Change of Plans

We went to church this morning, after arriving home at midnight (yes, pat us on the back...but, the kids were gonna wake us up anyway, why wouldn't we go?). Anyway, then we went to the mall where for some reason Santa is having a generous heart and giving out free 5x7 pictures this year. You know me...so we got there at 11 to discover he didn't make his debut until 12. Oh, and none of the stores opened until 12 except for Sears. Sears? That place is still open? We dawdled around there a while until the kids got hungry (ok, my tummy was growling..) and we split a pretzel. I'd been talking up meeting Santa to Anna-Kate, taking a picture, telling him that she'd been a good girl and to tell him what she wanted for Christmas (which, incidently, is a Tinkerbell costume). She was so excited to meet him. I wish our scanner was working to show you the picture. Lets just say that it is a really good thing I wasn't paying for the picture. In other news, evidently Santa isn't going to stop by our house this year (as the rule was if she didn't tell Santa what she wanted he wouldn't know what to help the elves make and so he wouldn't bring her anything). It's a tough world. Screaming and gnashing of teeth I tell ya, pitiful. Of course her hysterics set off Ryan and the other kids in line. Poor Santa, he was actually pretty good too. Even a real beard.

Here is what Chris caught on our camera before his assistance in slinking out of the mall was necessary.

Walking in, Ryan is excited, I'm dragging reluctant Anna-Kate:



Here is what happened when I put her on Santa's lap, she freaked out and, in the process, freaked Ryan out. SERIOUSLY??? (Alternate title for this photo, "Yes, in fact pictures really are worth 1,000 words").



As we drove home in forced silence, the kids fell asleep. At 12:15. UGH. They were passed out so we just stuck them straight to bed. Anna-Kate woke up at 1 wanting lunch, Ryan woke up at 1:15, but I thought I'd leave him for a while and see if he fell back asleep. No such luck. So here's what I learned today:

THUD followed by hysteric screaming is never a good thing to hear.

Did you catch that? Because when I went tearing up the stairs I found that Ryan had decided today was a good day to fling himself out of his crib and found him on the floor holding his head saying "ow, boo-boo". I asked him why he fell down and he said, "out". Well, ya, I can see that. So as if the laundry, unpacking, mountain of work and Christmas decorations looming (in addition to the side dish I was supposed to make for the dinner at church tonight and having to run to the fabric store for more material...) wasn't enough, now we were going to have to rearrange furniture today. So, in the middle of "naptime" we played musical furniture. Anna-Kate's toddler bed is now in Ryan's room, her room is a jumbled mess and the queen bed from the guest bedroom is in the playroom, her new room.

I feel so much stress to get their big kid rooms done NOW on top of everything. AHHH!! That would be, making a bed skirt and headboard for her, painting both rooms, and making shams, drapes and bedskirts for the boys (we are planning for the boys to share eventually, so I've gotten 2 twin quilts etc). I have plans every night this week. Panic.attack.coming.on.

Well, at least you get some cute pictures of the kids. They were, of course, beside themselves with their good fortune.

We need a new camera, badly. It was taking forever, so I kept saying, "keep saying cheese". She said, "I am saying cheese".



Sweet, happy boy climbing in his new bed:



All tucked in, GOODNIGHT!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a very nice Thanksgiving...very relaxing which is super. We went to a special service at my in-laws church. Not so much worship time, but many sweet stories of thanks to our God for His goodness!

Our big meal was at 6 our time with my inlaws, Chris' brothers, Hunt and Pete, Pete's wife Joy and their kids, Elias and Isabel. The kids played so well together and it was a nice time of eating and fellowship. We had the usual, turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes (the SOUTHERN version) green beans, sister schubert rolls, stuffing (not the Southern version...) cranberries and pumpkin pie (again, my Southern recipe--well, kinda. It was my recipe not closely followed because of a lack of measuring cups and spoons. It was quite cinnamin-y, ahem.).

This year, as always, there is so much to be thankful for. Obviously, for Jesus, who has saved me and who has made Himself known so recently to Anna-Kate. I am so thankful for family, specifically for Chris--what a great husband and friend--God certainly knew what I needed when He gave us each other. I am thankful for my kids, and poor unnamed boy on the way--what treasures they are with their individual quirks and personalities. I am thankful for health, especially for that of Ryan who spent so many days of the past year sick. I am thankful for Chris' job and his ability to provide for us so that I can stay home. I am thankful for friends who really know me, who encourage me and pray with me as we walk through life together. I am thankful for our church and the sweet friends that have encouraged and prayed for me. What a year 2009 has been!

