Grocery Shopping

Well today was the day that I had to go grocery shopping. I really don't find much pleasure in it except when I see how much I saved. I am a sale + coupon junky and save big $$ because of that. Anyway, I had to take the kids with me today, which just adds another element to the whole experience. The kids are constantly asking "Mom can we get this?? Is it on sale??" Funny how they know that I don't usually buy anything that isn't on sale. Micah is getting good at looking for the yellow tags sticking out and then knows that it IS on sale and can ask for it. It is much cheaper to go by myself (the real culprit is Kevin though, b/c he doesn't even ask if we can buy it...) Halfway through the store I had to send Micah upfront to get us another cart. we were so loaded up already that things were spilling into the kids laps.

When I have the kids I have to shop with the cart that has a bench on it for two kids to sit on and even that huge bus was packed full. Micah being the helper that he is got the cart and started to unload "my" cart into "his". It was cute for about the first 30 sec, then I was getting impatient and wanted to keep moving. After we settled the cart issue, we headed on our way.

Micah being the boy that he is, thinks that pushing a cart is like driving a race car on the race track. He was flying up and down the aisles. I kept having to tell him to slow down and not run into people. The good thing is he didn't hit anyone (even though there was close call) and he had really good maneuvering capabilities.

After we piled all our food in, we headed off to the check out lines. I am always amazed that Meijers had about 30 check out lanes and only 3 are open. Unless I want to do the self check out ( with unlimited items....yeah right!) Thankfully we were walking past a lane that was just opening up and I quickly took position. Micah again was a big help by unloading everything. I felt sorry for the guy, b/c I normally try and put all the boxes together and frozen stuff together to help them bag. It didn't happen this time around. We finally get all check out (saved $148) and then we walked by the dreaded brown ride.

I know that when I was a kid I always asked for a pony ride too, I was just tired of being in the store for 2 hours (yes, 2 hours) and dealing with two carts...but how do you say "no" to a thrill that costs a penny? Being the softy that I am, all three of them got pony rides. Then it was out to the van.

There was a nice old lady that insisted that I have help getting all my groceries out to my van. The young man that was helping us insisted on loading the van too. It was really quite funny seeing his face as he was running out of room. The groceries were piled all the way up the back of the bench. Most of you know what kind of van I drive (a full sized van) and I was running out of room! So we ended up packing it upfront by me and behind the drivers seat too. Micah of course was helping through all of this. The greatest disappointment came when we had everything loaded up and Micah ran to grab the cart. He LOVES to push them as hard as he can into the cart racks (trying to get them to bang and make a really loud noise), the young man said that he would take them back into the store with him so Micah didn't need to "put them away". He was crushed. In his mind he just suffered through 2 hours of gruelling grocery shopping for nothing.

That was my afternoon/early evening in a nut shell. I don't have any pictures of the carts, although I should try and take a picture with my phone the next time. It really is quite a sight to see. Instead I will share a picture that I took the other day, of the three of them.

Okay, so my picture isn't loading up and I want to get to bed. I will post it tomorrow with a few more (if my computer works...having problems with it again).

Blessings!