My little Emmy turned two on Friday. She is such a big girl now. I have her sleeping in a toddler bed and she loves the freedom of being able to come out of her room in the mornings and after naps. Right now the girls are playing with all of the Minnie Mouse toys she got for her birthday. Did I mention she's obsessed with the pink clad mouse? I'm holding it together pretty well these days, but any special occasion leaves an ache in my heart. I miss Mom so much. I remember how she would make my birthdays extra special with tiny, hidden gifts and the extra time she would give me even when she was swamped with party guests and hostessing. She was so amazing... *** Mike and I just got back from Vegas. It was fun but Mike had WAY too much fun with little to no sleep. On top of that, he was asked to run karaoke on Friday and had a band show last night so he's pretty worn out and ornery. Hopefully he gets enough sleep this morning and is a little more pleasant today. It doesn't help that our house was struck by lightening while we were away and destroyed a ton of our appliances. Daddy is not in a good mood. Mommy was not in a good mood having to deal with all of the rotten food in our fridge and freezer. The fridge is fine, thank god, but the power never returned to our kitchen while we were gone and our house reeked of rotten meat and produce when we came home early Thursday morning. When I mean early Thursday I mean 1am. I walked into our home and was nearly bowled over by the smell. I was so exhausted at that point, I was near delirium. Mike steered me to bed, "Sleep, we can deal with this tomorrow." I slept for 12 hours. I ran and picked up the kids from grandma's and then cleaned out the fridge. Everything went into the garbage...it made me sick to see all of that waste. I scrubbed every shelf and implement and yet it still had an oder. I don't know how to get rid of it. I tried laying bowls of baking soda on every shelf and it kinda helped, but it's not completely gone. Any suggestions? Anyway, I have to see why the girls are screaming at each other. I don't know how many times I have to tell them, "Share!" X-out