April 30

Garage Sale Day 2 was not quite as successful as Day 1. It was pretty slow. But I did manage to draw in a few people who were looking for baby girl clothes and managed to sell quite a few clothing items.

I ended up calling it quits at 10:30 am though! It was windy and everything kept blowing over. Audrey was being very whiny and grumpy. And we hadn't had a customer in about a half hour. So I decided it was time to be done. Total for day 2 was: $48.25. Which makes our grand total for both days: $430.50! Not too shabby!

And now for a few pictures. Later this afternoon, we went to another birthday party. This was for our friends' son Joel (or Tony, as some people call him!). It was his second birthday, and Audrey was very excited for another birthday party. This party was at the park too, which made it extra fun for her!

So Audrey got to eat yet another birthday party cupcake. This time she used a spoon to scrape all her icing off and eat it!And she got to go on an Easter Egg hunt. There was one special egg with a piece of paper inside revealing the gender of Joel's new sibling! Audrey found that egg, so we got to find out whether Joel is going to have a brother or a sister. (I won't spoil the news here though, so Irvin and Jill can share with the rest of our friends in person!).

Finally, Audrey got to go play on the slides at the park. This was really our first park outing of the season. And I was way impressed with how brave and independent Audrey was. Last spring/summer, she was not quite sure about climbing on the playground equipment and going down the slides by herself. She occasionally would do it alone, but normally she would want me to be right by her holding her hand. I was so excited to see her climb up all the playground equipment by herself, and then slide down the slide by herself, and then jump up to do it all over again! Sometimes I worry that she is too clingy and cautious, so it's nice to see her act like a regular fearless two year old!

April 29

Garage Sale Day 1 is over. I meant to take a picture of our whole set up, but I didn't ever get my camera out.

Our sale was scheduled from 3-8 pm today. We started setting up at noon, because I wanted to be all set up before all the "early birds" arrived. But that plan didn't quite work...since the early birds began to arrive as soon as we carried the first box outside! Seriously, it was like vultures coming down on us and digging through all of our stuff, while I was trying to get it all out as quickly as possible. So our sale ended up running from 12-8 instead of 3-8...needless to say, I am very tired right now.

And now for what you have all been waiting for...the grand total! Drumroll please...today's grand total was...$382.25. WOW!! I have had a garage sale every year for the past 5-6 years, and normally I make between $50-$150 at each sale. So already today, we have made more than almost all of our other garage sales combined. That is way exciting, and it makes all the hard work to get ready for this sale seem worth it!

We're going to open back up in the morning for Day 2. I'm thinking I might need to search my house again for some more things to sell. Because we got rid of so much today, our sale is starting to look kind of lame. We were getting a lot of "drive-bys" tonight. I also need to find a way to get people here who are looking for baby girl clothes.

This post is getting kind of long, but I have to add a few notes about Audrey and the garage sale today:

• This morning, Daniel was trying to teach Audrey how she could help sell things. He said, "Say, 'wanna buy?' and then put your shoulders up like this." He then demonstrated how to raise her shoulders and put up her hands. So then it was Audrey's turn to try it out. She said, "Wanna buy? Put your shoulders up like this." Rather than copying his action, she repeated his words...and you just have to believe me that it was hilarious.
• Even though she didn't quite get the shoulder action down, she did remember "wanna buy". As soon as the first person walked up to our sale, Audrey asked them "wanna buy?" and then she kept asking everyone who came!
• Soon Audrey got the idea that people were giving us money for stuff. She loved being able to take people's money and give them change back. She tried to give everyone change back, even when they didn't need change.
• As the day progressed, she started to ask everyone who came up, "Have money? Buy something?" which was kind of cute at first, but that got old pretty quickly. Especially when they would leave empty handed, and she would call out after them, "Have money? Buy something?" in an exceptionally whiny voice!

April 28

Our theme for the day at Sprouts was bugs. One of the crafts was a paper bag caterpillar based on Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar. It had a cut out mouth and pieces of paper food. The kids could read the book and then put the food in the caterpillar's mouth as the caterpillar in the story ate the food.

Audrey loved this caterpillar craft/game. Loved it. We made it at the beginning of Sprouts, and she played with it the entire hour. Then we came home and she just kept playing with it over and over again...literally, for hours today! Here's a little video of her feeding her "pat-pe-war" tonight.



