Shopping Dates

Oh yes. It's been another week of no blogging. The holiday season does that! And being on vacation too, I would guess.

Last week on Friday, we got a babysitter for the kids and went Christmas shopping. Yes, Christmas shopping on the eve of Christmas Eve. Ah well. It was really fun though! We haven't been out alone in months and months. The afternoon was kind of like a little date. We even had lunch together--just the two of us.



We saw a couple things that kind of made me gasp and laugh. For one, there is actually a toy based on the horror movie Saw. Then at Target, they stocked the Mountain Dew below the game Call of Duty. I guess they know their clientele well!




After we got back, Julie and I went grocery shopping because I knew there was no way I would have time with Christmas Eve and Christmas over the weekend. We actually had a very nice time together, and she was very helpful. There were another couple interesting sights while we were out. A Cheetos bag with retro-packaging and gas for under $3.00. It was a Christmas miracle.





That evening, I met with my Muse girls at Old Chicago. We were all extremely tired, it seemed, and our time together was fairly short. Still, it was great to see the ladies.

Productive Family Day

Sunday morning, we got to sleep in a little--hooray! The kids did get into the pie and chocolate chips, but hey. It's the price you've gotta pay for some extra time in bed. When we went downstairs, the kids had set up a tea party for us. It was so sweet! Um. Literally.




I don't know about you, but graham crackers covered with peanut butter, honey, and chocolate chips is a bit much for first thing in the morning--even with coffee. :oP

We took them grocery shopping with us, and once again, they wanted to try to squeeze into a minuscule shopping cart. Silly kids. We only went over budget by $15, so that wasn't too bad, considering the amount of junk we brought for food entertainment over Christmas break.



After putting away all the groceries, we had lunch, and the kids went to chill out upstairs awhile. Heath and I chatted at the table over the opportunities in the paper, then called the kids down to start dates. Heath took Everest to go do some free climbing, which naturally, he loved.

Julie and I danced in the living room for a few songs, then went to JoAnn to try to find some cake decorating supplies for the Christmas baking. Luckily, they had all their Christmas stuff on sale. Yay!

By the time we got back, it was starting to get dark. We skipped the second dates in favor of getting dinner at Qdoba and going to the Many Lights of Christmas, a big, annual display of lights at a church not far from us. The kids loved, loved, loved the lights. They had so much to see there!

Snowman Flexing

The train drove around the parking lot.

Entering Candy Cane Lane

Christmas Movie Clips

Mr. & Mrs. Claus

Giant Entrance to Santa's Workshop

"Elves" at Work

Elaborate Exit

"There's no room at the Inn!"

Shepherds & their Sheep

We swung by Dunkin Donuts on the way home, which was a fun treat. Kids went to bed almost immediately after we got home. I had enough time to change clothes and freshen up before going out to see Puella for a little while at Starbucks since we didn't see each other on Friday. We had a lovely, albeit short, time together chatting.

It's about half past midnight now, and I'm pretty sure that I laid down in bed, I would be asleep in less than two minutes. I think I shall test theory...

Yes, it's been one of those weeks.

You know those kinds of weeks--the ones that are so busy that they're over before they even begin? That's been us for the last week and a half. Let's see if I can pull any memories out of this fuzzy brain of mine...

Last week on Tuesday, the highlight of the day was going grocery shopping with the kids. We were in serious need of some supplies at that point--like milk, eggs, and bread. Julie was having English muffin sandwiches! (Which isn't bad per se, just unconventional for school lunch.)

The kids still try to squeeze into car carts together. One of these days, Julie's going to dislocate her hip or something. While we were there, a guy was doing a promotional demo, and we got a free apple corer/juicer thing. Kind of cool!




Wednesday, I made an experimental dish for dinner that I called Baked Tacos. They were basically super-loaded hard shell tacos with refried beans, cheese, seasoned meat, rice, salsa, and onions, all laid in a baking dish and covered with a can of green chilie enchilada sauce. Sprinkled with cheese and baked til heated through and the cheese browned. DELICIOUS. I wish we'd had some sour cream though.



After Heath left to cover a shift for another instructor, I had the kids get showered up while I set out the goodies to make gingerbread houses. We picked out the stuff at the store (graham crackers and frosting), and they were super excited to do it. Decorations included Halloween candies and cereal bits.





Because Heath had to work, I had to bring my scheduled Young Writers NaNoWriMo write-in to our house. So after the kids went to bed, I straightened up the house and set up. We were originally going to go to Village Inn to have pancakes, so I made pancakes at home instead. They were a hit! And the girls that came had a really fun time. We talked about SO many different topics over the pancakes. Oh yeah, and we did some writing too. XD

Late Night Shopping

Monday had precious little going on. Heath took the kids to school, then I worked in the morning. I picked up Everest, and we went straight to the church for a staff meeting. Afterwards, we swung by my mom's store to see how she was doing after being sick last week. We got to meet her new hired hand, Sabrina. She was a very sweet lady.

Julie had choir and homework, and the kids had a little time to play together outside before dinner was done. We got to eat together as a family (all four of us) as is becoming the usual custom on Monday nights. Yay! I made baked chicken, homemade stuffing, and baked butternut squash. Quite the healthy dinner!




I waffled between working out and getting the grocery shopping done. I finally decided that it was the beginning of the week, so I could make up working out later. Grocery shopping really was vital. We were out of milk and some other essentials already.



Julie came with me to shop as a treat for being really good at dinnertime and cleaning up the kitchen after dinner, including putting all the leftovers away. She was great at the store, keeping track of the list and doing math to figure out prices. (We've found that the grocery store is an excellent place to practice math.)

Unfortunately, the store did not see fit to open any actual registers, so we had to self-check our entire cartful of groceries. It was extremely aggravating, but Julie was good and kept good humor about things. I probably would have gotten more aggravated than I already did if she hadn't been there to temper me. She's wonderful at adding levity to a situation.

The rest of the night was spent in a daze after getting all the groceries put away. I toyed with the idea of trying to be productive, but in the end, all I wanted to do was read, then go to bed. So that's exactly what I did.