Back to School

1st Day of School, 1st Day of School! Can you believe it?!

Mary is finally a first grader going to school the ENTIRE day! She was so excited and came home so pooped! Here's our little smiley girl.

The whole gang woke up WAY too early on this first day of school. I woke up early myself, trying to give myself a few minutes of peace and sanity before the insanity began. It backfired when Annie and Whit decided to begin their part of the day at 6:10am. Grrr..... It all left me feeling like the whole day should have been over by the time it was 9:15am.

I will adjust, I will adjust, I can do this, I can do this.

Bus stop buddies!!! We have great neighbors which makes for a fun few minutes for everyone until the bus comes.

It's Always Fun for Everyone When Grandma/pa Comes (part 2)

MYSTIC SEAPORT
On Monday, we headed to Mystic Seaport. I'd been with the kids to the aquarium before but never the seaport. It was a really REALLY great day! Nice weather, pretty nice kids (hee hee), nice company, and nice place. We spent a full day and still didn't see it all.

Mary and Andrew knocked out of their whaling boat!


A much calmer boatride than the one above. Notice all the pretty sailboats in the background. For a mere $800, your teenager too can learn to sail at a 5 day sailing camp they offer. The kids even live aboard an old ship used just for that purpose. I wish I had a spare $800--it looked like fun.

I love this picture of Rita and Annie. We rode the water taxi from one side of the seaport to the other. The kids loved it.

I think Whit would have climbed over the edge if she could have. I wish that girl had a little more fear in her. :)

Evidence of our inability to take a good picture.

The seaport was set up as an old village and there were lots of buildings you could go in, lots of boats you could go on and look at. We had to pause outside the store that sold cigars in memory of good ole Durham tobacco. The Indian woman was holding a Durham tobacco box, so Matt posed with honor and respect. The kids couldn't figure out what he was doing.

One of the parts the kids liked the most was the "Children's Museum". They had so much fun dressing up like sailors, swabbing the decks, cooking meals at sea, 'fishing'.

Still wondering why my kids love pretend chores and hate real ones?!

Land ho! (or something)

They also loved the mini bunk beds for the sailors. I tried to make them take a real nap but no one was interested.

Throughout the day there were different demostrations put on. There was a fun play put on called "A Whaler's Tale" (I think). Mary and Andrew were picked from the crowd to be part of the show. Talk about being excited!

Here they are in costume. Andrew was a seasoned seaman and Mary was a greenhand.

Kind of looks like a pirate to me.

So excited!

There's Mary. They were probably on stage for 15 minutes.

Andrew had to laugh a lot with his part. He picked up on it pretty quickly.

They are on opposite ends doing some whaler's pledge or something.

Whit and Annie had to be distracted since they hadn't quite caught on that their siblings were on the road to stardome at that exact moment.

Between shots of Mary and Andrew in the play, I got this cute one of Matt and Whit looking at the water.

We looked at a few more ships, had a yummy lunch of fish and chips, got ice cream, and were utterly exhausted by the end of the day. The initial hope had been to head to the beach as well, but we're saving that for another day.

Here are a few more shots from the day.

It's Always Fun for Everyone When Grandma/pa Comes! (part 1)

Grandma and Grandpa came to visit and we had one house full of excited kiddos. The anticipation was killing them, but they pulled through. Finally, on Tuesday evening, they arrived and the fun began!

The kids and Grandpa in front of the banner they made.

Grandpa's birthday had been a few days earlier, so we had to have cake. I had fun making a black forest cake for the first time (Clem's favorite) and it was yummy.

Check out that triple blowing action!

Clem and Matt went crazy on the house. They painted dormers and more dormers and they repaired sheet rock and then more sheet rock. THANK YOU SO MUCH CLEM!!! I was hoping that since they were on such an awesome repair streak, they might be able to fix my dryer that was having troubles--no such luck (though the new one is a beauty).

Even Andrew got to help fix the bathroom wall. He was quite excited.