I wish I would have caught the following dialogues on camera, because they made me laugh out loud:

• At one point, Audrey was gently patting her caterpillar's head, saying: "I wuv you, pat-pe-war. I wuv you."
• Another time, she picked up the bag and all the food fell out the bottom. She said, "Oh no, pat-pe-war. Gotta eat food. Put in your mouth. It's kinda hard. I know, pat-pe-war, I know."

April 27

Here we go again with yet another belly picture...32 weeks now! According to the little ticker at the bottom of this blog, I have 55 days to go until my due date. I was looking at the dates today--I will be 37 weeks on May 31 and 42 weeks on July 5. So basically, I am blocking off the entire month of June as a possible due date for the baby. I'm still holding out hope that she will come early, but only time will tell!

While I'm still feeling confident that all is well and the baby is fine, every once in a while a little bit of worry creeps in after my doctor's appointment last week. Looking at this picture compared to two weeks ago, I think it looks like I am getting bigger...I think...so that's a good sign. But it could just be what I'm wearing too...it's really silly to try to over-analyze these pictures!

I'm definitely looking forward to the sonogram next Friday...both for the reassurance that everything is OK and the chance to get a peek at the baby again!

April 26

This morning I took Audrey to the mall. She really likes to go to the mall, and it has been forever since we've gone. Plus, I had some coupons and thought I might be able to find some good deals.

As I was putting Maggie up and getting my purse ready, I noticed Audrey was being awfully quiet. I looked around for a few seconds and found her sitting on the stairs like this:
This is what she wanted to wear out of the house and to the mall. And so she did, after I fixed the headband and put it on the correct way! She only wore the glasses and the bracelet for a short time once we got there, but the headband stayed on all morning.

And wow, did I find some good deals at the mall! I got a few things at Children's Place that were on clearance, and I also had a coupon to use with them. Then we went to Gymboree. I really love Gymboree clothes. They are cute and good quality, but they are also expensive! Just like my garage sale shopping, I have two strict rules that I follow when shopping at Gymboree:

1. Items must be at least 60% off (but preferably more) original prices. Original prices are high, so even at 60% off the clothes can still be out of my budget.
2. I must also have a coupon to use that can be combined with the sale.

My favorite time of year at Gymboree is when they have their big seasonal clearance sales. They put bins out in the front with old lines of clothing that are marked 60-80% off the original price. Today just happened to be one of those sale days. And today, I also had a 30% off coupon that I could use as well.

Here are all the clothes I bought...a winter coat, a pair of PJ's, a few pairs of jeans, a dress, several shirts and pants, and an outfit for my nephew...lots of fun stuff! Original price for all the Gymboree stuff would have been close to $300. My total today was $50.32 before tax. And since I spent $50, I earned Gymbucks. I have never earned Gymbucks before, so that made the deal even sweeter. Now, I have a $25 off a $50 purchase coupon to use in July (I just have to remember to use it!).
But here's the problem. Even though I think I got a good deal on all this stuff and I really like it, we don't really need it. I have been in the process of cleaning out our baby clothes and trying to get rid of all the extra stuff in our house. Our garage sale is this weekend! And yet, I keep buying more and more stuff...specifically baby and kids clothes! Finding good deals on cute clothes is addicting. And I really, really love cute girls' clothes! So while I'm super excited about all things I found today, I'm also a little conflicted about having so much stuff.

So for now, I'm going to go back through all the old clothes again and find more to purge for this weekend's garage sale. I figure I added 15 new pieces to the girls' wardrobe today, then I should get rid of at least 15 old pieces. At least we'll keep things even that way. =)

April 25

I didn't take any pictures today. But I did spend some time editing pictures from a photo shoot I did yesterday with Miss Julia for her one year old pictures. Normally, with a one year old, I'm happy if I have 5-10 shots where the kid is looking at the camera and not making a horrible face. One year olds (and two and three year olds too!) are generally on the move and not interested in cooperating with me. With Julia yesterday, it was a different story. I ended up with so many good shots! Her friends Corey and Alaina came over to help her smile, and she was just full of smiles and giggles!