Thank you Jesus for providing for me, You are so faithful!

What I learned yesterday

1. If you leave Northside hospital at 12:48 am, there is no parking attendant and you don’t have to pay to park.

2. From the parking deck to my garage is 21 minutes with no traffic, who knew?

Wanna know why I know this?

Well, yesterday Anna-Kate and I were reading for our special time (between when Ryan goes down for a nap at 1 and she goes down for nap/rest time at 2). I sat in the lazy boy and she was trying to scoot into my lapp. In so doing that, she elbowed me right in the belly, trying to get leverage. It hurt. In fact, I screamed out because it hurt. Poor thing, I startled her (obviously, I didn’t mean to scream). I said, “honey you need to be a little more gentle with mommy”. Her immediate response was to burst into hysteric tears and say, “I don’t want another baby boy to come, I just want my mommy”. I felt like a horrible mother. Then I started having a few contractions. Not the really bad kind, but I've NEVER had a contraction prior to 40 week. Ever. I’m 22 weeks now. After a few minutes they went away and I went about my day.

I was driving to choir practice, at a little before 7 and could still feel the spot was I got elbowed. It wasn’t by any means painful, just a bit sensitive, like there was a bruise there, but there is no skin discoloration. Since we were planning to leave for St Louis the next day (today, I’m writing in the car) I decided to call my nurse line to have them reassure me that everything was OK. Well, the nurse did little to make me feel better, instead called the doctor and me back within about 10 minutes with news that I was to leave choir (of which I had been present for about 5 minutes) and go straight to Northside Hospital. The on-call doc knew I was coming and was waiting to see me to make sure everything was OK. I have negative blood, so in any sort of belly “trauma” (even a fender bender) the docs get really worried that there might be some blood cross-contamination between me and the baby. In case you are unfamiliar, with an RH negative mom, if my blood crossed and this baby had positive blood, my body could begin to form antibodies against the baby and potentially “kill off” the foreign thing, ie baby. Anyway. I was highly freaked out. Thankfully, a sweet friend from church walked me out and prayed with me before I left. Chris was home with the kids, so for the first time, I entered Labor and Delivery by myself, registered alone and waited alone. (Chris obviously offered to come, but I knew he couldn’t really do anything and knew that he was going to have to drive all day the next day so I told him to stay home.)

When I was finally checked into my room it was WEIRD. They gave me a gown and put the monitor on my belly and I was left alone for them to track contractions. I was having some, but they weren’t painful (at all), and were pretty minimal, like one every 7-13 minutes that was barely registering. Of course, as soon as I was settled, the doctor got called into an emergency C-section, so by the time he finally came in to see me it was 9:20. He checked me out and ordered a bunch of tests to check me and the baby and for cross contaminated blood. He then told me it was a “full house” (what else is new at northside?) and that the lab could take up to 4 hours to get my results back. All I could think about was the LONG LIST of things I needed to do. Thankfully, I had already packed and wrapped our Christmas gifts, but there is always last minute stuff, cleaning, some cooking and baking I needed to do as well as a few sewing/monogramming projects I had to finish before we left town. Well, I guess the Lord knew I needed to rest, so I sat in the hospital bed until 12:35 watching HGTV and napping. I remember hospital beds being more comfortable, but maybe that’s because when you’ve gone through 2 or 3 day long labors, a rock would feel comfortable if it allows you to sleep with no pain.
The nurse finally came in at 12:35 am and said I was free to go, there was no blood transfer and unnamed baby boy was safe as could be. I told her I felt silly for being there all night and she assured me that I had done the right thing, because if there had been blood transfer it could have been a really bad thing.

So, if you see me, I’ll be the one with big bags under my eyes (I just couldn’t go to bed until I finished a majority of stuff as my mind was racing with “to-do’s last night) who’s a bit more protective of my belly.

Oh ya, and in the future, I’ll be staying late at the hospital to visit friends. Maybe just until midnight. 

A battle of wills

And, I'm not sure who won.

Here's the scenario. Anna-Kate came home from school on Wednesday proclaiming, "I'm not going to sing tomorrow!" (in her Thanksgiving program at school). I asked why not, since she loves to sing. "Beacause I just don't want to." Whatever.

