Meet "Elizabeth Abigail"...

Just starting to pip...















You may not want your speakers too loud...what with Joey's shrieking and squealing and all. :)





There she is....Lily named her Elizabeth Abigail. Of course by morning if any more chicks have hatched, we won't know which is "Elizabeth." (...and it will take months to determine whether "Elizabeth" is a "she" or a "he." :) But they can name them whatever they want.)








Romans 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead;...



I am amazed at God's creation. No one had to teach this lowly creature how to use it's physical structure to hatch itself. It just did!


Incredible.


The kids are SO excited! Lily kept saying to me while we were watching the process (which only took about 30 minutes or so), "Thank you SO MUCH Mommy for letting us hatch chickies! This is SO MUCH fun! I am so glad that we went to the Farm Show and saw chickies! Because we might not have incubated chicks if we hadn't seen them there!"



A good night at our house. :)

Pipping and Cheeping

We have been watching our eggs all day and slowly, we noticed cracks appearing on at least 6 or 7 eggs, at last count! The most exciting part of the morning and afternoon was that we heard them cheeping at us constantly! Which made the kids encourage them with sweet words more and more!

Then after dinner, we began watching the egg that I pictured this morning, begin pipping out! We are currently watching "her" (Lily gets to name the first one) hatch...

More soon...

Houston, we have some crackage!

Can you see it? It's right there on the center of the egg.

The chick's tiny, little eggtooth cracked this egg, and now several little hairline cracks are beginning to form. We can see that another egg is beginning to crack as well, but that one is way over in the corner and there is no way my camera will focus on that...I had quite a time getting focused on this one.

And, when I had my head down near the incubator to try to get a picture, I heard a squeaky, little whisper of a "cheep." I read that the mama chicken clucks at the eggs and the chicks answer back on the last day before they hatch. So I tried clucking at them, but they must not speak my language. :) It was a tender, maternal moment, nonetheless.

Woo-hoo...our experiment is beginning to come to fruition on Day 20! More updates to come, no doubt. :)

High-Heeled Shoes

High-Heeled Shoes

I like to wear my Mommie’s shoes.

I mean the pairs she doesn’t use.

I pick the ones with highest heels,

You can’t imagine how it feels

To walk around, go out the door,

Clump-clumping all across the floor.

–Kate Cox Goddard

(Taken from my all-time, favorite "little" children's poetry book.
I love EW!)

*Hatch Update - Day 18*

We are at T minus 2-3 days...depending on when our little chickies want to start greeting the world. :)

We candled our eggs one last time, and pitched these two, clear ones.



(I have to admit that I was happy to see that yucky, dirty one leave. Haha! Although we have a few more like that.)






Last week at the grocery store, Lily had kitchen sponges on her list, and we filled them with water and placed them in our incubator. We also filled the water reservoir with water and we continue to fill that as needed. This was after I realized that the floor of the incubator has holes in it for ventilation...oops. :) At least this experiment is residing in our basement, so there were no lasting implications from my mistake.

Lastly, we removed the automatic egg-turner and placed our eggs directly on the grate so they can wiggle and hatch soon!

Lily, bless her heart, made this welcome banner at least two weeks ago for our chicks. It is a customary thing in our house to make "Welcome home baby" banners and signs for a new sibling/cousin when they come home from the hospital. So Lily thought our chickies should have one too. :)

The excitement is almost tangible. Can you tell?!

Another List...

I'm beginning to think in list-form, only, these days. Apparently, even my blog cannot escape my manifold lists. Here's another semi-short one:


1. The eggs are doing A-OK! They were candled yesterday and it appears that out of 14, only 2 are infertile. Right now, the remaining twelve appear dark when candled, with only a visible air sac at one end, which is exactly what we were hoping to see. When we candle them again in a day or two, if those two still look clear, we will just throw them away. Woo-hoo, we are at T-7 days and counting until our chicks begin hatching! It looks like we are going to get at least a few chickies from this experiment and the excitement is beginning to mount in this household. :)


2. Originally, I started blogging in order to have a place to put my thoughts and photos and maybe "network" a little with some like-minded friends. But over the last year, my feelings about this blog have expanded to include much more than that. I think of this now as also a place to preserve our funny moments and my own "mommy thoughts" for my children and myself in years to come. It's become my online scrapbook of sorts.