It's going to take me an eternity to edit all of these pictures and narrow them down to the best of the best. I have barely made a dent in them so far. But since I know Julia's Mommy and Daddy read this blog, I thought I would post a few that I am liking so far.

April 24...Easter Sunday

I just love Audrey's Easter dress this year! I got a great deal at Shabby Apple and was able to get this dress for just $15 shipped (as opposed to the regular price of $49!). We've done a big flower in her hair the past two years (2009 and 2010). This year I decided to go with a big flower on her dress instead.

Even though we did get a few pictures last week of Audrey in her Easter dress, I was still determined to get a good picture today...but again, I didn't quite get the picture I wanted. But she's still cute, so here are a few that made the cut today.


I also really wanted a family picture, as we have taken one the past two Easters with Audrey (2009 and 2010). I meant to have someone take a picture of us at church, but we forgot. So this was taken by a random guy at the restaurant after lunch. I don't really like the picture at all...but it is all we have for this year!

Keokuk Trip (April 21-23)

This trip gave me hope that Audrey might be able to handle life with a new baby in the house. Our trip at Christmas time was rough...Audrey did not want me to have anything to do with my nephew Josiah. She screamed bloody murder every time I touched him, and I left feeling very discouraged about how we were going to manage life with two kids!

But this trip was totally different. Audrey loved baby Josiah! She loved to rub his head and give him kisses. One time, I caught her kissing him and saying, "Aw, I love you, Josiah. I love you." If he was sad she would pat him and say (in a really sweet high pitched voice), "What's wrong Josiah? It's OK. It's OK." Or she would say, "Josiah sad, Mommy hold him." She was perfectly content to let me hold Josiah and play with him. Such a big difference in her attitude towards him...I am just hoping that she will be as excited and happy to have her baby sister around all the time!

I can see why Audrey likes Josiah so much...he really is the most adorable little guy!!
Mom and Marcus had an Easter egg hunt for the kids. It was too rainy outside, so we had it inside, in the funeral home. This was the first time that Audrey hunted for eggs that were filled with something (mostly candy!) inside of them. Obviously, that was exciting for her. In the words of Audrey, here is how we ran our Easter egg hunt: "First, find eggs. Then have snack. One bite." We hid the eggs multiple times....each time she found all the eggs, she got one bite of candy. Then we would go to the next room and hide them again...and again...and again. Nana also included some new big girl panties in a few of Audrey's eggs. Only a newly potty trained two year old would get super excited about finding underwear in her Easter eggs!After leaving Nana's house, we went to my grandma's house in Quincy. We got to hang out with Grammy Lois, Aunt Nancy and Grandpa and Grandma. Grandpa and Grandma got Audrey an Easter basket. She was so animated and excited about every single thing she found in her basket!
Aunt Nancy set up another Easter egg hunt for Audrey! Look at that little baby in the picture frame...it's crazy how much has changed in just 2 1/2 years!

April 23

We're back home now.

It's late.

I'm extremely tired.

I still have to finish up a few things for my Easter Sunday School lesson tomorrow morning.

I promise I will have lots and lots of pictures to post tomorrow!

April 22

We are having a good time here in Iowa. Audrey has been in good spirits and is having fun with all my family. I did take a lot of pictures today, but they are still on my brother's camera and I don't have any way to get them tonight. So, come back tomorrow for a bunch of pictures from our trip!

Today was the first day in at least 3 weeks that I have not had any sinus pain/symptoms! That is very, very exciting. I am in the middle of my 2nd round of antiobiotics for this obnoxious sinus infection...hopefully this means it is finally going away for good!

So I would have felt pretty good today...except that I have been awake since 4:30 am. Little Miss Audrey decided to wake up at 4:30 this morning. She has been occasionally waking up in the early morning over the past few weeks. We think it is because she needs to go potty. We take her to the bathroom, and then she will go back to bed...not too big of a deal. Except this morning when she wouldn't go back to sleep. I don't know if it is was because we were away from home or what, but I tried to get her to go back to bed and stay asleep, but she would not do it. I think she may be trying to prepare me for baby #2!!

Now it is definitely time for me to go to bed...good night!

April 21

Grr...Audrey and I are at my mom's in Iowa for a few days. And I forgot to bring my camera with me. I think my brother is going to let me borrow his tomorrow though, so I should have a few pictures to post. I really need to get some pictures of my nephew Josiah, because he is adorable. And Audrey is being so sweet and cute with him this time!