I went in to get her this morning and the first words out of her mouth were, "I don't want to go to school because I don't want to sing." I informed her that she was going to school and she was singing. I showed her...

Fast forward through drop off at 9, me having until 10:20 until I had to be seated at the program (in case you miss the significance, that is not very long. Did you catch the part about where I need all the time I can get these days??). Anyway, I rushed back from finishing my Christmas shopping (ya, that's right) and sat down on the front row, camera poised to capture my precious angel singing. Her class filed in with their fingers on their lips. All of the proud mama's started waving quietly and snapping pictures. Anna-Kate saw me, broke from line and came running, while sobbing, directly to me as her teacher said, "Anna-Kate, come back!". I asked her if she was OK or if something had happened and all she said was, "I just dont' want to sing!" (and by "said" I mean wailed it not quietly). It got to the point where I said, "you are disobeying Mommy, Jesus and your teacher and that is sin. You need to obey even when it isn't fun and even when you don't want to. You can obey the easy way, or the hard way, but you will obey and go stand with your class." Her teacher grabbed her hand and walked her up on stage where she stood, not singing, or even moving her mouth except in a sucking her whole hand kinda way, the entire time.

Filing in, pre-drama (oh, and they are "indians" in case you couldn't tell, she told me she was "Pocohontas Princess", figures. She's the 4th child from the right):



Post talk with Mama, obeying "letter of the law" if you will:


Not even throwing me a bone and mouthing a word or moving her hands as the rest of her friends did:


Clearly, she recovered:



Post "singing" eye-redness during the "feast" (of pretzels, grapes, marshmellows, apples and raisins. You know, typical fair for the Pilgrims and Indians...what are we teaching our children?)



Ironcially (I guess?)her teacher told me that yesterday at practice she had been worried how the show would go because only Anna-Kate and her best friend Emma were singing and doing the hand motions (as a side note, halfway through the songs, Emma ran from the backrow crying to her Mom. It made me feel better. I'm not gonna lie). Today? They were the only two of all of the kids (4 classes today) not singing or doing motions. Stage fright much?

So, who won this battle of wills? Not sure. All I said was she had to stand with her class. And she did.

To my 10's of readers:

My apologies for being absent. I know it's been hard. :)

I'll give you a peek at life since my last post.

I spent the weekend at Lake Martin (down near Auburn, AL) with 3 of my mommy friends. SO fun. I left the camera at home so Chris could document the cuteness that is my kids in my absense. He did not. Therefore, there are no pics of either my cute kids or of me with my friends(except one we took upon my insistence before leaving. Heather, I want it when you get a second!). We did a whole lotta nothing, it was super! We went shopping at World Market, Target and Hobby Lobby then grabbed dinner at a Hibachi place. Yum. The eating trend continued all weekend, you know how happy this makes my heart. We stayed up way too late chatting, then I slept until 9. When it got to be 6:30 we decided it was time to put on makeup and drive back in to town for dinner. Dinner at Olive Garden. I have a funny feeling my friends were totally indulging me, but it was good. Unnamed boy likes sub-par Italian, what can I say? We got home on Sunday around 5. When I was tucking Anna-Kate in that night I asked her what her favorite part of the day was (as I do every night). Her response, "when you came home to see me and gave me a big hug." Incidently, Monday, Tuesday and tonight her answer has been the same. I told her she had to pick something from today, she said that was still her favorite since she missed me.

Monday obviously involved getting back into life, grocery shopping etc. I try and have at least 1 pj morning a week, Monday was it and it was fabulous! :) I tried to get a lot of work done that I had acquired (is that the right word??) from the craft fair last Friday, but as I left my stuff set up at my friends' house, I had very little, material wise, to work with. So frustrating. That evening I had my neighborhood Bible study, which I love. The topic was hot, it was in regards to children. The book is called "The Lies Women Believe (and the Truth that Sets Them Free)" and the biggest "lie" of the night was something along the lines of, "it is up to us to determine the size of our family." I don't have an answer to that to be completely honest. I don't quite understand how one can truly believe in the Sovereignty of God and be on the pill etc, but, I'm also not interested in having 25 kids. Clearly, I'm a work in progress.

