Do you pick?

No. not your nose . . . do you pick blueberries? We ventured out to pick our own berries yesterday and it was marvelous! With two young in's and my mother-in-law in tow we drove to the countryside in search of some cheap blueberries.

I wasn't too impressed when we drove up to the farm and spied row upon row of scantly covered blueberry bushes. But upon closer inspection the bushes were loaded! An sweet old fellow sitting outside a trailer instructed us in picking and as we walked towards the field he hollered after us, "And eat as many as you like!"

I've always liked blueberries but fresh ones off the bush are INCREDIBLE. There's just no comparison. Fresh berries are juicy, sweet, tangy and perfectly luscious. I hope I never have to go back to the store-bought variety!

After about 45 minutes of picking, we weighed the berries and paid a whopping $7.20 for SIX POUNDS. Yum! Besides the well-known anti-oxidant cancer-fighting benefits of blueberries, my frugal little heart flipped at the cost savings. Only $1.20 a pound!

My freezer is now stocked with berries and we're munching on fresh blueberries constantly. And blueberry pancakes are on the menu tomorrow.

Have you been picking this year? How much do you pay per pound? What do you do with your berries?

What's going on, Favre?

Can you believe all this hub-bub around Favre's return to football?!? Craziness.

I for one think it's ridiculous that the Packers are talking about trading him just so that Aaron Rodgers can have a chance. Brett Favre is one of the all time greatest quarter backs EVER and the Packers want to let him go?!? How nuts is that?

Regardless of what team Favre ends up with, we'll be rooting for him! And for the Packers too of course. :)

On which side do you fall in the Favre controversy?

Sunhat poll

Yes, I am still alive. :) My in-laws are here visiting so blogging has become last on my list of priorities of late.

Quick question for you, how many of you wear sunhats regularly? I am a stickler about making sure Chloe and Clive always don their sunhats whenever we are outside. And of course they look doggone cute in them too.

I have a big ole straw sunhat that I wear occasionally but I don't always remember it. When I do wear it I've noticed that I am usually the only mom in the park wearing anything protective head covering. What's up with that?!? Why are we so concerned about our children's sun exposure but not about our own?

Hence my poll below . . .

Finally!

[Warning: Overuse of exclamation points below to display utter jubilation.]

I am EXTREMELY happy to report that Chloe is now almost completely potty trained!!!

Incredibly, she mastered pottying back in December but has only gone #2 in the potty a handful of times. She seemed very afraid of going #2 on the potty (I hear that's a common trouble for toddlers) but I had no idea it would take 6 months for her to conquer her pooping fears!

The turning point came early this week when I finally tried putting Chloe on the potty with her diaper on. I won't go into the messy details but after 3 nights of success, she asked to try going without her diaper. And today she succeeded!

The best part was seeing her get so excited about her accomplishment. She leaped off the potty and screamed, "I did it, mommy! I did it! It was so easy!" Lots of hugging, exalting, and rewarding with candy immediately ensued.

Hallelujah! What a long long process this has been. I've decided Matt's in charge of potty training Clive. :)

Always eat your breakfast

I'm back on the blogging air after a frightening and surprising trip to the ER last Friday afternoon. And the moral of the story is to always eat your breakfast!

Ever since highschool I've suffered from minor hypoglycemia. I know that sounds fancy and complicated but it really just means that my blood sugar is testy. If I don't eat regular meals my blood sugar goes low and I get shaky and sweaty. Usually these symptoms go away when I eat. But Friday was a different story.

I had forgotten to eat breakfast (a common occurrence these days now that I'm busy caring for two little ones) on Friday morning but instead had a few cups of coffee. No big deal. I started to get the hungry shakes around noon so I ate a good healthy lunch. Still felt shaky and nauseous. I got sick but I felt better. Matt headed out with Chloe to go pick up his folks at the airport and I stayed home with Clive and hoped to nap off the sickies. No such luck!

Instead, I got sick a few more times and the dizziness and headache got worse. I started to feel numbness travel up my right arm and my jaw. What was that?!? That got me scared! I called Matt crying and realized that he was still an hour away from home. So I rang up my trusty friend, Melinda. She's a mom of 6 and has seen absolutely everything so I knew she could handle me. :) Five minutes with me and she called the ambulance! By that time I was in bad shape and couldn't even answer questions. !!!

An IV, potassium pills, more vomiting and a nap at the hospital put me right again. I was weak and dehydrated but I felt much better. I had suffered a serious drop in blood sugar. Thankfully, I was able to go home Friday night and the remedy is simple - eat! Never again will I take my blood sugar issue lightly. My family has taken great care of me; they are making sure I get plenty of rest and checking on my eating habits.

Thank the Lord for His protection of me! Things could have easily been much worse. I feel so silly to have caused such trouble and I praise God for His patience and care.

Whew! I certainly am glad that unpleasant experience is over! Do any of you struggle with hypoglycemia?

The lengths I go to for free food . . .

