Does anyone agree.....

.....that if a store charges you too much for something (and you have to come back for them to correct it), you should get the item for free?  This has happened so much lately.  I'm diligent about checking my receipt as I'm walking out of a store, or as soon as I get to the car (I try to watch as items are being scanned, but that doesn't happen much now with two kids in tow!).  And now twice in the last four days, I've had to go back into the store to have money refunded to me.

On Sunday, we all went to Bed Bath and Beyond.  Two things were priced wrong (I found out as we were getting in the car): contact solution was marked $6.99 in the store (it rang up as $7.49), and a set of contact cases were marked $2.49 in the store (they rang up $3.99).  Dean stayed with the boys while I went inside and spent another seven or eight minutes with the lady.  She had to walk back to the aisle with me, verify their price, then refund the original items and charge me the correct price.  I only got back $2.22, so it seemed silly to go back for such little money.  But it would be ridiculous to let the store overcharge like that and get away with it!

Then today, Drew and I were leaving Target when I realized we were charged $3.99 each for two packages of ground beef that were marked on sale for $2.99.  It was only $2, but that was the whole reason I bought them....because they were each a dollar off!  So we waited in line at customer service, all to get the money back that I shouldn't have paid to begin with!    

And it's especially frustrating when you've got little kids.  It's not easy to take your kids back into a store once you've gotten in the car......and it just seems wrong to have to go through the time and trouble when the store wrongly charged me 25% too much to begin with.  A couple of times I've asked if I could get the item for free (when it's something cheap), and I've always been told that it's not their policy.  If it happens again at Target, I will probably demand to get the item for free (or else I'll just grab a donut for myself and the kids on the way out!).

My (itty bitty) little boy

Drew had his one year checkup yesterday.  Everything went okay......of course he didn't care much for the three shots he got, but he only cried for a minute.  His iron levels (which were a little low at 9 months) are still right outside the number that the doctor wants (although better than before), so we need to give him Polyvisol (with added iron) for the next few months. 

One first for our family: Drew is smaller than most kids his age!  He has actually lost 6 ounces since the last time I took him two weeks ago (when he had a diarrhea bug).  Yesterday he weighed 21 lbs, 13 oz, which puts him in the 31st percentile for boys his age.  It's weird to me to think that I have a small child (even though he's exactly average for height).  Grant has always been among the biggest (especially in height, and at least in the 60s for weight), and Drew has always been on the bigger end too....until now!  I looked back and saw that Grant weighed over 24 pounds at one year. 

Our doctor wasn't really concerned.....she said he'd probably just be smaller than Grant.  And I'm not really surprised.....Drew basically survived on Fruit Loops while we were in Orlando.  And sometimes I forget that Drew needs to eat more often than Grant does; I usually just feed them together, and sometimes I think Grant could go all day without telling me he's hungry.  So poor Drew probably doesn't get fed as often as Grant did at that age!

Pictures from Orlando tomorrow.....here's one of Drew on his birthday:

Home!

Actually, we got home last Wednesday......but it has taken me a while to get on the blog again.  Whew.....we had a good time (overall), and I'm glad we went (for the most part), but I would not recommend taking (almost) one and (almost) three year old kids to Disney World!  Grant enjoyed the plane ride more than anything else on our trip.  And our hotel.....he loved the hotel pool and our hotel room (he played with his cars and chased lizards on the patio every chance he got).

We had quite a few mishaps (Dean always reminds me that it's impossible for the Sloan family to take a smooth vacation!).  Dean came down with a stomach virus on our first night there.  On another day, he smacked his head on a metal bar while we were waiting to take pictures with the Little Einsteins.  On the last day, he said "the only way this vacation could be any worse for me is if I burst into flames.  And it's not over yet." 

