The Birds and The Bees

I was reading my friend Destry's blog tonight (see link to the right, I'm feeling lazy, but trust me, she is freakin hilarious and definitely worth checking out) and I found a post where her daughter asked her about how babies get in bellies.

It reminded me of a little story I haven't shared with the blog world that I thought you might find a tad bit funny.

I should start out by telling you that JuJu (my mom) never had THE TALK with me about sex. I was one of those girls that didn't know anything. I remember thinking in fourth grade that if you laid next to someone in bed you were having sex. Anyhoo. Back to the story.

I decided that when Anna asked me about sex, and if she was of age I would let her in on the little secret of sex. Did I want to do this? Did I look forward to it? Did I pray that she would be very ignorant? Oh yes. Have you met my daughter?

Last year, she approached me about the subject when she was starting to get testy about when Aunt Flo would start her monthly visits and when she would get the boobs. Seriously. At her 9 year check up when the doctor asked if she had any questions, she said, "When am I getting the boobs?" You can't make this stuff up.

So she asked about sex. Jonathan got out of the house as quickly as possible (I think to do some heavy drinking) and I told Anna that we would take a bath together and discuss. She LOVES taking a bath with me so this was a real treat in her eyes. I was in the linen closet doing breathing treatments, but she was excited.

We get in the tub and I start explaining about the parts and who has which parts. I then start explaining about how the parts can fit together and what happens when the parts fit together. Yes, it was graphic. I wish you could have seen her face. We talked about everything and at the end her comment was, "WELL, that is just disgusting!" followed by "so does that mean that you and daddy had sex twice when you had the boys?" (I'm telling you the kid is freaky smart)

A little plug and some free clothes?

Want to earn some free kids clothing? It's easy!

Just do a quick post on your blog about my consignment sale, Encores and More North, with a link to our website. Leave a comment below letting me know it's done and I'll enter your name in the hat. I'll draw next Thursday, July 31st and the person Anna (my oldest) pulls out gets a $50 gift certificate. Who doesn't love some free clothes?

Oh, and please say something nice if you decide to do this. I've got enough problems these days! HA HA

My Grocery Trip

Ok, so I know I didn't get this on last night, but hey, I've been a little busy.

Angie and Robert left for Russia on Sunday to bring home sweet Abigail so we are now a family of 5 kids versus a family of 4 kids.

There really wasn't any magic to this trip. I just spent some time clipping regular coupons out of the paper and then searching money saving mom for other coupons that were printable.

I made my normal grocery list, my Publix ad and my coupons and I was good to go. I only spent about 20 minutes longer than normal and I swear we got more food than we normally get. I haven't done the totals yet, but I think I got about $250 of food for about $110. I'll do the math off of receipts and update this later.

Oh, and the baseball bat and ball were $.45 at CVS and Anna wanted to make sure you all knew that we got that as well!

Here's the pic:

Step By Step

If you haven't checked out Kim's blog, then you don't already know we are going to see NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK in Chicago!

Yes, we have been friends for a LONG TIME and yes, we LOVED NKOTB when we were...well, let's just say younger. Recently Kim was in New York with her hubby and sent me this pic of herself in front of this billboard:



We immediately started making plans to find out when and where we could find them closest to home. It worked! We are off to Chicago in October for a fun little couples weekend away. If you'll remember, we did Disney with them last year right before we started the adoption process, so who knows, maybe the tradition will follow again! Does that mean Kim will bring home another souvenir? Hmmmm.....

Anyway, I can't wait! Jonathan can't wait either (actually he was not really keen on the whole idea but a man CAN be persuaded!) and we are really looking forward to our first real weekend away with no kids.

THANKS to Kim and Chris for making this weekend possible, you guys are the best!

Feeling Better/Coupons/Etc.

I am definitely feeling better, thanks for ALL the prayers! I sat down and mapped out what HAD to be done and what COULD wait and worked off those lists. I still have a lot of house decluttering to do, but I have checked so much off my to do list that I simply can't complain.

I had an awesome grocery shopping/coupon day yesterday. I have a picture of my finds that I will list tomorrow with the details but until then, I had a thought that I wanted some feedback on.

Has anyone ever heard of a coupon circle? From what I understand, this is a group of women that get together weekly/bi-weekly/monthly, whatever and swap coupons that they won't use, etc. If you have participated in one or know of any grandmas that have (HA HA), I would love to hear some feedback. I am thinking of starting one and wanted to see what feedback I get.

Based on my shopping yesterday, we did our normal every 2 week big grocery trip for $110 vs. the normal $250 all by using a mix of store and manufacturer coupons. I was so proud and based on previous experience as to the in between weekly trip, I think I can successfully lower our grocery budget from $600 a month to $350 a month. Yes, $350 a month for a family of 6.

Don't get me wrong. We got great stuff. We got shrimp, meat, milk, tons of baby food, all of our normal foods, etc. The difference is that we didn't need the normal toiletries/cleaning supplies because of my new found love of CVS and their extra care program. We have a stockpile of paper towels, toilet paper, razors, toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, Lysol, etc. that I am getting for pennies on the dollar and it is saving me a ton since I am not buying these items on my "normal" grocery trips.

