Busy Monday, September 29

Today's 'To-Do' List

• Get kids to bus 6:40 & 7:15
• Finish writing this blog - Truthfully started it Sunday just so much to cover and with me working I wanted to make sure it got done. 
• Go to work
• Lunch with Peter
• Get Groceries

Menu

• Grilled Chicken, corn on the cob, baked potatoes - Held over from last week because by time we got home yesterday I wasn't going to cook!
• Brats & Chips ? We ate a late lunch Sunday so we didn't actually 'cook' dinner just snaked a bit so still have Brats in the fridge. It's that or Chicken Nuggets & French Fries
• Tacos
• Eat at 4-H Tailgate Party
• Pizza
• Saturday & Sunday I'm unsure because we shouldn't have the kids home and it always gets confusing on what to cook for only 2 people. Maybe Spaghetti & Meatballs one day... Not sure on the other day we'll figure it out. 

This Week's 'To-Do' List

• Work -M,Tu, W,F - Thursday off. 
•  Clean up around the house - This is a permanent main stay. 
• Thursday gets hectic
•  9am-12pm Rain Barrel Workshop - I'm going to learn how to make rain barrels. 
• At 1:50pm I need to have Brielle picked up and over to the Orthodontist
• 5pm-7pm we are going to be at the county fair grounds for the 4-H Tailgate party. I'm trying to convince my friends with kids to come on out! If nothing else for free hot dogs. 
• Either Friday or Saturday my girls leave with the in-laws to go back East to the coast for Fall Break. We will pick them up from the airport the Sunday at the end of Fall Break.
• Mow the lawns
• Pack the kids for a week away
• Pull out Halloween Decorations

Last Week

So last weeks post I actually went through Tuesday it just has been very busy as of recently. Wednesday I just went to work nothing special there. 

Thursday, after work, I went down to the Community College I had over paid the fee on Brielle's college courses she's taking at the High School so I had to go write them a new check. It really made me think back to my college days on that campus. I kind of miss them though I'm not crazy enough to juggle work, kids, home and school again. Back in my younger days I might have been that crazy but not now.
Thursday there wasn't after school so after the college I hurried home because the bus gets to the house by about 3 o'clock. I end up pulling up in our lane just as Katherine is walking down it so I couldn't have timed it any more perfect.
It was a pretty dull couple of hours just picking things up until Peter got home around 5 and then we all went back down to the Elementary School for the Fall Festival. 

We ate pizza and hotdogs down there and Peter and I found a bench while we let the kids run around with their tickets to play games. Katherine won the cake walk first try and got a huge tray of cookies (Might I suggest never look at the calories on sugar cookies! OMG!) and then she won 4 cokes on the ring toss! None of the the people there thought that someone would get all 4 rings on so she came back over to me with this huge arm full of cokes. (Peter was off standing in line for funnel cake for me! Such a sweet man!)

Friday I had taken off of work because there was no school due to Teacher In Service Day. I got up at 4am to drive Brielle down to one of the county high schools for her trip to the University of Kentucky. I did not have the sense to go back to bed so this ends up being a 4am to 11:30pm day.
Katherine and I stayed home and I had intended to clean but I never got around to it. First we went out and picked tomatoes and had lots of cherry tomatoes but only a few larger tomatoes. We actually peeled all the tomatoes... yes even the cherry tomatoes. And I brought out my pressure canner and we canned up 2 pints of crushed tomatoes. Not exactly meant to be crushed but after trying to peel cherry tomatoes that is what it turned out to be. 

The rest of Friday I ended up sewing and seam ripping a lot! I got a little further on Katherine's Halloween Costume but I still have quite a bit to go.
While sewing I had something happen that has never happened to me before string up inside of my machine got looped around far far in the back. I had to take apart my sewing machine. These things really were not meant for individuals to take them apart. I had a pile of tools I had to use. 

I also received this package! I was so giddy! I won this the other week from Crock Pot's facebook page!
After going through the website to order it though the cost floored me. Each of these boxes is suppose to make 5 servings. These 4 meals would normally cost about $116 before shipping! That's a bit steep for me personally.
Which you'll notice the shipping date is off. I realized after I told it to ship that we were not going to be home that day because we were going to be in Memphis.

When I have planned to throw one of these into the crockpot instead of some other meal my schedule has gotten wonky. I'm going to wait off until the kids come back and when we start running around for 4-H and other activities again.
I will definitely give a full review of what I think of the meals. I will say this they were packaged well and with 2 day shipping because they are frozen goods with dry ice packaging that was well wrapped so you wouldn't hurt yourself. 

I went to go pick up Brielle at 4pm and then we came home and just had some pizza so Peter could get off to his card game and then I continued sewing. 

Saturday was busy!
We started the day at 7am and got everyone down to one of the Hospital's satellite campuses for 'Run for Your Life' they were having a kids free race and Brielle and Katherine both were participating in it. 

 It was a half mile race and they weren't really timing it but my slow poke children at least finished it and weren't in the back so the weren't ate by zombies this time. 
Can you tell the sun was really bright?!

 After the race we went over to the botanical garden for the scarecrow festival. We were sadly disappointed with this year because one of the local banks bought out the event and while it was free to get into some of our favorite things like pumpkin painting was not there and the food venders were not there. Right after we had gotten our food because we were at the front of the line they made the announcement that the food was for the kids only. It put a sour taste in my mouth that they wouldn't allow food venders there but parents weren't suppose to eat.
But enough of the complaints. The kids enjoyed going through the rose garden and they got balloon animals. Katherine asked for a dragon which the man worked very hard on we were impressed and Brielle got what we are now calling an alien butterfly.
The kids enjoyed the various games and we were there from about 10:30 to 1pm! This is an event we make sure to go to every year. I just hope next year they bring back some of our more favorite things.

 Right after the Botanical garden we left on a trip out of town to Trunnel Farms to meet with some friends and play. Peter met up with us later because he had to leave the garden earlier to get the dog down to the groomers.... We were seriously scheduled tight yesterday!

 The kids played on the hay bales.

 They played on these bikes that looked like tractors.

... Truthfully I played on them too!

There was this giant balloon thing in the ground it was like being in a bounce house!
When Peter showed up at the farm later we all went on it together.
You want to know a secret? Those things are a real work out if you try not to lose your balance and due to the slope on this you really didn't want to lose your balance otherwise you'd go straight for the pebble stone!

 We went and pet some little bunnies and they also had some young goats and other animals.

 This was a VERY slick slide! I didn't get to do it with the sacks they also had but just doing it in my shorts I can tell you it was SLICK!
The girls had so much fun with this that while I walked the pumpkins later out to the car they went back into the farm and did it some more!




It has been decided that corn mazes are evil! This one was exceptionally complicated and we were trying to find all the 'who done it' posts for the farmyard CSI case. After a long while though and after being very lost we ended up finding our way out through the entrance and said enough was enough of that! It was very tiring going up and down hills under the hot sun!

The kids had fun though but I think we've had enough of corn mazes for this year! I swear if we didn't cheat and walk through a few sections of corn they really would have had to send a search party out for us!

We took a tractor ride out to the pumpkin patch and while there was no cost difference on the pumpkins it was still fun to walk through the pumpkin patch and get to pick out our very own special pumpkins.













Sunday we took it pretty easy and then grabbed some late lunch out and then came home and picked up a little and I had the kids folding clothes while we watched a show as a family. We did a lot of walking that day but only because we decided to wander our dying mall to see what was still in it. 

That's pretty much it or as it as it is going to be for now. Have a great week folks!