Happy Thanksgivings!

I feel like so much has gone on in the past week that it will take me forever to catch up.  I really hate this posting once a week thing but until I can get rid of this last five pounds, I'm afraid this is how it will be.

Going back to last weekend...Aunt Sherrie, Uncle Kevin, Jonathan, Marcela, and Zasha all arrived in town for Thanksgiving.  They came over for supper (along with David and Yully, obviously) on Saturday night but not before we made a rush trip to Kohl's right after sunset to use my five remaining $10 off a $10 purchase coupons.  I wanted Duncan to be there so I could use more since they're limited to one per customer.  We used them to purchase some hair stuff and tights for the girls, put those items into the car and went back in for another round.  We were new customers then, right??  We used two more on some Christmas gifts and then Duncan used the last one for a new toothbrush head for his Sonicare toothbrush.  A very successful outing.  After that we hightailed it home in time for the relatives to arrive for some pizza.  Zasha is 13 months old and Calleigh and Aubree love her!  Aubree loves leading her around and will often put her hands on Zasha's shoulders to keep her away from something she shouldn't be getting into to.  I think Aubree is excited to have someone that is younger and smaller (though not by much) that she can be "in charge" of.  During the evening, Jonathan made the announcement that their baby on the way is a girl and we're all very excited about that.  They can see from our set up how much fun it is to have two girls.

Brady hanging out with Uncle Kevin in Cradle Roll

On Sunday, we went to David and Yully's for a little belated birthday party for Zasha.  She turned one on October 10 but since they live in Texas and we all clearly missed her birthday on the actual day, we thought it would be fun to celebrate with cousins.  Yully made her usual awesome cake, they served lunch, and we had a fun time opening presents and playing with balloons.  You know how you hate to give kids clothes because you know they'll be bored with them?  Well, Zasha definitely broke that stereotype.  She got a new shirt and she would not put the shirt down!  She kept holding it up in front of her and making an "Ohhhh" sound.  She was just so excited about that shirt.  It was really cute.

Brady with Uncle Kevin again.  This time with his own balloon.

Awesome cake Yully!

Opening the shirt.  

Sunday evening was our big Florida Hospital Gala down at the Coronado Springs Resort at Disney.  I get so sick of doing my hair the same way every year that I decided to go and get it down so I didn't have to worry about.  Well, as things often work out with the kids and having to nurse Brady and all that, I didn't get there as early as I would have liked so the lady only had about 45 minutes to do my hair.  She ended up doing something that I really didn't like but what are you going to do?  At least I didn't have to do it myself.  Grandma (and later Grandpa) arrived around 5:00 and off Duncan and I went.  This was by far the longest I was leaving Brady and in fact, he would need two bottles, while we were gone.  We had been practicing the bottle feeding in the few days leading up to it.  It doesn't seem like he takes that much from it.  I don't know if it's because it's a bottle which he doesn't really care for, or if he just doesn't have a big appetite, or if because he's still nursing so many times a day (we're at about 6 or 7) that he doesn't need much each time but if you can get 3 or 4 ounces in him, you're lucky.  I remember Calleigh drinking 8 ounces from a bottle before bedtime at this age.  Anyway, I wasn't really worried about it.  I figured if he was hungry, he'd eat.  And if not, we wouldn't be there to hear the crying!

The Gala was a lot of fun in that it was nice to just get out.  Duncan had a bunch of invites to sit at the tables of some vendors but we ended up accepting the invitation of our CFO from the hospital, Eddie, and his family. Usually the vegetarian entree is very lame but this year I actually really enjoyed it.  The entertainment was Bill Cosby and I hadn't seen him in years.  He sounds the same but definitely looks older as he's now 74.  He was dressed in sweat pants and did an hour comedy bit sitting in an easy chair on the stage.  There were certainly some funny parts though as some other friends who were there commented, some of it was a little dark.  We left a bit early so we could scurry home and make sure everything was going smoothly at home which it was.  Brady took his bottles, didn't eat much, but he was contented.  There was a small incident where Aubree was jumping around and somewhat fell on Brady (he was fine).  She got a stern talking to from Grandma and then of course, Calleigh gave me a full report in the morning (there are no secrets with kids not that this was a secret since Elaine had given me a full rundown of it all) including the part where she told Grandma that they should take Brady to the hospital for an X-ray...which fortunately wasn't necessary.  While we were at the Gala, we were talking to a few friends who had paid baby-sitters to watch their kids that evening and Duncan and I got to talking about how fortunate we are to have grandparents that live so close by.  Not just because it saves money but because it's nice to have people taking care of them that love them so much.  Ron and Elaine, you are so appreciated!!

