Venting, scrambling, and relief

Venting:

Can I just say how much I dislike having salesmen come to my door? I have a hard time saying "no" and always end up regretting my purchase. Ok, let me clarify, I don't have a hard time saying "no," I have a hard time saying "no" multiple times. Yesterday, a guy stopped by and asked if we liked good beef steaks. I said "yes" and he quickly told me he was on the last of his run for the day and had extra steaks at a great price and ran and got a box. First of all, I'm sure this was a lie. Number 1 reason for why I don't like door-to-door salespeople.

Obviously, he was a quick talker and eventually, after I told him numerous times that I didn't have room in my freezer, he brought his price down to "less than his cost" in order to avoid a truck fee for not selling all his goods (yeah right). He also convinced me that once you removed them from the box, they don't take up much room--about the amount of a loaf of bread. This was an exaggeration. Number 2 reason for why I don't like door-to-door salespeople.

He eventually got me convinced that this was a good price for the steaks and came to about $2 per steak, and they were quality ones. Ok, I caved and later thought about his math and realized he had to have been including the "steak burgers" in that calculation to get to $2 per steak, which makes it much less of a good deal b/c that isn't really steak in my opinion--it is a burger. Misleading information. Number 3 reason for why I don't like door-to-door salespeople.

After he left, I found out that I was right. I don't have enough freezer space for this beef. I was starting to stress out b/c I had just spent $130 on beef ($120, but as I was writing out the check, he told me about another $10 charge which I can't remember what it was for, but it bugged me. Just be upfront right away!!) and it was going to thaw if I didn't make more freezer space. All the pieces were individually vacuum packed, which is great for convenience, but not great for stacking. Half of the contents of my freezer kept falling out on me, and I eventually got 4 of the 6 boxes shoved into the freezer while I held the meat in and tried to slam it shut so it wouldn't fall out. I was about to cry and just decided to call him and have him quick come back. Well, the number he gave me obviously wasn't a cell number and I couldn't get ahold of a single person. I then decided to run outside and see if he was at a neighbor's house and I could flag him down--no luck, but fortunately, my neighbor was outside getting her mail and she agreed to store 2 boxes of my meat for me so it wouldn't thaw. Blake and I then went over there and chatted while we had a small treat with her. I felt so much better, but still felt sick about having to fight with my freezer for who knows how long. I didn't dare open it up b/c I would be buried. Why do I fall for this stuff??? I always regret it later when I actually have a moment to think about it without someone constantly telling me I need it. Don't try to sell me something I don't want. Number 4 (and probably biggest) reason for why I don't like door-to-door salespeople!!

4 of the six boxes of steak

Scrambling:

Later, Scott comes home and I tell him my woes. Being the wonderful husband that he is, he eventually makes me feel better and tells me we'll just grill steaks for our guests who come to see the baby. He also informs me that we have frozen meals at church waiting for us to help when the baby comes. I feel even worse. I think it all made me upset enough that I started having some consistent, painful contractions. I had also slept terrible the night before since I had taken a 2 hour nap yesterday, so I was just tired. Great, not the time that I want to go into labor!! Plus, after 10 pm at night is a horrible time to go into labor, especially when you have a 2 year old sleeping upstairs. I wasn't sure if it was false labor, but the longer I waited to see, the later it got making it more difficult to find someone to watch Blake. Plus, I wasn't actually prepared to head to the hospital yet, so we were scrambling around trying to pack, etc.  I had just gotten an e-mail from our small group with the weeks prayer requests and they added at the bottom for "Extra prayers from all of us to Scott & Betty for the baby to arrive soon and healthy!" Great, someone was praying for our baby to come now. I quickly counteracted those prayers and prayed that the baby wouldn't come right now!  It worked :) My contractions eventually stopped and we were able to go to sleep--thank you Lord!

Relief:

Well, to my relief, the beef company finally called me back this morning and they are going to pick up the beef and give me a full refund! Yea!! I seriously don't need all that steak and didn't want to fight my freezer for the next couple months. I have a full freezer from freezing some tomatoes from our garden, which I also didn't want to use right away just to make room. So, in conclusion, I apologize to anyone who is coming to see our baby that steak will not be on the menu. :)

Fall Apples!

Blake and I headed to the apple orchard for some more apples, because the last batch I bought was almost out. I had made crock pot applesauce with them and Blake and I thoroughly enjoyed it so I wanted to make more. I say Blake and I b/c Scott never tried it. Last time I gave him applesauce in his lunch, he told me he gagged trying to finish it. He had told me that he didn't really like it, but I decided to give it to him anyways since I didn't have any other fruit and assumed it just wasn't his favorite from that comment--surely didn't realize he disliked it that much!!

