Happy Birthday America!

Today was a rather long day. But let's start with last night, shall we?

Last night I decided to bake red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese icing (all from scratch). Everything was going just fine until I removed the cupcakes from the oven. I turned them around mid-way through the baking process and at that point, I smelled a burning smell, but didn't see any evidence of burnt anything. Back to taking them out of the oven... as I was removing each cupcake from the pan, I noticed the bottoms were black... all two dozen... 24 wasted cupcakes. I really wanted to break down and hysterically cry but I had to quickly re-route that emotion because of the peanut gallery saying "you're not going to cry over that, are you?" I was pretty ticked that I was too dumb to move the oven rack up one notch. Thank goodness I made two batches worth of batter. I had Daddy move the oven rack up and successfully baked two dozen cupcakes. After making the icing and allowing them to completely cool, I iced each cupcake and topped it with a blueberry (just a tad patriotic).

This morning, my little monkey was in rare, and I mean rare, form. He decided to start his day at 5am... screaming and crying. Normally, I can go in his room, hand him a pacifier and he will either doze back off or play very quietly for 30-45 minutes. Then I go back in and do the same and he actively plays until 6:15am. Not. This. Morning. I gave in to the little terrorist (as Amy puts it when her little one is not giving up). My sad/cranky/angry/not satisfied with anything little monkey stayed in his put-out mood until about 1:00pm. At this point we were at Daddy’s family function. I was happy that he willingly went to other people and was smiling and talking to them as well. I brought the red velvet cupcakes with me and when we left no one had touched them yet. We took one tray back with us (who knows what happened to the rest... I will be happy with whatever outcome so long as I get my silver fleur-di-lis platter back).

Then we journeyed onto my family function. We had to stop at our house to pick up the two homemade baked macaroni dishes I made. Daddy and B slept the entire 45 minutes back to our house (and a few minutes longer after we left). We arrived at my aunt & uncle's at 3:00pm. It was a very small gathering but very nice, too! They decided to get in the pool and even though I had my swimsuit on, I decided to pass. I was just too tired to even think about swimming. We put B in a swim diaper and handed him off to the pool crew. At some point, while in the pool, soon-to-be Uncle M was doing something (I know, how much more vague can I get?) and he managed to dislocate his shoulder (he really needs to get surgery but keeps putting it off). So M & M left for the E.R. Around 4:45pm (I think), we decided to head home. We were just too exhausted (all 3.5 of us) to keep socializing. We made a pit stop on the way home to pick up some fireworks (more like sparklers, jumping jacks, and a few other odds and ends... nothing too exciting because I did the shopping and had no clue as to what I was looking at). After my semi-successful fireworks stop, we went home.

B & I bathed Daisy & Duke while Daddy took a nap. By the time we finished that task, it was time for dinner, bath and bedtime. B wore his super cute 4th of July pajamas to bed! Daddy and I ordered pizza for dinner once B went to bed. We ate, went outside and did a few fireworks and decided to wait until later to do the rest... bad move... I fell asleep on the couch! And that's pretty much how our day went. I am going to do a separate post with pictures because this post feels long enough!!!