But we did have a lot of fun too......I want to post some pictures but first here are a few of our high and low points:

Memorable (fun) moments:

• Grant loved the airplane ride, especially taking off and landing.  He kept looking out the window before we took off, saying, "there's another plane!"  And we did "pat pat pat" from Little Einsteins as we were taking off.  He screamed "BLAST OFF!" (actually he says it "flast off") just as we were leaving the ground.
• Like I said before, he loved the hotel, and the boys actually had so much fun playing with each other while we sat through our timeshare sales presentation.  They chased each other around the room, laid on top of each other and had a blast. 
• Grant thought everything was real at Disney World.  We walked into Mickey's house at Magic Kingdom, and we saw Mickey's bed, living room, etc.  I said, "I wonder where Mickey is," and Grant said, "Maybe Mickey's at work."  And we met Handy Manny and June (from Little Einsteins)....he gave June a hug and gave Manny high-fives.  When we stood in line to meet June he said, "this is cool."  I asked, "what's cool?" and he said, "June is cool."  
• On Monday morning, we went to Animal Kingdom.  We got there at 8:30am (it opens at 9am) and we were all set to be some of the first ones in the gate.  As we were walking to the gate, I couldn't believe all the people who were there so early.  Then we realized that Animal Kingdom was the designated early-opening park that day.....but only for Disney Resort guests.  How frustrating.....it seemed like I kept picking the wrong park every day.  There was a nice lady who explained it all to me, and she could tell how frustrated I was.  A few minutes later, she came back and told us she wanted to "make some magic" for us.  She let us in the gate right then, and even gave us a "go to the front of the line" pass for any ride in the park.  That totally redeemed the day for us!
• The last day at Epcot, Grant was on top of the world watching a toy train display in the Germany area.  There was a sidewalk that went basically right through it, so he watched the trains go under his feet, then come out on the other side of the sidewalk.  He and a "gang" of a few other kids (as we referred to them) were screaming and yelling at each other with excitement, running from one end of it to the other.  He did this for probably 30 minutes and could have stayed another 30.  And at one point, a real bunny rabbit was sitting right on the tracks.....the kids were all gathered waiting to see if the train was going to hit it.  Sure enough, just about 5 inches before it came, the bunny jumped away.  The kids all got SUCH a huge kick out of it.
• My favorite ride on the entire trip was Soarin'.....oh my goodness.....what an amazing ride.  I would have done it ten times in a row if I could have.  You're basically sitting in a gondola, and you get lifted into the air with an enormous IMAX screen in front of you.  On the screen are videos taken by a plane flying over all of these California scenes.....San Fransisco, the ocean, wine country, mountains.  It was just so exhilarating because you feel like you're actually flying through them.  Wow....I think this is my favorite all-time ride anywhere.  I can't wait to go back to Disney World just for this!!

Memorable (not-so-fun) moments:

• We had to sit on the airplane for an hour before even taking off from Houston.  Drew was ready to get down and play before we even took off!  Made for a long plane ride (although he did sleep for 30 minutes on the flight).
• We got in the rental car and were leaving the airport when Drew started crying quite a bit.  I looked for his blanky, and couldn't find it anywhere.  We figured we must have left it on the airplane.  This is a Little Giraffe blanky that was a present for Grant (he never used a lovey, but now Drew is super attached to that thing).  So we went to our hotel, then drove to a mall to buy a new one (Dean saw that Nordstrom sells Little Giraffe).  Drew was screaming in the car the entire way, and the only Little Giraffe blankys they sold were $42!!!  But what else could I do?  So I bought it (plus another cheaper one, in case we lost another) and Drew was calm again.  Then......on the way back towards the hotel, I was looking for something else.....I opened up a small pocket in one of our bags, and what do I find?  Drew's blanky.  Dean had stuck it in a random side pocket that I never thought to check.  Hey....at least now I can take back $70 worth of blankets to Nordstrom!
• Literally the night we got there, Dean's tummy started hurting.  He came with us to Magic Kingdom the next day, but he didn't feel well at all on Sunday.  We had planned on going to RC Sproul's church in Orlando that day, so we were disappointed about that.  I ended up taking the boys by myself to Hollywood Studios.  Probably a mistake.....they were both screaming in the stroller as we were walking into the park.  We survived for about 5 hours, but I was totally exhausted by the time we left.  Definitely not our best day.  
• I lost my cell phone on Big Thunder Mountain.....but that's not really a huge deal, because I've had it for a year and I went today and got a new one for free (after a mail-in-rebate).  It just kinda stinks losing pictures and all of those phone numbers!
• The day we left, we pulled into a gas station close to the airport to fill up our rental car.  There were no signs saying the price of gas.....and we didn't even think about it.  As soon as Dean started filling it up, he realized it was $4.49 a gallon.  But we were starting to run out of time and we didn't see another gas station as far as we could see.  I was so mad.....it was $2.59 near our hotel.  What a scam.....they don't even post the prices, which just seems so dirty.  NEVER go to a Suncoast Energy gas station!!
  