Monday morning the kids and I headed to the mall to meet up with Sherrie, Kevin, Jon, Marcela, and Zasha.  David and Yully had to work so those guys were on their own.  Fortunately since Jon and Marcela had driven, they had their car to get around.  We took them to the play area and then it was off to, I hoped, sit on Santa's lap.  Would this be the year that Calleigh got over her fear of Santa?  As I'm sure I've mentioned on here in previous years, we've told the kids that Santa is just pretend for two reasons.  One is because my mother was so devastated when she found out that Santa wasn't real that she cried for days.  Thus, they never told us he was real and so I followed suit with my children.  But also it's because I just couldn't bring myself to tell them something that wasn't true.  I know, I know.  He's real in our hearts and all that and I have NO problem at all with people that go along with it but I just couldn't look Calleigh in the eye and say that Santa was real knowing I was telling a lie.  Nonetheless, I love the thought of Santa and I think it's fun to pretend he's real.  I don't know if it makes him more scary for the girls to think of him being a regular person dressed up or what.  Whatever the reason, Calleigh still wouldn't do it.  She talked a big game but when it came right down to it, nope.  At first they would only stand a few feet away.  From there, Aubree was able to yell over, "What's your last name?"  Why this was information she was interested in, I do not know.  Finally, they at last got close enough to sit on my lap while I sat on Santa's.  At the very end, I put Brady on his lap to see how that would go.  Brady sat, looked around, saw Santa, and just kept on sitting there playing with Santa's white glove.  Yup, he's a pretty easy going boy.

Zasha and Brady were both sleeping when we got to the mall playground.

The girls definitely weren't!

Tuesday the main focus of my day was to get over to Old Navy where they were having a 75% sale from 12 - 5 on adult long sleeve shirts.  I ended up buying about 10 shirts for myself (at roughly $3.50/piece).  When I reviewed my purchases I noticed that I had bought like 6 white shirts and 4 blue ones.  Yes, I'm very, very boring in my color selection.  But at least they all weren't white so that's something.

Wednesday we met the Walls at the "Magic" playground so the girls could spend some time with Zasha again.  It's been very nice out this week and actually a little warmer than usual for this time of year in my opinion.  After the playground, Aunt Sherrie came with us back to our place and then took the van over to the Salvation Army.  This mile trek there and back in our van would come into play later in the evening.

Duncan got off early for the holiday and as we were sitting around wondering what to make for supper, Duncan announced that he was craving Indian food.  Now, I'm notorious for not liking ethnic foods.  When we were playing the "Group It" game at Pumpkin Fest, one of the categories was "Favorite Type of Food" and out of 40 or so people, I was the only one in the "American" group.  But, I'm trying to branch out a little and in fact, made a dish a few weeks ago that was made of garbanzos and curry and was somewhat Indian in nature.  So I said, what the heck, I'll try it.  We decided to order take out from a nearby restaurant.  And I'll admit, it took me awhile to make up my mind because there were quite a few delicious sounding items on the menu.  In the end I went with something called "Daal Makhani" which is described as follows:  Slow simmered black beans flavored with ginger, garlic tomatoes, and spices.  I love all types of beans so it sounded really good.  I left to go pick up the food only to find that the van was completely dead.  It seems as though Aunt Sherrie had hit a wrong button and left some lights on or something.  Oops.  I ended up taking the truck which unfortunately has no break lights.  Anyway, I did get back safely and I was really hungry and dug into my Daal Makhani with great anticipation....only to find that it was a complete dud.  There's some ingredient in it that rubbed me totally the wrong way.  I did eat a good number of bites but then finally gave up.  So disappointing.  Looking back, I'm wondering if it was the ginger?  I'm vowing not to let this sour my opinion of Indian food.