This morning I had an OB appointment. I'm going every 2 weeks for appointments now. The doctor was a bit concerned because I was measuring small, so she had me go in for a sonogram. The sonogram showed the baby was measuring on the small side as well. Baby's belly measured at 29 weeks, when it should have been showing 31 weeks. The dr. wasn't too overly worried about that, but she is concerned enough that she wants me to have another sonogram in 2 weeks to make sure the baby is growing.

I'm not too worried about any of this right now...I'm mostly just excited to have the extra sonograms!! It's always fun and reassuring to get extra looks at the baby. I was small with Audrey, and Audrey was a small baby. The Dr. said that this baby is on track to weigh between 6-7 lbs. at birth, just like Audrey who was small but perfectly healthy. And a small, healthy baby is just fine with me! =)

April 20

Tonight was our friend Owen's first birthday party. Audrey has been to enough birthday parties now that she understands howthey work. She has even been playing "birthday party" this week at home with me. She wants to sing Happy Birthday, then blow out pretend candles, and then eat a bite of her play food birthday cake...over and over and over again!

So, needless to say, she was pretty excited about Owen's party...where they were going to have real candles and real birthday cake! Before we left, she was very concerned about whether or not her cake would have icing on it. I assured her it would have icing, and when we got to the party we saw cupcakes with TONS of icing on them. Again, this made for a very excited Audrey, who licked every bit of icing off her cupcake (good thing it was the whipped kind, so maybe a little less sugar/fat?) and did not touch any of the cupcake itself.
Happy birthday Baby "Oh-no"! (as his big brother and the other kids sometimes call him).

April 18

It feels like warm spring weather is never going to be here to stay. Every once in a while we have a nice day, but there seem to be a lot of chilly, cloudy, rainy days in the upcoming forecast.

Tonight, we pretended like it was a nice spring evening and spent some time outside...even though it was chilly and about ready to rain!

Daniel grilled steaks for dinner.

Audrey played in the mud...again! (I'm still way impressed that she is willing to get her hands dirty. Tonight she picked up handfuls of dirt and carried them around, then threw it through the holes in the lattice work. She kept laughing and looking at her hands, saying "I get muddy!")

I took advantage of the outdoor light and took lots of pictures. Here are a few:

April 17

Time for another home organization project. For the past two years or so, we have had this black desk in our dining room. I never liked the desk in the dining room for two reasons. One, it was black and all the other furniture in the dining/living room is brown. And two, the desk always looked like this....a mess!I never had a very good system for organizing and putting things away on my desk. Plus, I have a bad habit of just piling things up when I'm in a hurry (which seems to be always!). I never actually sat at the desk and used it, as I always use my laptop on the couch. So the only purpose this desk served was to give me a place to stack up all my junk.

Therefore, I decided to get rid of the desk. Our friends Braden and Angela were interested in it, so I was happy to pass it on to someone who might actually use it! I cleaned out a bunch of my books and cleared off this bookshelf. Now, I have a home on this bookshelf for everything that used to sit on my desk.
As my husband pointed out, now my pile of junk will probably just move to the dining room table. Which is probably true. But, unlike the desk, we actually use the dining room table. So even if it gets messy, the table will still be cleared off daily. Now there is a home for all of the piles of stuff. I'm excited about the new system. It looks MUCH better, and I'm hoping it will help me to be more organized!

April 16

Audrey went to her first wedding today! I was very nervous about taking her to the ceremony, as she is not exactly quiet! We looked into getting a babysitter, but couldn't find anyone, so we decided to just bring her with us. Her name was on the invitation, so we assumed that meant they wanted her to come too.

The wedding ceremony was supposed to be outside, but it was really cold and windy and yucky today, so it was moved inside. They had the ceremony in the same room as the reception, so everyone sat at their assigned tables for the ceremony. This meant the space was pretty cramped and that we didn't get to choose where we sat. And it meant that we were sitting in the very, very front. Literally less than 5 feet from the bride and groom.

