So I'm way behind on this blahg lately, but I'm going to try and play a little quick catch-up. It's 0530 and I ran out of sleep about an hour ago. Don't know what's up with that lately, but at least I got some.
The packages have been rolling in from the shopping spree I've taken with our tax refund, so I've been taking pictures just for the sheer sake of showing you our mail. I know that's a "filler" type of thing to post, but hey, it's fun for me, so there.
You may remember that I wasn't able to buy the starter set of four steak knives for Rob when I was shopping at Williams-Sonoma the other day? Well, I still really wanted to get some for him, because mine were the crappy Kmart ones I'd gotten for my first apartment, and they have long since outlasted their usefulness. I ended up finding a great deal here on these knives, a set of 8 Wusthof Emerilware steak knives that arrived just 2 or 3 days later!
They are certainly not the cream of the crop when it comes to Wusthof knives, but believe-you-me, they are very sharp - a fact I realized all too well when I sliced through my left middle finger a few hours ago, using one! They're huge, too, and they are really nice knives compared to the ones from which we come. He's happy with them, I think. I hope.
And, they came with this bonus knife and scissors sharpener, also from Wusthof! So, really, a great deal from Cutlery & More. I recommend them.
The packages from Target have been rolling in as well, all in separate shipments of course. These are Sophia's new winter boots. I can not keep that kid shod; her feet are two sizes bigger than Chloë's already! (And she is 3½ years younger; it's crazy.) Sophia LOVES these boots and wears them every chance she gets. They're quite cute on her, not that you can really tell from this picture. Chloë is anxiously awaiting the arrival of her new boots and questions me about when that might happen at least twice a day.
Sophia also loves her new coat, which is replacement for the purple one that was two sizes too small and finally bit the dust on the zipper front a week or two ago. She looks so cozy in it!
Don't let the face fool you; she's also thrilled with her new hat that matches the coat and boots. Couldn't find it on the Target site; guess I nabbed one of the last ones already. Normally I wouldn't buy a hat that I could just knit myself - but not for the price I paid for it!
I picked up this little hat for Chloë on the cheap, just because I knew she would enjoy it. And she does; I have a couple pictures of her cheesing really big with it on, but I told her to give me some "attitude" for this picture, and this is what I got!
I found a lot of really good deals at Target.com on jammies for the kids, which all three of them desperately needed. Okay, maybe not desperately, but they have all been outgrowing the jammies like they're going out of style lately, and they needed some really warm sets for the cold winter we're having this year. Even Jack has been putting holes in the feet of his sleepers. And since my OCD bugs out when they come down wearing mismatched sets, my goal with this shopping "trip" was to buy all blanket sleepers and gowns, so there would be no chance of that! And yes, Sophia and Chloë are both wearing the exact same jammies in a 5T. I don't know what I'm going to do with their clothes, since Sophie is quickly moving into the 5Ts and Chloë clearly isn't ready to give up that size yet, when all her 6s and 7s hang off her tiny little frame. Pretty soon, Soap will pass her up, there, too!
I don't know what it LOOKS like is happening here, but Jack was seriously protesting this shot. "Gross!! Girls!! Don't kiss me! Sisters can't marry their brothers!" It was pretty funny.
Yup, not gonna lie, I totally told them to do that, just for shits and giggles.
♥ Sisters ♥
We were just being silly. I told Jack to pretend he was their baby. The girls love to play "baby," so they really got into this one! Don't they all just look so cozy and warm in their jammies, though? Sophia keeps telling us how much she loves all her new jammies, because they are so soft and fuzzy. I'm glad they keep her nice and toasty.
Jack's pile is the biggest, because I finally got rid of all his 2T jammies! He could still kind of wear some of the pants and shorts sets, but really, he's almost seven, and I'm tired of seeing them. They'll go to Luke's closet now.