While I was on my way to get the food, I made a stop at CVS.  Now, let me backtrack a little here. I got on the coupon bandwagon in September of last year.  On Thanksgiving last year, I was still fairly new but I specifically remember all the good deals that were to be found on that day.  Black Friday isn't just for your regular stores (Target, Best Buy, etc).  They go all out at the pharmacies too.  So I have been eagerly anticipating Black Friday, or should I say Black Thursday, this year since then.  I mean seriously, this would be like the Super Bowl of pharmacy couponing.  Along about Sunday of this week, Duncan breaks the news to me that he's planning on going golfing with all the relatives on Thursday morning.  What???  CVS was going to be open at 7:00 and I was planning to hit it shortly thereafter for all the deals.  This was devastating news.  But, I didn't want him not to golf so I devised a plan where Aunt Sherrie would come over on Thursday morning and watch the kids while I went out because this was absolutely not something you could take kids too.  Well, as I was out on that Wednesday evening making a quick stop, I did a short survey of the items that were going to be on sale in the morning and when I saw the low quantity of items that were on the shelves, I got all depressed thinking that they'd all be gone but the time I got there at around 10:00 the next morning.  A little later, as I'm surfing Facebook, I see where the lady who runs my favorite couponing site, SouthernSavers.com, posted a question as to whether people would be going at midnight  for the sale or waiting until the next morning.  That's when the lightbulb went on.  I could just go to one of the 24 hours stores at midnight!  There is one only about seven or eight minutes away at that time of night.  So, I got Duncan to push the van into the road so he could jump it, I got all my coupons and my list read to go, and at about 11:35, I was ready to hit the road.  Unfortunately, the van hadn't run long enough so it was dead again when I tried to start it.  I was a little apprehensive to take it as I was concerned about it not starting once I came out of CVS and then what would I do but I knew I didn't want to take the truck so in the end, I chanced it.  Meanwhile, I had talked to Alison around 10:30 and she was headed out too except she has Rite Aid up there so she was hitting three pharmacies that night.  Lucky!

I get to CVS and I was curious as to what I would find.  Sure enough, there were probably about 15 other couponers in the store, mostly all of the same ilk....35 - 45 year old mom types.  Everyone was very pleasant and CVS really had it together with most of the free stuff all at the front of the store.  The only thing they didn't have was the free Theraflu.  At about 12:35, I was back into the van which fortunately did start.  I wasn't sure if I was going to do Walgreens too but since CVS went so quick, I decided to stop there too.  It's funny because there were probably about 3 other people in Walgreens despite it being about 1.5 miles down the road from CVS.  I guess that's a testament to how people prefer CVS to Walgreens.  Indeed, CVS is much easier to coupon at although you can generally get just as good of a deal at Walgreens.  Because of the way coupons work, it takes longer at Walgreens and I was probably there for an hours.  I think I finally pulled into the driveway a little before two.  It was well worthwhile though.  The next morning I checked all my receipts and tallied it up to find that I had spent a grand total of $1.74!  I made $4.61 at CVS and spent $6.35 at Walgreens.

The retail value of this was hundreds.

The next morning, Duncan was off to golf while we stayed home and watched the Macy's Thanksgiving parade.  I also used that time to try and conk out on the couch while Brady was having his morning nap.    After the afternoon nap time (in which neither girl slept but that's probably because I didn't make Aubree go in her crib), it was over to Ron and Elaine's where we were joined by the Wall gang and the Isidros.  Every one chipped in with bringing food and it was all very good.  We had lots of leftovers to take home and I didn't have to cook last night so that was a definite bonus.  We got home from the festivities around 8:45 and after I got Brady fed and in bed a little while later, I was SO incredibly tired that I just collapsed on my bed. Around 10:30 I got up and contemplated doing something but that only last a few more minutes and then I went back to bed for good.  I don't remember the last time I was that tired.  Clearly being up until after 2:00 that morning had done a number on me.

Sorry about the weirdo eyes, David.  The camera keeps making people's eyes this shiny silver that I can't get rid of.

Kids' table.  

Brady in a post Thanksgiving meal stupor.  Duncan, about to be in one.