Audrey was pretty grumpy all morning, and I was worried that she was going to start crying or throwing a fit during the ceremony. Or worse yet, she would loudly announce to the whole room "Pee coming out now!" as she has been known to do in the past. There was no way for us to get up and leave without walking directly in front of the wedding ceremony.

Fortunately it was a short ceremony. And fortunately our friend Joyce sat next to us with her iphone, which kept Audrey entertained! She did talk out loud a few times, but I don't think it really bothered anyone too much (except me!). And she kept whispering "gotta be quiet now", which was really cute.After the ceremony, Audrey had another first...her first taste of cotton candy! They had popcorn and cotton candy for everyone in between the ceremony and the reception. Audrey wasn't sure she wanted to try the cotton candy at first, but after she tried it, she kept wanting "more, more, more!"
Our table was right next to the dance floor, so Audrey got to get up and do a little dancing once the reception started. She even met a new friend named Lily who danced with her and showed her some new moves. (I didn't get a picture of the two of them together though).
And finally, it was time for cake! Audrey had been patiently waiting for cake all day long. She is making a funny face here, because she got too much cake on her fork.
She really just wanted the icing, and she would very carefully study it and eat just the icing off her cake with her fork.
Yummy!!!!

April 15

I spent some time today pricing and organizing more items for our upcoming garage sale.
So far, these are the baby clothes I am planning to put in the sale. Everyone assumes that since we are having another girl, we will keep all of our girl clothes. But our girls are going to be opposite in seasons for a while, so a lot of this stuff would probably never get worn by the new baby. And I KNOW the new baby will get new clothes of her own, so there's no reason to keep all of this old stuff, even if it was really cute when Audrey wore it. (Plus I am still keeping 4 tubs packed full of girls' clothes!).

I went through about 250 pricing stickers on these clothes, and I'm feeling pretty good about all that I was able to clean out and pass on to someone else. I love the feeling of getting unused stuff out of our house!

Here's the ironic thing about today. After pricing stuff for my garage sale and getting ready to purge all these old clothes, I then went out to other garage sales to do some shopping. And I came home with all these new clothes!! I didn't count the total number, but I'm thinking there are at least 3o pieces here. So much for clearing out extra space in our house!! =)
Now I'm pretty picky when it comes to buying clothes at garage sales. I have three criteria:

1. My goal is to find clothes priced 25-50 cents per piece, though I will sometimes pay $1-2 for pajamas or dresses or nicer outfits.

2. Even though I am paying next to nothing for them, I will only buy clothes that appear to be in nearly perfect condition...no signs of wear or stains or fading.

3. The clothes must be cute! (I sometimes make an exception for pajamas, because i hate to pay full price for pajamas, and will occasionally buy cheap pajamas that are in good condition but not all that cute!).

It can be hard to find clothes that meet all of those standards. Last year, I barely bought anything throughout the whole garage sale season. Then today, I went to only three garage sales and found all of this! And I wanted to buy more, but I thought this was probably enough for now! This one lady had all baby girl clothes, size 12 months and under...and I'm pretty sure her baby never actually wore the clothes. They all looked brand new! It was pretty exciting.

It seems a bit counterproductive to go buy a bunch of new clothes while decluttering our closets. But, all of these new clothes should be the right size for the right season, and as long as we are using the clothes, I don't mind having them in my house. Once we're done with them, they will go into next year's garage sale pile.

April 14

Tonight, Audrey and I went to a Jim Gill concert with the Lanters. I am not very familiar with the world of children's music, but I guess Jim Gill is a pretty big name among preschool teachers and parents and preschool kids. His songs were fun, and all the kids seemed to love it.

Tonight's concert was sponsored by our local community college. It was free, and they also provided free popcorn and drinks and some activities for the kids. It was a good deal!

Audrey and I talked about the concert all day long. She had no idea what a concert was, but she was really excited about it! When we got there, she kept pointing to random things, saying "is that concert?" Once it started, she was a bit apprehensive of all the noise and craziness going on around here (we were all seated on the floor in a big room...probably about 100 kids and their parents, all singing and dancing). But she eventually warmed up to the concert and started dancing and doing some actions to the songs. I think she liked it.

Here she is with Jim Gill himself (this was during her apprehensive mood!).
Here she is after she started to warm up a little bit...dancing with Elliot and Lindsey.


After the concert, we all went to get ice cream at Centrum Cafe. Yummy!

