up pretty well on the About the Enabler page. 

Other places to find me:

Facebook: Me

Twitter: Me

Now, let's start commenting!

I Missed That Class...

Safety. I think I missed the parenting class that went over safety.

For example: Don't let your children light bottle rockets.



Certainly, don't let your children have actual beer bottles for the bottle rockets they shouldn't be lighting. 

It's probably not a good idea to stick a bottle rocket in the muddy earth and light it either. Put that on the don't list. 

Don't let them light firecrackers. And, only an idiot would be that close photographing such a thing. 

For crying out loud, who gave this child a punk to keep lit? 

 

**Disclaimer: The good news is that no children were harmed in the production of this post or the lighting of the fireworks. The codependents did participate in the fireworks but were supervised by adults at all times. The angles of these photographs do make it look like they were lighting things without supervision, and that is certainly not the case. This post was meant to be slightly sarcastic and funny. 

Kiddies and Carnivals....

We went to the Kiddie Carnival twice last week/weekend. It is safe to safe to say that my children adored every single second of their time.

Layton was a grinning, giggling, soggy mess by the time we got home. He was soggy because...




Hadley and her friends were helping with the carnival and spraying the little ones with water guns. See Hadley down there in the orange shirt with the golden apron? 

Layton also had to do his usual thing and convince every child he rode a ride with to make some pose. What is up with that? I apologize to all of you parents out there...I have no idea why my chitlens are like this...

Ella couldn't leave without buying a t-shirt. :) She just had to have one to match her friend that she had been running around with all night. 

The second time we went was with my place of employment. Generously, the bosses agreed to an evening of fun at the carnival.

Layton was excited. Ella was excited. Hadley was on her phone. 

At least this one had fun. :)

 

The Many Faces of Ella...

Ella makes a lot of faces. I think that I have mentioned this several times in the past. If I sit across from her with my camera, I capture lots of looks and wriggles. One conversation with her...

Are you looking at me?...



I should really think about this a little more...

Yowza! I have an idea...

This is gonna be great...

Man, I am suave...

Girl, you know what this means...

Victory dance...

I'm the queen of the world...

As if that wasn't enough, my mommy thinks I'm adorable...

Yeah, it's good to be me...

 

Eighty-Seven Cent Lip Gloss...

Hiya, gang! Did you have a fabulous weekend? We did. The weekend kicked off with a great party for my precious cousin Leigh Ann. She's getting married this Fall; I have so many fond memories of her as a bitsy baby and child. She is the youngest of the cousins on that side of my family, so I got to watch her grow up. The party was so much fun though! If I didn't think it would seem creepy, I would have taken my camera because the decor was adorable! And the company wasn't so shabby either! :)
We kept on with our laid back weekend by spending the first half of Saturday lounging around the house. We got brave and ventured to the river in the afternoon though.

It was a wet...



...wet...

...'n wild...

...a wet 'n wild time...

 

More pictures from the weekend will follow because we spent time at the Kiddie Carnival too! Ah, the Kiddie Carnival! If you are in North Alabama and are looking for some serious fun on a Thursday, Friday, or Saturday night during the month of July, check out the Kiddie Carnival. It's the most fun your children will have for $10 or less. We bought $10 worth of tickets and didn't even use them all, so we have a stash to get us started the next time we go.

Hope you had a great weekend!!!

It's Friday....

Rawrrrr! It's Friday! Let the weekend begin...

 

Looking Back...

Here is a picture of 67% of my codependents looking sweet.

 

Looking back on this moment, it is possible that I had plied them with food, beverage, and the promise of a new toy before asking to take their picture.

I had a meltdown at the DMV. It was an all around bad experience. Even though it was horrible and the attendant was less than polite, I really should not have called her "Satan's minion." Looking back on that moment, I probably seemed like a disgruntled taxpayer ready to hop across the desk and choke a...you get the point.

I should have eaten more than a tomato for dinner last night. Looking back, I realize that not eating enough probably contributed to the level of inebriation on the back porch last night. Additionally, if I had eaten better and not had that extra splash of bourbon, I might not have been slightly hungover and might not have also told "Satan's minion" to "go back whence you came."

Looking back. Sometimes you can learn valuable lessons from looking back. Sometimes, you just feel stupid.

Can I Take a Picture?...

Hola, friends! How are ya? I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and were able to celebrate July 4th in style. We didn't do much over the weekend. It was rainy. Rainy. As in, when did I move to Seattle, rainy. I didn't take very many pictures at all. In fact, I might have only taken one or two. Also, I am a lazy bum who hasn't bothered to get the pictures off her memory card.

So...

Instead of Red, White, and Blue pictures, I will show you two photographs I took of the codependents....

Just say it. Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot. Who are these children, and why are they always such a hot mess?
I've been trying to figure out for years why this is their reaction to seeing me pull out my camera. No joke. Only 1 of every 50 shots I take are of smiling, happy children. The rest look like this...



Even when I think I pulled off a major coup and got a decent picture.....I realize Layton was giving one of his sisters a set of bunny ears and has chocolate on his face.

 

Classic.

The Spark...

Happy Independence Day!

 

Friday Friends Full of Fun...Any More F's?...

Things I love: parties, babies, lip gloss, going to Waffle House at 1:00 AM, trips to the beach, text messages from my beloved children, dinners with friends....friends like these....


Things I do not love: Colton moving to Texas. She's the one on the far right, and this was our Bon Voyage to her.



We might have gotten out of hand at the Village Pizza.

Frank got sandwiched by Gigi and me. :) He's been down and out in his back and needed some sugar, or as this southern gentleman would say shugah. No R. 

 

Now, to work up the courage to fly to Houston to visit Colton...planes and I are not good friends, and I will have to really pump myself up to fly...or hit the bar before boarding. :)

Confection Perfection...

Remember when I mentioned that Ella Channing took a cupcake decorating class? I thought you all might like to see what she made. Here is a sample: 

Puppy Dog...

A very non-scary clown...

I'm sure that she will make plenty more delicious treats this Summer. She's got another class or two coming up.