I'm Flippin' Insane

At 11:00am, I loaded the three kids into the van and set out on a day of errands. My husband was out at the old house for the second day in a row, painting and getting things ready for our tenant.

Wearing our Seahawks blue for game day!

After 5.5 hours, I had escorted them through TWO Fred Meyers, one teriyki place (lunch), and one incredibly long and winding IKEA. Jacob walked (ran, trotted, zig-zagged through crowds), I carried Jon in the Baby Bjorn, and Ryan convinced me (i.e. screamed until my ears bled and I caved) to take him out of/put him into the shopping cart seat at least 15 times. Of the 5.5 hours, I only legitimately shopped for half that time. The other half was spent chasing children, breaking up fights, consoling, negotiating, and begging kids to stop screaming.

I will spare you the rest of the details. But I've decided that next time I have the notion to take the kids to IKEA that I'll just carry three feral cats around a lumber yard, leave empty handed, and buy an ice cream at the end. Same difference, but probably with less scratches.

My saving grace was that by the fifth hour of errand running, my kids were so tired from running away from me that they actually BEHAVED at the grocery store (our second trip to Fred Meyer). Jacob was even helpful! I told him the next ingredient on my shopping list and put him in charge of finding it. He was excellent! It was even kind of fun. He learned what a green onion was and the different between a yam and a russet potato.

At the check out counter, he told me to sit down (I was SO tired from carrying Jon in the Baby Bjorn that I squatted in the check out line and could not get back up) while he loaded all the groceries on the check out counter.

When he got home, I made Ryan and Jacob carry all the groceries inside the house while I put them away. Hmmmm.....fluke? Or maybe my efforts to train the kids are finally working?!

I tuned the TV to the Seahawks game, lit a fire, and started cooking dinner while the big boys ran free outside. We had fajita soup (I still can't figure out how it is any different from tortilla or taco soup, but it's yummy!) served with my very favorite buttery cornbread (scratch is the way to go!). If I wasn't so exhausted from our marathon errand trip, I would have really savored the task of cooking a nice fall meal in my new kitchen.

Now I'm going to put my feet up and NOT eat chocolate (sadface). Stupid chocolate budget. To distract myself from my chocolate cravings, I uploaded the pictures from Jacob's birthday:

But I still want some chocolate.