Hello! I haven’t done a Rite Aid post in a while and just thought that I’d share (it’s not that I haven’t been shopping, I just haven’t really had time to chronicle my coupon adventures lately as we seem to be pretty busy… Ajax is napping right now, so instead of cleaning my house I’m kickin’ it on the couch updating my blog and watching Anthony Bourdain on the travel channel… he’s in Prague… so jealous).
Here’s what I scored!
Transaction #1 – purchased two bottles of Vit. D supplements at 9.99 a piece, out of pocket spent 3.99!
Transaction #2 – purchased two bottles of Energy supplements at 19.99 a piece and one pack of Huggies diapers at 8.99, out of pocket spent .49 cents! While neither Dave or I use energy supplements, they were free and allowed me to get the diapers for less than .50, basically tax.
I was upstairs and Ajax was standing at the gate yelling ma ma ma!
Today I had no plans and that was a good thing, because honestly I got absolutely nothing done. It was cold and overcast all day and I had no motivation, I didn’t do coupon stuffs, I didn’t do laundry, and I didn’t even clean my house (yes I admit it). So we hung around the house and played for most of the day.
Ajax is really into stacking things and kept lining up his little toys on the windowsill, but every now and then he’d smile and start banging his toy against the window. He now thinks that “no” is a game and that it’s pretty funny when mom or dad tell him “no.” I need to be more serious.
I believe I’ve mentioned before that little man is an incredible eater. He eats well at mealtime, but he also wants to try whatever you are eating too. Tonight Ajax got hungry at 5:30, dinner wasn’t ready yet as we usually eat at 6, so I took out some leftovers and made some quick veggies to fed Ajax first. Not only did he have some pasta and veggies, he also had some strawberries and milk. After his first dinner, he then proceeded to toddle between Dave and I to partake in our meal as well (which was meatloaf, rice, and veggies). I was just shocked as I thought certainly he cannot still be hungry?
It’s pretty funny, but whenever you are eating something, he has to try it. For example, Ajax hates eggs, but the other day Dave was eating hard boiled eggs and guess who had to have some? Ajax then had to have some of my deviled eggs and I know the kid dislikes eggs and mayo, so right, go figure.
Sunday night my mom stopped by to visit and watched Ajax for a bit while I wrapped up some late night cooking. I found this meatball recipe that is absolutely excellent. Since I had some extra beef (thank you Dara and Rod), I decided to triple the recipe and freeze some for future dinners. The first time I made these I used ground chicken and I think I actually liked the chicken more so than the beef, but that was just me.
Ingredients
1 pound extra lean ground beef
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 small onion, diced
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1 1/2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
3/4 teaspoon dried oregano
3/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (I used just a dash so that it wasn’t too much for the nino)
1 dash hot pepper sauce (such as Frank’s RedHot®), or to taste
1 1/2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1/3 cup skim milk
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs
Directions
Preheat an oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
Place the beef into a mixing bowl, and season with salt, onion, garlic salt, Italian seasoning, oregano, red pepper flakes, hot pepper sauce, and Worcestershire sauce; mix well. Add the milk, Parmesan cheese, and bread crumbs. Mix until evenly blended, then form into 1 1/2-inch meatballs, and place onto a baking sheet.
Bake in the preheated oven until no longer pink in the center, 20 to 25 minutes.
Ajax eating his meatball nirvana with peas.
Ajax actually ate a little bit of the meatball, which was surprising as he’s not too fond of beef yet.
Today Dave had an eye appointment in Chelsea, MI. Since the appointment was with my dad’s cousin, I took the day off as well to accompany him. As Dave and I were both off, we thought Ajax should come too. Dave’s appointment was at 9:30 and we left the house at 8:15 and made it there just in time as the weather was cold, rainy, and there were a ton of accidents. The appointment went well and the Doc ordered one more test to see if Dave is eligible for lasik surgery. We were there until 11 and honestly Ajax did wonderful. He was well behaved with only a few minor yelling moments, overall we couldn’t have asked more from him.
