I Lost Control

Okay, so the consignment sale kicked off yesterday for a few select shoppers and I went a little nuts. Okay, not a little - I went a lot nuts and well....lost control! I couldn't help myself!

This is what I got for Beth:

See, I told you I lost control. Let's see....2 pairs of The Children's Place tights, one ballerina dress-up dress (for a Christmas gift), 2 gymnastics leotards, 2 pairs of shoes, a coat, a Kentucky T-shirt, a Tommy hooded sweater, a Childrens' Place hooded shirt, 2 piece pink Hartstrings outfit, several Holiday shirts & sweaters, including one 2-piece outfit from Miss-Tee-V-Us, several other The Children's Place outfits, Gap kakki pants, Old Navy kakki pants, jeans with pink sparkles (Beth's choice), a pink cordoroy skirt and a Disney Princess Dance DVD with dance mat. WHEW!!!

This is what I got for Sarah:

Okay- most of these are 2-piece outfits. All of them are, in fact. Blue and yellow from Carters, light pink pants and zip up hoodie top, hot pink kitty cat outfit (brand?), LeTop lavendar and white snowman outfit, Gymboree lavendar/pink/green argile sweater and leggings, blue and orange Gobble Gobble T'Giving outfit, light pink tea-cup Marimeko (sp?) outfit, 2 piece cat/mouse denim/hot pink outfit (brand-I can't remember), and a pink/black/white zebra outfit by Fisher Price. Two Little people sets- one school bus and one purple car, an Elmo Book, an Animals book, 2 wooden peg puzzles and a sit and spin - all of which are for Christmas, so nobody show Sarah this picture!

And my major score of the night - for $15:

WOO HOO! FIFTEEN BUCKS and it is practially BRAND NEW - looks BARELY used!! I looked it up online and basically the EXACT SAME THING is selling at Toys-R-Us for $120!! WOW! We will keep it inside for Sarah (and Beth) to entertain themselves throughout the cold months...or anytime, really. I figure as long as I keep it inside, when we are finished with it, I can probably resell it at the Sale for the same amount- $15! The original plan was to give it to Sarah for Christmas, but honestly, where was I going to keep it till them and I just knew that Sarah would LOVE it and use it NOW. My little monkey played and played on it this morning - going up and down 20 times or more. She is SOO impressed with herself. WELL worth the $15.

Okay- so the total for everything you see above was $181, BUT HERE'S THE GOOD NEWS. Since I'm a committee member AND I have a TON of stuff that I am selling in the sale, I don't "pay" till the end. Once the sale is over and they calculate how much I SOLD and how much money I made off my sales, then I either owe them a check for the difference or they owe me a check for the difference. I figure if I sell 1/2 the bows I made and the majority of the other stuff I brought to sell, I'll break even and not have to write a check at all. I may still make some money. I calculated that if I sell all the bows I made, I will make around $250, but I'm realistic and know that they won't all sell. But I still think I'll either break even or they will still owe ME money! COOL, HUH!?!?

Kids Closet Set-up Started today...

...which means I may be MIA for a while. I may pop on early next week and post pictures of the chaos, though! Yeah, I know I complain about the consignment sale, but really, we have a good time and make a heck of a lot of money for the school and I usually score some major deals and great clothes for the girls. When the Sale over, Bob and I are off to Indy, so my postings will be pretty sparse for the next two weeks- sorry!

Outing

As expected, Saturday was just BEAUTIFUL here. Since Sarah's double ear infection/sinus infection had be a tad worried and it was pretty breezy, we decided to forego the boat outing for something on dry land. We opted for a local state park and let the girls play on the grounds and playground. We had plenty of time left to eat an early pizza dinner at a local buffet and then head home to watch the UK Wildcats whip up on the Lousiville Cardinals! WOO HOO! It was a fun day...wish Sarah had felt a little better. It was hard to get a smile out of her, so I just quit trying and started snapping pictures of Beth instead. Oh well - here are some of the "good" pictures.

Beth on the NEW SLIDE! (only my mother and brother would appreciate this)


Beth AND Sarah on the NEW SLIDE!

Sarah happy as a clam in the swing, although I couldn't get her to look at me or smile. Too many distractions, I guess:

I had to coax Sarah down the first few slides, but after that, she totally got the hang of it and little Ms. Independent didn't need me to slide with her anymore. :-(

I can remember ROLLING down these same little hills when I was little. I thought Beth would LOVE it - she did it once and was up running off again....

Beth discovered that the concrete at the front of the part monument was slick enough to slide on...and did it over and over again!

Busy & Indy

Sorry for the lack of postings this week. I've been busy. Fall is my busy time! Plus, honestly, I haven't taken any pictures of the girls this week and there really isn't anything very exciting to report.

Beth was INSISTENT that I drop her off at gymnastics yesterday and leave her and come back an hour later to get her. Wow. She's totally growing up. WTH??

Sarah has some kind of nasty funk. Horrible cough, snotty nose and mystery rash. She can't get in to see the doctor today unless there is a cancellation, so I guess I'm doomed for a whole weekend of the funkiness. Its supposed to be a BEAUTIFUL weekend, too....we were hoping to take her for her first boat ride tomorrow....we'll see.....

Tonight we might be heading down to Freedom Friday - part of the millitary (local army base) appreciation week. Its a Chili-cookoff and other fun things for the kids. MAYBE I'll take pictures there!