More OCD: I had to rearrange the piles so that the top pair of jammies had a similar level of busy-ness on them. Sophia's pile is nowhere near as neat anymore. She keeps unfolding them, looking through them all, and changing jammies several times before deciding on the pair to wear for the night.
Okay, that's enough of the pajamas.
Jack, before his Saturday afternoon haircut. He is changing. His hair isn't nearly as blond as it used to be, and his eyes - like Sophie's - are heading more toward the brown than hazel. At least brown is a real color!
For as much of a pain in the neck challenge this kid can sometimes be, he can be equally sweet and adorable on the other side. I never do his hair like that, but I thought it looked cute that night. And those jammies - love them on him!
So, there's a new rebate out for $15 on three Olay rebate products. I used Alice.com to get three face washes for under $5 each, making this a moneymaker for me. The body washes are even cheaper, but they were out of stock when I ordered, and I was too impatient to wait. So if you feel like doing this deal, get thee to Alice! Like the knives, my order from Alice came two-three days later! And shipping is free!
How cute is that little tush?? I like it. Rob needed jeans, so I bought him five pairs off the Target site. Three Mossimo, and two Levis. Normally he sticks strictly to Levi's 505 or 550, but I thought we'd try to branch out a little. Well, I was wrong. The Mossimo's - all three - were way wrong on him, but the two pair of Levi's (not a numbered variety, so I don't know what they were) looked good. He keeps telling me, "NOW do you see why I say Levi's are my brand???" Yeah. I do.
On Saturday afternoon, we went down to the Oceanfront for a lunch mystery shop. As soon as we turned the corner in our neighborhood, we spied this blimp! I don't know if the kids had ever seen a blimp in real life before, so they were pretty excited about it. We watched it travel in front of us, and then next of us, for most of the way down to the beach. It turned out to be an advertising blimp for DirectTV, and the kids were confused as to why there was TV playing on a blimp. But it was a little bit of fun for them, anyway.
At lunch: "These cheese sticks are good, Daddy!!"
We ordered the cannoli for dessert, and I confess, I took a couple licks of the filling. Mmm... cannoli. Good stuff. I've even had a few Girl Scout cookies, too. But it's all good: I finally broke through that month-long plateau and lost two more pounds, so I'm officially in the 170s! And I'm the "thinnest" Rob has ever seen me. Not that I'd call myself thin, but I have been called a skinny bitch by a friend, and oh, I liked it! Nine more pounds 'til I'm at my college weight!
After lunch, we had to rush-rush-rush back over to our side of town, which was made difficult by all the construction and detours going on down at the beach, for the kids' haircuts. Jack and Sophie were getting shaggy, so I had made appointments for them the other day. Chloë's hair was in need of a deep, thorough conditioning, so I decided to ask if they would take care of her at the same time, and they agreed. I tell you what, this boy never looks cuter than when he is sitting there getting his hair cut! And everyone admires him and says how adorable he looks, too.
Not the best pic of his new hair, but he didn't want me to take it! The blue on his forehead is not a bruise, but leftover from the Blue & Gold banquet. Complaining or no, he's such a cutie little guy. ♥
Sophia was next. At first, she was reluctant and clingy to both her father and me, but soon she warmed up to Tommy and sat down in the chair for him. Phew, I'm glad it wasn't a problem. And then she really got into it, and I could tell she was enjoying the primping and attention. I asked her, "Do you feel pretty?" and she nodded enthusiastically. Catch her checking herself out in the mirror!
She loved getting a blow-out and kept admiring herself with her new cut. I'm just glad to have the ends evened up a bit; they were so lopsided!
While Tommy took care of the Littles, Chloë was on the other side of the salon, getting her hair conditioned. She is always begging me to straighten her hair, but I don't like to do it because (1) it just doesn't look right on her and (2) I don't want to damage her fine hair. Oh, and (3) it takes forever! So when she asked the hairdresser if she would straighten her hair and the stylist agreed, I figured it was okay since I didn't have to do it myself! Chloë was headed to a sleepover at her best friend's house for her birthday later in the day, and she really wanted to show Sammy her straightened hair. She squealed with delight when Mommy said she could do it!
