Visit from a Princess and her Royal Subjects

Ruby loved this Sleeping Beauty costume that I found at a garage sale for $2.   She wore it almost every day and only took it off to play in the sandbox or to go out on an excursion. 

We went to the Country Basket and Ruby fed the goats.  When the goat's tongue tickled her hand, she laughed so hard that her gum fell out on the ground.  Ruby, the goat and Grampie all went for the gum at the same time and luckily Grampie got to it first! 

Ruby picked apples from the trees and chose a pumpkin at the Country Basket.

Ruby really liked playing in the corn at the Country Basket. 

Another day we waded in a creek at Townsend park hoping to see frogs but it was too cold.

Ruby helped make apple pie.  She was very busy the whole time she was in Michigan.  We had a lot of fun! 

What did Gary do while he was in Michigan????   He slept. 

And Slept....

And slept....  

Our first retirement project

Here is the finished project!  You can see that we should have ordered the window to fit as it looks a little strange.  What do you think?  We could take the shutters down and then it would probably look better.  Or we could move the shutters over the white... but that would be more work so maybe not.  :)

Well, I can see that you don't have to post photos in reverse order anymore... so you are going to see this process backwards:)  This was the second step.  After adding the 2x4's and wrapping the bottom, we put the window in and wrapped the sides.  We also put shims in all the way around. 

Here is the first step.  We put in the bottom wood and wrapped it and then put in the side wood to fill the spot. 

This is what the original window looked like.  All of the wood at the bottom was rotten.  So, Dad and I got the new window in and it really went smoothly.  Some steps Dad figured out and I totally didn't know what to do and other steps it was vice versa.  Nice teamwork!!!  New for us :)

Chicken and Puke

During Ruby's nap today I left to run a few quick errands with Gary. Halfway through the first he started to lose it. Cried all through checkout and the whole way to our second errand. I just wanted to pick up a rotisserie chicken at Walmart for dinner and I knew he wouldn't stop crying until I physically picked him up and took him out of the car seat, so I decided I could easily carry a chicken and a baby.

I ran in with Gary and bypassed the carts. I grabbed a chicken by the cardboard handle and made it about 5 feet before it broke off. Chicken down, grease everywhere, me standing there with a baby, no idea what to do next. I knew I couldn't pick it up with just one hand so I went back and grabbed a cart. On my way there Gary puked. BIG TIME. So now I'm covered in puke, trying to push a cart with one hand while I hold Gary in the other. Awesome.

I get to the chicken and realize I can't get it into the cart with just one hand. So I carefully lay Gary in the cart (this is where I start to get some very judgey glances from the other walmart customers). I grab the chicken real quick and then grab Gary. He was TOTALLY secure in the child area of the cart, wasn't worried for a second. Ok I was a little worried but what's up with nobody there helping me!? Less judgement, more help people! sheesh. Not my proudest mommy moment.

You Know That You're Cheap When:

1. A coupon is used at 90% of your restaurant outings.
2. The other 10% is McDonalds.
3. If needed, you make two separate transactions in order to use two coupons.
4. You have two separate grocery cards in order to cash in on twice the free goods.
5. You take both cars to double fill at the gas station to maximize gas rewards.
6. You pound 100+ shrimp at Red Lobster’s Endless Shrimp in order to get your monies worth (and yes, a coupon was used!)
7. Your eyes never stray from the Value Menu at a fast food joint.
8. Combo meals??? – never heard of them.
9. Any large purchases are postponed until Black Friday.
10. Your favorite moments come from finding “treasures” on the side of the road.
11. You wait six months on the wait list to get a free blockbuster from the library (just saw The Hobbit).
12. If it’s “Yellow” you let it “Mello.”
13. Every other date night is at Walmart.
14. Target is not in your budget.
15. You go through the apartment dumpster in order to snag awesome coupons others threw away.
16. You keep used Slurpee cups in your car in order to save 50 cents on a refill.

Tonight after getting a Slurpee refill we realized that we're probably the only ones to ever do that. 
Then we started recalling all of the cheap things we do and could not stop laughing.

Share your favorite cheap experiences with us, we'd love to hear them (or even use them). 

First Family Campout....Almost!

With all of the rain we've been getting and the fire bans lifted I decided it was time to take a family camping trip.  We had done a test run in the backyard a few months ago which Pax aced, so we were ready to go.  Ahhhh, maybe not.

Everything started off great.  Got to the campsite, and quickly found a free site.  It was really nice, but pretty close to the road.  We un-loaded and set up camp.  Paxton loved all the dirt and had a blast picking up all the random trash or "hidden treasures" left behind from other campers.  I gathered a nice pile of fire wood and quickly got the fire going.  This is where the trip got interesting.



The Mighty Eagle Scout!

Being the expert Eagle Scout that I am, fire building is a cinch.  In no time I had a nice little flame going.  Then to really get it going I bent down and started blowing.  After a couple blows, Connie told me to stop so I wouldn't get light-headed.  As the Eagle Scout, and a Macho Man, I of course knew my limits and added a couple more blows before stopping (I couldn't stop right then and let her think she was right in telling me when to stop blowing).  Well, as I stood up I immediately felt light-headed.  I staggered briefly and steadied myself on Connie's arms.  Then I began to lean into her as my eyes closed... and the next thing I know I'm on the ground with Connie yelling at me.  I heard a car coming down the road so I quickly jumped to my feet and started brushing dirt off, still not 100% sure what had just happened.  Connie, thinking it was a joke that had gone too far, is still asking me what the heck I am doing as she is laying on top of the wood pile.  When I told her I had blacked-out and didn't remember falling, she finally cut me some slack as I helped her off the ground.  A bruised butt for Connie and a "blow" to my pride as a Macho Man, gave us plenty to laugh about the rest of the night.


