and now for something (not so) completely different

exciting things happening/things that have been making me giddy as of late:

eating this pizza. trying to stuff my face with the whole thing. almost succeeding.

resorting back to my 12 year old american girl doll book reading self and making these bracelets. omgz, who wants to be my BFFA and have a BFF bracelet?? if you want one i will so LYLAS. lols.

stalking this new blog and reading the oldest entries possible. creepy? not so much. crazy fun? you know it. reading this blog post and secretly wishing i was back in high school dancing 24/7 again. crazy? not at all.

getting late birthday cards in the mail. excuse me, they are not late. they are perfectly on time since it is still july and we are still celebrating my birthday, duh. did you really forget that?!

alright, this is probably the most exciting news of the week. or year, really. are you ready? my bangs have finally grown out enough for me to tuck them behind my ear. !!!! it's like an early christmas present or something. i'm sure you're probably thinking, "girl please, quit playin'. you crazy." but, having short bangsies fall in my face every 5 seconds was crazy. now, i am back to the world of normalcy and all my hair does is lie flat on my face and tuck behind my ears, so i see many days of comfortable, boring, great, samesies hairstyles coming up in the near future. anyone (male of female, of course) that has ever attempted to trudge through the excruciating process of growing out their bangs i'm sure can share the excitement and exclamation pointing with me. !!!!! 

!!!                                                       !!!                       !!                     !                        !            !!

          !                   !!                                                   !                           !!                      !

and to finish off this list of greatness we have peanut butter m&m's. i can't even try to explain their greatness because i will not do it justice. there is nothing else you need in life to survive. they have peanut butter which is protein and great, chocolate which is sugar and great, and if you drink some milk with them you're getting your calcium sooo you're pretty much set. and in really really great shape. and you should have stopped reading this a few lines up and gone out to get yourself some of these beauties.



well, have you gotten any yet?

oh july, you are mighty fine

For those of you that only stalk my blog and don't know me, I prefer the entire month of July to be dedicated to my birthday. I'm okay sharing the 4th with America and all that, but let's not push it by continuing to have babies born in my month, mmkay? (Kidding, of course. I'm not that ridiculous...) So here we are, July 17. Birthday weekend is coming to a close (birthday month is still going strong though...) and it has been a full and fabulous weekend. I figured I couldn't hold off writing a post about it any longer or I would have some angry fans at my door.

Calm down, calm down because here we go...

Warner Bros. wanted to do something really special for my birthday this year so they decided to have the final Harry Potter movie open on July 15. (sidebar: that's muh bday, folks.) How nice of them, right?! I couldn't have asked for a better way to spend the wee hours of my birthday morning---sitting in a theater full of Hogwarts students, a Dumbledore, a Moaning Myrtle, an Umbridge, a golden snitch, a Trelawney (etc., etc.) watching the final movie and eating candy. Seeing as it was the last movie and all, we decided it was necessary to dress up. So much WINNING. I don't know why we have never dressed up for such an event before, but thank goodness we did it for this one. From now on I'm dressing up for all movies I go to see. Oh hai Winnie the Pooh and Cowboys and Aliens and Smurfs, this is gonna be REAL fun. 

The celebration continued with some good food on Friday night. And by good food, I mean delicious. And by good food, I also mean good desserts. Did I mention there was good company as well? Thank you Founders for making my belly as happy as my heart on my b-day. (Awwww.) (So truesies.)

I would like to take this opportunity to give a shout out to Mr. Freddiefriend. Again. (by the way, how is y'alls's search for a Freddiefriend coming along?) My family is used to my crazy, I mean super charming, attitude about the month of July. They know to spppprrreeeeaaadd the party out all month and tone out, I mean listen intently, to all my birthday talk. FF was just thrown into the madness this year and went above and beyond, as per usual, to make the day extra special. (which wasn't hard for him to do since he exudes large amounts of extra specialness every few minutes.)  If you want to keep talking about how great he is, hit me up and we can chat away. 

After a surprise from Freddiefriend on Saturday (say hello to the new and ever so talented glass blowers and champion Antico calzone eaters, Mle and Freds) and the grand finale Sunday Walton family dinner celebration at the Dids house, birthday weekend ended on the highest note possible. Which is puhretty high, y'all. Like extra squeaky high. Like so high only the super alert dogs can hear it. And mice. And special machines. 

