Norah picked out her outfit for church this morning. Surprisingly, she did a good job dressing herself. She has been insisting on wearing the rain coat for some time, but daddy kept saying no. Mostly because it is so stinking hot and humid outside, it would be miserable. But today, I said yes. And she was so excited. Like some fashion magazine; all of her clothes are from dear friends of mine. The dress (thanks Anica), the rain coat (thanks a bunch Jessica), and the squeaky shoes (I still love them Melynda, thanks!). Thank you all for your contributions in Norah's Sunday attire.

Cleaning up Our Lives

Getting ready to do a yard sale is always so time consuming. Just ask some of my homeschool mommy friends; we had a huge 5 family yard sale back in May. Wow, the time we spent getting that ready was like having a full time job. But I enjoy doing the sorting, pricing, organizing the garage like a little store and see my old things go to new homes. I like to meet the people at o'dark thirty and take a long nap after I've counted my money.

This yard sale was different in the evaluating process. Do you know how many purses I had stashed away in my closet? All neatly lined up, cleaned out, ready to do the switch if I wanted to match an outfit to the bag. 17! That's how many purses I had. That has got to be a sin. Who in their right mind needs that many purses? Who could even use that many? I could not justify keeping most of them. I got rid of 12. The ones that I kept are more like big Mary Poppins bags that I can use on trips or long outings, and a tiny dress purse that has sentimental value. And isn't that silly? A purse with some sentimental value. Then I went on to the shoes. I had shoes hanging on a rack since I've been married and I haven't worn them. I look at them everyday, never thinking twice about them taking up space in my closet, let alone my life. These shoes could be on someone else's feet going somewhere.

It was like that with most of the things I went through. Each time I tell Ryan we are going to have a yard sale, he asks, "Do we even have stuff to get rid of?" I chuckle. He doesn't go into my closet too often. I was kind of ashamed to even have all these possessions. All the "stuff" taking up space. It's not being used. I don't even look at most of it; it just sits in the bottom of a drawer or in a box hopefully waiting to get picked up and appreciated some day. Well, I had the yard sale, and I'm going to have it again next weekend too. I'd like to do it every weekend until all this junk is out of my house. I feel like I can breathe a little better now. And yet, I walk into another room of the house and realize there are three more boxes of "stuff" I could be getting rid of.

We were going to get rid of the skateboard because Nathan gets too discouraged to keep trying to ride it. As you can see we found a much better way to use it. Norah had a blast with Nathan all day greeting people on it. Funny how children never play with a toy until you're about to sell it for really cheap.

In between shoppers. Ryan never did take my triple dog dare.

Norah played with this Buzz Lightyear for the longest time. "I'm Buzz Lightyear! I protect the galaxy from the threat of invasion, I come in peace." We listened to this all day long until a wonderful lady bought it.

My bag of carrots I finished off. Making money makes me get the munchies.

Yippee for Yard Sales

Good Morning Sunshine...

Today Ryan and I are having a yard sale. This is so much fun for me. Actually, so much that I've got the laptop pulled out on my "cashier's table" and am blogging about all the fun this is.

We are a bunch of nuts, though. We like to challenge each other while we do yard sales. I think something will sell for a certain price and Ryan thinks it should have been put into the trash long ago. Ryan begins to price the clothes individually and I have to go back behind him and change most of the prices. This is so much fun!!

As we are sitting here and no one is shopping, Ryan says, "Where are all the people?" He says this like I should have sent out invitations to the event. I smile, look at my cell phone to see what time it is, and realize we could have stayed in bed for 45 more minutes!! It's still too early.
A sweet man just came looking for something that we did not have. He asked us, "How ya doin'?"
We said, "Great. How are you?" Smiles all around. We're all doin' great....
I then looked at Ryan and said, "I triple dog dare you to ask the next person who comes up here, "how ya durin'?" You know, totally East Miton, country bumpkin talk. :)
He said he would. I have yet to hear it.

