Free Beer!

I am offering anyone who comes to my house to participate in a painting party as much beer as you want while helping as long as you can still stay on the walls with the paint brush. In the meantime I am taking every pen, pencil, crayon, and marker in this house to my burn barrel in the backyard for a bonfire. Mia is my first child attempting to be an artist and I am not about to let her keep "expressing herself" on everything. If I see her grab a pen and she sees me eye her, she takes off running 90 mph screaming "no no no!!" over and over running to a wall then whips out a few scribbles as fast as she can and throws the writing tool at me and runs off to her room. I've tried giving her girlie coloring books but she will have no part in coloring in a book and will throw it at me. She's driving me bonkers! This is just a select FEW of her canvas' around the house.

Dave comes home today thank goodness. This has actually been pretty easy since the kids are in school but I've been waking up on a regular basis the past 4 nights. I just lay there forever or get up and look outside for the boogieman. It's a bit hard sleeping without him. I finally came to a conclusion last night. I don't really need him cuddling next to me, I don't need him trying to position me back to my side for the baby's sake, I need his snoring. Is that not weird?! I need to hear his loud nasally snore in order to sleep. It's just too quiet without it. I guess after 13 years of sleeping in the same bed together it's just something I've become accustomed to.

The kids have been counting down the days, they really miss him. Mia chatted on the phone last night with him. She kept giggling saying, "it's dadda!" pointing to the phone. It was cute. He's so ready to get back. I guess this branch they sent him to is doing terrible. The branch manager is there for about 2 hours a day because he just doesn't give a crap and the service manager is trying to do his job but just gives up and leaves for the day as well. He's been doing complaint calls the whole time he's been there. He's doing THEIR dirty work that they have put off for months. He's really enjoying Missouri but better not get any ideas to try to move us there. It sounds like they're probably going to have to clean house and look for new management.

Tonight is Boy Scout/Girl Scout sign up night at all the schools in Kansas. I, along with several of my mom's, will be signing up our girls and new girls for this school year. I went yesterday to Hobby Lobby and bought some items for the girls to make a project at a table while the adults sign their girls up. I wanted parents to see how much fun the girls have together so I made this presentation board and printed off a bunch of pictures for parents to look at. It's neat seeing how much they've changed and I think the girls' parents are going to like it. My goal is to make a disc for all the mom's of the pictures I've taken through the year. Can you tell I have all this new found time now that I have 3 in school?

Ramblings

Well Echo's butt is not pretty (draining and looks nasty!!) but she seems to be doing well and still just limping on it. Dave learned quickly how to do muscular injections from our vet the day it happened and for 4 days has been doing them although we both hate it!!! Imagine Pulp Fiction where they stab the big boss' wife in the chest when she overdoses although the needle is not that long. I believe this is a 18 gauge with a 2o needle??

So soon after this mess happened Dave announced that they were sending him for sure on Monday to Missouri. It was so hard yesterday letting him leave but I have to just thank the school district for starting a bit early this year. lol If it was summer he would probably come home to 4 kids, mommy hanging from the basement rafters. We tried to have as normal of a day before he left as we could. We went to church and both worked in the nursery then we raced home and I prepared some mini sandwiches for my kids and Brownie Girl Scouts as we had a bigday planned before finding out that Dave was leaving. Around 1:30 a few moms and I took the girls to the mall for a shopping spree. I used our troop fund buying them all Webkinz and letting them pick out $10 in merchandise at Claire's. Just a girl's day out! I'm going to guess they had blast. I spent $360 total. Ventured home around 3ish and Daddy left us at about 5. I had tried desperately this weekend to find someone to help give Echo her shots since I would never be able to stick a living being. My neighbor jogging by this morning has a horse and steer and said he would be happy to help while Dave is gone. I was so happy when he gave her that shot (in the butt cheek!!!) without flinching this morning! He even washed the wound with peroxide for me. We have been doing it in the neck which is a better area for us not to end up dead. She didn't like it in the ass though. lol It was a bit crazy but we made it through.