Today was a flurry of getting our house ready and organized for my in-laws arrival tomorrow. They'll be arriving tomorrow and so we've been hurriedly getting the study guest-ready.

Chloe was not in a napping mood this afternoon though she stayed in her bed for an hour and a half. By the time Matt came home from an afternoon meeting I was drained and not feeling too motivated to cook dinner.

I remembered reading on a few blogs that Chick-fil-A was giving away free food if you dress like a cow. Voila! The answer to my dinner dilemma! The moo-velous part was that Chloe actually WAS a cow for Halloween so she had a fuss-free cow outfit raring to go. I printed out some cow masks, spots, and a Chick-fil-A sign and we were ready!

Chloe was SO EXCITED to wear her cow costume! We mooed happily in the car when suddenly a thought struck my brain. What day is today? It's Friday, right? NO. Ooops, the free-food-when-you-dress-like-a-cow-day is TOMORROW not today.

[My mommy brain has been malfunctioning like this often in recent days. Like how I've been using conditioner instead of shampoo for the last two days and wondering my hair seemed so greasy. Long story, don't ask. ]

So, now I'm stuck with Chloe in a cow costume and trying to explain to her how mommy goofed and we couldn't get our free dinners at Chick-fil-A. She wasn't getting it. And going back tomorrow would be out since the in-laws are arriving and we'll be hustling to do last minute cleaning and cooking.

The staff at Chick-fil-A have always been really kind and personable. I decided to take a chance and try to get our free food a day early since we were already decked out as bovines. I pulled up to the drive-thru and explained our plight to the gregarious cashier. The manager was consulted and he happily agreed to give us free meals a day early! When we walked into the restaurant, all the workers were eagerly awaiting our moo-ving entrance. They oohed and aahed over Chloe and all the other restaurant patrons (not many of them, thankfully) stared and smiled.

If you're as big a fan as I am (even bigger after today's adventure!) be sure to participate in their Cow Appreciation Day tomorrow. Get all the details, including fun costume tips, here. If you're dressed in a total costume you get a free combo meal. Just partial cow-ness earns a free sandwich. Besides the delicious chicken sandwiches, I'm incredibly impressed with Chick-fil-A's healthy choices and books in the kids meals instead of toys. Who needs another dumb cheap plastic happy meal toy? Not us!

Money Saving Mom will be hosting a fun post in honor of Cow Appreciation Day. Hope you can join in the fun and free chicken!

Dead fireflies, a tofu experiment, and our first nursery injury

The title here about sums up our last week. (And no, the picture has nothing to do with this post but Chloe looked so adorable in her Sunday dress I had to share. She is looking SO MUCH like Matt these days!)

While waiting for fireworks to start (don't you hate the waiting?!?) we caught fireflies. Wow, are they easy to catch! Now must be peak firefly time because they were every where. After trapping about 12 of the luminescent bugs the fireworks began. We brought home Chloe's dollar-store-bug-box filled with the glowing guys and decided to feed them sugar water the next morning. But alas, they wouldn't live to partake of the sweet water. Only 3 fireflies were still fluttering in the morning. So learn from our mistake and don't kill innocent fireflies!

In effort to lower our grocery budget, I've been making more meat-less dinners. A friend commended tofu to me and when I saw it priced at $1.29 I grabbed it. I made a tofu stif-fry and it turned out fairly well though I'd like to make it crispier. Surprisingly, Chloe LOVED the tofu! She picked it out from the other veggies and ate the tofu squares first. Do any of you cook with tofu?

Poor little Clive experienced his first nursery injury this past Sunday. He was chewing hard on a steering wheel toy and he must have fallen onto it. He scraped his gums and it got all bloody and scarily swollen. Infant tylenol is our friend. :) He's doing much better now but still a little whiny and having a hard time sleeping.

That's been our lively week. What's new with you?

A restful 4th

We are doing absolutely nothing to celebrate the 4th of July today.

After 3 days without Matt (he was out of town on a job interview) and 4 hours in the car retrieving him at the Pittsburgh airport last night, none of us felt like doing much but sleep today! Clive and I have already taken two naps today. Ahh.

Don't worry we're not horrible Americans. :) Tomorrow I'll take the kids to a local Heritage festival complete with patriotic parade and activities. Then in the evening we'll head to a nearby farm/park to see fireworks.

Tomorrow night will be Chloe's first time ever seeing fireworks. I think she'll dig them but I'm afraid they might be too loud for her little ears. I've read that earmuffs might help. Have any of you tried that with your little ones?

Happy Independence Day to you all!

A homeschool family

I'll let this video speak for itself . . .



If you have the same dumb sense of humor as I do and the above video made you laugh, be sure to check out this comedian's parody Cletus take the reel.

Enjoy and laugh!

Grosgrain: Roosters-n-Rickrack pinafore giveaway

Is this not the cutest little pinafore ever?!?

If you have a little girly girl, click the linked title above to find out more about this dress giveaway. I hope Chloe wins!