Wild Weekend

Friday kicked off a wild, whirlwind of a weekend.

It was definitely a morning for red cowgirl boots...

It was field trip day. And red boots + a field trip = some kind of excitement! Towns' class took a short bus ride to Cook's Natural Science Museum. It's the first field trip I've missed, but blondie assured me she'd survive just fine without me. She kept reiterating just how fine she'd be which led me to reiterate that I'm her mother, always will be, and it's perfectly ok if I want to be right up under her. Hello.

It was a big day for Cate, too. Her teacher, Mrs. Connie, is about to have a new baby and it was her last day at school. The second Cate and I walked in the classroom Friday morning the tears started flowing. Mrs. Connie was Towns' first mother's day out teacher when she was a year old. A couple of years after that she was Cate's first teacher. Then this year we were fortunate enough to have her again. She's been with us for what seems like forever, and it was bittersweet to see her go. Cate sure does love her...
And we'll definitely miss her!
She's promised to bring baby Matthew to visit, so we let her off easy. After the girls were out of school we ran a few quick errands before we picked Bebs up from school. We had to whisk her away to meet her grandmother at 5:00 in Birmingham. That's a smooth trip under normal circumstances which usually gets us home before 7. I didn't pull into the driveway until 9:20 that night. We had been in the car since 2:30. If you do the math, that's a 7 hour trip that should usually only take a little over 3. What genius plans construction on I-65 smack dab in the middle of spring and at 5:00 on a Friday afternoon? At one point on our way home the interstate was completey shut down and traffic was being directed through a small town that's not equipped to handle it. That's when we took our own detour to a gas station that I thought was hidden from the crowd. Not so. It was like a block party when we pulled in! Obviously plenty of other people had my same idea. I broke all parenting rules that night. We bought Dr. Pepper, Mt. Dew and lots of candy. Usually we don't do caffeine anywhere near bed time. I didn't have any fight left in me...which led to dropping $14 on two pink mini Beanie Baby monkeys with eyes that look they're about to pop out of their heads. They were so ugly that they were cute. Maybe I was just delirious. And I was so wound tight that I couldn't say no. Nor did I even care to. J called me every five minutes to check on our progress, and my poor husband got an ear full every time. It went a little something like this...
"if I got hold of the head of the ALDOT he wouldn't have a single hair left on that head"
or...
"whoever planned all this blasted construction on the interstate during the busiest time of year is not exactly setting the intellectual woods on fire"
or...
Well, you get the picture. All he could do was laugh hysterically at me. He looked online to see what the hold up was...cue the major guilt. Apparently there had been a fatal accident on the interstate which is why we'd been re-routed. I wanted to sit in the middle of all that traffic and cry. I'd run off at the mouth over what I thought was stupid construction (which some of it was) only to learn the truth about it. Goodness, I felt horrible. That's a good lesson in using self control even when my nerves and lack of patience suggest otherwise. We found a minivan that had Ratatouille playing in their DVD player, and as long as stayed next to that van so they could watch it through the window the girls were as happy as clams. So that's just what we did. And then we spotted this with a for sale sign in the window that sparked a 15 minute conversation...
Towns decided that the tiny green car was not very reasonable for our family at all. She said, "I mean, you can't even go on a vacation in it." So true. Then she proceeded to say, "well, you and Daddy could go on a trip together but then that would mean that we'd stay home and that would not be fair at all so you'd have to buy a different car that would hold us all so that we could all go and not leave anyone out (it went on and on and on)." The Mt. Dew was in full effect. She was one long run-on sentence all the way home. Cate was fine with the prolonged trip except for the fact that she was convinced J would never see us again. That brought lots of tears, and I assured her that even if she fell asleep in the car I'd let him wake her up when we got home. Neither of them fell asleep, though. So when the alarm clock went off early Saturday morning, it wasn't pretty! But it was the day of Towns' last cheer competition so we hit the ground running. It rained and rained, but nothing was going to spoil the fun. Towns put on her uniform one last time, and in less than ten minutes she went from this...
To this...
Dad of the year here even got Buggy all glittered up...He'll probably kill me for that one. Once everyone was dressed and made up I told J I'd take a picture of him with the girls if he'd kindly return the favor...Somehow I always get the short end of the stick...He despises a camera and even more so despises taking pictures. It's the thought that counts, right? I'm sure one day I'll appreciate these candids way more than normal pictures where everyone is looking at the camera and not jumping around, in mid-step, or what have you.
We watched a few of the mini cheer squads and then it was time for the Monster Minis to take the floor...
Keeping them contained is somewhat like keeping a bucking bull calm and collected in a pen at a rodeo. Except in this scenario there are 16 bulls. They were chomping at the bit and when they finally got the go ahead, they took off! They all got in their spots and were ready to roll...
They did fantastic...especially given the fact that their routine had been changed several times in last few weeks. I was one proud psycho cheer mom. But I must confess that we're all glad it's over. Even Towns is excited to have a break from it. After their performance, everyone gathered for the awards ceremony. That many cheerleaders in such a small place has to be a noise violation of some sort. :)
It was a tad bit emotional saying goodbye to Towns' coaches Hannah and Evin...
Now here's where the real fun begins. You might remember that Towns got her ears pierced last summer. When she started cheering, she had to take them out for cheer competitions which got to be more painful than anything to try to get them back in. So we didn't try after that and her holes grew up. She's been really begging to get them pierced again, but her daddy told her she had to wait until her cheer commitment was over. She took that quite literally, and after the competition Saturday we sought out a Claire's...
She chose to have both ears done at the same time. Smart chick. The two girls who pierced her ears were extremely colorful (seriously - see the blue hair?). They made her laugh and took her mind off of it. She's always such a champ when it comes to ear piercing, though.
And she proudly carried her little bag on her shoulder for everyone to see...
The first thing she wanted to do after she was finished was call Bethany to tell her...
Such sweet sisters!
After a big day, all we could do after church Sunday morning was get comfy and cozy up on the couch to ride out the cold, blah day. Sometimes that's just what the doctor ordered!