Much, Much Fun

I'm almost afraid to brag about this, but yesterday just as my student arrived for tutoring Savannah woke up from her nap, screaming. I just knew that meant she was going to sit in front of the TV for an hour while I tutored, but amazingly enough, she played in the living room the entire time and never once even came to bother me or ask for the TV to be turned on.

I decided to test my luck again today when she had her best buddy Jack over to play. They immediately started playing in the living room and so I left them to do some work on the computer. I heard many laughs and "conversations" so I knew that they were safe and having a swell time. This is a picture of what I found when I went to give them a snack. Before becoming a mom this would be a disaster, now it just means that two toddlers have had a blast! I'm thoroughly enjoying Savannah's new found independence and am learning to deal with the mess.

"Nap" Time

For the past few days after putting Savannah down for her nap at 2:00 she has talked, played, read, etc. for about an hour before finally going to sleep. Today I finally decided that is just her own way of having some quality room time . . . and that it's okay if her room looks like a tornado hit when I go to get her up from her nap. So when the noise finally ceased this afternoon, just a few minutes ago, I went upstairs to check the monitor and didn't see her in the bed. I quickly went in the room and found her sound asleep. I couldn't see her because she was hidden by her big blue princess chair (that I'm sure she sat in for quite some time IN the bed). Along with the chair in the bed there were about 8 books, her entire play jewelry box dumped out, the womb bear that was beating as loud as it would go, and a few other nice stuffed animal "fiends". I ran for the camera and laughed, what else would a mom do?!

If It's Still Working . . .

Then don't change it! So I sat down last night and really tried to reorganize my coupons into the new binder. After getting all of the separaters and blank baseball card holders inserted, I realized that the slots just weren't big enough. So, I trekked back to Staples at 8pm last night (with every other mom in Charlotte) and exchanged the baseball card holders for diskette holders. These were $1+ per page so I wasn't exactly thrilled about buying over $20 of them. Anyway, long story short, I came home and started trying to reorganize the coupons into the slots and well, this just isn't going to work for me.

Dave looks over beside me on the sofa and says "You're just an old fogey, not wanting to change." After realizing that wasn't very nice he explained that he could call me old because he was even older. . . okay, point taken. So for now it's back to the trusty, old, worn, but faithful coupon organizer.

A Little This and That

The rain has finally come! Thank you Lord! We've already lost a few more plants because I can't seem to water them enough. Hopefully this extra rain will bring them back to life. Although it's quite inconvenient to deal with such rainy days, I'm very thankful for the rain. We had to cancel a playdate at the park today, but that just freed up some time to venture out to do some errands . . . and of course an hour at Charlotte at Play for Savannah.

We started at the mall where I bought Savannah two new pairs of shoes (Stride Rite B1G1 half off), then ventured to Victoria Secret (free panty coupon), next we went to New York and Company (huge sale + 30% coupon + gift card, thanks to Dave's parents). Then we made yet another trip to REI for some Crocs. They are having a huge summer sale and I've been twice to buy shoes for Savannah, gifts, and of course to eBay!

Then we headed to Charlotte at Play. I couldn't believe my eyes when we arrived and there was a huge sign on the door saying that they were on "wait list"! Are you kidding? By this time Savannah was practically chanting "char at pay" so after circling the building twice trying to find a place to park we finally made it inside. Thankfully we only had to wait a few minutes and then they let us in.

After that we made yet another stop for errands at the Arboretum. We hit Rite Aid, Bath and Body Works, and of course Wal-Mart. Now I finally have all of the supplies needed to reorganize my coupons into a 3 ring binder. I'll post before and after pictures. It makes me a little nervous to let go of my trusty coupon organizer, but it seems to be the newest trend (Donna, Nancy, Kristin, Melissa) so I'm going to give it a whirl.

One final thing . . . we were in Chick fil A over the weekend and they had flyers posted advertising their Raving Fan Week. Who doesn't love CFA, especially when it's FREE?! Be sure to stop by the Arboretum for some yummy free chicken next week. Here are the details:

Monday 9/1 (10am - 10 pm) FREE 3 count chicken strips for customers in football attire ~(12pm - 2pm) sampling milkshakes, CFA prize drawings, coupon wheel, etc

Wednesday 9/3 (6am - 7am) FREE chicken biscuit ~ (7am - 8 am) FREE chick n mini ~ (11:30am - 1:30pm) sample chicken salad sandwiches and get a FREE coupon ~ (3pm - 4pm) FREE milkshake to first 100 customers to arrive at 3pm dining in

There's more for Thursday and Friday too, but I'm too lazy to type it all!

