Chagrinned

So one of our CD's came due this last weekend which means shopping spree right?
Just kidding, but we did need a few things. About a week ago I noticed that I was having a hard time getting Alisabeth's size 6 shoes on her feet, so I needed that, plus with winter coming I needed some long-sleeved shirts (because I have none that still fit her).
So I headed off to Walmart and Payless Shoes.
Walmart went swimmingly.
I got into the kids section and Alisabeth was running happily back and forth between the "giant" mini-mouse dolls and the other stuffed animals so I took the opportunity to call my mom and see if she wanted to get in on the shopping spree and buy some of Alisa's birthday and Christmas presents. As we talked I noticed that Alisabeth wasn't running around anymore so I start walking toward her last known location and hear "Where's your mom?" I hurry my steps and find a woman hurridly trying to untie some baloons. She tells me that my daughter had climbed on top of the clothing rack to reach the baloons and since she didn't know where I was she thought it safer to get them for her. I thanked her politely and tried to show that I wasn't one of "those" moms.
So we head off and continue getting a new coat for daddy and thermals for mommy and chalk, a new learning toy, new clothes, thermals, tights and a halloween basket for Alisabeth. Then we headed to payless.
I looked at the size sevens but I just had this nagging feeling that I should actually measure her feet before buying new shoes. (plus they had a buy one get one half-off sale). So I find a scale, put her foot down and think "No, I must be seeing this wrong"
The sales lady confirmed it. Alisabeth's feet are now officially a toddler size 8!! AHHHH!
I put the new tenni shoes on her feet and stood her up. You should have seen this kid happy as a lark "Bitsy's shoes, Bitsy's shoes" It was cool. I felt horrible and then we went home, trailing our baloons after us.
My other great event this week was again a shopping incident.
I actually printed off coupons, planned my budget and looked at the adds. Albertson's had some great deals so I headed their way. I bought a junk load of stuff.
As the lady was finishing up with me, they usually tell you how much money you saved . . . she said "You saved se. . . " then she stopped and double checked shook her head a little, raised her eyebrows and finished, "You saved $70.17." I was way excited. I'm getting better at shopping so that we're saving money and so that I'm aware of the price fluctuations. . . Hopefully one of these days we'll spend less than $250 a month :)

Jason also had a good week. He's been learning some great stuff in his parenting class and right now they're putting together case studies of "disfunctional families" that another group can analyze and see if they can determine the best way to fix it.
Jason's group is working on a family where the father is working about 60 hours a week so that they can living in a large house. The oldest son is beginning to look toward other sources of male models and so the first thing their group is going to talk about is the need to get the father figure back in the home. Whether that means they need to downsize on house size or on other spending so that he can work less and be available more. It sounds like a pretty interesting project and class.

Alisabeth is doing really well. She counted from 5 to 10 the other day with absolutely no prompting. I was overly proud of her. She is also using possessives and 3-4 word sentances. We're still working on using words instead of whining or grunting, but she's amazing. She recognizes over 100 different animals and objects (based on books and blocks and driving down the road) it's just so cool to watch her go.
Now if only the potty training were going as smoothly.