One week before school starts....

We have one more week of summer before school starts.

I started getting Princess and Prince up at 6:00AM this morning. I am dragging! But we have to start sometime. The bus comes for the kids at 7:08. This is actually a little later than last year (6:56). Later is good!

Prince and the Knight were up until well after 10:00PM last night. We got off schedule this weekend but it was well worth it because we got to see friends from Iowa.

Then my little Knight got up in the middle of the night and I was up off and on all night long. DadOf3 didn't know he'd come down though so that is good. I could sure use a nap today but that is not to be.

Off to get groceries with 3 tired kids. Wish me luck!

Avoid the Grocery Stores at ALL COST!

The boys and I got groceries this morning because I needed a few, specific food items for Christmas dinner. Princess requested the "Brown and Serve" rolls that we had for Thanksgiving. DadOf3 and I decided on a modest Christmas dinner because the kids do not eat very much and we are taking off for Iowa two days after Christmas (!!!) - no need for leftovers. I picked up a nice roast. So we will have roast, potatoes and gravy, corn, and chocolate pie. This pie is one of my very favorites. My mother would make it as a special treat every once and a while. It is so good and so easy:

Get a pre-made graham cracker crust or go all out and make a homemade one.
Melt one of the huge (5 ounce) Hershey's Milk Chocolate bar.
When the melted chocolate is no longer hot to the touch, fold into a tub of Cool Whip.
Scoop chocolate/cool whip into the graham cracker pie crust.

Man oh man! Even at 8:30 in the morning the grocery store was a mad house! Take heed and do not go if you do not have to! I am used to shopping when no one else is there. I plan it that way because shopping with two boys (4 and 2) is risky even on the best of days.

This was not the best of days.

I won't go into the gory details , but our little trip involved pulling hair, kicking, and pinching by both boys. Sigh. I absolutely abhor shopping trips like that.

To top it all off, there were lots of stressed out people shopping today. Yippee! Extra glares at MomOf3 with the implied meaning of "Can't you control your children?" Days like this used to make me want to crawl under a rock, but not any more. I have developed a thick skin over the years. My philosophy is this: "If you have not shopped with toddlers/pre-schoolers in the last 5 years, then don't judge me." Simple as that.

On a happier note, I should not have to go venture to the grocery store again until after we get back from Iowa in January! And by that time, the Prince will be in pre-school and I will only have to take one child shopping...at least until school is out in May. Hey! I will take what I can get!

Here's to hoping that is a little easier on this mom of three!

Monday Update!

Wow! We have had a busy Monday so far. We put Princess on the school bus bright and early as usual. After the boys got up and ate breakfast, we headed to the grocery store. As you know from my past blogging (whining?) grocery shopping with a 2 year old and a 4 year old can be hit or miss. Fortunately, today went very well. We got all of our stuff in record time and no one got hit, kicked, or burst into tears. That spells SUCCESS in my book! :) Today is also Big Laundry Day - I know! We live an exciting life! Ha ha! I try to get every piece of laundry through the wash and put away on Mondays and Thursdays. This makes for a lot less mess around the house. I actually like laundry day because I can see the big pile of laundry at the beginning of the day dwindle down to nothing by the end of the day. (Yes, I am warped!)

Anyway - Happy Monday!

The Prince Has A Playdate!

The Prince had a play date today from 9:00AM until 12:30! One of our neighbors (the ones who invited us to swim at the YMCA last week) invited the Prince over to play with their 5 year old son. All reports of the play date have been positive! The Prince was said to have been polite, to have included his host's three year old sister, and to have eaten all of his lunch! This was a brand spankin' new experience for all of us, but no one took it harder than...the Princess.

Usually it is the Princess who gets to go places without the boys. She has gone to birthday parties, play dates, and school events without them. Usually the Prince is left behind. So, when it was the Prince who was invited and not her, she was pretty upset. Luckily, I had an activity already planned for this morning: shopping at the grocery store. (For those reading between the lines, that meant that I got to go grocery shopping with two kids instead of three! It was like having the morning off!)

The Princess was pretty content with her lot in life until we got home from the store. On the drive home she asked me if we could stop over and check on how the Prince was doing. The Princess is a smart cookie. She knew that if we checked in on him, she would get to play too. I had to say no to this one because we had to get the groceries out of Otis the Van and into the house.

After the groceries were put away, it was time to get lunch. The Prince was invited to have lunch at the play date, so this was yet another reminder to the Princess that she had been left out. She honestly could not make up her mind what to eat! She rarely has to have lunch without the Prince when she is at home. Their game is to go back and forth suggesting things to eat and then they make the decision together. She ended up not eating lunch until after the Prince came home because she could not make up her mind. The Knight had his customary Peanut Butter and Jelly.

When the Prince was delivered home from his play date, his friends stayed for about 45 minutes so I could catch up with their Mom and the kids could play. The Princess went bananas trying to get everyone's attention!

