A beautiful day

We had a good day here in McStew-dom. It was a beautiful day -- about 83 at the highest and sunny with a lovely breeze. Just a near-perfect day, really.

Annalivia and Daniel and I were all up early, so we took advantage of our early rising and headed over to Clinton, IA to get groceries. Clinton is a nice 30 mile drive from us and, as I think I've mentioned before, it not only has a great grocery store with carts shaped like fire trucks, gas 30 cents cheaper than ours, and goat's milk at a much reduced price than we can find around here; it also has a drive thru coffee place that distributes punches on a card and after the 10th punch, the coffee drink is free. That is always our first stop in Clinton -- an iced latte for Mommy.

After that, we headed over to Target where I found TONS of clothes on clearance for $.98 - $1.98 each for both Annalivia and Daniel. I got Daniel a whole bunch of polo shirts in sizes all the way up to 5T figuring that he will wear them someday and if he only fits a size in the winter, he can wear them with a sweater over them, if necessary. I did the same thing before Easter at Walmart and got him a bunch of button-down oxfords and corduroy pants and blazers left over from Christmas. Of course, he has no 6-9 month clothes, but he's set once he moves into 2T.

When we got done at Target, we went to the grocery and got just a few things. Annalivia drove her fire truck and said "Hello," to pretty much anyone who looked at her or warned people to "Watch out!" as we were coming through. Every once in a while, someone would talk to her and get an explanation from her about how she had just gotten Dora underwear or that she was going to have a donut or that we were buying Daniel's milk. I like to let these conversations occur without much interpretation from me. Unless the target is a family member. It's more fun for me.

Since Annalivia had chosen to have great behavior at both places, we went to a park to eat our lunch. As we drove into the park, I was talking to my dad on the cell phone and Annalivia saw a bunch of kids playing on the equipment. She was yelling, "Hi, guys! I'm coming playing!" When I let her out of the van, I went to go get Daniel and turned around and Annalivia had run over to an enormous two-story spiral slide with a big sign on it that said, "Not for use by elementary children." She, of course, was climbing the stairs with kids behind her. So I didn't really hear the last part of the conversation with Dad because I was trying to figure out if she was going to make it or how in the heck I would rescue her, should she need it. She didn't. She slid down the slide with no fear and I caught her at the bottom and took her to the little kids' playground right next to the big slide. And she yelled at any children she saw to come and play with her. She's such a social child. I have no idea where she gets that! :)

Then we got back in the van and Annalivia fell asleep and Daniel woke up so I fed him and he and I went into a store together to use some merchandise credit to our advantage. Then when Annalivia woke up, we went to Walmart and got some more good deals on future clothes. Also, a 24-pack of Crayola crayons and a 2-stick package of Elmer's glue are 20 cents there! This is the time to stock up on Sunday School supplies, I guess.

So after that, we came home to drop off the groceries that had been in the cooler and since Daniel was still asleep, we went to Dixon to pick up The Message on cd that I ordered with my professional expense account from the local Christian bookstore. Which is not open on Mondays. So we went to my favorite bookstore, where I got another latte and Annalivia bought a Dora nighttime book and I ordered the Kathleen Norris Quotidian Mysteries book that I've been wanting to read.

We got home about 15 minutes before Dennis and Annalivia and I made some Eggplant Parmesan for dinner, which Dennis and I disliked, but Annalivia ate willingly. While it cooked, Annalivia and Dennis went out to his house to get pavers and after he bathed the kiddos, he dug a spot and set our grill on the pavers beside our deck. So now our deck has much more room on it. He's still out there doing miscellaneous projects now and Daniel has finally fallen asleep, so I'm going to do some picking up and take a shower and then try to read a bit. I've had plenty of espresso today, so I think I should be able to knock a couple chapters off of one of my many books. But maybe not.

Tomorrow my plan is to do a lot of baking early in the morning, since Dennis stopped to get eggs from his aunt today and I have all the necessary ingredients to make some whole grain baking mixes. I'm hoping to make some banana bread mixes, waffle/ pancake mix, and some zucchini bread mixes and then stick them in bags to be stored in the chest freezer. I also am hoping to make a whole bunch of blueberry waffles and freeze them and maybe some blueberry muffins, too. Blueberries were on sale this week. Can you tell?

And tomorrow, I think I'm going to start doing some intentional potty-training with Annalivia. She has some new Dora underwear and a Dora toilet seat (and a Dora outfit, for that matter), and she's very excited, so we're going to see how it goes.

So. That's our big day and there are our big plans. And now it's time to say, goodnight!