A side note, I have been experiencing severe pain in my butt and tailbone the past few weeks with this pregnancy. It's to the point that sometimes I can't sit down and if I have to (even in my car which is uber-comfy) I'll have tears in my eyes. Anyway, a girl at my Bible study offered to check me out and give me her advice (this is what she does professionaly, it wasn't weird, ha!). We were both free Tuesday during naps so she was going to come to me, what an answer to prayer! When I got home to put it on the calendar (yes, I put things that will happen in a few hours on my calendar...) I realized I had forgotten about Anna-Kate's allergy appt. So I had to cancel. I can't tell you how bummed I was.

Tuesday I took Anna-Kate to school, went to the post office, picked up my stuff from the craft fair and took Ryan to the pediatrician. He told me twice on Monday that his left ear hurt and Chris twice over the weekend. Either it cleared up on it's own (totally a possibility) or he said his left ear hurt 4 times. Regardless, he has no infection. We picked AK up from school, and took lunch to eat at our friends' house so I could put Ryan down and take her to the allergist. As excited as I was to get the appointment, it was terrible timing. I'm slammed with work and really needed naptime to get stuff done (and to get healing for my tailbone!). The doctor was very nice, though Anna-Kate seems to not like men. She flipped when he walked in and looked at her ears and listened to her heart. She reacted fine to the nurse and only cried about 30 seconds with the skin tests. Results are that she has a small allergy to dust mites (my extreme allergy) and this 15 week cough is a sinus infection that has gotten worse over time as it hasn't been treated. She is on a heavy duty antibiotics for 20 days. The pharmacist warned it could be a long road as this almost always causes diarhea. Yippee. I think I'm going to look into some probiotics I can add to her food/drink. She and I shared an icecream at McDonalds (where, oh where, have I failed her? She chose McDonalds over Chick-fil-A icecream??? WHAT?) Anyway, I rushed back from there to get Ryan then hurried home to cook dinner for company. It was a lot of fun, as always. Put there just is never a dull moment around here people!

Today, I was slated to host playgroup, but noone showed. To be completely honest, I was a bit relieved. Chris has asked me to step back from a commitment or two just to give myself some breathing room. I struggle with that as I was definately raised that if you commit to do something, you follow through. Period, the end. So, I'll let you know how that goes. Anyway, my coffee maker broke so we had an impromptu trip to Target. I picked up Anna-Kate, rushed to get her prescription, got the kids down late, Ryan napped horribly, and I spent from 1:50 until dinner cooking. We had 2 other families over for a pre-Thanksgiving dinner. It was FANTASTIC! All of the food was so delicious. I"m still full, 3 hours later. Anyway, I spent my day making a pumpking pie, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, getting the house ready and table set (thankfully, I got the apple cake made yesterday!). A lot of fun, but I'm pooped. My camera had no batteries, but Katie got some pictures I'll try and post later this week.

Tomorrow is Anna-Kate's Thanksgiving party at school, followed by choir tomorrow night. Friday I'm taking the kids to Macon to see my parents and grandparents (my grandmother is in rehab for surgery down there and my grandfather is staying with my parents while she's down there). Should be fun, but quite the busy week. I'll be glad to see Saturday.

Are you still glad you wished for a new post from me? :)

Update to wow.

We were driving home from a little holiday sale (a bunch of women with at-home business' sold our stuff at a friends' house today--great idea!) and we passed a church with a cross outside.

AK: "O look, the cross Jesus died on Mommy!"
Me: "That's right honey, do you remember why Jesus had to die?"
AK: "Because I sin."
Me: "That's right, and because Mommy and Daddy and Ryan and everyone else sinned, Jesus lived here and never ever one time sinned and then He died to take all of the sins away. That's why it makes Him so sad when we sin, right?"
AK: "That's right Mommy, and now that He lives in my heart, I don't want to make Him sad anymore!"

Wow.

So we were sitting at the dinner table last night and Anna-Kate said, (completely out of the blue with zero prompting or even being near this subject-wise) "Mommy, last night I asked Jesus to live in my heart."

"What did you say??" I said, "tell me exactly". She said, "well, I was sitting in my bed and I thanked Jesus for you and for me and then I told Him I would like for Him to live in my heart." I teared up a bit and gave her a big hug and told her I was so proud of her and excited and asked if she wanted to call Nana and tell her what Jesus had done to her heart. She said, "no, I think we should just play now, or, can we just get our stuff and you and me go to heaven now?".