I hear thunder in the back ground. I hope it doesn't turn into anything. It's a really nice morning. Thank you God for a beautiful morning to sell off all my goods...

Norah's 2nd Birthday Party

I suppose it's better late than never to share in the birthday fun with you!! Norah's birthday was August 25th. We celebrated with a party. Now, anyone who knows me, knows that I love to do parties. I always go all the way with birthday #1. So this year, I thought I would downsize. As I was making out the guest list (yes, I do a guest list. I know this is not a wedding, but it's too much fun to pass up) I put down only family and close friends (who I thought would even find it the least bit amusing to come to the party) and I realized I hadn't done a very good job in keeping it small, which was my main goal. See, when we do parties, we like to cook and feed everyone too.
So, I couldn't start cutting people from the list. I just began thinking of all the ways I could cut costs and still throw an amazing party. So begins the theme. We took Norah on a trip to Party City and I must admit, I was hoping she would pick a princess theme or something to that effect. But each isle, one by one, we went down and she was not interested in anything. Until we came to the last bit of the theme isle, and there on the right was ELMO. I would not even point him out to her. I so desperately wanted her to pass on by without noticing, maybe we could go back to the Tinker Bell section. But to no avail, she spotted him and squealed in delight. I put on a happy face, because see, it is her birthday party not mine. And she is becoming a little lady with her own opinion of things, even if they are preschool opinions. We collected a few ELMO items, trying to stay on a budget. I passed up the invitations; you only get 8 for 4.99. That is not a deal to me when my guest list is now 18 families (about 50 people total). I decided to make my own, which cost me nothing. I also made the cakes with the help of my mother. I made the decorations; from a sign on the door, to blocks on the table for a center piece that spelled out ELMO. I was getting more and more excited. What a joy it is to plan birthday parties!! Needless to say, I did not keep this party smaller than last year. It was just as big of a celebration, but worth every little penny and all the time put into it.

Yes, Norah got cake this year. As most of you know, I've been a food nazi when it comes to junk. I'm very proud of this. This cake is not only organic, wheat, gluten, and dairy free, but we colored it with natural stuff too. Elmos face is colored red with beet juice (freshly juiced, of course, with my new Jack Lelane) and his nose and smile is with turmeric powder. His eyes are made from little gluten free cookies with chocolate morsels on top. Did I go overboard?

This was Norah's first surprise gift from Nana. If you tap the balloon just right, he sings Happy Birthday...and many more!! She was super excited. It's still in her room today.

New sunglasses from my friend Heather. Never fails, Heather always brings the gifts that ends the present opening. When Norah opens Heather's gift, I have to finish all the gift opening because Norah is consumed with the one she just got. Great gifts Heather!!

Finally, time for her to dig into her very first taste of cake. She took her sweet little time and even ate it with a fork. My little lady.

Curran family (minus Nathan, poor thing was still out of town). He ended up coming home the next night.

On Tuesday, Norah's birthday day, I asked her what she wanted for her birthday dinner. This is how it went.

MOM: Norah, what do you want for your birthday dinner?

NORAH: Dinner.

MOM: Yes, what do you want to eat?

NORAH: Eat.

MOM: Yes, what do you want to eat? Rice and beans?

NORAH: Rice and beans! (big smile)

MOM: Who has rice and beans?

NORAH: Rice and beans!! HaHa. (which is translated into "LaHa" for LaHacienda)

So we took her to HaHa for her birthday dinner. Above is her escort into dinner.

Daddy got fajitas. Norah decided they looked much better than her plate of rice and beans.

Norah got the traditional birthday attention from the staff. They even had a hat her size while they sang "Happy Birthday" to her in Spanish. She was more interested in the dessert they brought. A tortilla shell, deep fried, with honey and cinnamon with candy sprinkles. The junk food nazi in me came out. But, I let her have a little bite.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, NORAH!!