Because I hope that my grown daughters and daughters-in-law will get a glimpse of what their mother was like while raising wee children, I am posting these pictures of a crate FULL of tights that I organized in my attic last week.




I was going through summer clothes in preparation for The Great Spring Clothes Changeover '08 and sorted all of the tights into one place. Amid what appears to be a children's store explosion in my attic from all of the seasonal clothing and accessories up there, this full crate of tights emerged. And it just kindof struck a chord with me, maybe it was really a funny bone that it struck, but nonetheless, I decided to photograph it.





Mind you, for most of these tights I paid less than $1 per pair. In fact, lots of them cost mere pennies. And the crate stands as an icon of my mothering style, really. Similar, you might say, to the 30 cans of pumpkin on my shelf that I got for 25 cents each, and the tower of Mr. Clean Ma*gic Er*aser boxes in the basement.


Girls, I just want you to know that this is what it took to keep you in clean, cute, and decent clothing, and not break the bank in the process. You may laugh at my neurosis that this crate represents, but just remember that your little legs were always warm. :)


3. Lastly, Happy Birthday to our nephew, Zachary! I cannot believe he is six already. Here are two, handsome little boy cousins at his party. Aren't they cute?!




My son is so sweet here I could eat him with a spoon!


And with that reminder, I had better go finish preparing dinner, so my family has something to eat for dinner with a spoon or fork or whatever!

The King's Daughter - Your Most Valuable Treasure

Last month, I started writing a series to the little ladies-in-training of our church under the title, "A King's Daughter" in our church's bi-monthly ladies' publication.

Because I am writing to girls in the target age group that Lily falls into, and because these articles are really my words from my heart to my own two daughters, I thought that I would preserve them, here, in one place for my own, little princesses.


Lily and Gracie, it is the heart's desire of your father and I that you both grow into glorious daughters of the King of kings!




Dear Little Princess,

In Psalm 45, we have a description of a king’s daughter. What a beautiful and elegant young lady she must have been!

You too, can be a daughter of the king, or as we commonly call her, a “princess.” What makes a young lady like yourself a true princess? What does she look like, and how does she act? How does she spend her time and what does she love the most? These are some of the things that we are going to be looking at as we study this godly young lady!

When I think about a princess, I imagine a sweet girl who lives in an exquisite room in the spire of a castle! Perhaps she has a lofty canopy bed decked in shimmering pink linens. Probably somewhere in her room she has a treasure box. Maybe it’s a special jewelry box where she keeps the things that are most important to her. Inside of this important little box, we might find costly gems, or a precious necklace that her daddy gave her for her birthday. Or maybe she stores there an heirloom…a unique treasure, maybe a hand-carved brooch, handed down to her from the ladies in her family!

Verse 13 of Psalm 45 gives us the most important description of our Biblical princess when it says, “The king’s daughter is all glorious within:” More important than her outward beauty, her cute clothing, her becoming hairstyles, and pretty shoes and jewelry, is what is found in her heart. Whether or not you live in a castle surrounded by jewels and lovely things, God has given you a special treasure! And though this treasure does not look like our princess’ fancy jewelry box, it is far more valuable. It is your heart! The real you…who you are on the inside, what you think about, and who you serve is more important than what you own or what you look like! Your inside matters the most!

Luke 6:45 says, “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil:”

Does your heart have a good treasure or an evil treasure? If we could see your feelings and thoughts would we see good, godly thoughts or mean, selfish ones?