I'll let you know how future conversations along this line go. Despite the fact that she is very observant and has asked a ton of questions about Jesus and heaven etc, I was so surprised when she said that yesterday. It makes my heart so happy to know that she will be in heaven rejoicing one day. At the very least, she is gaining sensitivity to the things of the Lord and, I pray, will continue to have a heart always becoming more closely aligned to Christ's. What a great reminder for myself as well!

Halfway!

Well, a little more, but I had my 20 week doctor's appointment today along with my big ultrasound. Little (still unnamed) boy looks perfectly strong and healthy, weighing in at a whopping 13 oz (so thaaaaat explains the 8 lbs I've gained...). All of his measurements were right on, and, he's a thumb sucker. The entire 5ish minutes she spent on facial measurments he was either sucking his thumb (with lips moving) or trying to get the thumb back in. OH NO!!! (But oh.so.cute).

I'd post pictures, but honestly, the last ones were clearer. We had confirmation on boy though, which is always comforting to my type-A self. :)

I'll say, he is a lot more active in the womb than my previous babies have been. Dun, dun, duuuuun! It was SO weird to see him kicking in the ultrasound and feel it. The kid can pack a punch (or, a kick, I guess)! Geesh. I have a feeling I will be quite uncomfortable and kept awake many a night before he makes his big debut!

In other news, I had made plans for a couple of friends to keep Ryan (who were getting together already) but he has been so clingy (not in an obnoxious way, it is really quite sweet), so I brought him with me instead. He did great! Despite the inevitable delays that I always experience, he was sweet and relatively calm. :) He did throw the ball with Chris and chase after it for close to 40 minutes, but the rest of the two and a half hours we were there, he was great! (Of course they were late today, I was just relieved that the fire alarm went off yesterday, not today. Perhaps my luck is turning?). All this to say, Ryan is definately all boy in that he runs and prefers to play with balls and be on the move, but he is so quick to jump in my lap and snuggle up for a few minutes. I LOVE cuddling with my boy!!

So I don't forget.

Anna-Kate's constant phrases (which sometimes, admittedly, drive me nuts).

"Are you gonna take me a bath?" (instead of "give").

"What you said?" (instead of "what did you say?")

"What you talkin' 'bout?" (that's not weird, just nosy and constant). :)

***
Ryan's new things:

He makes this noise that I'm not sure will translate to being written down, it's "tuckatuckatuckatucka". He says it really fast and when he gets excited he does it while running around, generally clutching his football.

His vocabulary is finally really taking off. I mean, I've been able to understand him for quite a while (bad mommy for not posting!), but it's finally to the point where daily there is a new word. Here are some of my favorites, and most often said words.

"suuuuz" (shoes)
"sew" (show)
"boo ball" (his favorite blue bouncy ball)
"fooball!" (football, a constantly yelled thing around here as it is his absolute favorite toy!)
"tu-dow!" (touchdown! it goes without saying that both arms are up by his head and he's yelling this!)
"ba-ball" (basketball) Are you noticing a trend in his word selection?
"Melmo" (his other love, Elmo)
"Mimey" (and his absolute favorite, which evokes shouts and clapping and big smiles, Mickey, as in, the Mouse.)

Tis the season

So I do believe that Christmas shouldn't officially begin the day after Halloween, I mean Thanksgiving is a wonderful day to stop and praise and thank our Lord for the multitude of blessings with which we've been provided. That said, I LOVE Christmastime, and evidently have a mini-me (duh!) who does too! In my world, Christmas officially begins at 12:01 am the morning after Thanksgiving. Chris absolutely refuses any evidence of Christmas before then, but be assured, we listen to the Christmas channel on the radio the whole way home from wherever we celebrated Thanksgiving that year (yet another thing to be thankful for!).

Christmas choir began Thursday night. Ahhh, how I love singing Christmas music and the music director at our church is so stinkin' talented that he makes us sound amazing (not bragging on myself here, he is just really that good! You should come hear the performance, it'll knock your socks of musically!). Anyway, I drove home singing happily along to my choir cd last night thankful (see, early even, for Thanksgiving) for the opportunity to "legitimately" sing Christmas carols before Thanksgiving! Ha!
Anyway, one of the songs on the cd is a portion of Handel's "Messiah". I was almost in tears from the beauty of it and Anna-Kate pipes in from the backseat, "Mommy, this sure is some silly sounding baby Jesus music." Wow, I failed her musically.