Drew is (almost) ONE!

Drew will be ONE next week! I maybe shouldn't be saying this on our blog, but we are actually celebrating his (and my) birthday by going to Disney World!  It was a good hotel deal that I couldn't pass up, even though we have to sit through a 2-hour timeshare presentation one day (although who knows....maybe they'll let us leave if the kids get annoying and disruptive enough!).

I never posted an 11-month update for Drew....I made some notes, but never transferred them to the blog. So here is his 11/12 month update (it is quite long but there's a lot I want to remember for myself!).  First, some pictures (most of the standing pictures were taken while he's walking):

• The BIGGEST news is that, for the past ten days, he's been letting go and taking steps on his own, without me setting him in front of me and encouraging him!  Now he does it at least once or twice every ten minutes while he's playing. It's so fun to see the excited/fearful/proud look on his face when he's standing there, arms out in front of him, taking tiny wavering steps forward. He still uses crawling as his main form of transportation, but he's walking more and more every day.
• I took him to the doctor on Monday for a diarrhea bug he has (picked it up from Grant, and my.....it has been bad. He was so fussy and inconsolable for a couple of days), and he weighed 22 lbs, 2 oz. We'll have to see at his official checkup where that falls in terms of percentages (although I'm guessing it's about average.....he's losing his baby chub pretty fast now!).
• He loves opening containers and putting things inside, then taking them back out again. He's going to be my organized one (Grant never did this, from what I can remember).
• He is attracted to anything plugged into the wall. So much for "baby-proofed" outlet covers....he pulls them right out, even the clear plastic ones (which are far better than those cream-colored ones.....what a complete joke!).
• He has an opinion and lets me know it! My goodness....he can already throw fits (which consist of crying and going limp for about 5 seconds). Usually this happens when I take him away from something he wants (the stairs, refrigerator, the treehouse fort in the backyard....he climbs up the ladder or slide to reach it). He's even hit me in the face a few times when he's not happy (at which point I immediately put him down on the floor and say "no hitting!").
• Pushing kitchen chairs across the floor is a great thrill to him, and he loves his Fisher Price doorway. That was probably the best $20 I ever spent!! I bought it at a resale shop and Grant loved it too!
• He's excited when he sees certain things on tv, like Little Einsteins and commercials with kitty cats. He's learned to "pat pat" on his lap when Rocket is about to blast off on Little Einsteins. He immediately starts patting when we first turn the show on.
• He has learned to back himself down off couches and stairs. He's got a good method, and finally I'm not freaking out every time he comes close to the edge of the couch (the stairs are a different story)!
• Now he has four teeth on top, and three on bottom (the 3rd just poked through, and the 4th is coming soon).
• It always looks like he has something in his mouth. Sometimes he does (today he ate a few pieces of stray cat food on the porch....yuck), but other times he's just chewing on his tongue in a weird way. When I ask him to say "aaahh" he does it. And if I ask, "what do you have in your mouth?" he'll also say "aaahhh" to prove that it's empty. By the way, it's always neat to me when my kids have started following commands....proof that they understand a lot of what I say!
  
