A Weekend with Thomas and Granny

This past weekend my mom, aka Granny, came in for a visit. Savannah had a blast getting lots and lots of attention from her! They read books and played hard. On Saturday, in the pouring down rain, we met several friends in Spencer to see and ride Thomas the Train. It would have been much better had it not been so nasty out, but never the less, Savannah had a great time. Here are a few pictures from our weekend:

All aboard! Savannah with Anna Kate, Ethan, Jack, and Kailyn.

Here we are, in the rain, with Thomas!

Savannah loved pretending to fly the plane!

Unfortunately, after Savannah woke up from her nap Saturday afternoon she was running a high fever. Here is Granny reading another book with our little sick child. Thankfully by last night she was almost 100% and the fever is totally gone today! :)

Thanks mom for a great visit and for the yummy chicken pie. We are having it again tonight!!

A Good Reminder

Whatever ground you yield when your child is a preschooler is how much they take advantage of when they are a teenager. By then you have given up the ability to make them care about the consequences.

We are still struggling with learning how to handle an independent thinking, strong willed toddler. My precious friend Brandy gave me this little tidbit today and I wanted to share it on the blog as a reminder for myself not to give in too easily, even when it's hard!

Savings Galore

Well, let me start by sending out a huge thank you to everyone who e-mailed, commented on the blog, and most importantly prayed for Savannah's sleep issues. Although she's still not back to normal, our bedtimes (although much later) have gone easier the past two days and she is even taking a nap as I type this (which hasn't happened since Thursday)! Praise the Lord!

Now, as for the savings, the numbers are in!! After several trips to Harris Teeter I spent $41.26 ($35.57 if you subtract the rebate I'm due) and saved $207.80. I now officially have NO space left. Our extra freezer is jam packed as is our extra pantry, refrigerator, and freezer! I had to spend several hours reorganizing both the freezer and pantry just to fit everything in. It's safe to say that we could live off of what we have for at least 3 months getting only milk and produce at the store.

As for the consignment sale, I bought way too much stuff!! I have to say that 5 of the pairs of shoes were just to resale on eBay, but other than that you're looking at Savannah's Fall/Winter wardrobe! Pictured here is:

14 Dresses, 8 shirts, 6 pant outfits, 1 fleece vest, 1 sweater, 3 pairs of pants, 1 skirt, 2 sets of pajamas, tights, 7 pairs of shoes, a pair of boots, a Halloween costume, and a toy microwave all for $162.48. I think my little one is set!!

I just couldn't resist sharing this picture. Savannah's favorite piece by far was the ladybug Halloween costume which she tried on several times! Here she is trying to be like mommy, taking a picture of her loot!

We also enjoyed having Aunt Cherry here for the day on Sunday. See that mantle in the background of the picture? Well, thanks to some decorating tips from Cherry and a very generous gift from Charlotte One, it has been transformed with a new piece of artwork! You'll have to stop by to see the change. A huge thank you goes out to Aunt Cherry for taking her only day off to spend with us in Charlotte. After an exhausting afternoon of shopping she even cooked a gourmet meal for us. I told Dave not to get spoiled because even if I wanted to cook like her and had time, that is just one talent I don't have! She even made a homemade peach cobbler which I enjoyed for dinner last night (2 helpings) and am looking forward to after dinner again tonight! Yummy!!

On a sad note, we also found out this weekend that Charlotte at Play has closed down for good! Savannah is going to be SOOO sad when she finds out!! Thankfully they are honoring our memberships at Discovery Place, an uptown museum that although is much nicer it is also a much longer drive.

What Happened to My 8 to 8 Girl??

It all started night before last when Bible study was at our house. Dave tried to put Savannah to bed at her normal 8:00pm bedtime and she went crazy. She was screaming so loud that I had to go up and get her, which wasn't enough. She wanted to be IN Bible study, downstairs with me and the girls. Since I wanted everyone to be able to hear the video and not a toddler screaming, I gave in and let her sit downstairs for the Bible study. Afterwards, at around 10pm, she was still running around the house not even seeming to be tired. Even after we got her to bed she didn't sleep very well.

