I have been desperately searching for inexpensive baby leg warmers for my 2 year old.  These are very popular with those “trendy” moms out there and several people recommended I get a couple of pairs to help with the potty training.  Once I got the concept, it made total sense.  It’s too cold in our house for him to walk around pantsless so he needs some sort of covering, but it’s so much easier if he doesn’t have pants on to teach him to potty.  See the dilemma?

So these little leg warmers cover him up, but keep the pertinent potty parts much more accessible.  But it’s hard to find them for boys at a reasonable price.  I’m sorry, I can’t afford to pay $10+ a pair right now!  Then someone directed me to babySNAZZ where I found some on sale and got a couple of pairs at a *very* good price.  And then I saw that they are also running a contest to award 20 pairs of these things!  I could get more for him to wear while he potty learns, as well as some for Violet to keep her warm in what I fear will be a very rough winter and later protect herr little legs while she learns to crawl.  Serriously, these things are very cool.

So I entered the contest and want to share the link here.  Not only because it’s a good contest, but because I also get bonus entries for posting it.  So if you win after finding it here, I’d love a couple of pairs for my little ones.

http://www.babysnazz.com/contest/

If you’re in Sanford, you’ve probably seen one of these DVD rental machines…there’s one in Lowe’s Foods, one at super Walmart and a couple in gas stations.  We decided to try it out tonight, and other than being sold out of the movies we had at the top of our list to see, it was really easy!  I reserved it online, my husband left immediately for the grocery store (5 minutes away) and it was all ready to go.  You can get a promo code if you sign up on their website (www.redbox.com) for a free rental.  They’re only $1/night so if you’re like us and rarely rent movies it seems like a really good deal.  I dropped Netflix a few months ago because we just weren’t using it anymore and I thought this would be a good substitute!  Since there are no movie rental places on our end of town (that I know of, anyway) this is very convenient and super easy.

Has anyone tried it already?  What did you think???

Saturday night, as my husband and I were strolling aimlessly through Gatlinburg and trying not to miss our kids (yes, we’re lame…we get 24 hours away from them and that’s all we think about!) we decided to buy each of them a small gift. My youngest was easy…we found a sippy cup with his name on it. We couldn’t find anything personalized with my oldest son’s name, at least nothing he would want. So we bought the sippy for my toddler and headed to another store where we encountered a huge selection of Webkinz. I’d heard about them from friends of kids his age, so I knew what they were. He had never mentioned them so I wasn’t sure if it was a “girl” thing or if he had friends with them or anything. But last week at a b-day party for a classmate, one of the gifts was a Webkinz and it seemed like they were all excited over it so I figured it was just a matter of time before Webkinz mania hit our house.

So here we were, faced with this Webkinz display. After much debate, we chose the black bear (Since black bears, both real and fake are all over the Smoky Mtns) and paid for our purchase. Today we finally had the time to sit down and register his new Webkinz friend at the website and were introduced to the entire Webkinz world. We had fun outfitting his bear’s house, buying food, dressing it, etc. It looks like a fun little site. And this gives us an easy “collectible” type item to tell people if they ask what he wants for b-day or Christmas!

Thursday morning we loaded up the minivan and hit the road for a mini-cation. It had been planned shortly before the job loss happened and we were unable to get our money back on the hotel. So we decided that it was better to take the trip and enjoy ourselves for a few days rather than lose the $300 we’d already paid. We headed to Gatlinburg, the incredibly trashy mountain tourist destination. (Myrtle Beach is the incredibly trashy beach tourist destination.) I do so enjoy embracing my trashy side once in a while…

Anyway, we spent basically the entire day taking our time in getting there. We drove through Cherokee and resisted stopping at the casino to take our shot at the jackpot. It was a really enjoyable drive. I loved that the street signs in Cherokee had the road names translated into the native language. I’d been there before but either didn’t notice it then or this is a relatively new feature. We talked to the boys about Sequoyah and other Cherokee history. Not sure how much they really listened, but I felt like it was good stuff to talk about while we had them held captive in their car seats.

We finally arrived at our hotel (Glenstone Lodge…great place to stay!) around dinner time and after unloading, we walked down to the “strip” and explored for a while. Had dinner at a nice little sandwich place and returned to the hotel. On Friday morning, we got up and headed to the hotel where my in-laws were waiting to spend the day with us. They had (of course!) many treats to spoil the boys with.

We walked around the area and my FIL insisted on lunch at Bennett’s, which is just OK. Typical chain restaurant food, IMO. Plus it’s got the whole “Tennessee BBQ” thing going on and we know how I feel about that. He also really wanted to eat dinner at Texas Roadhouse, which I just could not get behind. As much as I think Gatlinburg is a trashy tourist destination, there are some *really* good local places to eat and I hated the idea of eating somewhere that I could eat at here (well, surrounding area) anytime I wanted. So we went to Flying Horse Grill down in Pigeon Forge and it was really good…though that opinion was not shared by everyone in our party. I think the lone dissenter was just a case of sour grapes, though.