In 2 1/2 weeks, Bob and I are going to our old stomping ground - Indianapolis - for a week. He has a seminar and I'm just going to hang out, shop, visit friends, etc, and then each night we plan to eat at one of our favorite restaurants - like The Oaken Barrel (YUM!), Vito Provolones (YUMMO!) and who knows what else. We plan to swing by our old house and see the neighborhood. That was, afterall, the house we brought Beth home to, when she was born! It has lots of great memories!

Above is the house (if you didn't already figure it out) and just becaue I like to go back and look at old pictures (all the time), here is one of Beth the day we "brought her home" to our Indianapolis (okay, technically, Greenwood), house:

WOW - she WAS so LITTLE!! I guess she's grown a little in the last 4 1/2 years. Indianapolis holds many great memories for both Bob and me. We spent over 5 years there. We had our first apartment there. We had our first (real) jobs there. We had our first child there. But, it was never "home" to us. We always referred to Kentucky as "home." Indy was just where we lived. We always knew we wanted to move back "home" and once Beth was born, the importance of our extended family became even more important. We started the process the summer Beth was about 15 months old and within 6 months, Bob had a job in my hometown and we up and moved! We lived with mom and dad for....4 1/2 months. By the time we had bought and renovated our new house, we were SO glad to move in....

We were finally HOME.

RAIN and other updates!

Some of you may or may not know that our area has been in a BADDDD drought all summer. I mean dirt-cracking-nothing-growing-hot-dry-air drought! Its been ugly. SOOOO....we have this fun, wonderful, nice cold front moving in and its just kinda hanging out to our West....dropping rain and sprinkles on us- on and off since last Friday! YEAH! And its supposed to last all the way through tomorrow and then its suppose to get COOLER!!!! Not, like jeans/sweatshirts real-fall-weather cooler, but low 80's cooler! WOO HOO!! Music to our hot, sweaty ears!


I have one new picture to share of Sarah. First a little background. She loves to take a bath. Each night when she hears me start the bath water, she comes FLYING into the bathroom and calmly waits for me to pick her up and undress her and plop her in the tub. She is so cooperative in getting her hair washed (more than I can say about her sister!), she loves to be scrubbed down head to toe, loves all the bath toys, splashing, etc. SOO, she's now big enough to get in the tub herself, unbeknown to me...until I found her one day....

Yeah - she climbed right in and started playing with the toys and washclothes that had been left in the tub from the previous night's bath. She was so proud of herself, as you can plainly see. She was also soaking wet from the wet pink washcloth. Oh well - she had a great time. I actually "caught" her playing in there about 5 minutes before I snapped this picture because she was so darn cute to sit and watch. Bob and I watched over the top of the shower curtain as she sat and happily played with the wet toys, sang her little songs and talked. The first time she even knew we were watching was when the camera beeped right before I snapped the picture! She is just a little sneaker!! Just ANOTHER reason why we now just keep both bathroom doors CLOSED at all times....can you guess the first reason? I'll give you a hint...she loves to play in water...that she can reach!

I also got down some "new" toys for Sarah. (Beth's old toys she has long outgrown) I got down the Little People Noah's Ark set and Sarah (and Beth, too!) just sat and played and played with it a LOT on Saturday. Unfortunately, I think she has outgrown several of the toys in her room and the den. I plan to keep a select few, but most will be go off to Kids' Closet. I guess I need to make a trip to the attic and pull down more of the 18 mo-2 years toy stash. I try not to keep a lot of toys around for each girl. In my experience with Beth, the more toys arouind, the less she PLAYS with them. So, if I only keep a few around, she plays with them all the time. I recycle them a lot, too. I'll take a toy that I notice she doesn't play with, put it the top of her closet and then pull it back down a month or so later and its NEW to her and she'll spend days playing with it again!

I think Beth is growing...she is eating and sleeping a lot! I think she's slept until 7:45-8:00 every morning since last Friday, which is ODD. She's usually up with Sarah around 7. She ate steak for the first time the other night - and not just one bite - probably 5 or more bites, which is awesome for her! (But then again, it WAS Charlie's Steakhouse steak!) She's already tall for her age (43") and in a size 5 clothing for this fall....I think I need to put a brick on her head.

Beth also started gymnastics last week and LOVED IT! I think she'd go every day if I'd let her. At this point, once a week is all I can handle! But she had a ball!

Relatively slow week coming up this week. I'll try to get pics of Beth at gymnastics this week! I'm also so excited about the upcoming "cooler" weather. I may have to break out a pumpkin bread recipe or chili or something fun like that!

Beth's First Day of 4-Year-Old Nursery School

Beth started 4-year-old Nursery School today and boy, oh boy, was she ever excited! She hopped right out of bed, cooperated getting dressed and ready (although she only ate 1/2 of a mini-muffin and 3 strawberries for breakfast). She cooperated fully with my need to take tons of pictures of her, too!

Showing off her Princess Backpack that she picked out (and I haven't let her use it until today, so she was SOOOO excited to be able to wear it!!)

And for kicks- her first day of 3-year-old Nursery School (last year) vs. this year:

I can't believe that next year when I'm taking pictures on her first day of school, that she'll be headed off to Kindergarten!! AUGH!!!