Pax and I sharing a little Root Beer.

Well, dinner was great.  Ate some hotdogs and roasted some marshmallows.  Put Paxton to sleep and let the fire die down.  As we went to bed we found it strange that cars were continuing to drive down the road well into the late night hours.  There was finally a lull in the traffic and we both fell asleep.  Our wonderful snooze was interrupted by a massive truck/trailer bouncing down the dirt road.  I woke up and thought it was morning, and I heard Pax over on the side utter his cute little sound, "Gloo."  He saw me peak my head up and excitedly began to climb over Connie to get to me.  He thought it was play-time, I thought it was morning, and Connie wondered what the heck was going on.  She explained that it was only 12 o'clock, and asked why we were up.  So, for the next hour Pax climbed about the tent as Connie and I laid on our mostly deflated, super uncomfortable air mattress.  Realizing that I wasn't going back to sleep, and Pax most definitely wasn't, we decided enough was enough and it was time to pack up and go home.  Lucky for us we were only 40 min. from home.  At 1 am we packed up the car, made a pit-stop at McDizzle, and headed home. 

All-in-all a great trip.  We got to enjoy the whole camping thing, AND sleep in our own bed, AND have a great fainting story.  Perfect first Family Campout.

A Late Gangsta Shout-out Happy Birfday Tim, Taki n Annette

Hey peeps, we got no flow right now to send gifts to our favorite peeps. So, we made you a totally hot video shout out for ya'lls birthday!!! It's about to go platinum, so enjoy dis hit dat we worked all night on. Actually only took about 30 min. But for real, we love you guys!!!

Hope all ya b-dayz was off da hook!!!! If not, they were now dat u seen our video!!! Much Luv!

Technology vs Nature

My apologies to the very few loyal Mau 2.0 readers, but I had carpal tunnel surgery about 2 weeks ago and it's been tough to get things done. But we did have an active 4th of July. I decided that we should go on a hike near our house to Elephant Rock. As you can see, Carter looks less than excited, despite being in a pretty sweet carrier that we got for $5 at a yard sale.

The 2.5 miles (1.5 hours) to Elephant Rock went well and Carter took a little nap. Unfortunately, just as we got to the top and were basking in the beautiful view, he lost it. Started really crying hard. We thought he had been bitten by a horse fly, there were about 2.4 million along the trail, but he was just tired of hiking. So we pretty much ran all the way back down the mountain and got down in about 40 minutes.

Casey kept taking pictures of the back of me while hiking (see one of the many below) not sure what that was about. But by the time we got home, we were pretty much done for the day. Carter went to sleep at 8 pm, so no fireworks for us. 

 Is Carter the next Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg? We shall see, but he truly is just like daddy-loves the computer. He even has the face down. One thing that Casey would really like him to do is crawl. I'm still not on board because once he is mobile; it's over. Despite using the computer and Haagendazs Mango sorbet, to lure him into crawling, he is still not moving.

 This picture shows that he finally found a use for the pacifier. He would never take it as a baby and has finally found joy in using it as a chew toy. Sometimes he tries to put the entire thing in his mouth, which is hilarious and he usually chokes himself.

But he's a fun little noise machine. He's getting big, about 27.5 in long and 18 pounds. I'm hoping for a future tight end.

The Pea Trend Ends

 I loved watching Ruby choke and spit out the peas and equally loved it when Paxton did it too. But alas, I was sorely disappointed when Carter ate the peas with no problem. So then I decided to try them and we should've videoed me because I made a face and spit them out.

This is the only look I got after feeding him half the jar of peas. Everyone that I've told this story to has been confused on why I wanted him to not like the peas.
On a different note, the shrewd and sometimes uncaring Lori that we all know and love has lost some of that. I hold in my hands an expensive bottle of special, super concentrated cleaner. It was sold to me by Manson, a native of West Warren, MI (Annette, he gave u a shout out!!) who is taking part in a special program for inner city youth to have summer jobs.

This kid was quite the salesman and a jokester. He showed me all sorts of cleaning demos and price comparisons. Perhaps I was blinded by the fact that he yelled, "Go big Blue!" about 3 times, but in the end, I couldn't say no to this little black boy from the ghetto. Bountiful is making me soft.

Move over Michael Jordan, Carter's got some prime time tongue action

 This is just a quick post of all Carter's recent tongue action. He looks a little stoned in the picture with daddy  who is also sportin a crazy tongue.

 This is just your standard everyday tongue action.

 This one is, I love to eat and hold my foot tongue. We see this one a lot!

And this is my naughty monkey tongue because he kept sticking it out during Casey's lesson and distracting the kids we teach. But who am I kidding, it doesn't take much to distract the 12 year old kids in our class. He's got such a big head and it's still bald! Casey just keeps saying, he's got a big brain in that big head. Let's hope!

SUGIFEST!

You all lived it and loved it so I'm not going to write up a big long post. Here's some pics. Enjoy.

Unfortunately this is the best of all the photos. Our photographer apparently really wanted to get ALL of those shrubs behind us :)

 Ruby still talks about "milking the horse with grampie."

Today ruby picked up a rock and said, "climb mountain, throw rocks." I think the hike was her favorite. 

I still hear about some of you daily with phrases such as:
-Play mini golf with Tim. And Kylie!
-Share babies with Paxton
-Wanna hold baby carter
-Play gooey with grammie
-Grampie give you candy (I hear this one the most :)