We are having a really good time around here!  We have had my niece for several days-she doesn't live very far away, but we don't get to see her too much due to school, activities and conflicting schedules.  But we have her (!), and we are having fun.  We got their portrait made today, and we have been swimming a few times.  Niece had never gone off the diving board before, so we convinced her to do that yesterday.  I was so proud of her!  We celebrated my husband's bday before that, and have really been enjoying doing family things.  Summer is slipping away; as much as I *HATE* the actual season of summer, I so love my kids being home.  I think we only have 3 weeks left.  My oldest has already gone 1 week into her summer instrument program--it's coming!

I wanted to talk about a not-so-awesome baking incident that the small one and I had.  She loves all things cotton-candy.  Obviously, cotton candy itself, but also gum, candy, icecream....all cotton candy flavored.  So I saw this package of cotton candy cupcakes and I had to buy it for her!

So we started putting together the mix-it was a very bright pink color!  Nearly pepto-bismulish.  But it smelled and tasted fine, maybe a little chemical-ish.  Then, I apparently made a big screw up; I poured the batter into six cupcakes, not eight.  Not only did the cupcakes overflow, but they got reeeally big, then plopped! (The recipe only had an egg white, probably because it didn't want the bright pink color to be messed up, but I can't help bu think that was part of the problem).  My first thought was to toss those suckers out!  But my daughter was super excited and didn't want me to. :(  So I scraped as much as I could off, and tried to get the hard and very gross textured (spongey!) cupcakes out.  We then mixed together the frosting, which again, was a very putrid pink.  I only used about 1/4 of the flavored mix, and it still smelled really icky-I tried it and nearly gagged.  So did my daughter.  We tossed the frosting out and revereted to the fake stuff in can!  Trying to frost these things was beyond impossible, so I blobbed some on (again, trying to make the small one happy), and allowed her to dust them with the pink sprinkles.  The result?  UGLY!  And the taste?  INEDIBLE IMO.  I took one bite and sailed mine into the trash. 

Want one?  Yeah, me neither.

Too Close To Home

I haven't felt like blogging much lately.  We live less than an hour from Denver-Aurora is right outside Denver, and only about 15 min from my brother's house.  He and my other brother frequently attend midnight screenings of movies when they are big ones...so the whole Movie Theater Murders is just killing me.  Hearing the tributes, seeing the stories about the lives affected and lost...it's too close to home (literally).  So sad, so pointless and so wrong.

I have a post planned for tomorrow about a really bad cupcake mix that I bought.  How can a mix go wrong?  Wait and see.

Too Much SUN

Today I spent about 10 hours out in the hot-a$$ sun.  In the summer.  It was about 97 degrees and just hottttttttttttttttttt.  I really hate summer.  The only reason I agreed to this was because it's a once a year competition that my girls do for irish dance, and they always do good at it.  So I hated to miss out on a good opportunity.  And I am soooo glad that we went!  First off, yesterday I found (to my horror) that I had not registered Lulu properly.  She is 10 and my higher up of the two dancers-she is already in preliminary championship, and has competed in 3 competitions and not placed once.  This coming from the kid who swept when she was a non-champ.  It's been a hard road for her.  So my poor Mom has been slaving over redoing the skirt on Lu's dress for the past week, and here I had probably screwed it up and she wouldn't be able to dance.  I was so upset I actually cried.  But their teacher reassured me via email that all would be fine-and thankfully-it was.  Although she still didn't place in the overall championship, she did better than she ever has before.  AND, I begged her to change her trophy special step to one that she and her sister did together for a show that looked fabulous--and she got a 3rd place and a trophy.  I've been nagging the heck out of her telling her to keep her head up, shoulders back, hands straight--I know she's wanted to punch me.  But she is doing so much better and I'm so glad. She was in a rut where she acted like she could never place again-I hope she has more confidence and is over all that!  Her skirt doesn't show the sparkles and pretties in the material, but you can see that my Mom did a fabulous job.  Thanks Grammy!

