Ahhh, our big shopping day. It's long, hard, fun and tiring all rolled into one. I decided to take my camera along for our trip. I wish I took some more pictures towards the end, but by then I was so worn out I couldn't manage to take one more picture, so words will have to do.
Come along with me as we tackle shopping day:
Before we can leave the goats need to be milked. Here we have three quarts of milk cooling off in ice water. While they are cooling I was getting the boys dressed and ready to go.
Here we have the bare cupboards.
Of course I was so wiped out after all our shopping that I never took an 'after' picture! Oh well. Suffice it to say that it is full now.
Aubrey all ready to go!
Jed entertaining Aubrey until we head out the door. We left around 10:30 I believe. We still needed to eat breakfast, so that was one of the first things on our list to do.
Grab our grocery list before we go out the door. Our "other" list (on the right) is much longer than normal. This seems to happen about twice a year. Normally we only have about 6 items on this list.
Before we can go any where we NEED gas. We probably were only a few miles away from empty.
The gas station we frequent is old school :-) No electronic pumps, no flashy signs. As a matter of fact they have a very old fashion weight scale inside that I want to take a picture of. Every time I see it I am reminded of my grandparents small store that was on the front of their house when I was growing up.
Isabella ran into Walmart to grab some juice, cups and cream cheese. Our plan was to go to the bakery to grab some yummy fresh bagels. It is a lot cheaper for us to bring our own drinks and cream cheese. While we wait for her return we take some fun pictures.
Saoirse is eager to eat. Hurry Isabella!
Jonah decided to bring this basket along. Good thing he didn't want to bring it into the store with him.
Finally bagel time! Flannery did not want her picture taken, can you tell?
Yum, an everything bagel.
Jed ate a *whole* bagel! You can see he brought along his new birthday presents.
When we got to the van, a few of the girls decided they needed to use the restroom. Aubrey decided it was his turn to eat :-)
Isabella got busy with the camera while I was feeding Aubrey.
We dropped off some empty glass jars for our friends to fill up with coconut oil. I finally remembered to bring them with me. After that we ran to the post office. I ran in by myself. It would be crazy to take everyone out at each small errand!
The library is right next to the post office. We had a ton of books to bring back. I am ever so thankful that our library has a cap on their fines!! Let's just say we exceeded the fine limit by a LOT!!
Isabella helping the boys pick out some books.
The boys love to fine dinosaur books.
Flannery unaware of my presence :-)
Finally heading into Walmart! Notice where Saoirse is.
With a big shopping we needed two carts. Note to other shoppers who have Walmart's that are remodeling. Do NOT get the two seater blue cart, like the one above, they do not fit in the narrow temporary isles.
Isabella needed some 'every day' shoes. We get all of our non food items first. With our "other" list being so long, we spent a large amount of time on the non food isles this time around.
One of our carts. I had Aubrey strapped to me in the baby carrier, which is why a lot of these pictures are not very clear. He's getting so big now, and wants to see all the action going on, which makes for one wiggly worm.
Our second cart.
Saoirse spent a long time under the cart! I was surprised as it was such a tight squeeze. She would get out and walk for a bit, then she would 'disappear'....making me freak out! Ha! I'd call out and wee little answer would come from below :-)
Stopping by the library first was an added bonus, as the boys had some new books to look through. That made it more fun to sit in the cart the whole time.
Isabella settled on these shoes.
As we were heading to the check out line, we ran into a family that we know. So we chit chatted for a bit. We loaded all the goods into the van. Er, wait, I mean Isabella loaded all the goods into the van. Aubrey needed to eat again :-) This is where I stopped taking pictures. We swung around to pick up our coconut oil. I had dropped off my jars, but the oil was solid. I told them that I needed to run some other errands and I would come back for it. The kids did very well with all of our errands. I had told them that if they were good they would get a donut after all our shopping was done. Well, with all the construction going on in Walmart, they didn't have any donuts. No biggie, I thought, there is a donut shop all of 1/4 mile up the road. We get there, get everyone out, and....they were closed!!! Oy! We still had to pick up some goat feed, so I figured that we could swing by another donut shop on the way there. Thankfully they were open. Unfortunately we will never be going back there again. They have a rule, which we found out *after* we had paid for our food (after waiting for quite a bit to be helped), sat down, got everyone their donut on a napkin and we had started eating. The rule? They do not allow outside dairy products to be brought into their store. To save money I brought along our own milk. The lady told us we would have to leave. LEAVE? Seriously? Let's just say that didn't sit ok with me. She could see that I was unhappy, and said that we could eat outside. Um, you mean in the 100 degree heat? With seven already hot and sweaty children (we don't have AC in our van so we were already sweltering)? So a warning to all you Krispy Kreme patrons, do not under any circumstance bring your own milk into the store. Hey, I wonder if they would have freaked out if I had started to nurse the baby...ha, ha, ha....it's a milk product after all :-)
We left the donut shop, tried to eat outside, which lasted all of 60 seconds before the bees found us. We hopped in the van and made our last stop for some goat feed. We got home and we all wanted to just crash. No wonder we were hungry earlier (before we got the donuts the kids were saying they were really hungry). It was 5:30 when we got home! By the time the groceries were brought in and put away it was about 6:45. Half way through putting the groceries away Jeremiah came home from work, and his shopping trip at BJ's. So we had a ton of stuff to put away. Thankfully I plan for a quick and easy dinner on these shopping days!
We had a busy week last week with Isabella volunteering at Runner's Camp. We were very blessed to be able to join her at a swimming party (just a get together of the teen volunteers). This week we have Moira's birthday, and her party this coming weekend. Other than that nothing else is on the calendar. I told the girls we have some big time cleaning to do in the next week or two. For every one's sanity we really do need to get rid of a lot of stuff around here. And for the stuff that remains we need some good containers or shelving. The shelving we have, but we may need to get some new containers. I really want to have some better habits before we start back up with school. The family dynamics always change when a new little one arrives. That is to be expected. But I think we've needed to overhaul some of our 'systems' for some time now. This time around I've been in prayer about it. Usually I just jump in and try to implement something...anything. That's not the best way :-) Lots more to write about, but I need to get off and hit the hay. I've been reading a great book, For the Children's Sake. Wonderful book, based on the Charlotte Mason educational philosophy. I'll share more later.
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