One way that your parents and brothers and sisters can get a glimpse into your heart is by watching what comes out of it. The rest of that verse in Luke says, “for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.” That means that what you think about most is what you are going to talk about. If you have a selfish, sinful heart, you will speak unkindly to your sister, or sass at your brother, and talk back to your parents. On the other hand, if your heart is good and godly, you will speak words of kindness and forgiveness to your family and have cheerful conversations with your friends.

Why not take some time to study what the Bible says about your heart. Read these verses with your mother and talk about what they mean.

Proverbs 23:7
Proverbs 24:9
Matthew 15:11, 18-19
Philippians 4:8

God has a special plan for you, dear one! He wants each and every one of you to be a glorious princess! A gleaming, pure, wholesome heart is your most valuable possession. Guard it and keep it clean by studying God’s Word. Then you will become a true princess- a daughter of the King…all glorious within!

Love, Mrs. P

The Quintessential Perfect Spring Day...except for the um...fishiness

Last Thursday was one of the most positively, beautiful days in the history of our state! I wanted to put a little bit of it into a bottle to save for other times. It was so gorgeous! And we spent it enjoying the outdoors and one another...truly a great day!









My sister and I took our kids to a local trout nursery where we had a picnic and fed the fish.

Let me just pause right here and point out how brave and/or crazy Katina and I were for taking six, young children to a place with many large, open bodies of water filled with stinky, slimey fish and only two adults to ensure that no one fell in...where we handed our young'ins bags, yea, numerous bags of smelly, greasy fish food to toss with all of their might towards the fish. Yes, I will just point out the obvious, "We are crazy." :)







But we had fun, and no one fell in, thankfully! Scott met us for lunch, which was a nice treat! And then the fish-feeding began...







If you are Lily and Sophia, "feeding the fish" means carefully selecting one granule of fish food at a time and tossing it to a large group of fish, all the while speaking sweetly and encouragingly to them, coaxing each of the fish to choose your particle of fish food.

Joey and Elijah "fed the fish" by the handfuls and then went on a hunt for sticks to transform into fishing poles by dipping them into the water, touching the fish, and turning around to us with wide grins, and proclaiming, "I'm fishing!!"

If you are Gracie, you spend the majority of your time and fish food, enthusiastically feeding the concrete with handfuls of greasy pellets because your tiny arms aren't long enough to get the food all of the way into the water. :) What? That sidewalk was hungry!

And to Noah, "feeding the fish" means...putting the fish food into your own mouth and eating it. :) What? He was hungry!

Of course, the gator had to be inspected thoroughly.

Hi, Joey.

We had a beautiful time, but when our "water radar" was worn out and we couldn't take the fishy smell anymore, we packed up and headed to another nearby park which is home to an entire field of blossoming blue bells! (or as they are more scientifically known, Grape Hyacinths)

Joey assumed this position about 4 minutes after arriving...what a little man!

After our wonderful hubbies came home from work that evening, they graciously stayed together with all of the kiddos, so Katina and I could head to Panera to do some serious curriculum research for next year, sans kids...aka sans interruptions. It was heavenly. :)

We had a lot of fun and accomplished quite a bit in one spring day.

But several days and laundry cycles later, I can STILL smell that fish food on my childrens' clothing. :)

A Pincushion

Have I really only blogged twice this week? How can that be? I have so much to say. :)

Lately, I have been reflecting back on Lily's burn. I don't think one ever truly "recovers" from a major emergency. And I'm just the Mommy, not the one who was injured.

Maybe that's the problem.

I am beginning to think that a mother's heart is like a pincushion. It takes a lot of pricks, and each one leaves a tiny mark upon it and softens it just a little bit. Until one day, the pincushion is nothing like it once was. And in the case of a mother's heart, it's better.