I think this was good for her. Her little world will be back to normal on Saturday when she is invited to a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese's without the boys. I think I will bring the Prince anyway though. Even though he will not be included in the party he can still play and I can get him his own little pizza.

Can you tell I was a younger sibling? I really feel for the Prince and I am glad that he had a chance to be Top Dog today.

Friday Night

TGIF once again! This is the Princess's last Friday of the school year. She only has 4 days of school left...wow! Where does the time go? I am so looking forward to NOT getting up at 6:00 every weekday! Of course the Prince will see to it that I am up by 7:00 every day but I may be able to bribe him into climbing in with me and watching a Scooby Doo or something while I catch a few more winks. :) The boys and I got groceries this morning and they were pretty good. The Prince asked if we could get a car cart and my answer was "Absolutely not!" I know, Iknow, I am a mean Mommy, but when the Prince and the Knight sit together in a cart, bad things happen. Someone ends up getting hit, kicked, or pinched. I stand by my choice because we made it out of the grocery store alive! The Prince had one meltdown but it ended up being kind of positive, at least for me. The Knight dropped a box of crackers on the Prince. It was a box of Townhouse crackers, nothing too heavy. Well, the Prince took offense and burst into tears. I waited for him calm down and then asked him if it really hurt all that bad. He wiped his eyes, thought about it for a minute, and said "no". We just kept on shopping. When we were done shopping and heading out the door, I had a lady stop me and compliment me on how I handled the situation. Hey! I will take it! Usually I get glares and sideways glances from strangers. A compliment to a mom of a 2 year old boy and an almost 4 year old boy is worth its weight in gold! A banner day, indeed!

Today DadOf3 came home for lunch and it was so beautiful outside that we had to take the boys out to play. DadOf3 and the Prince practiced playing baseball for a while and then we moved on to the backyard so DadOf3 could eat his lunch. Prince was not happy and threw a little hissy fit. After some negotiations, he decided that being in the backyard was better than going up early to nap and all was well once again.

Tonight we headed out to one of our favorite restaurants for supper. The kids were pretty good, despite the fact that I had to take kids to the bathroom three times. Oh well - when you gotta go, you gotta go!

Busy good day!

Wow! What a day! Normally I limit myself to one big activity a day but today I surpassed this by a mile. We got groceries today which is always a crapshoot. Today the Prince was a doll though and I didn't even have to bribe him! I did promise to take him to the park when we got home if he was good but I didn't actually buy him something. I don't like it when I do that anyway. So we left the house at 8:00 AM and we were home by 9:15. The boys watched Dora the Explorer (at the Prince's request, go figure!) while I brought in the groceries. MomOf2Boys had called while we were gone. We were going to meet her at the park but she suggested that we come over to her house instead because it had rained so much yesterday. I am glad she made the suggestion because even her lawn was a little wet. MomOf2Boys youngest was home. Her oldest is in Kindergarten so he was at school. The Prince and his friend, also 3 1/2, had a great time riding trikes. The Knight spent most of the time playing with a toy school bus and shouting for his brother to come back from riding trikes. MomOf2Boys and I had a nice chat and the boys had about 1 1/2 hours of fresh air and exercise. We headed home for lunch and naps. After the Princess arrived home from school, we received an invitation to go to ANOTHER neighbor's house to play. I brought the camera but didn't take any pictures. This neighbor is a stay-at-home-dad (SAHD) of a 5 year old boy and a 3 year old girl. Fun kids and my boys worship the 5 year old. They have a great backyard setup with a play scape, a teeter totter and lots of pea gravel. The kids had a blast. Their mommy (and my friend) came home around 5:00 so we walked the kids over to our house to continue the play date. My friend is a school Principal and quite fun to talk with. DadOf3 came home around 6:00 so we broke up the party and retired to our house to make supper and get baths. I gave the Princess hers and he gave the Prince and the Knight theirs. This may not sound fair but it is. The Princess is pretty particular. We have had a great day and I am close to getting 20,000 steps on my pedometer. I will let you know if I make it tomorrow. At 7:45, I have 18,332!

Grocery Store Adventure

Well, the Prince, the Knight, and I headed to the grocery store this morning. These trips can be hit or miss behavior- wise for the Prince. (The Knight is still confined to the cart, so he is easier to manage.) This was actually a good trip! We were ready to go by 8:00AM. I have learned that the earlier we get there, the better the boys are. I skipped my power shower this morning - a sacrafice that I was willing to make for a good grocery store run. I don't have to look at myself anyway, so what do I care? There were temptations galore at the store since this Sunday is Easter. Luckily, I had already purchased our egg-dying kit and vinegar earlier. I did manage to sneak some Easter supplies into the cart without them being noticed by the Prince and the Knight. I used the distraction technique... They make Shake and Go cars in the Cars movie characters now. The Prince is still trying to earn his "Doc" Shake and Go for keeping his pull-up dry at night for 5 days in a row. We added "Ramone" and "Mator" to the collection of cars to earn. I don't mind buying little things like this if the kids earn them as opposed to just getting them. Time to get the Royals some lunch!