You want me to smile one more time? You’ve got to be kidding me.

My mother-in-law took these pictures Saturday night. The girls are modeling the hubby’s costumes his grandmother Marguerite made for him when he was a little boy. She was a master seamstress and made all of my mother-in-law’s and her sister’s clothes when they were little. I wish she could see the girls in these. Miss A is actually dressing up as Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) and Miss C will be Tinker Belle for Halloween, but you know how that goes. Miss C is known for changing her mind at the last minute. I can’t possibly imagine who she got that from.

So what are your kids dressing up as for Halloween?

Hubby saying goodbye to Miss C and his dad Saturday night in his parents’ front yard. I love the light.

The weather was perfect.

The bride was beautiful.

The groom was handsome.

The service was inspiring.

The reception was fun.

The music was kickin’.

The food was delicious.

The wine was flowing.

The champagne was plentiful.

The barfing was inevitable.

That’s right. I said the B word.

I can’t remember the last time I got sick from drinking. It has been years. I am a bit of a control freak and I am also a lightweight so typically I pace myself and I sip on water while drinking. I was having such a great time talking with friends Saturday night (we sat with my best friend and her husband and their three adorable boys) that I didn’t think twice about that 10 ounce white wine chaser to the couple of glasses of champagne I’d downed. I was also distracted with the serious moves on the dance floor. There was one guy that I can best describe as Funky Kenny Chesney. He looked amazingly like Kenny Chesney, only he was wearing a backwards baseball cap and channeling MC Hammer.

Back to the barfing. It was thankfully just a little “PLEEZEPULLOVERQUICKIMGOINGTOBESICK” session as we were a few miles from our house Saturday night. I felt pretty decent yesterday morning despite the bedtime pit stop (actually that and the fact that I’d eaten some pasta and bread are probably why I felt OK) and hubby and I even enjoyed a delicious brunch at 100 West here in Nashville, which I cannot recommend enough. The owner even made me a bitters and soda concoction. I love breakfast at the Cracker Barrel, but the 100 West spread makes breakfast at the Cracker Barrel look like an all you can eat buffet at a truck stop. Their cheese grits and shrimp were to die for and there was no end to the fabulous food: strawberry cream cheese filled French toast, blackened tilapia, homemade biscuits, fresh fruit, pasta salad, pastries.

Now back, once more, to the barf. I need to make a public announcement:

Dear local branch of a well-known bank…I’m so sorry your parking lot was christened by a mom who had too much fun on a rare Saturday night out. Yes it was me, your loyal customer, making a very different kind of deposit. Ahem.

Hubby and me (with my birthday purse from the girls.) I think I look a little constipated because we had about 5 minutes to get to the wedding, but I definitely look better than I did just a few hours later….BARFING in a bank parking lot.

Every night I make sure our coffee maker is prepped and ready to go first thing in the morning. I also set out our two favorite coffee mugs. Around 10 o’clock tonight I noticed that the hubby’s mug was missing, the cabinet door above the coffee maker was open, and there was a container of colon cleansing tea sitting on the counter where his cup was placed earlier.

Me, said in a most incredulous manner as the evidence in the kitchen seemed suspicious: “Are you drinking some of that colon cleanse tea?”

Hubby: “No, I took a Melatonin with warm milk.”

OK now that makes sense.

p.s. We had a fabulous time at our friend’s wedding last night. I actually had a little too much champagne, I mean fun. I’ll post more about that tomorrow.

Was I punk’d by Hannah Montana (or Miley O’Cyrus as Miss A says)? Did Miss C sell enough dough to earn a lunchtime limo cruise? Find out at my most recent Deep South Moms post.

I have a great weekly giveaway for Primo bottled water at Savvy Housewife. I’ve also written a review for the new Leapster Tag Reading System (hint…it rocks!) I also was sent some sweet costumes from the Halloween Party Store, which is a great online source for Halloween costumes for all you moms who’d rather shop online in your pjs than have a Jerry Springer moment with another parent over the last Dora costume at Wal Hell.

I’d love for you to give my current advertiser, Santee Alley, some love. They sell awesome designer look accessories and clothes for a steal! Click on the sidebar ad to the right to see their stylin’ handbags for less than $50.

Hubby and I are going to a hometown wedding tonight. The girls are staying with his mom and dad until late tomorrow afternoon. I’m so excited about spending some time with him that isn’t interrupted every 8.4 minutes with screaming little girls I can’t stand it.

What are your weekend plans?

I know we are very lucky, or blessed as we say in the South, that Miss C attends a public school that is known for its parent volunteers and standout fund raising efforts. I challenge you to go over and read about the projects that need funding through the Donors Choose Bloggers Challenge. I promise if you skip the Starbucks this week or that extra Netflix rental it won’t kill you and think about how great you’ll feel if you make a donation.