So many things remind me of what we went through. Every time we pass an ambulance on the road, my hearts skips a beat or two, remembering how I stood in the emergency room with my eyes fixed on the entrance waiting for the ambulance that bears our town's name. When I hear of someone having surgery, I remember kissing Lily goodbye before they rolled her into the operating room. And when I hear the word "hospital" I can almost hear the sounds of that place...beeping machines, nurses flying everywhere, doctor chatter in the hallway.

And then I have the great privilege of giving my girlie a big squeeze and kissing her totally healed shoulder and breathing a prayer of gratefulness and praise to God. We are exceptionally blessed.

This week we heard of another six-year old girl in Brazil, the daughter of a missionary, who suffered terrible burns to 90% of her body. God took little Anna home to be with Him this week. Her little heart stopped beating and she was instantly in the presence of Jesus.

My heart aches and rejoices at the same time. How can it be? One little girl is whole here on earth, and one little girl is whole in heaven. My mother's heart aches for her mother, knowing just what she was thinking as she stood beside her girlie in the hospital. On the other hand, I rejoice with her, as Anna is no longer suffering and is happily running the streets of glory praising God! But then I feel a tinge of guilt because I can further rejoice as I watch my own daughter running back and forth across the yard, full of life and vigor. Truly, my heart overflows at the grace of God in my life! He could have made Lily whole in a different manner. But He choose to show Himself strong in this way. And I am so grateful.

What other ways is He showering me with grace each day? Are my eyes dim to see His working in my life, in even the "little" things? Would I appreciate the "little" things as much if my heart hadn't been "pricked" and thereby, changed through this incident? Oh I pray that I never forget what He has done. And may I live each day, with the same hopeful, grateful vision to see His mercy drops all around me.

Some Miscellaneous Notes...

1. If you buy lamps with medium-brightish pink shades for your girls' room, they will make their already-pink room glow pink. And your girls will think you are the best mother on the planet. Further if you spend more than a minute or two in their glowing pink room, you're eyes will become adjusted to all of the pinkness and when you walk back into the hall, you will be mesmerized by the "green" incandescent lighting and the "green" (taupe) walls. Ask me how I know.

2. While we're trying not to count our chickens before they hatch (hoo-hoo, hee-hee, ha-ha-... sorry), the ambient temperature surrounding our eggs has been just perfect since Sunday with no alarming incidences. Last night I candled them again, and I actually saw a little bit of movement in one them! Will keep you posted on any further pressing news on the "hatch front."

3. Do you think less of me because I have styrofoam plates hanging on my wall? Because I do.




It's the hottest new thing in home fashion! And just $1 for a pack of 100. :)

Also, those three throw pillow covers in the front are stuffed with plastic grocery bags at the moment. Obviously I'm trying to incorporate more earth-unfriendly elements into my decor. :)

Or maybe I just haven't found "real" white plates and made/bought pillow forms.

My kids call this pillow "the Cheerio pillow."

4. I am convinced that I am raising monkeys and bunnies and not children. The produce we go through in this house! Three or four bunches of bananas per week, and my kids can polish off a few cucumbers and more than a half of a stalk of celery in one sitting.

But they're cute, little herbivores, aren't they? (Don't worry, we consume plenty of carne over here, also.)

5. Happy Belated Birthday to my mom! We had her birthday party here last weekend. I made chili with cornbread, chips, cheese, sour cream, the whole nine yards. And it was so nice outside that at the last minute we decided to take all of the food outside and have a picnic! It was kind of funny having chili as picnic food. And I can't remember ever celebrating my mom's early-April birthday outdoors! Then we took a walk afterwards. Lots of fun! It would have been even weirder had we stopped at the ice cream shop on the way back! But we had cake at home, so we didn't.

6. I am loooooving this weather. The sunshine especially. It makes me happy.

And I think I'll stop with six miscellaneous things for today! Toodle-loo!

*Hatch Cam* - Day 4

I had a bit of a "hatching crisis" the last day or so with the eggs. For no apparent reason, the incubator dropped temperature on Saturday night. Of course I panicked when I saw that it dropped from it's perfectly cozy 99.5 degrees to the low nineties. After a few, very minor adjustments it was back to where it belonged.