UPDATED TO ADD: This morning (Sunday) before we even got out of the driveway to drive to church Anna-Kate said, "can we please listen to some more Chrismas music?". Ahhh. :) As we were listening to Casting Crowns "I heard the bells on Christmas Day" and I heard singing in the back. I turned around to see Anna-Kate singing the words "peace on earth" and Ryan doing his best to sing the same. I could cry it was so precious. Peace on Earth, indeed!

***

In other, unrelated news, Anna-Kate saw presents out and wrapped for her cousins for Christmas and their birthdays (in November). She asked if she could go to cousin "Goliath, wait, what his name, O, Lias"(Elias') birthday party. I said that it was in Texas and that was too far away. I added that since we had just been to Texas we had used all of our flying to Texas money already. Later she asked Chris, "daddy, Mommy's Texas money is all gone, can you please give her some more so we can go back to Texas?". We explained that mommy and daddy share all of our money and all of the Texas money was gone. Her response, "O, well daddy you better go back to work and get some more money so then you can give mommy Texas money." He said, "well Anna-Kate, wouldn't you rather daddy stay home and play with you instead of go back to work?" She said, "no, you should go to work, I like Texas." HA.

In case you were wondering...

This is how I've been spending my time since Anna-Kate won them Saturday at the fall festival. Eating candy. Sunday was mostly milky way, 100 grand and twix. Then, there's this...



Ya, that's right, a box of nerds the size of my head. My tounge has sore spots on it from eating them and my belly hurts, yet I haven't been able to put them down. (Hi, I'm Janelle, and I love nerds...). So today (after above said side effects coupled with throwing up on Monday from consuming too much candy over the weekend and making myself sick) I've decided to grow up and throw the remainder of my nerds away. Sniff.

From the mouths of babes...

It's about time for another peek around our dinner table...

We were sitting at the dinner table the other night when Anna-Kate asked if Daddy would marry her when she grew up. Fabulous learning opportunity that no, you only get married one time to one person. Perfect. So she says, "Oh, then I can marry Ryan when I grow up". "No", I say, "we don't marry our brothers, you will marry someone not in our family". "Oh. Well I need to get workin' on findin' a man to marry me and be my husband!" As I try not to laugh, "O really? I think you have time honey". She responded with, "Mommy, do you think we could stop eating and pray about my husband?" So, mid-dinner, we prayed for her future husband and that God would keep her safe for him and him safe for her. After the prayer concluded she said, "I think there are plenty of Joseph's out there for me to find one; don't you think so Mommy?" (She would be needing a Joseph in her imagination as she's Mary, you know, mother of Jesus).

Always thinking of others she said, "well now we need to pray about finding a girl to be Ryan's husband." "Woooah" I said, "the girl he marries will be his wife!". (Ha!) "Oh, well we should pray for her too Mommy."

Rant for today

...actually, yesterday, but we are still experiencing repercussions.

I hate daylight savings time. Growing up and in college I found it to be a nuisance, a minor irritation, but since having children (children on a very specific schedule, no less) have come to loathe and despise this waste of effort that occurs bi-annually in most of the United States. I realize that historically it began to save electricity/energy, the resurgance for it most recently during WW2, but began with Franklin back in our countries founding (did you know that?). While it's comforting that there actually was a reason and it wasn't just an arbitrary decision made by some random guy, the time has come for us to reverse this foolishness and be done with the "fall back" and "spring forward". Seriously, are you any more likely to go to bed when the sun goes down, thereby conserving your lightbulbs? No, we all watch our shows or read a book etc, until "time" for us to go to bed.

So, Saturday night we kept the kids up until about 8:45, hoping they would sleep a little later, to compensate for the irritating, useless time change. This, of course, didn't work. The kids woke up at "new" 6:30 and 7, respectively. Then they were just extremely tired at church (Ryan even fell asleep on someone shoulder's in the nursery! (He gave up his morning nap last early March!) Of course this resulted in a poor afternoon nap, fussy kids at bedtime because they were tired, and both woke up early again this morning. Sigh.

OK, enough whining. At least I got my Publix trip done for the week last night--and it was a doozy! I spent $54.74 and saved (drumroll please--this is a good one!) $109.37!