School is going GREAT for all 3 kids. The kids live for school I swear. Mia and I are having a ball just the 2 of us. Today we went to playgroup where she continuously yelled "no" at me running all over the place refusing to come to me telling me "bye" when I said we were leaving. Everyone in playgroup has come to know her favorite words with her arm drawn out like Swiper the Fox from Dora. They are "no!" "go!" "stop and "uh-uh!" She is so darn stubborn. She seems completely fine with the fact that Damien is gone half the day. Probably cherishing it really! lol She watches him get on the bus and then runs off doing her own thing. We went shopping one day and I felt guilty for being so happy I had just 1 kid with me because the trip went so well. Damien and Dominic make shopping miserable running everywhere but having just Mia along for the ride it was actually fun! lol It's been so much easier doing housework without having to separate kids as well. Damien and Mia (although they love each other to death) torment each other over and over when they find something that gets under the other's skin. "Ha Ha" is something they both say to piss each other off. lol

This rain over the summer has been awesome. I think we are up to 10 pumpkins now in the patch! I've got tomatoes, Serrano and Jalapeno peppers up to my eyeballs. I've been making the kids fetch all the Dwarf apples falling to feed to Echo and I made pico de gallo this weekend for Dave using some of the tomatoes. For some reason I have a heat sensitivity to Jalapenos and forgetting to wear gloves my hands were on fire Saturday and finally quit by Sunday evening. I felt like I had frost bite so you can imagine how much that sucked.

So is anyone else feeling just a tad bit guilty for being happy their kids are back in school?

Please Pray For Our Horse Echo

We went out today to do our after school chore of taking care of all the animals and found that Echo's back leg was covered in blood. When I looked up we saw that her hip bone appears to be visible and her skin is tore back from the wound. She's limping so I know she's hurting. I am freaking out. Anyone who's dealt with horses knows that they get hurt easily but sometimes wounds just aren't fixable. I'm waiting for the vet to arrive and assess the damage. This happened last year on the 4th of July with Oscar. Please be thinking of her. I know where the $200 I just made on daycare is going now. (sigh)

I Need, I Need, I Need

We are coming to a close here before Gabriella arrives. 7wks 6 days to be exact. Last night the kids finished dinner before us so we let them head off into the living room to play and Daddy and I sat at the table alone, which is always nice. We started talking about things I want or need to do before she comes, what is going to happen after she comes, and OMG I can't believe we are doing this again.

Before she comes... I need to clean the barn, I need the electricity restored in the barn before winter, I need to get bunk beds for the boys and Damien moved, I need to do a ton of fall yard work (bulb planting), I need to clean closets, I need a new fridge and put the existing in the garage, I need to have a yard sale, and oh yeah! I need to get things ready for this baby!!! lol

After she comes, we need to get a contractor here for a price on a separate new garage. After that and moving everything out of the existing, we need to add on to the house because we need a second bath! By January my plan is to start doing full time daycare again, however Dave threw me for a loop last night by suggesting maybe we should think again about doing Foster Care. All I could do was laugh. I'm not sure what age he's thinking but for us a infant/toddler would be best in this house. Anyways we need to wait till after my surgery to even go deeper into that.

I'm not sure why he's suggesting this all the sudden. One conclusion is, we were completely caught off guard Saturday by my OBGYN office when they sent out a patient letter to their clients saying as all of their current patients have their babies, they will be phasing out the OB part of their practice and only doing GYN services. The last patients delivering should be April 2009 I figure. Anyways the excuses for it really pissed me off and don't make sense. I'm sure it's malpractice insurance related. I didn't say anything about it Monday at my appointment to my Dr but I'm really upset about it. So upset that I cried reading it and then Dave took me to the bedroom so I could cry some more. It's not going to be an easy task finding a Dr to take on someone wanting a 6th C-section and I really only trust the 2 women Dr's I have doing my surgeries. That leaves 3 other OB's in town and I don't believe they would take me as a patient. So not only was I grieving that I was losing my OB, I was grieving that this was probably our last. I haven't been real upset thinking it before now because we've both pretty much figured if it happened again it would be God's will. Now I feel like if we want to do another surgery, I'm going to have to prepare before getting pregnant. So anyways I wonder if he's thinking Fostering would bring some sort of happiness because we've always talked about doing it.