When we've been in town this summer, we've spent a lot of time at Crandall Pond/park. Grandma and Grandpa were looking forward to going swimming with the kids. We had a great time.

Annie's a bit too comfortable with the water, can't you tell?

The kids went crazy splashing with Grandpa, though my favorite part had to be when he swam out to the dock. They were so excited (obviously so since I don't make it out to the dock EVER) and started shouting out "He's Michael Phelps! Grandpa's Michael Phelps!" It was so funny.

We had a picnic (oh, there's Grandma finally! :) )

We even had a visit by E.T. (or possibly Whitney, it's hard to tell)

Grandma scored the big prize by actually getting a GOOD picture of our family. We NEVER take good pictures since my children somehow don't grasp the simple concept of looking at a camera at the same time. Go Grandma!

I scored the big prize of getting Grandma mad at me for posting this funny face picture, but I had to because I LOVE IT!! It cracks me up, especially Annie who is wondering what is wrong with all these crazy people!

Friday morning, Grandma and Grandpa headed to Boston to spend the weekend with Phil and Jen. We're glad they could see 2 sets of their kids in 1 trip. We were even more glad that Sunday they came back and brought Phil and Jen with them. They only stayed for Sunday evening but it was fun having all of us together, even for a little bit.

The kids LOVE Uncle Phil and Aunt Jen. Actually Whitney is still a bit unsure of Phil but she LOVES Jen (notice where she is sitting). Fortunately for Phil, he gets lots of attention from Mary and Andrew.

We headed to Mystic on Monday. That'll be the next post!

AMAZING!!!!!

I've found some awesome grocery deals these past few weeks, and though I promised myself not to blog about my coupon/good deal excitment, I'm making this one exception for one reason and one reason only...it is SOOOOOO awesome!

Hats off to Shaws, my favorite grocery store (mainly b/c everytime I turn around they are spitting out free $$ at me, literally spitting out of the register). Here's a glimpse of the awesomeness:



Total out of pocket $38.48
but then I got $60 back in store credit coupons off my next purchase.

So, I went back and hit the awesome promotion again.

This was my best day, are you ready?


All of this for 9 cents!!!!! (thanks to some of that $60 worth of store credit)

So, I paid 9 cents and again the register spit out store credit coupons...$45 worth!
I decide to hit the promotion one more time.

I had fewer coupons to use this last time around, so I did spend $11.40.

Again the register gave me $45 in credit coupons.

At this point, out of pocket I spent $49.97 cash and still had $50 worth of coupons for the future remaining.(are you feeling the awesomeness?)


This week, there was a different promotion and of course I had to try again.

65 cents for this pile of goodies. I still have $20 remaining in coupons and thanks to this week's deal, I am getting a $20 rebate check in the mail.

I could go on and on about how great this is, about the 18 boxes of cereal, 7 bags of cheese, 7 things of laundry detergent, 24 or so pasta/rice sides, not to mention about a billion fruit snacks, brownie mixes, yogurts, and more. I'll stop going on and on and on, but isn't it just SOOO FUN!

Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis (part 6)

On top of day trips and other adventures, we just had a great time overall. Lots of time was spent hanging out with family, swimming, eating, etc, etc. Here are a few more pictures from the trip.

Whitney + mud = too much fun

Swimming with the cousins

Elise, Brenton and Andrew sportin some cool towel heads!

All the cousins minus napping Annie and Silas (born 2 weeks later)

Lucy and Whitney playing a fine tune

Mom and Dad set up their big waterslide and the kids had a blast!

I even got to see friends from high school. Here are Melanie, me, Laurie, Marissa, Lisa and Heather from our traditional girls night out when I am in town. I also got to see Jen, Annie, and Derrick. It's fun how so much changes but so much stays the same. :)

Annie lookin' good in the stroller--she found herself in it quite a bit.

Nanny, Papa and the kids.
We're so glad they had us stay. We had such a great visit!!!