Her sister had a great day too-since she is a non-champ still, she has to do the required 4 soft shoe dances, and 3 hard shoe dances.  Although she didn't get either of the 2 that she needs to move up to Lu's level, she still got (3) First places, a third and a 4th.  She also placed 2nd in the trophy special for her age.  she was really happy about that!  She had a really long day-had to be there at 9 for us to set up our tent, then Lu danced at 10, then Pie wasn't scheduled to dance until about 12:30.  It was so long, but she looked confident and did well.

But it was soooo hot.  And so long.  We all got a little sunburned (not the dancers, husband, Mom and me), but I'm so glad that they went and did well.  I'm going to try to get some rest now because I barely slept last night worrying that Lu wouldn't get to dance or would have another bad day.

More Chicago Pics

 Here are a few more pics while I am thinking about it.  The girls and I have to make a run to the city (about 1 hour+) to get my oldest some hard shoes.  She is growing like crazy, and her soft shoes, which fit, are an entire size smaller than her hard shoes!  She hasn't been wearing them for a few months because I was making her wear tennis shoes in class due to her tendonitis.  Hopefully her foot is well enough to start wearing shoes since she has a summer intensive next week! :/

We went on a sunset cruise out on Lake Michigan while we were in Chicago.  It was very touristy but still fun.  I'm not sure the kids enjoyed it that much, but I found it relaxing and a great opportunity to get some really awesome pictures. 

The other is a cute shot from the steps of our hotel on the 4th.

Chicago......and 12

We are home from Chicago.  Chicago.......oooooh Chicago.  How I both love and hate you so much!  The girls came in a very disappointing 5th place. :(    I think they had fun-it was several long exhausting days.

We made the best of it and tried to turn in into a mini vacation!  The city is very cool and full of fun things.  But HOT HOT HOT HOTTTTT.  They experienced record breaking triple digit highs when we were there.  With humidity so heavy that I had trouble catching my breath at first.  And we walked so much-to the pier and back more times than I care to recall.  We did a lot of waiting too-waiting for husband to retrieve the car from a garage that we couldn't quite find or get into....walking 45 min to get to "the beach"....so much walking.  I think this place would be beyond wonderful in the fall, but in the summer heat, it is pretty much brutal!

My baby celebrated her 12th bday the day we got back.  Thank GOD for my Mom.  We were brain dead toast after driving 16+ hrs straight back through a scary monsoonal hell storm.  She had dinner, cake and amazing presents.  Thanks Grammy-she really did save the day.  We are now no longer seeing my child.  They gave her a kindle and she is checked out!

ROAD TRIP

We took a lesson from a friend and decided to decorate our car for our road trip!  It was nearly 100 degrees outside so we had to wait until it cooled down to the low 90s!  The girls got really carried away with it.    I hope we won't be regreatting this all day tomorrow when we are driving!  Lu was sick (well had a cold) earlier in the week.  We were afraid that her sister would get it too, but so far she has not.  Lu is feeling better too thank God!  My parents will be coming over daily and taking care of our animals.  Tomorrow is going to be such a long day-15 1/2 hrs.  We have to stay at a certain hotel for the competitions, or we incur $100/dancer/day facility fee.  The place we booked at under the rate was I think $159.  We hotwired the area for the 2 days prior and guess what-got the same place for about $90/night.  :/  We will have Tuesday and most of Wednesday to be tourists.  Not sure what exactly we will do-we are right near the Navy Pier so we hope to do that, and maybe make it to the "beach".  The girls have practice Weds evening, then dance Thursday.  They are doing team dances only and I will be thrilled if they place PERIOD.  They placed 3rd at their Regional Championship, but have had 6 more months to practice.  It would be really nice to place.  I won't have access to update, so I will be gone until Saturday, which BTW is the day my oldest BABY turns 12!  I just can't even believe that.  In some ways she is already such an old soul.  And in other ways, well you have to know her to get that.  She still gets food all over her face when she eats.  She still is very young at heart and hilarious.  I love that kid so much!