• But....although he understands a lot, he doesn't say much. Not even mama. His only real words are (still) dada and kitty. He can say those on command. But I am not worried this time.....Grant was a late talker and he's absolutely fine now.
  
• He is a pesky little brother! Today he was sitting in the back of the double stroller (usually he's in front, being bothered by Grant). He kept standing up and grabbing Grant's hair! And he always wants to do what Grant's doing (coloring, play-doh, all those things that he's just not old enough to do!). I feel so bad for him because he just doesn't understand why Grant can do things that he can't.....

There are so many other things but that's enough for now.  I love my little guy so much.....I can't say that this year has been easy (especially the past seven or eight months).  And unfortunately, I remember so much less of Drew's first year than I do of Grant's.  With Grant, I could look back at a random picture and often could tell you what month it was, how old he was, etc.  I could even sometimes remember other things we did that day, before or after I took the picture.   But with Drew, I'll look back at pictures and not even remember taking them, period!  So sad for the second born kids! 

It's a completely different experience the second time around.  Grant was my little buddy, and it was simple enough to adjust our day to his nap schedule.  In a lot of ways, I could still do a lot of things I wanted to do (at least when he was a baby and didn't hate shopping yet!).  He was portable and it was easy to just go somewhere on the spur of the moment.  He took 30-min naps, which was frustrating in a way.  But it allowed us to leave the house and stay out for three or four hours, and I'd just drive around or sit in the car reading while he slept.

With your second, you just simply don't have as many choices as to how you spend your time, and when (and where) to go out.  It's logistically harder bringing twice as much stuff, getting two kids in and out of the car every place you stop, etc.  But also, now you have two nap schedules to consider, and you have to go places that are friendly to babies AND two-year-olds.  Trips to the mall usually have to be super fast.  Grocery stores aren't bad, because at least Grant gets cookies (which tend to occupy him for a while).  But running into the post office is treacherous.....it's those small errands that only take a few minutes that are the hardest.....it takes longer to get both kids out of their carseats (and back in) than it does to do what you need to do inside!  Scrapbook stores with both of them......not even an option!!

But of course it's worth it.....every day we do fun things that completely make up for the hard parts.  There's always something silly that the boys have done that I tell Dean about at night.  And it's the most amazing thing to see your kids interacting with each other and laughing at each other.  Now Grant is really enjoying Drew.....he gets super annoyed with him, but he thinks he's so funny too.  And he claps his hands and says "good job, Drew!" when Drew takes steps.  They're going to be good wrestling buddies and great friends.  Probably when I'm writing Drew's two-year update, they'll be such good buddies that neither of them will care to play with me or Dean anymore!!  :)

 

Evan's party

Two Saturdays ago (I'm still catching up), we drove to Austin for Evan's birthday party. It was at a little petting zoo, where you could ride horses and pet the animals. Grant takes after me in this respect.....he likes animals in theory, but don't ask him to get close !

I don't have many pictures of the party, but we went to Rob, Leah and Evan's house for a little while after the party (although we had to make sure we were home by 7pm for the Alabama/Virginia Tech game!). Grant and Evan had SO much fun playing together.....Evan shared his Cars toys and they had a blast chasing each other.

Grant always lines his cars up just like Evan is doing here at the table. I don't know if I'll ever understand why die cast cars are so enchanting to two and three-year-old boys (although the ones from Cars the movie are, in my opinion, much cooler than the normal hot wheels or matchbox racecars. Can you tell I'm a mom of boys?!).
We got all three boys sitting together for pictures. "Cheese" just doesn't work very well anymore.....so someone told the boys to say "Lightning McQueen." Then for the next few minutes, we were telling them to say every character we could think of from the movie. It was loud and crazy for a few minutes, but it made for some cute pictures (and now I know how to get Grant's attention when I want to get a photo of him):
Drew just has no clue what's going on......