(As you can see the thermostat dial is highly un-precise.)

But when I woke up on this morning, it had dropped again! I was so upset and figured I had frozen the poor babies for good.

My friend K, assured me that they would be fine with a drop in temp, but don't let it get too high. Ooops. Once in the "readjustment" period, the temp read higher than 100. Of course I panicked again. But she assured me that later this week, I could candle them and if things didn't work out, we can always start over again. I solaced myself with that and the fact that I pray over my little babies. :)

But tonight after I came home from church and checked them again, I just HAD to know. So I spent some time googling incubation (the internet is such a friend in these situations) and I saw some photos of eggs that were candled at 4 days and blood vessels were visible.

Soooooo. Being the persistent female that I am, I decided that I just couldn't wait until later this week, that I HAD to see inside those eggs tonight!







The arsenal of flashlights that I had tried just weren't showing me anything. Fearing that I had fried (haha!) those eggs for sure, I asked Scott as a last ditch effort, "What is the brightest bulb that we have in this house?"

To which my brilliant husband replied, "How about that construction light I have in the basement?"

He's brilliant, I tell you!

I found a box that fit over the end, cut a little hole in it and voila! Instant, construction-grade, SUPER-MEGA egg candler! :)

And guess what I found????


Development!!!!!

If you look in the center of the upper half of the egg in these pictures, you can see a "spider-like" shadow. It's much clearer in person. But as you can imagine it was difficult to get these pictures in these lighting conditions. (There is an "x" written in pencil to the extreme right in these pictures. I marked the eggs with an "x" on one side and an "o" on the other, so that I turn them properly.)

I was ecstatic when I saw some developement! Of course, there is still time for me to destroy them. :) But I was so pleased to be able to see something already! Come on chickies...keep growing! (I can't wait to show the kids tomorrow!)

And, if all goes well, and at least a few of these develop fully. This is what they are going to look like...



Aren't they cute?! They are one-day old Black Australorp chicks. This is what they will look like full-grown.

OK, I'll stop talking about the eggs. The science lesson is over for the day. Class dismissed. :)

Glorious Spring

We...

...are...

...so happy...

....that it is warm enough...

...to have read-aloud-time outside every day!

(and so is Mommy! Woo-hoo!)

A Word Fitly Spoken

I came upon this amazingly well-written post this week. I felt that I could relate to it so well, that I would share it here. I hope it is a blessing to you too!

Savings Round-up

I mentioned before that my sister introduced me to CVS savings last week. This week we ventured to Walgreens as well. And if you must know, I have been to four, different CVS stores so far this week. But who's counting?

I don't have time to chronicle exactly what I bought...it's been put away by now. But I will give you some totals:

If I was paying original prices (which I never do), I got over $150 worth of stuff between CVS and Walgreens. It's more than that, but Walgreen's receipts don't print a handy little "you saved" total at the bottom, only the sale prices show up, so I'm not exactly sure what the original prices were there. Suffice it to say, I could count $150, and it was more than that!

My out-of-pocket total from all stores was $51.22. I have $10 credit to Walgreens and at least $11 ECB's to CVS (credit). Plus I am getting $39.85 back in a one-check rebate from Walgreen's.

Soooo, if you subtract my rebates and remaining store credit from my OOP expenses, you come up with a negative balance of -$9.63. Which means those stores basically paid me $9.63 for over $150 worth of stuff!!

Pretty cool, huh?!

Now for my pièce de résistance....

Cheerios!!

Yes, friends. Our love for the Cheerio is pure and deep!

Last week, a local grocery store had GM cereals on sale, plus a bonus buy with their club card, bringing the price for an 18 ounce box of Cheerios (big ones) to $6 for four- which is a great deal in and of itself. Of course, I had manufacturers and printable coupons for Cheerios. Last week, when I found the last four boxes on the shelf, they doubled my printable coupon so I got those four boxes for $0.50 each!!