Saturday morning we got up and took the kids to stay with my mom in Knoxville. On the way back, we did some shopping because my maternity clothing situation was getting desperate. (Actually, it still is…if you know of anyone with maternity clothes they no longer need, I would LOVE to have them. I’m what’s euphemistically known as a “special size” so it’s hard to find things second-hand that fit. If you think you may be able to help out, please leave me a comment or shoot me an email. I’m happy to return anything you want back once I’m done!) I managed to get a couple of things that were marked way down, so that was helpful. We then returned to our hotel to rest a bit before our big dinner out sans children. We ate at Calhoun’s and had a delicious meal courtesy of the gift card my brother and his wife had given us at Christmas.

Sunday morning we headed back to Knoxville to pick up the kids and have a small family lunch/b-day party for my youngest. We got back on the road around 4:00 and finally made it home around 11PM last night. It took so long because we took a very long detour in Hickory to find a Backyard Burgers because I’ve had *major* cravings. I adore my husband because he was very patient through the entire ordeal…though I could tell he thought it was a wild goose chase. Still, we eventually found it and I indulged in a lemon chicken sandwich and some chili cheese fries. Just what this pregnant girl needed!

My husband chose a local chain steakhouse for his Father’s Day Dinner. I’m not really up to cooking right now and he wanted a steak. Since we didn’t have a babysitter lined up, we chose a place that is “family friendly” despite the fact that the service is typically dreadful. It’s Father’s Day after all, and we wanted to include the kids. We’ll call this place “Tumbleweed.”

We got to “Tumbleweed” and as soon as we walked through the door the smell of cigarettes assaults us. I don’t think I’ve mentioned the fact that my oldest son has asthma and one of his major triggers is cigarette smoke. Also, I hate the smell of it and since I’m pregnant, smells are a million times worse. It makes me incredibly nauseous. We told them how many in our party and asked for a seat “far away from smoking.” They first take us to a table that is only feet from the bar, where the cigarette smell is still really overpowering. I’m already trying not to throw up and this is NOT going to work. So they take us to another table which is still close to the bar but at least far enough away that I’m no longer gagging.

We sit down and wait what seems forever to get our drink order taken. There aren’t a lot of people here so I am not quite sure why things are taking so long. It takes forever to get our drinks, and another eternity to place our food order. Meanwhile we’ve all drained our glasses and there’s no sign of our server with refills. We have waited quite a while for our food and I mention that it will probably come out cold. Guess what? When it finally did…not only was the order wrong, but it WAS cold. Finally someone comes by and asks us if it’s OK. Um, no. I did not wait 30+ minutes for cold food. So they take it back. Apparently they tossed it in the microwave for about 10 seconds because we get the same food back and guess what? Still cold. Screw it. I’m hungry and not in the mood. I ordered my *very expensive* filet medium. It was rare, even after tossing it back in the microwave. My sweet potato wasn’t even warm enough to melt the butter in it. I never got the steak sauce I asked for and we sat with empty glasses for most of the meal.

Perhaps my view is colored by the fact that my dad was in the restaurant business for many, many years. And though he was in fast food (Director of Operations for a sizable regional franchise) the concept for a sit down restaurant should be the same…good food and good service are key. If you can’t satisfy the customer, you comp their food, or offer a free dessert, or do SOMETHING in the way of an apology to try and keep their business. We got nothing. Not even an apology…an “I’m so sorry! I didn’t realize the food was up!” or anything would have been better than the big fat nothing we got. We spent a lot of money on a meal that was supposed to be special for my husband on Father’s Day. And it was an absolutely terrible experience. And after spending that much money on bad food and bad service, we can’t *afford* a do-over.

Oh, and to cap it off, I offer you a look at a portion of their kid’s coloring page. This is an actual scan. Note the ones I circled…can you unscramble those?

If you’re having a little trouble with those 2, let me help you out. According to the answers given on that coloring sheet, they are supposed to be “chicken” and “corn dog.” I am not quite sure when the word chicken started having 2 Ks in it and being 8 letters long. Nor am I sure when corn dog started replacing the N with a G, but that’s what they’re supposed to be. I am absolutely appalled by this…for the love of Pete, PROOFREAD these things! Good grief.

And now I feel guilty for being unable to cook, for not feeling up to a trip to Southern Pines or Raleigh, and for not planning ahead so we could have a nice dinner. So if you live in Sanford, stay away from “Tumbleweed” (which happens to be located behind Walgreen’s, off of Horner, if you’re not quite sure which restaurant I’m referring to) if you want a nice meal. As I said, we’ve had negative experiences with service there before but nothing this bad. Next time I’ll suck it up and cook myself.

Edited to add that my husband just told me there is actually a steakhouse called Tumbleweed. To clarify, this was not actually a place called Tumbleweed. It starts with an S, ends with an H and the letters in between go something like this: A-G-E-B-R-U-S