As Jo Dee Messina would say, Bring on the Rain!

Bye, Bye Broom!

This is my newest favorite item! When searching online for rebates and coupons I came across a rebate to try this new swiffer for FREE! Now I have used swiffer dusters in the past and honestly haven't been that impressed, but this new and improved vac is awesome! It not only has the swiffer component picking up hair, dust, lint, etc but it also has a vacuum built in! I have used it several times after dinner and it has made cleaning the kitchen floor much more manageable. See you later broom and dust pan!

As for happenings around the Bachmann house, we've been staying busy these last few days before school and tutoring starts again. Savannah is loving her My Gym class on Mondays and now that she is well again we're back into the routine of going to aerobics at church too. We spent today at the pool with one of Savannah's (and mine) favorite people and tomorrow we have a play date planned for the park! Thursday is the open house at WEE school. It's always hopping around here!

Turning the Big 3-0

If you have the cake why not celebrate early?!

Riding the lazy river at Ray's Splash Planet

Off to a birthday dinner!

My birthday celebration started a day early as Dave arrived home with tons of balloons. After one of our free birthday dinners, we picked up the icecream cake early and of course cut it when we got home. Savannah was so cute as she sang happy birthday to me before getting her piece of birthday cake. I have it on video, but can't seem to figure out how to load it onto the blog. :( Anyway, it was a super night to start the celebration.

On Wednesday Dave took the day off and surprised me with breakfast in bed. Savannah also surprised us by sleeping almost until 9:00!!! When we finally got her up we headed to Ray's Splash Planet for the morning. It was pretty icky outside so what better way to spend a morning?! Then we had lunch at our favorite Chick fil A and headed home to open all of the birthday cards. One of my favorite things to do is grocery shop, so Dave gladly tagged along yesterday as we did our normal Harris Teeter run. When we finally got home we put Savannah down for a nap and she must have been worn out as we had to wake her up at 6pm to go to dinner. After dinner I opened gifts and had more cake. Yummy!

So far thirty isn't that bad . . . what's bad is the awful feeling I have today as I've eaten WAY too much in the past two days. The diet starts again today! As I've said all along, if you already feel old, then the number doesn't matter so bring on 30 and all the fun awaiting me!

A Fun Filled Saturday in Burlington

Dave and I learned the hard way that we should not tell Savannah in advance of any fun filled days . . . from Friday night when we told her that we were going to ride a train tomorrow with Pawpaw until we finally arrived at the park on Saturday morning, all we heard was "I ride choo choo". She actually cried, screamed, and kicked the last hour of the trip to Burlington she was so ready to ride the train. Whew. It was a long trip, but super fun once we finally arrived!!

We rode the train (only once because the loud whistle scared her to death) and then the kids all rode in a truck, carousel, helicopter and even a boat! What a perfect park for kids this age. There wasn't one thing there that they couldn't ride. After riding everything once Deborah had packed quite a spread of a picnic. There were all kinds of sandwiches to choose from, chips, tons of fruit, and even a birthday cake for me and Denny! After lunch we headed back for some more rides and finally left around 2:00.

Then we headed over to Granny's house to visit with her before heading back to Charlotte. They picked some fresh flowers, played in the garden, and even caught a bumble bee. Savannah had a blast all day and totally crashed once we were on the road home.

Discovery Place Playdate

Exploring Air Currents

Playing in the car with Jack

Riding the train with Caleb

Today we ventured uptown on the light rail or "choo choo" as Savannah called it to play at Discovery Place. My friend Jessica organized the playdate and lots of friends from church were able to come with their children. We experimented with levers, saw a huge dinosaur exhibit, played in the children's museum with water, watched fish in the aquarium, and ran around the place for a few hours. Savannah is very hard to keep up with as she has her own mind and does her own thing . . . wonder where she gets that?!

Quiet = Mess

Maybe one day I'll learn that when my sweet little girl is quiet and the TV is off, then she is most definitely making a huge mess. Today I was trying to type my mystery shop from this morning and I knew that Savannah was in the living room. Thinking that there is very little she could destroy in there, I left her be. This is what I found . . . every DVD she could get her hands on out of the case and tons of Dave's alphabetized CDs out of their proper case and put into different cases. As I went to sort through the rubble we had a brief conversation about how she had made a big mess and then the phone rang. Well you guessed it, she made another big mess while I was on the phone. As I was talking I heard her dump 100+ pieces of play food on the office floor. Thankfully now she is quiet and sleeping!