This week I took my rain checks for sixteen, yes SIXTEEN, boxes of cereal in and they had to over-ride each coupon. Some of them were coupons on multiple boxes. But the average spending between both weeks was $0.825 cents per box! So I got 20 boxes (we already inhaled one that's why it's not pictured) for $16.50. If it paid the normal $3.77/box that would have been $75.40. And it got them or $16.50...can you imagine?!

And we shouldn't be running out of Cheerios anytime soon. :)

Waaah! I'm a surrogate mother again!

This time...I'm a temporary mama to developing chicks!

I can keep my own baby humans alive, but for some reason when it comes to non-human creatures, I get a little nervous. I guess that's another reason (or proof?) that I am not a farm wife. :)

Last year, we planted seeds. Thankfully that worked! (starting here and ending here)

And then we raised butterflies (here, here, and here) , which were truly amazing! (even though they were totally gross)

And now we have progressed to chicks! We are incubating chicken eggs. Even as I type I can hear the hum of an incubator in the basement warming our little eggs. In MY basement. Can you imagine?!

I keep forgetting what possessed me to do this, but I think it had something to do with laying (pun! a chicken pun...they've begun!) my eyes upon the sweet, fluffy, little chickies hatching at the farm show in January. I was smitten! And so were the kids. I WANTED one of those chicks, they were SO cute! So I decided right then and there in that smelly, farm-ish hall that we WERE going to incubate eggs this year. The kids have been bouncing off the walls for months at the prospect.

And really this is the best project to satisfy their "pet pleadings." Look! We get to "grow" our own pets, but "sorry, we can't keep them. There's that pesky borough livestock ordinance." :) At least they'll get a little taste of what it's like to have a pet.

This is how the fertile eggs came to us...wrapped snuggly, and all of the way from Texas.



Here are my munchkins putting the eggs into the incubator last night. Pardon the dirt. Real Farm Girls can handle this kind of stuff (my friend K, is an expert!). But as we have already established, I am not a Real Farm Girl, so at first the dirt makes me squirm. I'm getting used to it, however.

There they are. All fourteen of them. (The rows of unoccupied cradles are for smaller eggs...like quail eggs. That's why ours are filling up the 10 chicken egg cradles on the edges. The four eggs laying in the middle we have to hand-turn several times a day.)

We have a poster about our project (what good homeschooler doesn't?)...

Lily already labeled her calendar with an egg-countdown on every day until (hopefully!) these eggs hatch.

And of course, this project wouldn't be complete without a "tactile interface"...namely a chickie puppet, right? :)

We requested and read some library books awhile back on the egg/chick topic, but they have since gone back to the library. After we found out this week that we were getting the eggs, I requested about another dozen books. (My librarian is looooving me right about now.)

Seriously I have no clue what I would do if I had to homeschool in the pre-internet/inter-library-loan days. I have bookmarks to so many great websites on this topic. And it is so easy to research books, on say, a "very large internet bookseller named after a rainforest" and then request those same books on our library's website. Almost every single book I could want is somewhere in my county. I can even locate many Christian books as our county borders a very conservative one and many Christian books I find come from locations near there.

So if this topic bores you and photos of dirty eggs gross you out...I suggest you stay away from my blog for oh, say, the next 21 days or so...as I plan to document our project here through my "Hatch Cam." :)

Good night, little eggs. I promise to do my best to take good care of you, until the day that we turn you over to a real fowl mother who can raise you!

And you too. I haven't forgotten about you babies, too. Sleep tight. And please, oh PLEASE develop into soft, fluffy chicks in 21 days. Help a girl out here. My kids are expecting it. :)

Mommies and Kiddos Night

On Friday night, while the husbands were off at the Men's Conference, some Mommy-friends and their kiddos gathered at my sister's house for a loud and fun evening! Surprisingly, it wasn't as wild as I thought it would be. Some of the older kids supervised the younger ones in the basement for most of the evening (they were such a big help!), while the Mommies were upstairs passing around a new baby. She is sooo sweet!