Many many many thanks to my family, and friends, and Freddie and everyone who made it the happiest of birthday (months.) I could not ask for a better group of people in my life to put up with the crazy birthday rants and actually still choose to be around me in July. (okay maybe they don't really have a choice so much, but...)

Just wait, we still have 14 days of PARTYING! ;)

Wanna see some pictures? Good!

Who built the Ark?

Do you remember it ever raining on the Fourth of July? Of course you do. Unless you were born today and, in that case, congratulations! You are the first newborn baby ever to read my blog. But if you were not born today and you have lived many, many years and have experienced many, many different weather occurrences then yes, you more than likely remember it raining on the Fourth.

So what. Big deal, right? 

It wasn't a big deal when the thunder forced us out of the pool yesterday. Nor was it a big deal when the rain forced our grill out to be moved to the porch. Nor was it a big deal when the parade still went on with some drizzles coming down (the people handing out water and paper fans were not so popular this year, bless their hearts). None of this seemed to bother any of the good citizens of Newnan, Georgia because as soon as the 6 pm parade ended everyone packed their blanketschairsfoodcameras and headed on over to Drake Stadium for some fireworks fun. With the clouds of darkness looming close behind, everyone was thinking the same things..."Will the fireworks be cancelled? Will they be rescheduled? Is it going to rain?"

Lemme answers those questions for y'all real fast: No. No. YES. (all caps lock is needed to showcase just how much YES is needed to accurately answer that question).

The title of the post should be, "The Show Must Go On," because LAWD KNOWS the Rotary Club must have chanted that all day and all night yesterday. Come hell or high water, that firework show was happening and the people of Newnan were going to enjoy it. When there are clouds as black as my blackest black mascara and thunder and lightning louder/brighter than a fireworks show, you know that a storm is coming. You just know. You don't have to be taught that in school, you don't have to find a meteorologist hanging around and ask him. You just know these things. When you know these things, you decide to forego all the thank you's and the kiddos saying Pledge of Allegiance and playing a recording of hometown boy Alan singing for us and start the fireworks early in order to avoid a wet, chaotic, hysterical (and funny) mess of a Fourth of July. 

Someone in charge did not know these things and so they did thank everyone and their mothers, they did pull kids onstage to introduce themselves one at a time to say the pledge, they did play Alan Jackson's recording, and they did make us countdown not once, but twice to get the fireworks started. Here is a summation of the rest of the night:

1 minute into the show: Thunder is now louder than firework's booms.

2 minutes into the show: Lightning is now brighter than the fireworks in the sky.

2.5 minutes into the show: Lightning strike hits a firework mid air. 

3 minutes into the show: Torrential downpour begins. Drake stadium empties faster than a crack house during a police raid. 

4-15 minutes into the show: Monsoon continues. Fleeing people continue. FIREWORKS CONTINUE. 

Yes, as we are wading through the river formally known as Newnan High School, dodging cars and other people, trying to carry the now 50 lb. sopping wet quilts we had entertainment! The fireworks kept going! Booms all around! Lightning and fireworks lit our way through the river! The show must go on! 

!!!!!

30 minutes and some dry clothes later, we sat around laughing about what a fabulous Fourth weekend we had (no sarcasm here, y'all). I got to spend the weekend celebrating birthdays (Americuh and Uncle John), eating lotsa grilled food, swimming, playing Disney games, and having fun all with my family and my Freddiefriend. (BTW, if you don't have a Freddiefriend you are seriously living a boring, sad life because Freddiefriend not only makes everything more fun and enjoyable, but he also carries things, goes to the grocery store, grills pizza for us, takes napsies, and helps assemble big important things like water filters and grills.) (Do I sound like I'm trying to sell him? Because this is not an infomercialblog and I'm not. I kinda sorta want to keepsies him.) (But seriously, go find yourself one.)

I don't think running in traffic on LaGrange St. would have been nearly as fun if I hadn't had the fireworks in the background to remind me just how special Independence Day really is. Betcha didn't have that much fun on July 4th, 1776 huh, Thomas Jefferson? Also, betcha didn't have that much fun during the flood huh, Noah?