Brain Freeze Friday, celebrate with us!

Today was unlike any other day. This morning I declared it Brain Freeze Friday, which means we were going to have ice cream for lunch....just because we can. So I loaded up the kiddos and headed downtown to the most fabulous little ice cream shop called Sweetworks (it has a sister restaraunt down the street called SoupWorks...yummy food, never had a bad thing there!) But today we were throwing traditional lunch to the wind. After all, it's summer, we are slowly running out of fun things to do and trying to find one activity to make all the children happy is darn near impossible! Emily aka baby diva had an awesome hot fudge sundae with coffee ice cream, Cody went with the chocolate...but was still hungry so had to have one of their amazing gourmet cupcakes...it was almost too cute to eat! Gavin isn't an ice cream guy so he feasted upon french fries, and I had a frozen iced coffee....which was like heaven in a cup! sooooooooo good! We were even nice and picked up a piece of fudge cake for the beloved (since the poor guy has to work....ha ha ha neener neener neener you have to work...oh that's not nice..must be coming off my sugar high )
Sweetworks!!!

Gavin with his french fries and Cody with his chocolate ice cream

Me and Baby Diva with our frozen lunch..and Cody's giant finger

Cody and his mud pie cupcake (mmm gummi worms)

It's all rainbows and ponies...la la la de dah!

So normally I'm a pretty bubbly little bundle of joy....but I do have my days. And I feel that I am entirely entitled to those days...lets's face it, my plate runith over most days: mini farm to run, house to clean, 2 kids with autism to deal with, 2 regular kids to deal with, cleaning, laundry, meal making...it can wear a girl down and I find about this time in the summer I start to get a little overwhelmed and miss the company of other adults. I don't count the 15 minutes I get to talk to them as they drop off thier children at my house for playdates (or vice versa..when I am the droppee) and I'm starting to get bogged down with requests of "so when are we going to the beach? can I have a friend over? why don't we have anything good to eat?" etc etc etc. I envy those who can sit and read a book or finish a project or clean their kitchen in less than 5 hours (i have to stop to chase down the youngest as he isn't good at staying put) I wish for the ablility to just pack everyone up at the last moment and go someplace fun...sigh....i'll get over it I suppose but as for today I've got those MID SUMMER BLUES...now if you will excuse me, there is a naked child running through the living room and some name calling on the 2nd floor...and I believe a cat just puked...ta!

The Girls...Marsala, Fajita and Yolk-o!

It's week 2 with the new chicks and they are growing fast and furious! They have started to feather in so they are half fluff and half feather and quite akward looking. Couple more weeks and I'll start letting them out in the chicken tractor for a little scratch and peck practice and to let the other 2 hens get a good look at them...safely...i'm hoping they are accepted nicely and we don't have a major "pecking order" issue!

So call me a sucker (SUCKER!) Cody convinced me to foster a shelter kitty. She sort of found us rather than us finding her. we were waiting for our cousin to come with the key to the shelter to let us in and suddenly there was a kitty next to us outside. I thought maybe she got out...Cody corrected me that there was no way a cat can escape..and when our cousin arrived she verified that no it wasn't a shelter cat. so a quick trip to the vet, a round of shots, de worming and ear cleaned and she needed a home. Sadly our animal shelters are so overcrowded so they look for foster homes and post pictures of the adoptees on their website....but she is such a sweet sweet girl (we named her Agnes...but call her Aggie) I have a bad feeling she might not be leaving our house too soon :)

A Fairy tale of a girl and her pack rat

Once Upon a Time: there was a lovely YOUNG princess who lived in an enchanted land where clutter was a big NO NO. Sadly, a horrible curse was bestowed upon her (i think it's called love or something...seriously, watch out for this spell 'cause it can really mess a girl up something fierce) and married King Pack Rat of Keepingeverthingville.

Many years later, the princess (ok now queen and there is a new princess who lives in the upstairs land called Nevergoingtocleanitupville) suddenly realized they had waaaaaaay too much crap and it was time to have a magical yardsale! Of course at this point, that curse from long ago had totally worn off and it was replaced with "eh, I could do worse" so she commanded King Pack Rat to "get thee to thy attic and purge like your life depended on it or your living with your mother" aka dragon baroness von stinky pants doody head (tee hee)

The treasures King Pack Rat Found! Baseball cards! Lionel Train Sets! Photos! It was like Christmas and birthdays all rolled into one! Oh but the best was the 1976 Mcdonald drinking glasses and the Burger Chef Shazzam and Superman glasses just coated with lead paint! OH JOY WHATEVER SHALL WE DO WITH THEM????

And the princess decread: 7 days from now we shall haveth the biggest damn yard sale known to these parts! We shall sell all this stuff and makith a large profit, and there was much rejoycing in the land.

i'm about to enter....the scouting zone

Ahhhhh yes, it's my big weekend of camping with Cody at scout camp. And of course we are in the middle of a heat wave...of course! why not! makes perfect sense doesn't it? So starting in about an hour I will be surrounded by sweaty, stinky, nose picking, booger flicking, bug spray reeking, scabbed kneed 10 year olds for 72 hours...oh and not to mention the teenage boy scout councilors whose deoderant usuage is questionable and whose laziness factor is HIGH...I expect when I get home to see a large, cold, pitcher of mojitos waiting for me and a big ass pile of grilled veggies for me to fall face first in.

FYI, Cody is beyond excited as it's also his birthday this weekend and we will be having a party at the campsite....sigh, it's all about him!

round 2....bring on the hens!

Behold our Red Star Hens! 3 lovely ladies arrived today to replace our two Partridge Rocks that ended up being roosters! ugh! so the boys are being located to a nice farm a couple of towns over to live out the remainder of their lives among a large and more compliable bunch of ladies :)

So the new girls...Red Star...lovely breed, boy chicks are black, girls are yellow and we have 3 yellow fluffy little cottonballs bouncing around the temporary chick condo in the laundry room. We are a little concerned for one, she took a beating during transport and was a little more wobbly than I expected, she is eating and drinking so i think we are going to be ok. she is by far the smallest of the hens and we have named her Marsala. The biggest chick is Fajita and the middle lady is Yolko....this is what happens when you let the kids name them!

Oh..are these the joys of parenthood they talk about..go figure!

We are week 2 into summer vacation from school and my kids finally hit the bored wall. It's been an up and down start to our summer, we have already had our fair share of friends over (it's a wonder, nobody ever offers to take MY kids..hmmm have to work on that) discovered that 2 of our "hens" are actually roosters (that problem has been taken care of, they leave for a farm next week, replacement chicks arrive today) teenage girl drama still reins in this house..and yesterday it hit 107 degrees outside! it was too hot to even go swimming in the pool...not good! My youngest has decided we all just stink and is very tired of being with us, he longs to go back to his routine at school...autism and vacation do not mix well, we spend most of our day trying to keep him happy and dressed :)

I have been hitting the ice cream waaaay to much as well and can pretty much forget about the binki body this summer...ha ha ha....wasn't that funny? 4 kids and this body reflects it!

I'm off camping in the wild woods this weekend with my little cub scout (more joy!) it will probably rain because that seems to be what happens whenever i go camping, hopefully the heat will break or I might just snap.

happy happy!