Why is that? Why do kids always have to barf in the middle of the night? Isn’t the horrible stench, the chunky texture, the yucky feeling, and the gag-inducing sound bad enough? Why do we all have to be jarred from our slumber on top of that?
The first night was Caroline. Poor Caroline had a fever for four days. We shut ourselves in the house and didn’t go anywhere. Finally, on the fifth day, she was fever free. I was giddy with the thought that we’d actually be able to leave the house soon. That very night she barfed.
The next night she barfed again. As I was going to bed after helping her, I got sick.
Madison woke up with a horrible diaper so I assumed the sickness had gotten to her.
The next night Brooke got sick.
The next night Dallas got sick.
The next night Spencer got sick.
The next night I went to bed knowing we had all gotten the bug so I would FINALLY be able to sleep through the night!
Until Spencer woke me up. He was sick again.
The next morning Caroline brought Madison to me. (I was still in bed.) A few moments of cuddling with her revealed she stank to high heaven. It was then that I actually looked at her and saw she had dry, crusty barf caked all over her. Oops. Poor baby had gotten sick in the night and slept in her own barf. Sad face.
The next night I REALLY went to bed knowing we had all gotten the bug so I would FINALLY, FINALLY be able to sleep through the night!
And then Madison barfed again.
I am giving up hope that I will ever sleep again.
Is this sounding like we’re all trapped in a horror film? How’s this for the ending —-
I reeeeally hate to be that blogger who posts about holidays that happened months ago…but…here we are. I found Easter pictures and there are several cute ones with Dallas’s family that I have to share.
Kathryn invited us over for dinner and an egg hunt. The kids loved searching for eggs.
Every year my neighborhood has a big garage sale. Almost every street in the area participates, and it’s a huge affair. This year Dallas and I decided we’d try to sell some things. My sister heard about it and said she wanted to bring some stuff down and see if she could make a quick buck as well.
The only real problem with this idea was that my sister and I have no idea how to do garage sales. We don’t really patron garage sales ourselves so it’s a foreign world to us which was obvious particularly as we were trying to price things.
After days and days and hours and hours of gathering stuff, pricing it, and setting up, we were ready to go! We laid everything out, held our breaths, and waited.
We didn’t have to wait long before someone came up and asked to see our jewelry. Sarah and I both looked at each other dumbly and said, “Uh, we don’t have any jewelry for sale. We don’t really own jewelry.”
“That’s okay!” said the man. “How about your cast iron pots and pans?”
*blink* *blink*
Nope, none of that either! He left without even glancing at the things we did have for sale. That man went a long way in deepening our garage-sale insecurities.
And that’s when the roller coaster of the garage sale began. It’s this back-and-forth game that neither of us knew the rules to or were sure we wanted to play. People would come and snatch things up right away and we’d think, “Dang! We should have priced that higher!” and then the things that wouldn’t sell we’d wonder if we should lower the price. People would come and tell us they were buying things to send to people in poverty-stricken countries and what do you do then? Could we in good conscience charge someone for buying things that they would then philanthropically give away? What kind of person would we be if we did that? But then, were they just telling us a story to play on our sympathies so we’d give them a good deal? And what about the stuff that we put out thinking no one would EVER buy and it ended up selling right away and other things that we thought were great items priced well that never sold? Why is that? Someone explain this to me!
Our second customer of the day had his eye on a wicker basket but didn’t have any money with him. He mentioned he was a cabinet builder nearby. Coincidentally, we needed a cabinet builder. Caroline stood up under one of our kitchen drawers when it was open and busted the front face off. The guy took our drawer and said he’d fix it, no problem. We told him we’d give him the wicker basket when he returned. After quite a long time my sister hesitatingly asked, “Do you feel like he just stole your drawer and is never coming back?”
Well, actually, yes, that’s exactly what I felt like. But we learned we needed to have greater faith in humanity because soon after that he finally came back and voila!
Our drawer was reattached. Thank you anonymous cabinet builder. You may now have your wicker basket.
I told myself that I could already call the day a success because we finally got that drawer fixed and anything else we sold would just be icing on the cake.
Brooke and Caroline are obsessed with money these days so they set up shop at the end of the grass. They sold toys, some artwork, and Otter Pops. I overheard a guy talking to Brooke. She was selling her pictures for $1.00 each. The guy asked her if he could buy one for a quarter. She looked at him like he was crazy, and without missing a beat said, “No. It’s $1.00. Don’t you see I even colored the background?” Get with it, guy. Don’t you realize you’re already getting a deal if you own an original Brooke Golden masterpiece?
