Watching: Jon was in San Diego last week so I had a chance to catch up on some saved episodes of Call the Midwife. I actually stopped watching this when I was pregnant with Joci because it was too hard (for some reason.) I'm back to enjoying it again, even if all those pregnant women and deliveries make me miss that time in my life!
Listening to: Bethel Live You Make Me Brave. Wow. This album is rockin' my speakers, and my computer, and my iPod, and the music player in my brain. My favorite song is "It is Well"--a twist on the old hymn, which I adore. And if you don't know the story behind the original song you simply MUST read it here.
Can't get off my mind: The birthday surprise my husband is working on for me. All I know is I have to wear a nice dress. And that it's in the city. And that I need to get this daughter of mine drinking from a cup/straw/bottle/anything if I want to enjoy an anxiety free evening!
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I think we've turned a corner, folks! I hate to say it out loud, don't want to ruin it. But as I type this my daughter is going on her second hour of her second nap of the day! And she's been sleeping at night! Not through the night, mind you, but I'd much rather get up once around 5am than multiple times throughout the evening.
So I think I'm going to go ahead and call it-- winning. WINNING! [Addendum: I wrote this line yesterday. Today we are not "winning" in the nap department. :(]
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| Sticking out her tongue is her signature move. |
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| Touching her toes is her other signature move. |
I'm back to looking forward to the freedom that inevitably comes when one is neither nursing or carrying a baby. And this feeling of hopefulness is coming after a long and deep mourning process that is otherwise known as "getting ready for a yard sale."
Note to self: When sorting through the many emotions that come with the knowledge that you'll never be pregnant or have another baby, don't go through your maternity clothes whilst watching "Call the Midwife." Just don't.
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| Making chalk roads in the driveway. |
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| She is so, SO ready to crawl. She can scoot all over the house, but the whole knee-palm, knee-palm coordination hasn't quite come yet. |
Going back to the yard sale, it was a smashing success! Other than the neighbors who pilfered my marketing attempts by tying a balloon to MY sign at the neighborhood entrance, and then attaching a matching balloon to THEIR mailbox, I couldn't have asked for a better day!
The kids attempted to sabotage my sales as well. Jack actually ended up buying back, with his own money, the lone stuffed animal I tried to sell. And when Jack noticed a woman buying Jude's most coveted Thomas the Train t-shirts, he ran inside to alert his brother, who came yelling and screaming out the front door to stop her.
This was my first time having a yard sale all on my own. Well, with Jon's help. He had quite a way with the older ladies. And when I wasn't willing to go down on the price of something (seriously, who offers half price within the first 20 minutes of opening?!?), he was ready to chime in over my shoulder, "Of course she'll take less!"
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| Trampolining at Marmie and Poppa's! |
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| Our favorite yard sale purchase - a picnic quilt! |
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| This was supposed to be a funny face picture. |
It ended up being a successful jaunt to the homeland and another two days of fantastic yard selling. Okay, so there was a bit of buying as well. On Saturday, Uncle Micah and I hit up a few good sales in town. We're talking $.50 skinny leg jeans and $.75 Gap dresses for Julia. I was on a secondhand high!
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| While Daddy was in California I may have fed the kids dinner at 4:00, dessert by 5:00, and had them in jambes by 6:00... |
And then mom took me to the HUGEST thrift store I've ever seen. It's a good thing we only had an hour to shop because the damage was easily done in that amount of time. Despite my little shopping sprees, I was still able to come home with more money than I'd left with.
Perhaps now would be a good time to mention how I manage all my many children's many wardrobes. Well, the same way I manage my meal planning--with a spreadsheet, of course! A few times a year I take inventory of my kids' drawers and closets and track it all in a spreadsheet. This way I can easily tell what they need (and what they definitely don't need!) And then I send a copy to my yard saling buddy, Marmie, and we both keep it in our purses so that we know what to look for whenever we're at a hot yard sale, thrift store, clearance rack, etc.
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| Rainy days are for sorting through kids' clothes. |
It's a lot of work, and can take some time, but in the end it helps keep Marmie's secondhand shopping sprees under control. Okay, okay, mine too.
You can easily make one on your own or, if you're really into details like me, just print off a blank copy of mine here. And now back to our regular programming ...
Boys' Weekend (2014!!) went well, too. While they weren't able to camp out in the yard as planned, Jon did take them to the Air and Space museum. There was also a trip to Target where the boys easily managed to convince Daddy to buy them all the things that Mommy had been saying "no" to for the past month.
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| Rise Up coffee in Easton, our road trip rest stop! |
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| These guys played the entire time! |
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| And this girl loved the sand! |
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| She didn't like to get wet. |
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| But she was really in to showing me her moves. |
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| Thanks to this girl keeping me under the umbrella a good portion of the day, Mama didn't get a sunburn. |
Now that we're enjoying the fruits of our labor, though, I'm kinda regretting the princess underwear. She insists on pulling them ALL out of the drawer, laying them ALL out on the floor, and then hovering her finger over each and every one, multiple times, while saying "I waaaannnnt ... I waaaannnnt ... I waaaannnt--" "Julia, hurry, pick one." "Dis one!" "Okay." "Noooo, dis one!"
Oh, to have one's most difficult decision of the day be what underwear to wear!
And finally, while we're in the habit of cleaning all the old stuff off my camera and trying unsuccessfully to tie it all together with a blog post, I'll leave you with these videos of my kids playing in the yard. Whatever that move is that Jack does where he lies face first on the ground (I think he calls it the "Stinker") he made sure to show our neighbor Tom and the poor, unsuspecting gentlemen that came to inspect the tree limbs on behalf of our power company. He ended up spending an extra 10 minutes in our yard because my kids wouldn't let him escape until he saw all their "moves." Oh dear.
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