Then there was last night. We tried to get her in the bed a little later than normal, at 8:45 pm. I have to say that her reaction was very scary for us. She screamed so hard from the time we started the bedtime routine until we tried to put her in bed that she was almost hyperventilating. She kept saying over and over "I no like bed", "I no want bedtime." It honestly was very frightening. Her face was beet red, her hair was soaking wet with sweat, and every time we would try to put her in the bed she would arch her back and go stiff. This went on for over an hour of us trying to talk her into just staying in her room. I had the closet light on and told her that she could read books or play blocks in the bed, but she refused to be left in her room alone. At one point we even tried to gate the door, leaving it open, and leave the room with her in there. She was so upset and hit the gate so hard that she was able to knock it down! I could go on about the scene, but I think you get the picture.

We're not sure if she has a new fear of the bed, if it's the two bottom molars coming in that are affecting her, if she's just trying to change her "schedule", or if she needs to be limited to a 2 hour nap so she's more tired at night. Any advice or insight from my mommy friends???

A Weekend of Savings

Well, the totals aren't complete but here's where we are so far:

Trip 1: Spent $11.86, Saved $46.44
Trip 2: Spent $13.23, Saved $43.89
Trip 3: Spent $16.06, Saved $43.83

These purchases include my regular milk, produce, and $7 in meat that I needed for a product return tomorrow where they'll give me double my money back. So even though it doesn't appear to be the greatest of savings, I still have some returns to do and at least one more trip to make . . . and then there's the Sunday paper coupons. :)

However exciting triples are, the bigger savings will occur tomorrow night! It's time for the annual Matthews Consignment Sale and I can hardly wait. Thankfully I've been too busy to think much about it, but I'm sure I won't sleep much tonight. I'll definitely post my savings from that along with my final triples numbers on Sunday afternoon. Until then, happy shopping friends!

Hilton Head Vacation

We started our trip at EdVenture in Columbia, SC. It was free since they are a reciprocal museum to Charlotte at Play and boy was it fun! Here we are in the outdoor bubble exhibit. We were enclosing ourselves in a big bubble.

This picture is just for Pawpaw Page! Savannah loved dressing up like a firefighter and playing in the real firetruck. We also enjoyed milking a cow, picking peaches, grocery shopping, playing with blocks, etc, etc. She had a blast and played hard enough to need a long nap as we continued towards Hilton Head.

This is one of our first days on the beach. The weather was perfect and Savannah loved every second on the beach playing with all of her sand toys. Here she is resting with Dave after trying to catch birds for quite a long time. She kept lots of people entertained on the beach.

This is how we travelled to the beach each day. It was a little bike ride, but Savannah loved being in her cart. We spent a lot of time on these bikes this past week and only got caught out in the rain twice.

Here is one of those rain trips. We rode to the BiLo to get a newspaper. Look what Savannah decided to play with on the way home . . . our newspaper was soaked! Crazy girl.

Savannah was so prissy all week. She hated getting dirty, but thankfully she quickly learned how to "wash" her hands in the ocean water.

Putt Putt is much different with a toddler! She liked putting her ball IN the water better than hitting it with the putter.

These birds were beautiful! There were three of them right outside of Jake's Cargo shop at South Beach.

Here is Dave trying to help cool Savannah off at the Salty Dog Cafe. We are now all proud owners of Salty Dog Tshirts. Savannah loves hers and always points out the "salty dog".

We had a wonderful week! Thanks Mom and Dad Bachmann for giving us your week of vacation. We truly enjoyed lots of quality family time.

Thank You Harris Teeter!

After getting back from vacation one of the first things I wanted to do is sort through the sale papers and coupons. I quickly noticed that Harris Teeter had some awesome sales this week so Dave and I made two trips on Saturday and were quite pleased with our savings. However, after getting extra coupons from my two neighbors I did some careful planning and hit HT again today for two separate transactions. I got all of the above groceries for FREE and they even had to give me $1.23 back! They were as shocked as I was, but it really paid off to make an extra trip! In case you can't tell that's 21 items for FREE. Oh how I can hardly wait for triples this weekend!!!