Friday morning we had reservations at Long and Scott Farm in Mount Dora at a corn maze.  I've been wanting to go there for years and we finally had this opportunity.  We were joined by Ron, Elaine, and the Walls and then we were part of a bigger group of friends.  It turned out that the bigger maze was quite intimidating and after hearing reports from some of the friends who had done it last year with their kids, we decided to just do the smaller kids maze which turned out to be just right.  As you go through the maze, they have little tables at various places where you can dip your finger into a chalk like substance.  There are five of these tables which each contain a different color chalk.  When you get all five colors, you then find your way out.  Once you get out and you now have a different color on each finger, you find your color combination and it gives you a fortunate.  It was neat to see how people did the colors in all different order but Aubree, Elaine, and I had put the same color on the same fingers, interestingly enough.  Our fortunate said that "Your outlook is cheerful" and I thought that was quite nice.  Anyway, the kids really enjoyed racing through the rows of corn looking for the colors.  Besides that, there were a bunch of other things to do at the farm like a playround, big slide, a little train, fishing, and Calleigh's favorite, a zip line which she did several times.  We ate a picnic lunch we had brought and Grandma and Grandpa bought the girls corn on the cob which they gobbled down.  It was a beautiful day and we had a great time!

Aubree looking at the blue chalk on her finger.  

This is where you checked the board to find out your "fortune."

She didn't catch anything and became predictably bored with it after a few minutes.  Not like her mother!

One interesting thing from the trip there was that they had a Santa at the entrance to the farm.  At first, the girls wouldn't even go near him but they finally let me roll them up with them both sitting in the stroller.  They did carry on a conversation with him with Aubree saying she would like a baby and Calleigh saying she would like a swing (huh??).  Since then, any time that I've mentioned Santa, Aubree gets all excited and shouts "I talked to him!  I talked to him!  I talked to him!"  Baby steps.

Today was on to church at usual and then early this evening we went to the Isidros for Thanksgiving 2.0.  Allen's family came up from Avon Park to be part of the festivities.  The food was delicious and I commented that this is how people get fat during the holidays because we just kept eating and eating and then there was like six different desserts.  I took more leftovers home and I'm hoping I can get away without cooking supper again tomorrow night.  Tonight we would typically be getting our Christmas tree but we've postponed it until tomorrow afternoon.

Aubree, the shepherd.

Calleigh hard at work at her table in Sabbath School.

I wanted to get a picture of Duncan and I and unbeknownst to me, he was being a doofus !

And again...

Take three.

The men and their boys.

I think that sums up all our activities.  On to Brady Brother and his situation.  Knock on wood here but Duncan and I are convinced we haven't heard him cough in several days.  The problem is that we are so used to it I'm wondering if he did cough and we didn't notice but I've been intentionally trying to pay attention to it.  Could it be possible??  The coughing news is good news but I was little dejected on Tuesday when I did his weigh in and found that he had lost two ounces in a week (weight is at 13 pounds, 7 ounces). He had been doing so good with the weight.  That morning he did have a huge throw up (but no other problems) so maybe that impacted it although I didn't weight him until much later in the day.  But everything else seems fine so I'm not going to worry about it.  Tuesday we go back to the pulmonologist.  He's been doing pretty well in week two of the sleeping in the crib.  I'm still getting up once or twice during the night to put in his binky but it's mostly not until the early morning hours like 5:00 or 6:00 so at least I've slept uninterrupted until then.

As usual, I've been having some interesting conversations with the girls.  One of them amused me a little.  It went like this:

Aubree:  "Where's Daddy?"
Me:  "He's at his office."
Aubree:  "Where's your office?"
Me:  "My office is at home.  I used to have an office at the hospital but now my office is at home so that I can be there with you guys."
Calleigh:  "Someday when we're at school, you can have an office again."
Me:  "But then who will be at home when you get home from school?"
Calleigh (thinking for a second): "How old will I be when I can start driving a car?"
Me: "16...perhaps."
Calleigh:  "Well, when I get a car, I'll just drive over to your office building, get in the elevator, go to your office, and tell you that I'm home so you can leave and come be with us."
Me:  "Okay, sounds like a plan."

This week is a wrap.  Especially since it's now 12:05 am and it's a start of a new one.  Have a great week!

A few random pictures to end:

The girls admiring the large squashes for the Thanksgiving meal.

Adding a worm to the farm.  I have no idea if it's the same kind of worm.  Do worms of a different species attack each other or live in harmony?  I do not know.