About two weeks ago we had our annual Southern Fried Festival. I talked about it last year here.

So on Friday night I took the kids down while Philip was brewing beer. By far the kids favorite thing was the petting zoo.

Ashton especially liked the chicken.

Last week was me and Philip's 10th wedding anniversary. We, meaning I, wanted to do more than just dinner and a movie so I made Philip make arrangements for a trip.

I miss my babies. Two of them (the oldest deviants) are in Alabama with my Dad and stepmom. They are having a great time, swimming and playing, eating whatever they want and not missing me. Oh I ask if they miss me and of course they lie to me and tell me yes.



I will go down in a week or two to get them but in the mean time I am enjoying my one on one time with Hurrican Carley.


Don't mess with her!

Anyone remember the Duncan Hines Tiara pans from way back in the day?


Well I do. Me and my Mom loved this thing, especially the Black Forest Torte. Several months ago I found one of these pans at Goodwill. This past week I dug it out and decided to make this yummy dessert, with a few tweakes.

First I used a box mix, Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate Fudge. I mixed it up and poured about 3 cups into the tiara pan and baked at 335 until cooked all the way thru. I immediately inverted the pan onto a wire rack to cool. Once cooled, I whipped up some chocolate ganache with chocolate chips and heavy whipping cream and poured a layer into the well of the cake and spread it around and up the sides a little. Next came some yummy cool whip and then cherrie pie filling over that. Last I drizzled a little more chocolate ganache over the top. Now I forgot that it should chill in the fridge for an hour or two and we just ate it but I quickly remembered this step when all the filling started falling out. But it still tasted DIVINE!!!



Mother when you come visit me I will make this for you!!

How is this possible? I promise I barely blinked for a milasecond and look what happened:

This feels like yesterday (more like 3 years ago)



when actually this was just last week



Good heavens!!! This week has been rough. My baby turned 5 last month and I'm still reeling from that. Now my oldest baby will be 9 next week? It's not possible that I have a 9 year old. And I was reminded that in 9 more years she will be 18. I want to just curl up in a ball, cry and make a wish to a genie to make them my babies again.

PS: I do not purposely torture myself with these videos. Carley does! She loves to play on my phone and found that 2 year old video this morning. I have been in tears ever since.

In my neck of the woods, Columbia, Tennessee that is, the first weekend of April each year is dedicated to mules. The last 2 years my Girl Scout troop has participated in the parade. Last year we won 1st place for Club Float but people seriously stepped up their game this year (and so did we) but we didn't win anything this year. Regardless the girls had a great time and it was lots of fun. You really have no idea how many people come out for Mule Day until you ride that parade route. It is crazy!!

This year our float theme was Mule Day picnic and I was the mule. All the girls wore sun hats decorated with flowers and we set everything to look like a picnic table including Girl Scout cookies. I had a music player on board to keep the girls entertained. I was so proud of them, they waved without being reminded and several girls threw out "Happy Mule Day" periodically. They had lots of fun!!




If you want to know lots more about this annual event click here and you'll find out all you could image knowing about Mule Day.

How is it possible that she is 5?


Seems like no time has passed since I did this post. But a full year has passed and my baby is growing up. She will start kindergarten in the fall. My last child will start school. I often think that having them all in school will make my life easier, cheaper on childcare at the very least. But now that the time is near I am sad. I like my children growing more independent but at the same time I miss my babies being babies. Ya know? Anyway, I could probably write way too long a post about this wishy-washy though process. Today is about my true baby, Carley. She is 5 today.

She work to snuggles and me singing happy birthday to her which made her giggle. I took her to daycare with the promise I'd be back later for her Dance Party party that afternoon with her daycare friends. IT WAS A BLAST!!! I'll do another post for that later but it was AWESOME!! She and all the kids had a great time. I even got my brother to make her a party intro. Click here - Carley's Party Intro/Super Clean Tik Tok. You'll have to download it but you won't be sorry, I promise.

Moving on...

We then went to dinner. Carley's choice was Legend's Steakhouse or as Carley says "Wegginds". LOL, so cute!! She got lots of presents.

She also has a horse riding party on Sunday with just a few of her school friends. She is very excited to ride Sugar again.

Here are a few of my favorite pics of her from this past year.











This is my baby!! I made her promise never to get older and never to leave me and I'm going to hold her to it!