Saturday, March 28, 2009

Yippeee Garage Sale Scores

Today the boys went to do some male bonding in a tent (blog later). So while the men were away, the girls went to SHOP/PLAY! I love to garage sale shop. I think because its like a treasure hunt and you never know what your going to find. Love the deals but sometimes I get home with junk just cause it was such a great deal.
Another thing that garage sale shopping does is teach a lesson or two to my children. Not only are we being GREEN by reclyling but we are saving TONS of money on items that we need or use. Like CLOTHES!!! My kids also know if they earned $5.00 they can't get much from Wallyworld but if they go garage sale shopping they may find that very item they wanted to buy at 35.00 for only 3.00 (Little Petshop Houses)
It's also cheaper than a babysitter. I give my girls about 4 or 5 bucks to spend and they use it pretty wisely! That is only spending $10.00 for about 4 hours of shopping. Not to bad!



Found this for Daddy! Princess P was thinking of Daddy today! She thought this would be fun to hike with when so she gets tired you can use this. It's brand new for $8.00.

The girls found some clothes and some more polly pockets for 1.00.
Mr. T's finds:

Here some finds for Mr. T on our garage sale shopping day..... I know clothes, boring! (The green shirt is Eddie B.)Kylie found this for Mr. T since he was bonding with his Dad though! I thought it was sweet of her to think of him!!


This is like the suit I bought for her last year for 20.00 bucks, but this one is BRAND NEW WITH TAG I got for .50 cents!! WOOO HOOO 3t, perfect for the sprinkler or mall splash!


Peyton's toy that she wouldn't put down, had to fork out a buck for blues clues. I splurged and bought the sprinkler for the awful price as stated on box! Yikes, retail!!
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New little writing desk Kelsey found for 2.00 goes perfect with her chair...

We found a flat stone to make cookies, or pizza on, some baking pans and Kylie got brand new Highlights magazine a years worth for .50! The lady also gave her some cards for spelling words for free. (I think she liked Kylie.) She had a four month old dog that looked just like Chewy when he was a puppy. He was cute. Peyton loved it too! Oh and Kylie got a new/used lunch box (Cinderella) for .25! It was fun to shop with the girls. But we miss you guys already!

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Funny today, NOT yesterday!


It was such a lovely day yesterday! Of course, we all have to get out and play. So while we are out enjoying the backyard, I decided I needed a drink after about 45 minutes. I tried to open the door, and for some reason it won't open. IT"S LOCKED!! HOW CAN IT BE LOCKED?? OH NO!!!

My first thought is one of the kids is in the house and has locked me out. I do a head count. 3- 2yrs olds check 4 yr old- check and 1-5yr old-check whoosh! Ok, got everyone,

Maybe someone has come in the house and locked me out, maybe a robber? No, that's just crazy thinking, because I always have the doors locked. Maybe, it's that silly ghost who makes noises and then makes my blinds move, no he is a harmless figment of my imagination (or so I keep telling myself). Ok, so how did this happen. It's a sliding glass door!!

I then take all the kids out for a walk to a few neighbors houses to find a phone. After the 6th house we finally find someone home. I call hubby and leave him a message. I call my mom and she says she has got a key! Yeah, for mom's who live close by!!

I can get into our garage with the key pad, but the inside garage door to the house is locked too! At least, there is a fridge and snacks in the garage, so the kids are having fun with popsicles and fruit snacks. It's been a couple hours and the kids are starting to have to do potty breaks. Oh goodness, what are their moms going to say when one of their kids try to go to the bathroom in their back yard! I can just hear the little rascals "well, Mommy, I went potty in Ms. Paula's back yard." LOL, Oh well, it couldn't be helped. I did set up a card board box bathroom area so there was some privacy and we pretended to be camping.

Well, finally help shows up! My knight in shining armor, without his keys. You heard or read me right, no keys to the house! Crap! So he tries all his knightly ways to infiltrate the house, but it's shut up like fort knox. So he is sent out to get us lunch! In the meantime, my mother shows up. As she is pulling up she realizes she has brought the wrong keys! Yikes, this is getting pretty comical now. But the kids are starting to get a little tired of playing outside even though we've pretended to camp, but the water table up and did sink or float activities and played ball, swung, played in the tent, and picked up seeds for planting. Whoosh, maybe it's just me who is tired of being outside!

Finally, my mother returns with the correct keys and we all go down for naps! Oh THANK YOU GOD FOR NAPS!! Moral of this story, hide keys somewhere so you can get into your own house when you get locked out!! Maybe I should look into a combination lock for the front door.

Monday, March 23, 2009

Memory Lane


Before he saw his own picture.


After! Isn't he so cute!! AHhh,
While reading a friends blog, who just returned from Africa on a Hoops of Hope trip, I was filled with joy from my own memory of photos I took last year. Matt had a few posts that were just incredible reads about his recent journey. I love how you can just feel the joy from these kids without even being there. I think sometimes we forget how laundry, crabby kids who want to watch tv instead of going to bed, or you know, American life can just get bogged up. I think Africa is starting to call my name. During service this past Sunday, I was brought to tears for the call to serve in some form of mission work. I think the tears were mainly from fear and trying to hold God off. I know that may sound weird, but there are times when I know God wants me to follow what He wants and I am stomping my feet and holding on to what I want instead of what He wants. I guess I feel like I could move my whole family in a second and leave all this STUFF of life behind to really do Gods work, but then there is the other half who might not embrace these same feelings and it is hard to figure out what God wants from me? I know that if God really wants me to leave all this behind I'm willing to try but He is the one who has to break to my hubby. So I will wait and see what God wants from me. My friend Kelly, embraces the experiences she has had with her African love and really makes life changes for others, which I totally admire.
Anyways, this was just suppose to be a memory walk of some gorgeous pictures I took this past year in Jamaica.

They loved seeing their pictures on my digital camera. So much that they all starting coming over and modeling for me.

I wanted to take a few home with me! This girl kept giving me hugs and her smile almost knocked me down. It brings me tears just thinking about the joy I had from that 45 minutes of photo shoot.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Life update




Hi! Yes, I'm still alive but the blog post got a little obsessive! I was checking blogs, commenting on blogs, and my focus got a little lost. So here is my update. Life is all good, God is great! We just got back from a fun family camping trip. There were people actually panning for gold. I didn't realize people still did that. LOL
My kids were such a mess! But we had fun hiking in the middle of nowhere. It was so quiet! Nice. The sun was out and the sky was blue. We camped by a beautiful stream and from our spot we could see snow on the mountain. We went fishing (but only caught one fish), went scouting for our dream cabin. We saw bald eagles flying free, deer, and a few specks of gold. My favorite part of the week was the rock splash fight with the whole family. The boys against the girls. (With exception of Kylie who was hanging out with the boys cause she doesn't like to lose. No faith in our splashing ability!!)
We did have a little visitor at night a couple of nights which kept me up for fear of being eaten in the middle of my sleep. I totally thought he was sniffing the camper right by my head. UGH!! If I could only sleep at night I would like camping so much more.
We actually stayed an extra day cause we were enjoying the heck out of each other even though it was FREEZING at night. On the way home we even decided to get a night at a hotel because they had a pool. We are such spur of the moment people. The kids loved it and we got to shower a little quicker. LOL