A trip to mecca aka IKEA

So, a little while back (the exact time frame escapes me)my good friend, Maria sent me a link to enter a contest through IKEA. I'm all for entering contests if I'm not going to get more junk snail mail or spam e-mail. So I enter said contest & get a notification back that I won one of their instant $20.00 gift cards. Give them all my info & a few days later, in the snail mail WA LA(is this how you really spell that? Noah Webster must be turning over in his grave!), said gift card arrives. It has been hanging around for a while now as mecca IKEA is about a 45 minute drive heading towards Boston, from where we live. Now, not being a "true" New Englander, this doesn't really bother me. But especially with gas prices as they were(we are down close to $2.00, here), this is not a trip you make any old time or every day. So I say to the hubby after his bible study this morning; "Honey, do you feel like going to IKEA today?" His response? "Why absolutely, oh beautiful love of my life!" Okay, so he wasn't really that sickeningly sweet. But he did agree to load the girls up & head out with us. He had never been to mecca IKEA.
We get there, walk around for a while, then went & had an early dinner. As we sit down, Rachel says, "my ear hurts." Bill asks her if she wants him to pray for the pain & she in her pitiful voice says, "uh, huh." As Bill walks around the table to pray for Rae, we hear Emily say, "In Jesus' name, AMEN!" and then promptly inform Daddy that she just prayed for Rach. (as she has recently taken to calling her.) So she feels no one else needs to pray for her. Then, on the way home I called the peds office to see what I should do, as my girls don't generally get sick. Give her some ibuprofen & a heating pad when we get home & call them in the am to bring her in. Emily, again informs us that she/we already prayed for Rachel & she doesn't need any medicine, but "mommy, can I have some too?" So we tried to explain that we can all pray for Rachel's ear pain & that sometimes God wants us to use medicine to help us get better. We will have to see how she is when she gets up, in the am. I'm just praying it isn't an ear infection or strep.

Oh yeah, as we are pulling out of the parking lot, I could sense he wasn't impressed with wasting his afternoon his visit to IKEA. So in my ever observant & un-filtered way of saying things, I stupidly ask him what he thought. He says, "It reminds me of a high-end Job Lots." (I think he might have meant bldg. 19, but I could be wrong)

In the meantime my friend, Dawn, aka "the domestic goddess" & martha stewart, jr. calls me, ME!!! to ask me a recipe question. Okay, so it was on a recipe that I had given her, but still. I'll have to get it back from her to post on recipeasy. I got it from the owner of my local meat market, but since my family wasn't crazy about it, I just gave her the entire recipe.

btw- thanks Maria, for hooking me up with the IKEA give away!

IKEA & girlfriends

So Saturday the 5th, 3 of my girlfriends & I trekked about 45 minutes to our "local" IKEA; while the dads stayed home with all of the children.(except 1 that is still nursing) We stopped in next door at Costco to visit our friend Michelle who was suppose to accompany us, but ended up covering for a co-worker. It was good to see her & at least say hi.
For those of you reading who may not know what IKEA is I'll try to explain as best I can. It is a HUGE store where you could basically decorate/design & furnish your entire house. It got its start in Europe somewhere- I want to say Sweden, because they also have a small cafe that serves a lot of Swedish products? Not 100% sure on that info, so if you really want to know- go google it. :) If you've ever watched any Veggie tale videos I can only relate it to the Madame Blueberry one & "stuff mart".
We all had a good time doing what we women love to do (shop, talk & eat in case you didn't know). Any way IKEA's prices are pretty reasonable & the stuff is pretty decent quality.
One of the things I bought I will have to return at some point. We don't have anywhere to hang coats in our apartment; so we have to rely on over-the-door hooks, which is what is in the girls' bedroom for coats & sweaters. I'm a bit tired of the girls coming in & dropping their coats wherever they want or just throwing it in the glider rocker for mom to hang up later. So I found this cool strap that fits over the top & bottom of the door. It has 5 hooks on it & some of them would have been low enough for the girls to hang coats on. Great I'm thinking to myself- this will be perfect! NOT!!!! Get it home, open it up to hang it & find that it fits very THIN doors like maybe 1/2" thick. Now really how many people do you know who have 1/2" thick doors in their house??? ARGGGHHH. Or I can look at the good side of it- I now have a reason to go back sooner than later.
Happy Monday- hope y'all have a good week!