We’re home from our long trip to Wisconsin! It was so much fun….the kids and I really enjoyed spending extra time with family. I’m so glad we have the flexibility in our schedules to do things like that.

Here are a few pictures of family. Since this blog template won’t let me post pictures under text, here are the descriptions:

The first is my side of the family with Grandma Darlene and Papa Wally.

The second is Kelvin holding his Aunt Rachel.

The third is Sabrina’s baby Jeremy.

The fourth is most of the cousins on the Mortier side of the family.

And the fifth is the kids with Grandpa.

There are many more pictures in the kids’ photobucket and I’m getting ready to put some pictures over at Motherhood Moments too. There are still a few videos that aren’t in the photobucket because it’s full already. I’ll have a link for a new one very soon. Wow, I hope our Linksys router can handle all the uploading/downloading/posting I need to do in the next hour! LOL

We just had so many little things come up…..
Chad ended up doing an unplanned floors & walls cleaning at a Wal-Mart Monday night
Grocery shopping took forever because the kids were monsters
I went to Dillon’s to buy the kids’ favorite yogurt, got it home and realized it had expired the day before so I had to go back and exchange it
Etc
Etc
Etc

Nothing big and horrible happened, but a lot of little things added up, which put me way behind.

So anyway, it was 3 and I needed to start dinner in an hour for us and a family in MOMS Club that had just had a baby. I grabbed all the laundry baskets and went through all the bedrooms throwing in all the clothes, shoes and accessories that we were going to need to bring.

Then after I put the kids to bed that night, I brought all the laundry baskets and suitcases into the living room and packed it all while I watched a movie. Not my preferred way of packing, but it got the job done!

This morning, I got all the food, snacks, sippy cups and vitamins packed. I also have the diaper bag all ready to go, so the only thing left is to go through the kids’ church backpacks and reorganize them a little. I also need to finish up the diaper laundry and give the kids baths (and hopefully take a shower).

Since Chad will probably have to work until after 5, I’m a lot less nervous about getting everything done at this point!

As I came around a corner, I saw a person and I heard Chad’s voice say, “Hi.” It scared me so bad that all thoughts of calling 911 if someone was in the house flew right out of my mind. I screamed and literally jumped about a foot in the air. Talk about a natural fat burner! Every muscle in my core hurt after that from tensing up so quickly!

Obviously, it was Chad so there was no need to call 911 anyway, but it was pretty clear that I wouldn’t have had the presence of mind to do so even if it hadn’t been Chad.

So the moral of the story: If you ever need me in an emergency, rest assured that I will be absolutely useless to you.

Anyway, first he filled up an entire bowl with Goldfish. It was seriously overflowing all over the table. I thought he’d sit down and eat it then, but he left it there and started eating out of the Tupperware container instead. Anytime someone came up to eat some, he would put a handful in a bowl for them, but keep the big bowl for himself. LOL He probably sat there eating Goldfish for at least 45 minutes. It was hilarious…to watch him there, you’d think he was starving! LOL

He was finally able to mow the lawn so we were able to play outside in the afternoon. Kelvin wanted me to set up the water table, so I did and it led to a huge water fight. It started with just Ava and Chad, but then Chad decided to squirt Kelvin in the back of the head. And Ava decided to hide behind me, which ended in me getting sprayed too. So I brought out the big guns….the hose! I soaked Chad but it backfired on me when he stole the hose. We all ended up very wet!

Then we decided to take the kids to Chuck E Cheese for dinner. Kelvin didn’t care at all about the games….he just wanted to put the tokens in them! Ava and Chad ended up winning a lot of tickets though. We ended up with 255 tickets by the time we left!

Other than having to fill out insurance paperwork while the kids napped today, it was a really good day. Now onto 3 days of packing, shopping (maybe at wholesale distributors) and getting ready for our trip!

We’re leaving for another trip to Wisconsin next week and this time the kids and I will be staying for an extra week with my grandparents after Chad goes home. I’m really looking forward to that, but not the preparation!

Here’s the short list. I’ll have to…
pack
have everything done for Aire-Master (including having Chad’s invoices printed off on the tm-t88iv printer)
finish the quarterly taxes
prepare for and conduct the MOMS Club board meeting on Monday (I’m the president now)
get a really good start on the August MOMS Club newsletter
get everything ready for the MOMS Club business meeting the day after we get home
get some food in the freezer for Chad while we’re gone (something tells me it will mainly be store-bought because I’m not anticipating a whole lot of cooking time in the next few days!)

On top of all that, I’m tired and grumpy. Chad has been working insane hours lately (twice this week he worked 24-hour days, not getting home until 7 or 8 am). Obviously, he’s got to be a lot more tired than I am, but it’s still not easy holding down the fort alone all week. He’ll be pulling those crazy hours at least 2 more times next week before we leave, too.