I have another batch "roasting" at the moment and I am loving the aroma!!

Here are a "few" pictures from our outing:



Figured I needed a fall pumpkin shot with my Halloween baby. Kind of hard to get a good one though...

Blake and Mommy--Blake is much more interested in checking out the chickens than taking a picture

Arriving at the picking area--they had cute little wagons for me to pull Blake in and he loves his wagon rides!!

We were given an apple to "taste" and Blake carried it around the whole time. I was hoping his hand wasn't getting too cold b/c it was a chilly day!

Off to pick, with mouth full!!

Ready to pick with his bag and half eaten apple :)

Not sure what this face is, but it is kinda cute :)

Trying again for a picture together

This is how Blake eats whole apples--he starts on the outside and just keeps going...all the way through...

Ok, so he didn't really pick any apples, but he carried his bag around the whole time :)

Our bag of apples! I didn't really get that many b/c I wasn't sure exactly how these apples tasted, plus they were all small and all the others were picked over so that I couldn't really reach any nice ones.

Running through the pumpkins!

Checking out the chickens and trying to throw a pumpkin into their pen. I kept telling him "no" but his mind was set to get that pumpkin in the pen. I had to intervene...

 It was quite difficult to get Blake to leave the orchard, and when I finally forced him b/c he had a smelly diaper, we got in the front seat of the car for the change. He loves being in the front seat and playing by pressing all the buttons, pretending to drive, etc. Well, it was also hard to get him to leave the front seat...I got out of the car to go get him from his side and without me realizing he was even paying attention to what I was doing, he became successful at avoiding me. He instantly figured out what I was doing when I left the car and would quickly go to the other side--we did this several times.


Once he started looking at this book on the driver's side, I thought I had him distracted enough to get to the other side and grab him...well, he was on the other side once I got around and was laughing at me. "Silly Mommy", is probably what he was thinking :)

So, I tried running to beat him to the other side--once again, he won.

Eventually, I bored of the game and just reached over the seat and grabbed him. Thank goodness parent's are much bigger than `almost` two year olds! :)

The unsuccessful search for a car seat

So, I am really cutting it close with getting Blake a car seat, so yesterday we went again to try them out. Last time we went he was very uncooperative and absolutely didn't want to be put in a seat to try the fit. This past weekend Scott was supposed to accompany me to give a little assistance and to finally decide on one. Well, we had other more important fun things on our list, and this one didn't get done.

So, Blake and I headed to Babies R Us to give it another shot. I remembered that there were some cute cars that he enjoyed sitting in and pretending to drive, so I brought along my camera to get a shot of him in a Mustang :). Well, we didn't get that far and here's why...:

Of course they would have the Halloween costumes on a rack right when you enter the store so you can barely enter the store before your child is extremely interested in the Thomas the Train Halloween bucket sitting below the costumes.
This picture is after we entered farther into the store (the next isle) and he had already claimed this bucket, but saw the trains in the boxes, which are behind him in this picture. So we had to check these out.

 We finally got rid of the Thomas bucket, and before we had advanced any into the store, Blake saw a basket of Jack-o-lantern balls. Well, a ball is a ball and Blake had to investigate.

Trying hard to get one out of the basket...



...trying a different approach...

After leaving the balls and Blake unsuccessfully getting a ball, I started to realize our trips to Babies R Us will never be the same...
After leaving the balls, he found a basket of puppies...mind you, the first items above were in the short isles in the front of the store, this basket of puppies was the start of the real isles, just to give you an idea of how far we were getting...:)


"Puppies!", exclaimed Blake.

Deciding to try and get into the basket of puppies from the bottom...this picture was after I made him start to come out b/c he was almost inside and I quickly realized it might be difficult to get him back out if I let him get all the way in!

Ok fine, you can carry the puppy around. :)

On his way to the next adventure (I love this picture). :)

Ooooh, "Monkey", exclaimed Blake, which he said with each consecutive Monkey that he pulled off the shelf (in the lower left hand corner you can see a couple boxes on the floor already).

 But, the train basket, boxes of trains which he couldn't touch, balls, puppies and monkeys were no match for what we were to happen upon next...

A TRAIN TABLE WITH TRAINS AND TRACKS!!!

My baby in his element.

 It was at this point that I realized Babies R Us and Blake had won. I didn't have the heart to pull him away from this, when he is so in love with Thomas and trains at the moment. It is amazing the attention span a child can have when they love a toy. He played for a good 30 minutes before he had a dirty diaper and we had to retreat back to the car for a change. All this time, I just sat on the floor and watched him and took pictures. Actually, in Blake's defense, I have been impressed at numerous times at his attention span with books in particular, but toys don't usually hold his attention for this long.

