A New Way To Use Bouncy Balls

Nick's sister was in town for a visit this past weekend. Emilee LOVES Keisha! She gets so excited anytime that she is going to see her. When she leaves there is usually uncontrollable sobbing and time spent all alone to deal with her grief. I'm sure that most of these emotions are valid expressions of Emilee's genuine love. However, I also know that part of these emotions are because Keisha spoils Emilee rotten.

This was the case on this visit. Emilee's birthday was at the beginning of September and Sissy, as we refer to Keisha, had promised a shopping trip to pick out whatever Emilee wanted. So after a dinner out we headed to Wal-Mart to pick out Emilee's birthday present(s). Of course, what trip to Wal-Mart would be complete without picking up a few things that we need. On this journey Keisha had to pick up some underwear for her boyfriend who had forgotten his. Stick with me here. It's about to get good! While Keisha begins her search for the brand, size and color that had been requested Emilee begins to dig through the selection as well. Being the good mother that I am, I left her there to look at men's underwear with Keisha while I went to check for something else. I returned to my precious, innocent, six year old laughing at a pack of men's briefs. (I do not know why men would choose to make these their underwear of choice. They are borderline disgusting in my opinion. Let's go with boxers and leave a little to the imagination gentlemen.) I ask Emilee why she is laughing at these underwear. My precious, innocent, six year old replies . . .

"It looks like he is wearing underwear with bouncy balls in them."

Oh, how right you are Emilee. Needless to say, I will be keeping her out of that section of Wal-Mart from now on.

Shopping with Emilee and Coupons

Okay, this may not impress everyone as much as it did me. Food Lion is having triple coupons this weekend. Now I don't regularly use coupons when I shop because I buy too many generic brands and they are just cheaper. However, I have a little stash thanks to my mom. I went through and pulled out the ones that I thought would be good and went shopping with Emilee. She was helping me load the cart and she got to keep all of the coupons that I didn't use. Here is what I ended up with. (I know this may not be as great as those of you who coupon regularly and use all of the rebates and such but I was proud of myself. Don't burst my bubble!)

• 2 Yoplait Yo Plus yogurt 4 packs
• 2 Gogurt 8 packs
• 4 Mahatma yellow rice
• 4 Dole fruit cups 4 packs
• 1 Ocean Spray Cran-Pomegranate
• 2 Colgate toothpastes
• 2 Colgate toothbrushes
• 1 Hot Pockets panini 2 pack
• 1 McCormick Whole Peppercorns
• 1 Skintimate Shave Cream
• 1 Tampax Tampons
  
• 1 Pop Tarts 12 pack
• 2 Chex Mix 8.75 oz
• 2 Lysol 4in1 Bathroom cleaners
• 2 Lysol Toilet Bowl cleaners
• 1 Bounty paper towel
• 1 Electrasol Finish 32 dishwasher tabs
• 1 Electrasol Quantum Finish 25 dishwasher tabs

All of this for (drum roll please) . . . $35.26!!!!! Christy, the toothpaste was almost FREE!!!!! The pepper and toilet bowl cleaners were!!!!! It brings back Kroger memories.  Oh and included in that total was $7 dollars worth of body wash, candy and cotton balls that I did not have coupons for.  So everything in that picture was $28.26.  Listen, do you hear it, yes I'm tooting my own horn!!!

Sorry, I'm a little behind:(

Sorry to my faithful two or three readers!  I have fallen behind in my blog world.  I will catch up soon, I think.  Until then, here is what I learned from Emilee this week.  

We were in the car talking about various exciting things from their day at school.  Out of nowhere Carter asked me if we were allowed to marry our cousins.  I told him no that you shouldn't do that, brothers and sisters can't marry each other and that boys should marry girls and girls should marry boys.   Emilee very quickly chimed in with one marriage rule that I had clearly forgotten.  In her best serious voice she said that no one should marry Satan! How did that one slip my mind?  I asked her why and she said because you would go to Hell!  Good enough reason for me.

"Things They Said" Thursday

It's time once again for an entry of random things my kids have said.

Carter: As he is getting ready for bed, "Mommy, I want to hug you like this forever!" You can tear up if you want. It is sweet. However, I'm pretty sure he just didn't want to go to sleep. Even so, I stayed there a little longer.

Kaden: For some reason, Kaden loves to sing "Everybody Dance Now" not the whole song, just those words. I'm not even sure where he heard it but I know that I hear it at least 5 times a day. He decides to change the lyrics while walking down the hallway at the conservative, barely clap your hands in chapel, KJV memory verse learning school that the kids attend, and at the top of his lungs sings "Everybody pants down!" Luckily, he's too young for detention. We did get a few raised eyebrows from some of the parents though.

Emilee: This is my personal favorite. Emilee has become obsessed with Rock Band. She has figured out that she doesn't have to know all of the words of the songs to pass. She can just hum in close proximity to the tune. She rocks out! She loves to be in just pajama bottoms and have all of her long hair down like the singers on the game. When it was my time to sing . . .

"Mommy, you're not cool!"
"Why not?"
"Because you don't have your shirt off! If you want to be cool like us, you have to have your shirt off."

I quickly learned that she thought the singers were girls because they have long hair so naturally we should sing with our tops off like them. God bless hair bands! We have quickly taken care of that assumption and as you can tell from the photo of the band, she has changed her style too.

This is for you Nic Carver!

Enjoy the silence . . .

I think it might be time to . . .

go to the grocery store! What do you think?

I had been sick last week and we had picked through all of the food available and this is what was left last night. Each child got 1/3 of a granola bar, 1/3 of 2 snack boxes of raisins, 1/2 of a cheese stick (I ate the last 1/2.), a handful of cheese crackers and 1/2 a PB sandwich. I tried to make it look intentional by using some of their raisins to make a smiley face! Kaden and Emilee had a kool-aid that Carter had saved for them from a party at school. Carter got the last Capri-Sun.

I think, if anything, this is a wonderful example of creativity! Don't worry though, Wal-Mart got my business after the kids went to bed.

Christmas 2008

We had such a wonderful Christmas this year! It seemed to be calm, relaxing and fun. Those words are not usually used when describing a period of time spent with family and in the car with three little ones.

We started the kids vacation by baking cookies for our neighbors. They are all so sweet and I am so non-social that I thought this would be a good gesture. It was actually a lot of fun and I didn't even care that the kids were making such a mess! As far as I know, no one got sick from our sugar laden creations!

On Tuesday we drove down to Charlotte to spend the night with my brother and his family. This was the first time that we had all stayed there. It was so much fun! Our kids love Scott and Logan and they played together all night. Nick spent most of the night playing Rock Band. I love my brother and his family (I'm not just saying that because he reads this either!) and it was great to spend some time with them. On Wednesday we spent Christmas Eve with Nick's family. Each year the whole family gathers at someone's house for a Starnes Christmas party. It's always a treat to see all of the aunts and uncles. After spending some time with everyone, we headed home.

Christmas morning was a little different this year. We spent it at home. Usually we head to my parents for my dad's famous Christmas morning breakfast. We decided to stay home so that the kids could open their presents and play with them and so that we wouldn't have to get up and get ready so early! The favorite gift was of course Rock Band. The kids kept singing "Wanted: Dead or Alive" all day. Our evening ended with dinner at my parents and our annual trip to Bedford to see all of the Christmas lights.

This was a wonderful Christmas season! I hope that all of you enjoyed your time with your families as well!