Happy 4th of July!

Yesterday, we had John's company picnic out at his parents' house. I made these cupcakes for the occasion. I also made chicken stew the day prior, but when I went to warm it up, I got it too hot too quickly and scorched it. The whole kitchen smelled burned and the stew tasted burned. I was so upset. I didn't cry or anything but I was just very disappointed. It was a HUGE pot.......I was gonna have a lot leftover to freeze for the winter......all that money to make it down the drain....etc, etc. I kept telling myself, "what's done is done" and could hear my mother's voice in the back of my mind saying, "don't cry over spilled milk!" I scorched it because I was trying to keep Ava from pulling the knives out of the dishwasher (her new favorite pasttime) and was also trying to clean the house before the lunch. I can usually multi-task pretty well, but that day wasn't my best moment! John's dad came to pick up the pot of stew so maybe his mom and Memaw could 'fix' it. Bonnie told me, "Mom, Papaw can fix it if you just don't cry." I told her thanks for encouraging me and then she just started cleaning like crazy. I guess she felt bad for me and wanted to help me feel better. She went into the playroom and put EVERYTHING up where it belonged and then went into her bedroom and cleaned her toys up in her closet, putting everything in the bins where they belonged also. I COULD NOT BELIEVE IT! She smiled SO big and told me what she'd done and said, "Are you proud of me?" That sweet little thing! She is so caring and loving and she just made me feel so much better! When we got to John's parents house, his mom had me taste the stew. It was a LOT better but still had a bit of a scorched taste to it. I said, "What did you do to fix it?" She replied, "It has a half bottle of white wine in it!" I was amazed at how much it helped. So for future reference: White wine takes some of the burned taste out of soups. I'll have to start buying that and keeping it on hand in case I mess something up again! We had a great time eating together and Bonnie got to go swimming afterwards. John took most of the air out of her floaties and she swam a lot on her own. We were so proud of her achievement! Later that afternoon, they gave her some watercolors so she could paint herself and that was a lot of fun. She wanted to paint Ava but we wouldn't let her! :) Here's what Bonnie's makeup art looked like!