Well, would you look at that….I ended up putting a to-do list up today after all. Don’t worry, I’ll have a MUCH more detailed one before the weekend is over! LOL

The purpose of today’s trip was just to snag some good deals with coupons. I wasn’t buying anything other than the things I had coupons for, so of course I was paying close attention to the prices.

So we finished shopping and got in line to check out. The cashier was an older lady and when she scanned the two boxes of Wheat Thins, they rang up at $2.38. I quickly pointed out that there had been a tag on the shelf saying they were on rollback for $1.98. She had to go ask someone how to fix the price and when she came back, she said she would have to void it first. So she grabbed both boxes, scanned them both (adding two more charges of $2.38) and then voided out those charges. I pointed it out, so she did the same exact thing again. And again. I was getting frustrated, so she called over a manager who insisted that all the charges had been voided out. I decided to let it go and then check my receipt after it was all said and done.

So we moved onto some vitamins. I could have sworn the shelf said they were only $4, but they rang up at $12. I was not about to go through that nightmare again, so I just asked to take them off. I was buying ahead since I had the coupon and since I still had vitamins left at home, it wasn’t that big of a deal. So even though I wanted to avoid the nightmare, I still had to go through it again (seriously, I would have rather read lipofuze reviews than deal with this again). She grabbed them, scanned them, and then voided that entry. Again, the manager sided with her and told me all the charges had been voided out.

I was so frustrated. I paid and walked away with my receipt. It took less than 5 seconds to look at my receipt and see that I had still paid for 4 boxes of Wheat Thins (and I only had 2 in my cart) and a container of vitamins (which I didn’t have in my cart at all). I marched over to customer service and explained the situation. The lady took one look at my receipt and exclaimed, “Who did this?!”

She gave me $18 back and we got out of there. Upon further examination of my receipt when I got home, I found that I had paid for 6 boxes of Wheat Thins and only came home with 2 and been refunded for 2. So I’m still out about $5, but there’s no way for me to prove it now. Oh well. At least I got the $18 back!

This morning I think we got our biggest haul of the year so far. We got:

14 ears of corn (I asked for a dozen and he threw in extras)
3 zucchini’s
3 cucumbers
1 pound of blueberries
1 giant head of broccoli
1 box of new potatoes
1 loaf of flax seed bread

All for $18!! Not only are the prices good, the food is even better and I love knowing that it’s local and we’re supporting our farmers. I’d rather buy produce straight from the farmer than from a grocery store any day. The farmers are so friendly and the kids take advantage of it and talk their ears off! LOL

I find that most of it is actually grown organically, but the farmers haven’t paid to have it certified organic so they can’t label it that way. You don’t need a label when you can talk to the person who grew it, though! No worries about acne when you’re eating food like this (click here to learn more about acne treatment).

The kids love buying our produce there, too….Ava tries things that she’d formerly decided she “hated” just because it’s from the farmer’s market. LOL

On Sunday, I walked into the kitchen to find Kelvin sitting on the counter digging in the cookie jar. There were no stools, no chairs pushed up to the counter, nothing. Just my 20-month-old. On the counter. HOW?!

It didn’t take me long to find out. I put him back on the floor and he immediately turned around and scaled the drawer handles…right back up onto the counter!

What am I supposed to do NOW?! I can get childproofing equipment for the cupboards, but what about all my stuff on the counters? He presses the lever on the toaster down, turns on the Kitchen Aid mixer and fiddles with the coffee pot. I can’t keep the counters completely bare…I don’t have the cupboard space or even the desire to do that!

I am really not sure what to do now. One’s thing for sure….it will be a miracle if this child makes it to needing acne treatment without injury!

Happy Belated 4th of July!

We spent the day with friends yesterday and had so much fun! We went over to friends’ house for their son’s 1st birthday party around noon. The kids enjoyed it….they probably ate at least 3 or 4 cupcakes each!

Our friends had planned to do water games for the kids all afternoon, but it poured rain almost all day. We ended up hiding out in the house by the ceiling fans almost all afternoon. During a few breaks in the rain, the kids blew bubbles and rode around the driveway on tricycles and riding toys. Kelvin discovered an electric car and he rode it all over the driveway, but didn’t know how to turn it around. It was raining again at that point, and I had to run out in the rain to the end of the driveway to turn him around many times!

Our friends live really close to the lake, which is where the city sets off the fireworks, so we were able to watch them right from their yard. That definitely beat spending $10 to park by the lake! Right before the fireworks started, Kelvin fell off his lawn chair and scraped up his face on the driveway. As soon as I was done cleaning him up, he fell asleep and slept through all the fireworks! It was OK, though, because we’d set some off the night before and he’d enjoyed those.