She Did It!!

Last night I was in the kitchen and I heard Savannah making her usual nighttime poopy in her diaper (she was actually wearing a swim diaper because she was screaming to go swimming at the beach so we let her wear her bathing suit all afternoon). I quickly yelled in and asked her if she was going poopy and for the first time ever, she actually said yes. She normally says no and then hides in this one particular corner in the office to finish the job. That was probably way too much info . . . Anyway, I then asked her if she wanted to go on mommy's potty and she said yes. We rushed to the potty and she POOPED ON THE POTTY!!! She was so proud as she even got to use "paper towel", as she calls toilet paper, and then got to flush the potty. Afterwards, we practically threw a party for her. She got her reward of chocolate chips and loved them.

Now I know we're a long way from being potty trained, but this was a huge step in the Bachmann house!

Play Dough

Not too long ago when Dave and I first started teaching Sunday school to children at church we were told that we needed to MAKE the play dough that we used in class. They made it easy by providing the ingredients and the recipe, but it just seemed odd to me . . . to make play dough?! Well, today when I dropped Savannah off for school, the teacher had lots of ziploc bags at the door with a sign asking parents to make play dough. Thinking she was asking every parent to make it, I quickly took my bag and headed out the door. All the time thinking, what am I doing?? I have a million other things to do today and I just volunteered to make play dough! I started to return my bag of ingredients as she didn't need 12 volunteers, but decided that it might be a bit tacky. So, I turned it into a afternoon activity . . . with my little chef by my side we did it! I actually made play dough. Praise the Lord I was the one that picked up the RED request because that is the only food color that I had in the house!

Back To School!!!

I'm not sure who was more excited this morning, me or Savannah, that WEE school started again today. Although I have to say it's not the same dropping her off with teachers we're unfamiliar with, I'm sure she's going to have a great year. Here's to another fun year of learning. Dave had to leave really early this morning for work, but made sure to remind me to take this annual picture of Savannah on the bench outside of WEE school. It's amazing how much she's changed in just one year (see last year's picture 9/7/07 post).

Savannah's First Trip to Atlanta

On Friday we packed up and headed to Atlanta (or Hotlanta as my friend Marie calls it) for a visit with Grammy and Papa. Dave, his dad, and Brian had tickets to the Clemson game at the Georgia Dome so we decided to spend the weekend there as we had several birthdays to celebrate too. Savannah did awesome travelling and we didn't have to get the TV out even once on the way down or back!!
We arrived and were immediately greeted by Dave's old bouncy horse. I had been warned that this horse was coming back to Charlotte with us, and although I'm stilled not thrilled about having it here, Savannah LOVES it. Both she and her cousin, Alyssa, gave horsey a workout this weekend. Now he's in the middle of our living room and Savannah begs continuously to ride "horsey". She even kissed him good night twice tonight!



Here are the girls helping Grammy make blueberry pancakes Saturday morning. Notice Savannah is already wearing her Clemson colors. Grammy must have some magical powers in her garden because Savannah ate tomatoes right from the garden and then ate homemade pancakes. Way to try new things, Savannah!



Here are Savannah, Grammy and Papa at the park. We visited the nature center and then headed to two different parks to let the kids play. Savannah loved seeing the ducks although she was mad that she couldn't get "feet wet".



Can anyone say, "no more monkeys jumping on the bed"? Obviously the big loss for Clemson didn't upset these two as they had the time of their life. Alyssa and Savannah were great roomies this weekend. Savannah got a brand new air mattress with bumpers (a definite for travelling with a toddler as it easily deflates and is small to carry) and she loved sleeping in her new bed! Alyssa slept on the bed and Savannah in the floor. I heard them having many early morning "conversations".

We had such a fun weekend and enjoyed every minute of family time! Thanks Grammy and Papa for a great weekend! Now were back in CharHOTTE as our one year old air conditioner is broken . . . hopefully it's still under warranty!