Mommy+Coffee=Survival: Oh...Dear...Lord...

This weekend has been packed with incredible friends and fun. I have spent the entire week prepping for Molly's birthday bash, including baking and decorating an incredible castle cake for my princess, all the way down to pressure washing our back decks for the occasion as well. The cake...well it was far from perfect, and it caused a lot of random cursing, but I think it came out pretty cool if I do say so myself. I have never made my own fondant and decorated my own cake, so the fact that it even resembled a castle at all is pretty impressive. I have to admit, the pressure washer did give me the distinct "Tim Allen from Home Improvement" kind of feeling. That thing is awesome. I totally need one of those to clean everything. Our friend was celebrating her birthday Saturday night, so we took a small break from preparations for our own celebration, to head over to their place and see some of our friends. The next day was filled with fun and craziness as we prepared for the insanity of having several (I think we had 12 kids at one point) over to our place to celebrate Molly's birthday, and we figured, why not double the fun and make it a Memorial Day cookout as well? One of my mommy friends asked what the theme of Molly's party was going to be. My response..."I don't know, Princesses, burgers and dogs, and beer?" I think she was slightly horrified, but that is how we roll around this place. All in total, I think we had more than 35 people wandering through our house, participating in a fabulous party for my sweet little Princess of Destruction. I had a small pool in the front yard, a jumpy house on our front porch, a sprinkler set up in the yard as well, and tons of bubbles and water guns. Finally, all of the adults that wished to hide from the toddler insanity upstairs, hung out in our basement, and from all appearances, seemed to have a nice time as well. Prepare for a little picture overload...
As you can imagine, all of my hard work cleaning and prepping for the party seemed senseless once everyone had left for the evening. The children were tired and slap happy, Mike and I were exhausted, and my house appeared to have had an explosion during the party. Perhaps we shall simply say "Hurricane Toddler Party" passed through my house, leaving chaos and mayhem in its wake. I stood there surveying the damage, waded through the sea of toys, and climbed into bed...Like any sane person would have done. It was all SO worth it though. Molly loved her cake, and she had a blast. This girl loves being the center of attention. My friends said they felt like they were in the presence of a celebrity because of this blog. They all feel like they know my sweet kids, and that they have experienced my crazy stories with me. Well...some of them have :) Sandra has seen many of them first hand. I can't thank all of you guys enough for coming out and celebrating with us. We know it is a hike all the way out here, but it is awesome to see you guys, and I wish it could happen more often. And on that note...It isn't a complete blog post without a silly story about my sweet babies.
This morning, I was getting dressed in my bedroom, surrounded by my Peanut Gallery, as always. Molly and Colin were fighting over my Kindle Fire, so I took it away and put it out of reach. Colin left to find something better to do, but Molly quickly realized Mike's phone was plugged in to charge on our bedside table. I was attempting to find something to wear, but I had only managed to locate a bra so far...I heard Molly giggling behind me as I opened my underwear drawer. And then I heard it...oh...dear...Lord. No, she did not just take a picture of me. I hear it again, the distinct sound of a shutter on a camera, and Molly giggles saying simply..."Say cheese Mommy." By turning around to grab the phone, I have now exposed even more of myself, the camera goes off again...and then I remember. Dear Sweet Baby Jesus!! Mike has his phone set to upload his pictures directly to Google Plus...My a$# is now on the internet...I let a few expletives of choice fly out of my mouth as I lunge for the phone, while attempting to cover myself, but that little girl is quick with the shutter. I keep hearing the camera go off as I begin screaming for my husband to come quickly. Colin enters the room to see what was going on, and I begin to use my son as a human shield. Of course, in hindsight, this may have appeared even worse on the internet. Colin is just confused as I pick him up, and use him to cover all of my indecent exposure. Mike finally comes back to the room to save me, and our family's honor, by taking away his phone from our adorable daughter. Why me?? Mike immediately went into his Google account, and luckily, our daughter is a horrible photographer. All of the photos were blurry and out of focus. I asked him to delete them anyway, on principle, if nothing else. He of course had to make a joke about hoping for some of them to come out, so that he could keep them for his "personal file." I may have smacked my husband in the back of the head. Crisis averted, but I did recommend removing the auto upload feature for future reference. This girl is going to keep me on my toes. Thank God she is so stinkin cute :)