Saturday and Phillip's "Holiday" From Work

I tried to get as much off my list as I could done on Friday night but really did not make a significant dent in it. We were getting our taxes done and so by the time I picked up the kids and got home it was too late to start projects. Saturday on the other hand was a day of accomplishment with a couple of lows. The kids of course woke up at 7:30am as the fact that they can sleep in escapes them.  I went ahead and got a shower before Phillip left with Logan for the Lowe's build. After the shower Clark and I shared a bowl of cereal and then got ourselves ready to run some errands. Before leaving the house I moved all the stuff on the counter away from the stove and then put the self clean on. We hit up the farmer's market first but were disappointed that most of the usual farmers were not there. I know it is not prime produce season but the cheese guy and the baker were not there either. After leaving there we headed to Archie's Gardenland to check out the available plant selection. Archie's is locally owned and usually carries a lot of native plants, again the nice weather has me jumping the gun on a lot of things. The selection was not what I wanted so we left and headed to the next errand which was the gas station. After filling up we went by Target to get Nene and Mimi a Valentine card. I also picked up cards for the boys and a small toy for each. After leaving Target and heading to the library Clark fell asleep so I just dropped the books in the outside drop box and then went by the drive through at Whataburger and picked up a kid's meal for me. I headed back to the house to find that Phillip and Logan were home. Phillip was working on homework and Logan was playing outside. I was able to get Clark to stay asleep as I moved him to the bed. Once I had him in the bed and the few items I picked up at Target brought in I changed into work clothes and took Logan with me to the drop off station for some more mulch. We got back home and then rather than finish the area I originally picked the mulch up for I cleaned up another bed close to the house. I had to dig up a shrub that was not doing well and move a salvia to a better spot. After that Clark and I started moving mulch from the truck ( he woke up just before I was ready to get the mulch) to the back yard wheelbarrow full by wheelbarrow full.

By the time I got the 3rd wheelbarrow full back there I had filled in the new area Logan wanted to also "help". They did a better job this time helping but it is still extra work with the 2 of them versus me doing it by myself.

Once spring is really here we will look for some shade loving plants and fill in the bed.

I had 3 more wheelbarrows of mulch to move and that filled in the originally intended bed a bit more.

I intend to put a few plants in this area but keep it mostly for the kids to play in and for the clothesline. If I had not filled in the other bed I would have had enough mulch but such is my life. The free mulch from the city ended up being really expensive as I my phone fell out of my jeans pocket while I was in the truck bed shoveling. It hit the driveway and shattered the back. This is when I found out that the Samsung Galaxy S6 is glass on the back as well as the screen. When I took a break from the shoveling I went in to let Phillip know. He got in touch with the company that handles our phone insurance and they got a new phone shipped out right away to my work address. So after that was handled I went back to clean the bed of the truck and list our pond on my trade group. We need to redo our decking and have decided to take out the pond and enlarge the deck so we can eat outside when the weather is nice. I listed the pond form and fish in my trade group and found a taker pretty quickly. Forgot to mention earlier in the post that Logan had purchased me a bird feeder for Valentine's and so about this time is when he insisted we fill it and hang it out. It is in a temporary home to satisfy him while I think about a good permanent location for it. After all of this I went inside to take a shower and by then it was getting dark so the kids came in and got their baths. I wiped out the stove but had followed this pinterest tip to clean the burner pans. Because they were soaking I went with a dinner that did not require the use of the stove top. We had grilled ribs, black beans that I cooked in the microwave and salad.  Clark loves ribs and I could hardly get it off the bone fast enough to feed him. After dinner I put the rib bones in the slow cooker with some celery and carrots to start a beef stock. I was able to get the kitchen and living room mopped before Clark was just too sleepy and I put him to bed. Once he was in bed I loaded the dishwasher, put up the leftovers and did some laundry. After making Logan's bed I headed to bed myself and snuggled with him for a little while before taking him to bed. Sleep came fast but was broken several times by Clark waking up fussy. I have to say I was not a good mother and was pretty short with him when he woke up for the 4th time. We made it through the night though and slept until we absolutely had to get up and get ready for church.

Church was fun for the kiddos and busy for me trying to keep them for going crazy. Our usual lunch group all had plans so we headed to McDonald's with Mimi and Nene. After lunch we headed home and the kids immediately went outside to play. I used this time to sneak out and deliver this month's collected donation to our adopted family. I also headed to Winco to pick up a few items I had coupons on  and then came home to upload some of the items for rebates.

Winco Trip:
~1&3/4 lbs grapes
~2&1/2 lbs bananas
1 pint blueberries
2 pkgs taco seasoning
1 pkg tea bags
1 bottle w-sauce
2 cans low sodium black beans
2 cans refried beans
~1&3/4lbs bulk baking soda
Total: 9.71

By the time  I got all of this taken care of I went outside to check on the boys and Phillip who was pulling up the deck. The batteries on his power drills were going dead so it was not going as smooth as he hoped. While he struggled with that I went around to catch as many of the fish as I could. The person who had arranged to pick them up just wanted me to set them out on the front porch in a bucket so she could swing by the next morning and pick them up. I worked on catching some and cleaning some of the sludge out of the pond until it was getting close to dark and then headed inside. For dinner I used the leftover black beans and some flour tortillas with taco seasoned ground meat, grated cheese, lettuce and refried beans for tacos. After dinner and baths for some very dirty boys the plan was to get some cleaning done but again Clark was having a hard time staying awake. He went to sleep and I again loaded the dishwasher, cleaned out the stock and put it up. Laundry is an almost every day thing so more of that was worked on. Bed again was a relished time with Clark sleeping much better.

Monday Phillip was off work but I was not. I got up as soon as the alarm went off and headed outside to try to catch more fish as I hated the thought of any dying. It was dark and the latern I had was not really helping so I went ahead and headed in to get ready. After I managed to get another load of laundry on and everyone ready I headed out to catch more in the light. I was able to get most of them as they  were schooling up. Phillip went ahead and scheduled some appointments in the morning so I took Clark to the sitter and Logan to school. I again headed by Winco on the way to pick up Clark because a coworker had brought me more coupons.

Winco Trip:
1 box snack cakes ( was hungry)
1 tube chips ( again hungry)
1 Dublin Bottling Works cherry limeade
1 container salt
1 packet ranch dip mix
1 can ro-tel tomatoes
1 can black beans
2 cans pinto beans
1 can kidney beans
2 containers Nutella
 Total: $9.44
 
By the time I picked up Clark ( Logan had gone to the store with the sitter's husband and son to shop for suits) and headed home Phillip had completely disassembled the deck and put the board on the curb for bulk pick up as well as took the pond apart and dug up the form. He was in the middle of trying to hang a new light fixture when I arrived home but soon let it be until he had more alone time to work on it. I started dinner and about this time Larry (the sitter's husband) brought Logan home and so we sat down to dinner. I made taco soup using the leftover black beans and taco meat. I added a couple of cans of beans, frozen corn and a packet of ranch dressing mix and cooked it on the stove as I forgot to put it in the slow cooker that morning. While the boys were in the bath I scanned my items and uploaded the receipts for rebates. With all of this excitement we called it an early night.