School has been great for the kids so far. They really haven't told me much but are so excited in the morning for their buses to come. I'm glad they're having a great time because I NEEDED this break. lol

The Pumpkin Patch

My husband thinks I'm an absolute goober because I am just so excited on how well our first pumpkin patch has turned out. The garden itself is doing awesome but I never expected so much joy from a pumpkin patch. lol All the kids around here, my neices, etc. all run back and see how many they can find growing. So far I think there's 7 possibly more it's just hard to tell because you have to search under leaves to find them when they are tiny. I'm not sure how many we'll end up with this year but we've already decided we're doing it again next but bigger and giving them away to family and friends.

Part of the patch~ It's probably about 40-50 feet long now.

It's a baby!

This one is actually all orange on the bottom part and the biggest of all. It's about the size of a volleyball.This one is about the size of a mini basketball. There's 4 others about this size.

I go out every afternoon and pick peppers and tomatoes. I'm glad we got decent rain this summer because everything is growing nicely!

One More~ Dominic's First Day of School

Finally! Dominic got to go back today. He was so happy. It's been an interesting morning with only Mia and Kayla here. AKA: QUIET! Kayla goes back to school on Thursday and then it will be just Mia and I. Yikes!

Thumbs up, hope that means he's going to have a great day!

Man those stairs are so hard for them to climb when still little. Damien has tried crawling the past 2 days but this morning I showed him the railing.

I Have Proof!

I found him this morning in the back yard again but on top of a rabbit cage this time sniffing the back of the other cage. (probably because Oreo pees in that corner) I like this picture because you can tell how big he is with the hampster water bottle there. He appeared bigger the other day but he looks to be about 6 inches long with his body and then probably another 2 inches or so with his tail. So because I got a shot and better look at him this time, he is not a Roof Rat like I thought he was like the picture the other day. He's a White Throated Pack Rat. This bottom picture is off Google and that is exactly what his face looks like. You can kinda tell by the ears and belly in my picture that they are the same thing. He seems really nice, obviously hasn't found Dave's bait yet. lol I'm calling him Renegade the Rat.

Damien's First Day of School!

Ok so this one was HARD! I was shaking when I came back in the house. It just doesn't seem right sending him 5 days a week at barely 3 to preschool but I know for his speech it has to be done. I worry since he doesn't talk much yet he'll have a hard time communicating if anything is wrong besides pointing and saying yes and no.

I need to hurry and buy bunk beds and put the boys together because this morning I had to sneak in and get him out of bed hoping not to wake up Mia at 7 am. I woke her though getting his clothes. I'd prefer her to sleep a bit longer than 7. lol He excitedly ate his breakfast then ran for his bag. I tried to get him to potty on the toilet before going but he wasn't going for it. I sent Dominic to preschool for about 6 months before he was potty trained but I was really hoping Damien would train alittle sooner. Hopefully the peer pressure at school will make him give in. His bus came promptly at 8 am as promised and off he went. He should be home around noon.

Putting on his bag. Loves doing it all by himself. Mia loves how it has Spongebob on it.
Waiting outside for his driver to come.
As soon as she pulled up he started walking straight for it. Didn't want to hold my hand or anything. :( Bailey our dog is always a friendly bus greeter.

This picture shows how happy he was getting on that bus and heading off to school!

First Day of School (for Alex)

Here's Alex on the 14th, her first day of school. I was wrong and school doesn't start for Dominic until the 19th! Poor kid was pretty upset finding that one out. Damien starts on the 18th so you can imagine the meltdown bound to happen on Monday when he's stuck at home with Mia and I and they are at school. Since he's a Kindergartner they have the girls go first and then the boys, then both together. On the 14th however he did go in to meet his teacher and do a Kinder assessment test. He shocked me (and his teacher) by knowing all his shapes, colors letters, and counting up to 15. He even saw the teacher was writing his name so he quickly blurted out how to spell it as she was writing. His attention was not there though and he kept getting up and walking off from the table, jumping around or rolling on the floor. It kind of worries me but they know he has ADHD/ODD and SID, they have a para sitting in with him a half day and hopefully that is all we need. I still have no plans to medicate him unless he starts getting violent or he's just not learning. He has been doing a pretty good job lately of controlling his anger.