Spencer also had a couple of toys out. One of my favorite interactions of the day was when I saw a little kid, probably about two-years-old, toddle up to Spencer and hand him a quarter. Spencer looked at it with a bit of shock and joy, pocketed it, and then handed him one of his cars that was for sale. The whole thing happened without a word from either of them. That’s male bargaining for you, I guess.
Money, money, money! (The money we used for change.)
Money, money, money! (The money we earned.) A huge wad! (Mostly ones.)
We did end up making some money in the end so our efforts were kind of worth it. It was fun to do once or maybe twice, but for now, I’m retiring as a garage sale host. I’ll leave the sale-ing to the pros.
She was baptized a couple of weeks ago. It was a special day and we were happy so much of our family could join us.
We had a luncheon after the baptism. Regretfully I used my dumb camera to take pictures of it and I apparently used the wrong setting because about half of the pictures were blurry. Boo! Here are some of the better pictures:
We were so, so happy that Brooke’s best friends from our condo days could join us. These three girls had such a fun time playing together. If only we all lived closer to each other!
Brooke wanted sherbet and Sprite in place of a cake this year. Between my aunt making Spencer’s birthday cake and Brooke not wanting one, it’s been a while since I’ve had to make a birthday cake. Caroline’s birthday is in a couple of weeks – let’s see if I can keep this streak going!
Dallas did a photo shoot with the birthday girl and got some perfect pictures.
Happy birthday and baptism day! We love you, Brooke!
We had just about the funnest day ever the other day. Dallas had to take a week off of work in order to use up all his paid vacation days before he lost them so we dedicated one of those days to visiting Tracy Aviary and Liberty Park.
The Aviary was a lot bigger and had more exotic birds than I was expecting. We got there right as a show was beginning. They were introducing us to several different types of birds and the birds would fly right over our heads.
Madison loved it:
There were fun things to climb on:
There were little bird houses throughout that featured different birds. Spencer had to keep an eye on them:
We got to see how we measure up:
Brooke with a peacock:
My highlight was meeting this little bird:
He was just roaming around the area. If you approached him he’d run away from you like any other normal bird. However, if you ran AWAY from him he’d start chasing you. So imagine you’re a little kid, who likes to run, and all of a sudden you notice this somewhat large bird is chasing you. So you run faster. Which makes the bird run faster and the only way to get him to stop is for you to stop running. But try explaining that to the kid who is running all around faster and faster and screaming because the bird is about to attack her and she won’t stop running for anything because her life depends on her needing to keep running when actually, she needs to STOP running! It’s all very confusing to the child and hilarious to the parents.
And maybe it will be hilarious to you, too? We took video:
This is Brooke very carefully WALKING because the chasing bird of doom was near:
We forgot our stroller (GAH!) so little missy had her dreams come true as she was able to wander around as she pleased:
While the Aviary was fun, it was also hot which got the kids complaining right away. Spencer found a shady bench, hung his hat up, and took a little rest:
We found some rare species of owls hanging out in a tree:
The never-before-seen Caroline Piggy Owl. You can almost hear her hooting:
We found a picture that you can stick your faces through, and it was perfect! Three spots for three faces! Except one of the face holes was too tall for Caroline to reach so you might notice she’s hanging on for dear life as her feet dangle below:
The kids were positively DYING of heat and hunger and thirst so we headed out of the Aviary and into Liberty Park with our picnic lunches. We found a nice, shady tree and ate and drank:
We were right next to this huge hill that the kids weren’t too hot or tired to run up and down a billion times. Go figure.
Dallas took Caroline and Spencer to the bathroom. Brooke saw them coming back so she hid behind a tree to scare them. They caught on and hid behind a tree to scare HER. It was an amusing game of stalemate that lasted several minutes before Brooke made the move and ran out to get them.
They had paddle boats and canoes that you could ride. Dallas decided to take the big kids out:
Caroline was pretty convinced she was going to die:
They had a fun water play area that was just opening for the day. The kids loved splashing there. We just may have to go back sometime when we’re actually wearing swimming suits:
And that ends our very fun day. We actually wanted to stay longer and play at the park playground but Madison was more than ready for her nap so we had to head home. Hopefully we can make it back again soon and finish exploring the park.