You could make a huge difference in a child’s life by donating to one of many worthy projects in public school classrooms here in the South, from a music teacher who desperately needs a new piano for her post-Katrina chorus class to a kindergarten teacher who simply needs materials for a writing center.

Please go visit the Deep South Moms blog Donors Choose Bloggers Challenge page. This proposal (excerpted here) written by a New Orleans math teacher touched my heart…

Our school was impacted by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. The building took about a foot of water resulting in the loss of teaching materials, textbooks, and technology. The school was closed until August 2007. All students had to evacuate the area and had to attend schools all over the country. Many returning students were not able to come back to the homes they lived in before Katrina. Many of them had to live at least temporarily in different apartments or homes until their homes could be repaired or renovated. Some had to live in FEMA trailers, while other had to move in with other family members in a single family home. Others are still waiting for homes to be repaired. Many families are facing financial hardships because of Katrina. All of this has caused anxiety and emotional distress to a number of our students and their families…We need immediate help to recover, rebuild, and restore our school, to bring our families home, and to bring our children back to their neighborhood, their community and their school. This task cannot possibly be accomplished without the assistance of many. Please help me to bring laughter back to the school yard, learning back to the classrooms, and the joyful noise of a loving community back to this area and city.

So go visit the Deep South Moms donor page and read more about these hard working teachers, their deserving students, and their worthwhile projects!

Updated to add: Lotus at Sarcastic Mom has a cool giveaway incentive for everyone who makes a donation! Check it…yo.

Just outside the Sommet Center, Miss C and the hubby strike a pose, while Miss A  disses the mamarazzi.

Miss C, Miss A, mommy and daddy were overjoyed when their good friend Mr. Lonnie offered them free tickets to last Saturday’s Predators preseason NHL game downtown in the big city. (Overjoyed is a fancy word for happy.)

Mommy told Miss C it would be chilly in the arena, so Miss C made sure she wore her most fabulously chichi pink scarf. (Chichi is a fancy word for, what else, fancy.)

Miss C and Miss A loved their first NHL experience. They munched on cotton candy and they became quite adept at “fang fingers” and shouting “Let’s Go Predators!” By the end of the game, Miss A was in her sock feet , though, and not paying a lick of attention to the game. She did a great job of flirting with the couple sitting one row up and nearly sticking a foot in Daddy’s super-sized draft beer. (Adept is a fancy word for doing something really well.)

Miss C and Miss A also were enamored with the fist fights on the ice. (Fist fights is a fancy word for white trash, but it’s all good when in the context of pro hockey.)

So do your girls love Jane O’Connor’s Fancy Nancy books?

The hubby informed me that Miss A added a new word to her 3-year-old vocabulary last week when he picked her up from daycare: “squam.”

When he asked her what a squam was she explained, without hesitation, that it was “a boy and a girl mixed up together…that’s a squam!”

I’d love to see the flash card for that one.

Last night she rubbed her stomach after bathtime and told me she had “two babies in there!”

“Do you have boy or girl babies in your tummy?” I asked.

“I have a boy and a girl!,” she exclaimed proudly. “They are mixed up in there together…and they like to eat cereal bars!”

Dear Underage Assholes:

Look I understand underage drinking. Really I GET IT. I used to do it 20 years ago. I grew up in the boonies, 8 miles from “town,” so when I was a teenager we had field parties. You cruised McDonald’s and the main highway that snaked through town, found your friends, drove out to a dark country field, parked your trucks and cars, cranked up some Hank Jr. or Journey or Beastie Boys on the radio or from your incredible collection of cassette tapes, and you hung out. But you know what? We cleaned up after ourselves. We didn’t scatter empty beer cans and cigarette butts all over a quiet suburban neighborhood park….a park that is heavily trafficked by families with young kids who ask questions like, “Mommy were you a bad teenager?” (A question luckily I can honestly respond no, too, if you don’t count my college years.) We respected the cows’ personal space. Do you hear me? We respected COWS. That’s right. We might have been dabbling in illegal activity, but we didn’t litter. We might have peeled out on a gravel road if we saw Farmer Joe’s lights come on, but we didn’t litter.

So go play homage to Anheuser Bush in someone’s basement or sneak over to a friend’s house when their parents are out of town and scatter empty cans and cigarette butts on your own turf. Not ours.

And if I ever am out past midnight on a weekend, which I’ll admit is highly unlikely since lately I struggle to stay up past 10 o’clock, and see you all up at the park? I’m gonna open the can of mama whoop ass or at least get the hubby to scare you off. He’s got a lot of past experience with beer cans and I’m sure he can tell you where to stick them, I mean dispose of them.

Signed,

An Angry Mom