25 Random Things About Me

Okay, this seems to be the new blogging thing to do so here we go. 25 Random things about me that you could probably live without knowing!


1) I currently hold a NC Life and Health Insurance license. It was awful going through the class and state exam, but I did it and am determined to keep the continuing education credits current!


2) I have been in at least 6 car accidents, probably more that I can't remember. Two cars of mine have been totaled!


3) I love multitasking. It makes me happy to have the dishwasher and washing machine running while I'm sending an e-mail!


4) I was offered my teaching job after just talking with the principal. I had not applied or even given her a resume!


5) I worked as a bank teller for 8 years during college and in the summers while teaching.


6) Before Savannah, I wanted 3 kids . . . now I'm still trying to convince myself that I can possibly handle two!


7) Dave and I met and were married at our current church, Carmel Baptist.


8) I get a huge rush over saving money, especially at the grocery store. To date we've averaged $48/week on groceries for our family of 3!


9) The Math Counts team that I coached the year I was pregnant made it to state level competition after coming in first in the region . . . I had a way of making those kids LOVE math as much as I did.


10) I seem to have this gift of dreaming people are pregnant before they know it or right after they find out. I'll let you know if I have a dream!


11) I despise cooking. Partly because it makes a mess in the kitchen, but mostly because I'm just plain bad at it and have no creativity. Thankfully Dave isn't a picky eater!


12) I was forced to take piano lessons as a child and hated every second of it.


13) When I was a freshman in high school my geometry teacher paid me to grade all of her final exams over my Christmas break.


14) I also despise the dentist. I would rather go for a full physical with blood work than go to the dentist!


15) I never drink coffee or tea. YUCK!


16) I loved Appalachian so much that I decided to stay for graduate school. I crammed my Masters degree into one year and one summer while working 20+ hours at BB&T and a 20 hour assistantship each week. (There's the multi tasking ability again.)


17) I survived four years of college without a computer of my own. My mom bought me one when I started graduate school.


18) Some of my fondest childhood memories are spending Friday night at Grandma and Pawpaw Page's house watching the race cars go up the road to the Friday night race and then watching Hee Haw on TV while eating saltine crackers and peanut butter.


19) I love family reunions! What a great tradition and fun way to catch up with family members.


20) I would love to take shag lessons someday.


21) Until recently, I could not swim.


22) I work out 6 days a week and hate most of it! I do it to stay "healthy".


23) I have zero creativity and hate making decisions of any kind!


24) I never wanted to live in a big city. Just the thought of having to get on a highway to get anywhere scared me to death . . . look how things changed!


25) I live with a to do list! I always have at least one list of things to do and constantly cross things off after I do them. It makes me feel good to mark things off the list. I've learned that Dave hates lists. I also have two calendars to make sure I don't miss or forget something important.

My Gym

Thanks to a very generous gift from Deborah and Pawpaw we started our My Gym classes today. I have been wanting to get Savannah enrolled for a few months, but between swimming lessons and everything else it just hasn't happened. So, after mentioning it to Pawpaw and Deborah they mailed us a check to cover several months of classes! Savannah had a BLAST today. She loved the playing in the ball pit, jumping on the trampoline, swinging, sliding, and climbing lots of ladders. Hopefully this will improve her balance skills along with helping with her shyness around strangers. I am so excited to get her started. What great mommy and daughter time too. It just happened that her best buddy, Jack, is in the same class so that is an extra special treat! This is the only picture I got that wasn't blurry . . . she was on the move today! :)

Sunday School

Growing up I don't really remember much about going to Sunday school. I know that I went, but as far as the details and Bible stories, I think it was much later in life that I really started learning and understanding biblical things. Anyway, I have known for awhile that Savannah's experience would be vastly different than mine. She already LOVES going to church and is learning tons, even at the age of two. I am so thankful to be part of a church that loves and nurtures children from the youngest ages to know that God loves them. So today as we're leaving church I asked Savannah what she learned, as I do every Sunday. Most Sundays she says her normal one word answer . . . anything from "God" to "church". Today, however, was a different story. When we finally got in the car and I again asked Savannah what she learned in church today she said "Jesus loves me!" I could feel the tears coming as my heart swelled up with pride. Yes, Savannah, Jesus does love you.

I am so thankful for Ms. Teresa who faithfully teaches Savannah in Sunday school every single Sunday. It's sad to even think that in just three weeks Savannah will be moved out of her class; what a blessing she has been!