Signs of a full household :)

La bebé

I guess it was still a rather crazy evening, as evidenced by the fact that I have photos only of drinking cups and the baby. :)

Can't Wait for Church!

It has been eight, yes, EIGHT weeks since I sat in a Wednesday night service at my own church! We have been teaching jr. church for four weeks. The Wednesday prior to that, we went to the church in Florida (it was lovely, but still not home). And I was sick both Wednesdays before that. It feels like it has been FOR-EVER since I sat in our church and heard the prayer requests and took part in our prayer meeting. :)

I'm so glad I'm going tonight. At least that is the plan as of the current moment. But it's subject to change at the drop of the hat, gurgle of the belly, or rise on the thermometer. :) (Sorry for the gross visual!)

Ta-ta!

Frock Features

Here is Princess Grace tonight...

"Are you looking at me, Mommy?"

Cute dress, no?

But there is a special feature to this adorable dress that I was unaware of when I purchased it...

Snack Storage!!

As Gracie and I were walking through the foyer this morning after services, I looked down at her just as she twisted and I spied something trapped in her cummerbund. There were remnants of THREE different snacks in there! Ha ha! Which just means that some of those crumbs had been in there for a loooong time. :) I'm such a wonderful mother, aren't I?

Perhaps the dress should have been advertised with a "built-in crumb catcher!" But afterall, who am I to judge? A girl needs her ever-ready snack options.

At least she's a cute, little crumby snacker.



And a ham, too!

Good-night!

Banana strings

In my short (ahem) twenty-nine years, I have never taken even a millisecond to ponder, or even regard in the slightest, banana strings. Or as they are more scientifically known, phloem bundles. You know, those little threads that cling to the banana when you peel it open.

That is, until my son took a disliking to them.

I will preface this by saying that my man-child is quite possibly, one of the most low-maintenance human beings on the planet. As is his father. This is a very advantageous trait to have in a husband or son. :)

However, there are a (very) few things that vex my laid-back little boy. And banana strings are one of them.

For whatever reason, he cannot coexist with their stringy, clingy presence each morning after the cereal has been washed down and his morning fruit peeled open. They stick to his stubby, little fingers as he tries to rid himself of them.

And then they are discarded, smeared, or wiped on any nearby surface. The table, the chair, his shirt. And when those obnoxious, little things dry onto something…look out. It takes some muscle…or serious picking (ewww!) to get rid of them.

So now I am finding myself irritated by them too. Oh no. My man-child, he’s wearing off on me.

I'm a CVSer...

...my sister has twisted my arm, cajoled, and now won the victory in convincing me to join her in her CVS deal-wielding. I went today, and now I'm hooked. [Sigh.] I don't know how I'm going to find time to add a CVS-run to my weekly schedule. But the deals, I think they may be a'callin' me!

Then we went to a grocery store that was having fabulous cereal deals. And oh the bargains...to the tune of a box of Cheerios for 50 cents. 50 CENTS, people!

But there was a price to pay. Six children in two stores at almost-naptime got a little crazy. At one point, I had five of the children with me as we cruised down one aisle...one in the seat, a few hanging on to the side of the cart, and one (I think) walking beside. I got so many funny looks, and finally the butcher said with a smile, "All yours?!" I was never more happy to report, "No!" Although, it would have been possible, as my sister and I were never pregnant at the same time. So biologically-speaking...but...no, no, NO! Five kids in as many years are NOT all mine. :)

By the end of it, Elijah and Joey were riding on the racks underneath of our carts. I wish I had my camera, because it was hysterical and soooo boyish.

Anyhow, with a little better planning, perhaps next trip will be a bit more, um..."streamlined." :)