April 13

Today, I tried to have a photo shoot with Audrey in her Easter dress. I always like to take some pictures of her Easter dress ahead of time, so we don't have to worry about it on Easter Sunday. And I always send out an Easter card to our families (well I've done it for the last two years, all of Audrey's life), so I like to have pictures done in time to get a card sent out.

I've decided that it just never works very well when I try to get good quality pictures of Audrey. I can take pictures of other people's kids and they turn out well. I have lots of patience with them, and the kids are usually cooperative.

But when I try to do a photo shoot with Audrey, my patience disappears...and she refuses to cooperate. And we end up with a lot of pictures like this one!
Now, I think that picture is kind of fun and cute. But it's not really what I want to put on our Easter cards!

This next picture is the only one that I was semi-pleased with from today's shoot...so it is what ended up on the Easter cards.
One of these days, I might just have to bite the bullet and pay for someone else to take Audrey's picture. It seems silly when I have the equipment and knowledge to take them myself, but the end results are always frustrating to me.

April 12

I'm 30 weeks pregnant today...7 1/2 months! Everyone tells me that I don't look that big, but I feel huge right now! I feel like I've grown a lot in the past two weeks and that I am a lot bigger than last time, though I've gained about the same amount of weight so far. According to the e-mail I got today, the baby should weigh almost 3 pounds and be over 15 inches long!

Just like with Audrey, this baby is spreading out and taking up all the possible space...specifically up by my ribs. I told Daniel last night that if she moves any higher, she is going to be in my throat!! I always feel like I am always out of breath, and I figure that is because my lungs have to be completely squished right now.

Every once in a while I have a freak out moment...I can't believe we are really adding another person to this family. Especially after last week, I wonder how on earth we will manage two kids when we are both sick and miserable??? But then I start to think about all the things I am looking forward to about a new baby, and I freak out a little less. Here are few off the top of my head:

1. Snuggling with a newborn. I'll be honest, the newborn stage is not my favorite. I like babies as they get a bit older and more interactive. However, one thing I LOVE about newborns is when they snuggle up on your chest with their little bottom up in the air. Definitely something to look forward to.

2. A newborn photo shoot. I have never taken photos of a brand new baby before, and I'm already browsing and looking for ideas on what we can do with our new baby!

3. Watching Audrey interact with her sister. It's fun to talk to Audrey about it now, and I can't wait to see how she will react.

4. More birthday parties to plan. Call me crazy, but the idea of getting to host two kids' birthday parties a year instead of just one makes me really excited! I already found an adorable first birthday party idea that I just might use...and this baby is not even born yet!

5. Adorable little baby girl clothes and bows...and matching outfits for the two girls!

April 11

I woke up feeling significantly better this morning! Still a little stuffy in the head and still some dull pain on the right side of my face, but nothing like the unrelenting pain I had been feeling for the past 4-5 days.

Audrey seemed to be feeling better today too. She was so extremely pleasant, and she said/did so many cute and adorable things all day long. It was a fun and enjoyable day...a much needed day after the past week of yucky, no fun days!

I also finally caught some of Audrey's singing on video. I had to use my phone because we lost the power cord to our video camera, so the quality isn't the greatest.

I have a cassette tape of me when I was two, singing songs with my mom. Audrey's singing reminds me so much of that tape...too cute!

I present to you: Audrey (and Mommy) in concert!

It's a Small World


Praise Him, Praise Him


The Barney Song


The Wheels on the Bus

April 10

Despite all the sickness around here, Daniel did get our new TV stand put together this weekend.

Audrey really enjoyed using the screwdriver to help Daddy "make" it. She would put the screwdriver in the hole and turn it, saying "turn, turn, turn." Then she would say, "Now turn this hole" and move to a new hole and repeat the process. She kept this up for the longest time! At the moment, here is what the TV looks like on the new stand. It's kind of sad and empty looking...there's definitely some work to be done here.
I think we should mount the TV on the wall, and then add some decor around it to help fill the space. Daniel is afraid the TV is too small for the wall, but I think it looks to small sitting on the stand. (His solution would be to get a bigger TV, but that is not happening right now!).

I'm also thinking the door needs to come out. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks, we will make a decision and get this room finished!