Consignment prep is going great...fliers are in the mail THIS WEEK FINALLY! PRAISE GOD! Watch for my motherload of groceries post tomorrow!

Pooped

I am pooped. tired. ragged. exhausted. wrung out. pooped.

I am having one of those weeks where the weight of the world feels like it is on my shoulders.

The consignment sale is looming nearer and nearer and fliers need to be printed, sent to the mailing list company and be put in the mail ASAP. Ebay stuff is backing up on me. The house is a WRECK. I just got in a huge store (I buy out children's boutiques that go out of business) and the inventory is taking over my house. I have boxes that need to be inventoried, boxes that need to be priced, empty boxes that need to be burned or destroyed, and trash bags of shoes in my kitchen (don't ask). I have a mound of paperwork on my dining room table and my buffet. There are stacks of Gymboree clothing in my bedroom floor that are rapidly closing in on my king size bed. They need to be put into sets and priced (and probably rehung). Downstairs, oh, downstairs. Well, let's just say, downstairs the kids toy room is getting ready to be turned into a processing room for the boxes of clothes on the second floor. The media room has enough toys that the kids cleaned out of their toy room for the consignment sale to cover a dead body. Not to mention that in the midst of all this, there are even more clothes.

Did I mention that I am tired?

Yes, I know I brought it on myself, but I'm just being REAL and putting it out there. If you get a chance to pray for me, just shoot up a prayer for clarity and decluttering my life. I don't like being pooped.

The Aftermath

Yes, the fireworks were beautiful. Our yard the next morning was not. You would not believe the amount of debris in our front yard, on our roof, in our gutters, on our cars, on our deck, on the swingset, etc. We have cleaned and cleaned and we still have miles to go. Jonathan's not a happy camper, but we have almost got it cleaned up.

This first picture is of me and Alexandra right after the fireworks in the cul-de-sac. What the street looks like is exactly what our driveway and every solid surface looked like for about a block.


This picture shows our yard at 10:30pm on Friday night. It's hard to see all the junk everywhere, but trust me, it's like this everywhere.

And now for the fireworks

Ok, so you know how you hear about some friends doing a firework display in your neighborhood and you think big deal. Well, I'm getting ready to tell you about the real deal. Last year, we tried to watch the church fireworks out our back patio. We kept noticing that someone was shooting fireworks from the front of our house on the next street over. We finally wandered out to the front yard and couldn't believe the display we were seeing. When we moved to this street, we couldn't wait to see the REAL DEAL we had heard so much about. Evidently, one of the neighbors down the street has always loved fireworks and starts buying them the day after the 4th each year to get ready for the next years display. He works throughout the year putting together sequences, mounting them on boards and wiring them together, etc. It took five full size trucks to get all the fireworks to our cul-de-sac. Just unloading them, we were instantly impressed. All the neighbors congregated in our driveway (including the former owner who came back to watch the show!). They told us we would need umbrellas because the debris would start raining down on us once the show started. They were right.

The show lasted for about 30 minutes and were some of the best I have EVER seen. Seriously. They were huge. They were loud. They were unbelievable. I'm so glad he paid for them and not me.




All of us sitting under the umbrellas. The fireworks woke up Mary Elizabeth but she LOVED watching them:


After the show, we simply had to go take pictures of the aftermath because we knew no one would believe what we had just seen take place in our quiet little cul-de-sac:

After the parade (more 4th pictures)

If you're like us, you probably run around like a crazy person on every major holiday. This year we decided we weren't running. After the parade, we went back to the Freeman's house for lunch. I took a nice, refreshing nap (it was AWESOME!) and then we came home to get ready for our annual neighborhood fireworks (more on that in a future post-a DO NOT MISS post). Angie, Robert, and Alexandra came over and brought a brisket and I made all the fixins to go with it. The kids had a great time playing outside in their new tent. We played hide and seek for a long time before dinner and the kids wore all the adults out. Mary Elizabeth absolutely loved playing in the swing!

4th of July Parade

Every year since, well, forever we have gone to the 4th of July parade in Greenbrier. It's where Jonathan and I both grew up and although I didn't even know a parade even existed while I was growing up, well that changed once we married. It's a big deal if you live on top of the ridge. Everyone goes. Everyone. That includes all my past boyfriends and all of Jonathan's past girlfriends. It's great people watching.

Anyhoo, back to the parade. We thought it started at 10:30am so we were really proud of ourselves when we arrived at 10am. That lasted about 4 seconds until we realized that the parade had already started since it actually began at 10am.

The kids loved it as usual. The loud sirens didn't seem to bother Mary Elizabeth too much, she just kept looking at us like "why are they all blowing their horns?" If you haven't been to a country parade before, you need to go. Of course you have the normal parade stuff: firetrucks, clowns, shriners, etc. Then you have the old men on their lawnmowers, little kids riding their bikes, domino's pizza car throwing out coupons...you know, the "normal" parade stuff. It provided tons of entertainment for me and the kids loved all the candy they threw out. Good times.