Alex had a great couple days this week at school. She was so ready to go back. Her bus comes right around 6:55-7 am. This is even earlier than last year so we're really making sure we're both up around 6:15 to get her ready without rushing and out the door by 7. I got up both mornings and went straight to the kitchen starting breakfast and then would get her out of bed. She had waffles the first morning, cinnamon rolls today. After I give her breakfast I'm jumping in the shower. It will be interesting waking 3 up and getting them all ready for the school bus next week. Alex is pretty easy but the boys will need a lot more help.

In The Sticks

Friend Jen wrote on her blog the other day about all the pest yuck factors she finds living where she lives so I thought I post a major yuckie I discovered this morning. Dog wouldn't stop barking at my hot tub this morning and I figured it was just another stupid field mouse or a toad. Finally I was afraid he was going to claw up the tub or the wood steps so I went out to move the steps to let him take care of whatever it was. I stood next to the steps without really thinking much, moved them back and next too my feet underneath the front of the steps was a huge gray/brown rat!! Dave being in pest control said it was a Roof Rat which is a little smaller than a Norway sewer rat. It's body was about 8-9 inches long and with it's tail it was about a foot long. Poor thing was scared half to death (frozen in fear) but then when Bailey jumped over my foot to grab it, it ran off. This isn't it but exactly what it looked like. A big furry huge rat! lol Now I had a clue we had rats around here. #1 - found one dead in the road a few years ago but couldn't tell if that was really what it was. #2- taking care of my dogs one day I saw one hop and crawl through a wall of trees we have but I brushed it off as a squirrel because it was so big!

Old School Play

I love sidewalk chalk. I remember getting hours of fun out of chalk on our driveway as a kid. Doesn't seem like kids play with it as much anymore but we have a huge bucket of it in the garage that is out all the time. Alex loves hopscotch so she found some big rocks and I drew one up and I taught the boys how to play 4 Square today. Then we outlined their dead bodies. lol

Here's Alex saying "get a back up camera!" laying dead next to the garage door.
This was Dominic saying "don't shoot!" before he was gunned down.

Experiment

We came up with a plan awhile back about dating every food item we open and then seeing how long it lasts. We always do it on certain items like lunch meat or jarred spaghetti sauce in the fridge but this is just on everything in general. It's not really accurate since we never eat the same way all the time but gives us a bit of an idea how long it took us to scarf it down and it's a bit fun to see the trends.

Dave bought this loaf of bread last night around 9 pm. This morning I opened it for breakfast. By lunch I barely had enough for grilled cheese sandwiches. The 2 pieces of crust are left for Daddy since that's his favorite part. I'd say we need more than 1 loaf of bread per week.

Had a 3 Hour Girl Scout Leader Meeting Last Night...

so I quickly made the kids some Quesadillas for dinner after K and K left at 5:30 pm. As soon as Daddy walked in the door at 6:15 I gave him a kiss, went down the list of things in my head of what he needed to know and do and went on my way. I came home at 9:15 with McDonald's $1 Hot Fudge Sundaes since I was out so late and I thought it'd be a nice way to thank him for taking over for the evening. I was wowed as the kids were all in bed and the house was quiet however I think he could have done some more straightening up than what he did but I'll keep my mouth closed. ;) I didn't see my kids till this morning when they all started filing into the front room. And this is how 2 of them were dressed for bed the night before.
All I could do was laugh. I guess they were dressed and I should be happy but I am pretty anal. That shirt on Dominic is actually Damien's and Mia's wearing a pair of 12 mth pj bottoms if you can't tell!! lol I'm surprised she had circulation in her legs with how tight they are. There was no harm done in not matching but I think he could have taken a little bit of time to find the right pieces to their PJ's. Especially when I have a mom dropping off her kids for daycare and got to see how they were dressed. (sigh) Again, for my sake I'll keep my mouth closed. Anytime I say something about how he did something, it turns into "well i won't help or do it again."