At the consignment sale last weekend, the birthday gift I bought for Blake was a train set. Sorry for ruining the surprise :) It had a bunch of trains (probably around 20) and wooden and plastic tracts. It wasn't until I was in the Thomas section of Babies R Us that I realized how good of a deal I got for a mere $40 for the whole set.

Seriously? $40 for 15 little pieces of track?!? Babies R Us never ceases to give me sticker shock.



$6 to $13 for one train? I can see $6, but $13?? Good thing I got about 20 in my set!!

 Ok, and here are some of the shots I got of my Blakey playing with the trains (sorry for the plethora of photos, but hey, I didn't have anything else to do while I sat there)! After his diaper change, we came back into the store and I tried to head quickly to the car seats again (after a brief stop in the bathroom where I used a blower to dry my hands, to which Blake gave me the most amusing face when hearing this loud blower go on Mommy's hands. It was a mix of concern, amazement, and disbelief--hilarious. Well, Blake once again refused to be strapped into these car seats and I gave up, realizing I needed Scott with me--it is too hard to be 8.5 months pregnant and wrestling with a squirmy toddler. He also kept asking for the trains and the longer we looked at car seats, the more concerned his voice became as he started to realize his request might not be granted, so we headed back for another 20 minutes.

This time around, he had a little boy to "share" the trains with. Both were bad at sharing, but Blake always seems to be the more assertive one when taking toys away, so he tried to load up his arms with as many trains as possible. I kept having to give trains back to the little boy who got slightly weepy when Blake would take most of them. I made Blake play on the tracks with them, rather than hoard them in his arms.

Going through the red/green gate at the train station. The sign flips from red to green so the trains can pass.

Lining up the trains. Blake is very meticulous when doing this. The other mother commented on how, even though he was only 3 months older than her son, he was much more advanced in playing with the trains. He was patient with them and the other little boy just shoved them around, so they never stayed on the track. But, the other little boy seemed to be talking better (plus, he was bilingual), so they each have their strengths :)

Going into the station

Pulling the train--look how long he can get these trains and still manage to keep them on the tracks!  Actually, this is kind of hard to do since they become derailed fairly easily.

Entering the station from the front end--this required mounting the table...:)

So, even though we didn't buy anything this time around, we had a fun time at Babies R Us. :)

Madison hiking

 

Scott wanted to have a little fun as a family of three with Blake before the baby arrives, so we decided to try hiking with him. He absolutely loved it and ran ahead on the trails, explored and enjoyed the trails as much as we did. 

 

Checking the map before heading out

I said Blake's name and he looked. I have to get these pictures when I can b/c he doesn't always pay attention to me when I say his name.

Hiking along

Look how old Blake looks!!!

Got a great picture at the onset of the hike!! I was excited about that b/c a lot of the subsequent pictures were blurry or Blake wouldn't sit still long enough for a photo

38 weeks, 1 day with baby #2. Feeling pretty good and the fresh October air always helps :)

Trying to get a great photo of him with the leaves...

This one was pretty good.

Hands down Blake, hands down!!

Slightly blurry, but not bad :)

In an attempt to get him interested enough to stop running for a few seconds for the above photos, I said to Blake, "Look, a rock!" Scott thought I was being absolutely ridiculous to think Blake would be interested in a rock. Proving him wrong, Blake started going around and excitedly pointing out all the rocks. Scott was amazed and admitted he was wrong, haha. I then told him we point out big rocks in his books, so that's probably why he was excited to see them on the trail.

This one cracks me up. We were walking and I stopped and asked Scott to smile for me. In all seriousness, he stopped and smiled...without looking at me!!! What a dork :) (but I love him)

Scott instructing Blake that he can't go beyond the rail

Still watching him closely :)

Scott and I--not a family pic b/c Blake didn't want to be held

Most of the hike, I ran around chasing Blake trying to get a good picture of him, which was proving to be quite unsuccessful. Scott sits down next to Blake and nonchalantly snaps a picture. Turns out to be the best one of the afternoon--unbelievable!!

An attempt at a family pose with Scott holding the camera and Blake trying to get down :)

Found a stick!!

Fellow hikers took this one--of course Blake had decided to suck on his sweater zipper at the time :)

Getting a ride with Daddy after being a little worn out

Aww, such a fun ride!! :)

My boys

After hiking, Blake was quite hungry and we realize the easiest and quickest thing would be to go back to that Mexican restaurant we tried a few weeks earlier. They put down chips and salsa almost before your back touches the seat! Blake loved the salsa, even though it was slightly spicy and would suck it off the chips. He then devoured some enchiladas--turned out it was a good choice to go there. Probably one of the easiest times at a restaurant with Blake as a toddler!! Great idea on the hiking Scott!!