After leaving the Doctor’s office we headed into downtown Chelsea, which is just the cutest little town ever, to find something to eat. Now as a young family we were on the hunt for a Coney Island, Big Boy, or some other generic family-friendly place where we wouldn’t be horrified if Ajax lost all patience and started screaming. As we were cruising through the little downtown area, however, we saw no generic restaurants, so we settled on a place called The Common Grill, which we thought would be a quick little sandwich shop.
The Grill opened at 11 and we walked in at 11:02; as the doors had just opened, we were the first ones there. We could tell immediately that this was definitely a step above the sandwich shop we had envisioned. The James Beard Award on the wall was certainly a clue. We thought what the heck, we’re the only ones here.
Not only did we have an excellent lunch, but we also had an awesome waiter. The waiter’s name was Gill and he actually took Ajax so that I could eat my lunch. Now, before having a nino I didn’t think I would be the person to hand my child off to a complete stranger so that I could eat, but today I had no issue passing Ajax along so that Gill could walk him all over the restaurant, meeting the other patrons who had trickled in and the rest of the wait staff. Gill also took him in the kitchen to meet the cooks and Ajax was happy to meet the new people. For lunch Ajax tried some white fish and dried cranberries, which he seemed to enjoy.
After lunch we headed over to the Chelsea Teddy Bear Factory and let Ajax pick out a bear. He kept picking up stuffed animals and hugging them. He would also try and grab several at once to hug them, which was pretty funny. Overall it turned it a very fun family day and right now I’m just hoping that the weather warms up so that Ajax can play a little outside after his nap.
Ajax kept petting this giant bear at the Factory.Ajax with his bear.Giving his bear hugs.
So there’s a small problem that neither Dave nor I foresaw when we set up the play-scape outside. The issue is that Ajax can clearly see it every time we go in or out of the house. This evening when Dave was carrying him into the house Ajax lunged toward his peddle car and then his play area. He then made a desperate, though futile attempt to get out of Dave’s arms in the hopes of reaching his toys. Ajax thinks it’s play time all the time, and this I think is going to be an issue as the weather turns progressively warmer. We may have to move the toys behind the garage sooner than we thought.
We love putting hats on Ajax.Playing outside.Silly boy.Ajax will actually go down the slide himself, but needs help on the landing.
So when I came home with 16 boxes of pasta the other night, Dave said – I think we need another shelf for the basement. We spent a lot of time this past weekend organizing and consolidating, which I’m not going to lie was a ridiculous amount of work, but I’m so proud of what we accomplished.
This is our nonfood storage.As you can see we added some more shelves! Yea!As you can see I need to work on stockpiling our food stuffs, I'm working on it!
I just thought this was a cute pic- because now really, there is no doubt who runs this house. It’s the nino. It’s his house, Dave and I just live here.
Dave put together one of Ajax’s birthday gifts, one of those little peddle cars. Ajax loves it. I mean loves it. He sat in that car while Dave and I took turns pushing him up and down the driveway. Now, I don’t mean that we did this once or twice, we’re talking a couple hours here. Then I couldn’t get him out of the car, he just didn’t want to let it go. Once he was out, then he wanted to push it up and down the driveway, lol. We have a pretty long driveway so this tired everyone out pretty darn quick.
In case our neighbors had any question as to whether or not there was a nino living in our home, we have now removed all doubt. A dear friend gave us two Little Tikes playground sets and today was nice enough for Dave to clean them up (as they have been sitting next to our garage all winter) and set them up. Thank you Carol!
Currently they are set up next to our garage, but over the course of the summer they may move farther back behind the garage near the (future) garden… we shall see. Ajax of course thought this was just the greatest thing ever as he now has a playground in his backyard. He kept wanting to go up and down the slide. He also wanted to explore the tunnel portion of the play area, but was just a little to nervous about the whole thing. Ajax is a pretty cautious little man, which certainly is not a bad thing now that he’s getting more and more adventurous.
It was warm and sunny today and we spent the majority of the day outside.The kid loves slides.Ajax so wanted to go through the tunnel.And trying to climb up the slide.