Ripped off

Yes Sara, you read right! School starts for us on THURSDAY!! Well Damien it will be Monday the 18th but the other 2 start this week.


It's been a LONG summer and I know they are looking forward to getting back to the swing of things (as am I!) These last few weeks I'm watching K and K again until they both start school in their district. Today was my first day so it was kind of a dry run of seeing if I can pull off Thursday. I woke at 6:15, got myself and the kids all up by 7, fed and then K and K were dropped off about 7:30.

Last night however wasn't easy to get much of a good night's sleep anyways since I was a bit on edge.

Sunday morning we were woke up to the door bell at 5 am. As soon as I heard the first ring my eyes flew open and I KNEW something was wrong. Who the hell rings someone's door at 5 am and then starts banging right after!?!?! It was pouring rain so maybe they were trying to make sure we heard!! In the chaos of throwing a pillow at Dave to wake him up, trying to put on clothes, I fell on the floor because I stuck 2 legs in 1 leg hole in my jean shorts then tried to take off for the door. I was a bit frantic you might say. lol All I could think was even though we have locks at the tops of our doors that Damien had escaped or possibly Echo (our horse)somehow got out of her pen. Dave made it first to the door and found it was a neighbor down the road a ways. He apparently woke at 4:30 am to find his doors of his truck opened, rain pouring in the thing, and it had been burglarized. Looking at his neighbors house, same thing. He went house to house down our road shutting truck and car doors and then knocking telling us all that we had been robbed. Yeah. Luckily the vehicle at our house was the company work car, a Dodge Intrepid. They left all 4 doors opened. They took our converter/adapter for the cig lighter, a contractor notebook for preparing bids, a company cell phone, a charger for a different cell phone, all loose change, and a cordless drill. None of it was worth much but that converter turns your cig lighter into a power outlet and it's nice to take things like your laptop. It cost us about $20. They tried getting in the trunk, didn't find the release in the car but found some company truck keys for FORDS, tried them and then left them in the mud by the bumper since they couldn't get in. Jackpot would have been back there since there was $$$ in pest control chemicalsj. The car interior was so soaked. I hope it airs out but right now smells really musty. We tried going back to bed at 5:30 when he left (ha!) but then after laying forever I heard our dogs barking around 6:45 so I jumped up to see what they were barking about. It was the police going house to house this time. I still can't figure out why the dogs didn't wake us up in the middle of the night about the car unless I was in a deep sleep which I doubt. Since having kids I have this extra sensor it seems and wake at the slightest sound.


Cops took a report though and we are just thankful it wasn't much worse. This is our 2nd car broken into, the first we had a TON taken, plus the car was vandalized badly when we were about 19. That was in town, this is way out in the country. Goes to show you that you really can't feel safe anywhere. Yesterday we decided to go ahead and go to church at 8:30 since we were already up and around. I threw in some extra prayers to God on paybacks for the dirtbags. lol After church we came home and decided to clean up really good in the front of the house. We're one of those houses you drive by where you just cringe because they leave all these kid toys outside which you know someday will probably be stolen. Living in the country though I guess we didn't think we had much to worry about. There was kid ride ons, a small little tykes house, bikes, a weed eater, 2 chemical sprayers. They could have made a bit at a pawn shop with all of that. So we put most of it in the garage, some in the backyard and the sprayers should go back to work with Dave. I replaced the lightbulb in our light post and left the other light on the garage on all night. We're going to find some motion lights to install as well. What a pain!

I Am Sooooooo Not Done With This Deal.

