Jam, Drama, and Birthday Cake

I just added a little post-script to that party post a few days ago. I was waiting for the pic to be emailed from Michael. There was a little color to my cheeks, we'll just say that.

Today was a tough day for me. Things didn't go like I had planned, and when I am in the height of PMS, I'm not a fan of things not going right (not that I'm a fan of it normally).

The day began by shipping all of the kids to camp - that went very smooth, until I got a call from Amy (who had the drop off shift with our boys) that they were quite disturbed by the lack of boys in their "Grease Academy" and disturbed by the mandatory jazz shoes that had to be worn. Oh, and Brayden lost a contact.....
The girls - HAPPY, at their camp

Alright, whatever, the boys could stick it out, it would be fine - on to my friend Kristin's house to make some jam. I had thoroughly reached a point of irriation on Sunday afternoon trying to acquire the necessary ingredients for 5 people to make jam, so I had an attitude about the whole thing going into it. However, the company was wonderful, so there was a certain guarantee for a good time - despite the moldy raspberries, lids not sealing, and jam not firming - (by tonite, the jam seemed like it had actually worked out). Things were slowly unraveling for the day, and my blood pressure was escalating in proportion.Doesn't Kristin have the most amazing kitchen?

Next came the phone call from Michele, who had the pick-up shift for the boys and was 15 minutes west of where she should have been because she'd gone the wrong way. It was a fun little blame game between the two of us for a few minutes - real nice.

Amy ended up picking up Andrew and Brayden, while Michele picked up Traig - and came back reporting that Andrew had been in tears when she picked them up - both boys were very disappointed and unhappy with the camp. This is further complicated by the fact that we had already purchased tickets for all three of our families to watch them do their performance on Thursday, adding up to a considerable chunk of change that would have all been lost were they not to continue. Throw in some mixed messages from Andrew stemming from not wanting to disappoint his parents by bagging out of the camp. HEADACHE. Long story short, we were able to get a refund for the "Grease" tickets and for the rest of the week Brayden and Andrew will be in the same camp as Traig. The transfer was not easy, and nearly pushed me over the edge.

Funny how it's the little things that take you down when you are dealing with "that time of the month". On an errand that I felt the need to just get away and do myself I recognized that pretty much the only thing I could control today was my attitude and responses to circumstances and people - and if I wanted to win the battle for the day, I needed to conquer at least that. It wasn't easy.

Fortunately, by the time we arrived at Adam's birthday party at Roaring Rapids Pizza, my attitude had turned around considerably. It wasn't my event to take care of, so that helped a lot. Plus, canadian bacon/pineapple pizza and cake can really help. It was sweet watching Adam so enamored by everything CARS related - a truly great turnaround for an otherwise irritating day.
This picture is really special to us - taken at the pizza parlor in the chair we got for him - Adam is "reading" to the rest of the kids from his CARS Search Book......