She loved it, but Rob and I both agree that with straight hair, she looks witchy, weird, and wrong. What do you think? Of course, last night after her bath, she was SO upset when it went back to curly and no one at school would see it straight. Them's the breaks, kiddo!
After the haircuts, we ran over to Chloë's friend Brett's house to collect the cookies from that morning's booth sale that I manged to get out of. We did three booths this weekend, and none of them went fantastically well, but we did okay. I'm glad to have that done and over with until next weekend! Waiting at home were a few more small packages, including my new USB port hub that I traded points for as a prize on my survey website. Usually I do a gift card for Rob with those points, but I really needed this hub. Everything is a USB these days!
I have been searching for a portable DVD player in the $50 range, because the last two we had (both Coby brand) broke shortly after getting them, and we haven't had one in the car in a long while. I can't tell you how invaluable such a thing is with three kids who spend a lot of time in the car, especially when we go sit at dance class, so I really, really wanted to get one with the tax money! They were so excited to try it out, and it works really well. I checked Amazon and all the other usual places, and this guy runs about $80-90, but I found it it my price range, new, on eBay! Yeehaw.
Missing, somehow, from the "packages" pictures is my new House Party package. Yep, I'm doing another House Party, this time for Arnold's Sandwich Thins. Stephanie and Tabitha got the same House Party, too! Theirs, I believe, are going to be next weekend (although I haven't been officially invited yet?!), but I can't do mine until mid-March because of the cookie sale. Hopefully this House Party will be a lot less lame than the DiGiorno one!
After hurriedly getting an excited Chloë off to Sammy's house for her sleepover, we headed out to a Norfolk mall for another mystery shop. This time, for dinner. Somehow, after eating a big lunch not too recently, Jack and Sophia were starving and scarfed down their spaghetti. Sophia couldn't wait to run over to the play place; she kept telling us about "all the fun" she was missing!
At first, Jack wanted to go hang out over by the arcade games with Daddy, but they soon joined us after he realized he wasn't getting any money to play them. Boy those two kids spazzed out, along with all the other little ones in the play area. It was a lot of fun watching them run around, jumping, and just burning off all that extra energy. I can't wait until it gets warm enough to do it outside again!
It was so funny when Sophia - and then other little boys and girls who were bigger but younger - came over to keep helping Jack climb on top of the clam shell. Here he is getting a much-needed boost!
After the play area, I wanted to walk around the mall for a minute and see if I could find any good deals. We were looking at the cell phone case kiosk for iPhone protectors, and Sophia and Jack were still horsing around. They were amped up from running in the play place, and they hadn't quite settled down yet. I knew it was going to be bad when Sophia accidentally shoved Jack into the corner of the kiosk, and it hit him right in the head. He started screaming, and I took him over to the side to get a closer look at it. Yep, the blood was pouring out. Rob says it wasn't much, but it was more than a little bit, to me. He was crying really hard, and I could tell it hurt a lot.
We went home then, and I convinced a reluctant Rob to take him to the ER, as a precaution. It was still bleeding, and we've had problems in the past with head wounds for Jack, so off they went. It turned out to be just a little hole - along with a nice goose egg - that they put a little antibiotic cream on and sent him home. I'm glad it's nothing, but I'm also glad we had it checked out right away, just in case.
I don't know if it's because of the good bump on the noggin he took on Saturday night, or because he's coming down with a nasty cold, but Jack literally slept the entire day away on Sunday. He woke up here and there to complain of thirst and/or a headache, but he always went quickly back to sleep. Heavy sleep. And I've been listening to him snoring away on the couch next to me, all night long. He's completely zonked out. So we may be keeping him home today. It's just about 0700, time for them to wake up for school, so I'll find out in a few minutes...
So! Now I think we're all caught up. Onto another busy week! Hope yours is a good one.
Fin.