I went on a bit of a shopping spree (with my gift cards) last night. Made some chicken fajitas at 6ish, Got kids showers and baths at 7, in bed by 7:45-8 pm. After getting the volume level down to a bare minimum I pulled out my coupon box and the sales flier for our Dillon/Kroger store since the sale ended last night. I was really slacking as you can tell doing this hours before the sale ended but I had been glancing all week at the flier so I knew what was on there and what I had coupons for. Well Kelloggs if you noticed in your Sunday paper came out with a Back to School flier with a huge amount of coupons on their products. They do this every year and this is my 3rd or 4th time to participate. Are you ready for this? After I send in the lovely rebate form above, the below products will be $4.62 ($1.62 of that is tax) I could have chosen cheaper items to make it totally free but these were the ones I chose for this offer. The Special K Protein bars were more expensive, I should have done the regular cereal bars. Anyways I have been putting the word out to family to give me theirs if they don't want it so I can do it over and over. (just have to send the rebates to their houses. ;)

Here's how I worked it with their sale prices:

Eggos $1.50x2= $3 - $1 coupon = $2 for 2 boxes

Rice Krispie Treats $1.50x2= $3- $1 coupon= $2 for 2 boxes

Nutrigrain Bars $2 x2= $4- $1 coupon= $3 for 2 boxes

Keebler cookies $1.50x2= $3 - $1 coupon= $2 for 2 boxes

Special K Protein Bars (for dh) $2.50 x 2= $5- $1 coupon= $4 for 2 boxes

$13.00 product

$1.62 Tax

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$14.62- $10 Rebate = $4.62

Another Play Last Night

I bought this as well last night, seperate receipt from the rebate offer. Now all our stores double here so if the coupons were .50 that makes it $1 which is why you'll see $1 so much. lol

Hunts Snack Pack 12 pk- $2.00 x 2= $4 - $1 coupon= $3 for 2 Boxes

Betty Crocker Cookie mixes $1 x 7= $7 no coupon. :(

Capri Suns $1.50 x 2= $3 - $1 coupon= $2 for 2 boxes

Huggies Lavender Wipes $2 x 2 containers= $4 - $1 -$1= $2 for 2 containers!

Lysol Spray Cleaner $1.50 x 2= $3 - $1 -$1= $1 for 2 bottles (that's .50 each!)

Lysol Toilet bowl cleaner $1.50- $1 coupon= .50!

Lysol All Purpose $1.50 x 2= $3 - $1 -$1= $1 for 2 bottles (again .50 per huge bottle!)

Ken's Light Italian Dressing $1.50 x2= $3 - $1 -$1= $1 for 2 bottles (.50 per dressing!)

Dr Pepper 2 liter $1.49 - $1 coupon= .49

Glade Warmer w/lavender oil $4.69 - $4 coupon = .69

I also got 2 fuel coupons so I can get an extra .10 per gallon at the gas pump. It doesn't matter how much you spend total, they go buy how much your merchandise comes up to before they do the coupons.

Busy Busy Busy

This week I made it a priority to haul my butt out of bed again between 6:15 and 6:30 to get ready for school. After I quit watching my sister's kids I was able to start sleeping in till about 7 am which won't work when school begins since the kids are on the bus by 7:10. Today was enrollment so I got myself and the kids all ready by 8 am and then my mom came over for awhile to babysit while I filled out mountains of paperwork at the school. Next week I have to go to Damien's Early Intervention school and enroll him.

Speaking of Damien, some amazing things have been happening lately. He has popped a few more words out. He's trying to say Spongebob (baw-bob) Back pack (ba-pa) When he watches Dora he tries to say words in Spanish. He sounds like he can say one and two now he just says them over and over when he counts. This has all happened in the past month so it's really exciting. He's still WAY behind any kid his age, even Mia says more words than he does but this is atleast going to pull him out of that 9-12 month IEP percentile I think. I still believe he has other things going on inside his mouth making it hard for him to attempt his words but I guess we just wait and see if they finally determine that. Tongue thrust is a huge issue for him. He almost needs someone to lasso his tongue into his mouth. He slobbers quite a bit because it's always so far forward. He's as smart as ever though. I got all his school supplies in his bag and he was jabbering excitedly about it. Then I told him he has to start pottying and pooping on the toilet to go to school and his jaw dropped and he shook his head saying "uh-uh." He still has no concerns about potty training. He just giggles whenever I ask about it.

