Fruit Cock-n-Tail

Isn't it funny some days what a difference a few hours can make?  If I had posted this when I had originally meant to get to it shortly after dinner, I guarantee it would have been a completely different tone.  I was not having a good evening.

The kids were absolutely driving me crazy.  It seems that it was their sole purpose if life to day to discover how many different pitches of whining they could create or who could find the more mundane thing to argue about.  Honestly, Grant found one very frazzled Kristi upon his return home tonight.

So I wasn't much into the fruit cocktail celebration at dinner tonight, though I do have to share the title of this post comes courtesy of Mikayla who is apparently unable to say 'fruit cocktail', and it comes out as fruit cock-n-tail.  Remember yesterday's post - even when she's driving me crazy I'm trying to hold on to those good moments.  So we did manage to celebrate National Fruit Cocktail day with some yummy tropical fruit cocktail (surprise surprise, my kids love guava) and some fruit cocktail bars, which were almost a cross between a cake and a brownie texture wise and contained not only fruit cocktail but maraschino cherries and coconut, too.

After dinner I knew I needed to escape for a little bit.  So with Grant's blessing I headed off to the library, only to discover when I got there that I left my book list sitting on my desk at home.  Grrrrr.  So my library trip wasn't super productive but I did get a few books to tide me over for at least a couple of days.

But things got better suddenly.  All day, I'd been looking forward to this evening as I was to catch up with my friend, Jen, at Coldstone for a little girl time.  My kids probably owe her their lives.  I can thank her for my sanity.  It was so nice spending an hour munching on some very yummy banana bread yogurt and completely decompress.  Who knew I was so desperately in need of a girls night out?  (OK, I did, lol)  Here's hoping that we're able to make this more of a regular occurrence :)

My much happier self then ran to the grocery store where I scored major deals on milk, eggs and fruit (hey, I can learn to be excited over even the most trivial things) before coming back home and babbled to a very relieved Grant about what a great night I'd had.  Bless my husband who was just as happy as I was that my mood had improved so dramatically, even though it meant that he got stuck dealing with the whining, obnoxious kiddos for a few hours so I could escape.  I have it so good!

If that wasn't enough, my email then turned up some even better news - I am going to be the new co-secretary of the Beechview PTA!  I am so excited!!!!!  I sent a note off to the President after Noah's day at kindergarten last Monday saying that I was interested in getting involved and he got back to me quickly asking me to submit a letter stating why I wanted to be on the board and what my qualifications were.  I sent that off on Tuesday last week only to find out they were going to be electing new officers next Wednesday!  I was really happy that I had jumped on it as quickly as I had.  If I had waited for the new school year to start I could have still gotten involved with the PTA, but there wouldn't have been the chance for me to be on the board already.  You know me, I  never do anything half way and when I decide I'm going to do something I really go for it.  Can't wait to become more involved!!!

So a couple of hours, a whole different perspective.  I'm actually now looking forward to Kid Kitchen tomorrow (fruit snacks and homemade Goldfish crackers!) and whatever else tomorrow might bring.  Buttermilk biscuits, for sure :)  Until then...

Fruit Cocktail Bars

 Tropical Fruit Cocktail

 The back of Noah's shirt for Wednesday

The back of my shirt for Wednesday