30 Weeks

We are down to 10 weeks now until my surgery. I can't believe tomorrow I can say UNDER 10 weeks. I really need to haul out Mia and Alex's clothes and get them all washed up in Dreft and eventually set up the bassinet back in our room. She'll room in for 4-5 months with us till she sleeps through and then I'll move the girls together. I feel really great except for the normal out of breath and pulling pains occasionally. I am so ready to be back to normal though. As much as I love pregnancy I look forward to the end so I can breath, sleep and be more active again. I feel like a snail a majority of days.

My biggest issues right now are juggling everything and dealing with emotions and I don't believe it's pregnancy related. lol I probably sound like a broken record anymore about Dave's job and how I am so stressed being incharge of every little thing. During the week (M-F) I see him a total of 20 hours (4 hours each night before we go to bed at 10:30) A great majority of the time he's home, I'm cleaning house and he's watching TV. I have been fighting a ton of bad feelings that I know probably aren't true. I'm really insecure right now you might say. He's just gone so much and it's hard not to think things especially when he talks all the time about people from work (aka recpt). I think the worst part is he really likes his job and somedays I think he prefers to be there in the office with his co-workers than here. When he comes home at 6:30 this house is a total Nanny 911 episode. Dinner time is usually frustrating and 7 pm I'm quickly ushering the kids to their baths and showers so I can get them in bed by 8 and we can have some adult time. But then that adult time always leads to me cleaning. Honestly I could easily compare my evenings to The Groundhog Day movie.

So other than organizing, cleaning and running these guys all over for different things, not much has been going on. It's so miserably hot right now that we only go outside early AM or late evening. Last week we noticed after a ton of rain we had thousands of sandbur stickers pop up all over the place. I picked all of them by hand trying my best to get the root as well. Filled my trash cart 3/4 a way full. It was horrid. I was so mad at dh for not mowing for 2 weeks or spraying weed killer recently causing the mess in the first place. After I was sure I pulled everything I had him mow. I really didn't want our poor kids to lose a shoe and end up with one in their foot or drag them in the house. My legs were so sore for about 4 days. If you need new calf and quad exercises, go pull weeds for about 3 hours a day for 3 days. You'll be feeling it. lol

I know alot of other people who visit here were also doing bigger gardens this year. This year ours has turned into a huge producing tangled up mess. It's called Mommy didn't think before she planted. I planted a few items a bit close (I was trying not to take up a huge amount of space) and well now we have 6 tomato plants all weaved together and Cantalope and Pumpkin vines crossing each other. The Pumpkin and Cantalope vines are about 10-12 feet each and we've got a few of something growing but since they've crossed and intertwined I have no idea which is which. Same happened with the Cucumber vines but they ended up in the carrots. (rolling eyes) There's about 20 + tomatoes that are almost ready to be plucked and quite a few peppers that are getting there as well. I will definitely be more careful next year. It's turned into such a mess I haven't even weeded it forever so you can imagine how bad it looks! So how is your garden doing? Hopefully we can all save ourselves a bit of money on produce this year to make up for the rise on other food costs. I went into Aldi's (a place I rarely visit as it is) to notice it's prices have jumped substantially. There are some items actually cheaper at Walmart now using their Sam's club name. Seeing the rise at the store has made me work twice as hard on my coupon and refunding hobby lately. We normally spend $100-150 a week. We did a deal with a local Dillon's store last week buying $1200 in gift cards and they gave us an extra $120 on the cards. That's one free week of grocerries and you can't beat that.

This is a GOOD Deal!

If you shop on my Avon site right now, Avon is giving free shipping if you spend $25 or more. It doesn't matter what it weighs or what it is, it's free. That's the best offer I've seen in the 2 years I've been selling! So if you like Avon or just like to look check out my site and see if you see anything you'd like or need. Here's the link if interested. The coupon code is RFSW25 when you check out to get this deal.

www.youravon.com/sdidomenico