Blogging at my Yard Sale

Well, today I am monitoring my yard sale. There is no other reason that I would be awake and dressed by 8am with nothing better to do than blog. :) Ardyn is in the house with her dad for a while, and will come outside with me a little later. The crazy thing about it all is that this weekend is probably THE most busy weekend we have had in a long long time. Friday I had the yard sale for part of the day, and went to a few sales myself. Friday night we took Ardyn to Sheffield Homecoming to ride the carousel, and she tasted a strawberry daiquiri shaved ice, and some breading from a corn dog. This morning we begin the garage sale again, and at noon we have Evan's family reunion at the park here in town, and tonight Evan's band has a gig. Tomorrow is Father's Day. AND Friday was Kyle's 30th Birthday. Whew. If I was working my head would have exploded already. But despite all of the activities, I managed to wash diapers and hang them on the line, and make Ardyn a smocked sundress for the reunion today (although I am very disappointed that I ran out of time to make her the matching hat I planned for.) I am thinking about not putting her in the dress until I have the hat made, so she may be wearing it for another occasion. I actually did all the smocking myself, which was AWESOME. It took some time, so I am not sure how often I will be doing that, but it IS Stinking cute!

So I guess let's start by mentioning what has been going on lately around here. Not much! LOL. Well I mean really life as usual. I have gotten myself back into sewing, and made time for it. I grabbed a second excersaucer at the garage sales earlier this week, and have been putting it in the sewing room along with her mat of toys that is usually down there. I Have made her three new hats (all pictures here) and have lots of projects on the table, including some cute babydoll tank tops and a few dresses. I also made her a pair of recycled pants, out of some old lingerie of mine. They are SO cute and don't even require a pattern!

Uncle Kyle has a huge garden this year that I can't WAIT to see the results from, I am really getting excited about canning this year. I want to make my own spaghetti sauce in addition to the usual stewed tomatoes that I can. Besides that I usually freeze most of my things... and that will be great for future meals for Ardyn.

Speaking of which, the baby food making has really ramped up a bit. Last week I made 16 more meals for her, including Cheesy Chicken and Broccoli, Chicken Mornay with Vegetables (leeks, carrots, parsnips, broccoli, and chicken in a homemade cheese sauce), and homemade Spaghettios with organic Tomato paste and home canned tomatoes. She is a great eater. She loves whole wheat bagels, cheerios, goldfish crackers, juice, biter biscuits, baby mum-mums, Gerber's star Poofs and pinwheels, and lots of other things like fresh nectarines, bananas, and strawberries. She is to the point of wanting to eat everything that I have. It is good because it makes me much more conscious of what I eat. For breakfast we often sit down together and split some fresh fruit, and I will have cereal and she might have yogurt, and we will split a mini wheat bagel. Sometimes I put a little fruit yogurt on her bagel. She likes the fact that she is eating some of the same things as I am and she eats much more and much easier that way. She went through a phase of trying to resist vegetables to get more fruit, and Evan would try feeding her and she would turn away and he would just look at me and say "She doesn't want it" and I would be like- Bullshit, she's gonna eat it. Eventually she got out of that phase.

This past week we went to the Pediatrician for her 9 month visit. She is 18 pounds 4 ounces, just under the 50%. What kills me is that we often see people who say "How Old is she?" and when I respond 9 months, they say "Oh My God she is HUGE" and then things like "I thought she was two!" and I just look at them like they are Martians. If you don't know what size a baby is/should be, then keep your mouth shut. Otherwise you just look like an idiot.

She is now saying a few words, her top word is "dog" and other than that she can say daddy and now "girl" and we have also heard things like "uh-oh" and apparently everyone but me has heard her say "mommy" or "mom mom mom" - apparently she only says it when I am not around and she wants me. I long for the day when I hear her say it, but usually I think she is a little confused because she often calls me "daddy" or "dada" and I think that she thinks that Dada means both of us. Who knows. She has done a few signs, but mostly she just knows what they mean and doesn't sign them herself. She has signed both "milk" and "more." She loves to clap, especially if you start to sing pattycake. Last night she was clapping along when the band at homecoming started getting the crowd to clap. She saw them and just joined right in. She also does "So Big" and gives you "one" with her one finger to your one finger. She is HUGE about pointing right now. She points at everything. This is a good thing because then we can tell her the names of things and point to them, and name things that she points to.

Her favorite things are dogs by far, and animals that resemble giant dogs, like horses, cows, and zebras. She loves to watch Zaboomafoo on Sprout, which is a zoo type show that gets up close with lots of animals. She loved the cows at Grandpa Daves. She can also make a clopping sound like a horse, and I am trying to get her to associate it with the horse, but so far she hasn't really made the connection. She giggles extensively when you bark like a dog, especially if you toss your head back and howl.

We still haven't made it to daycare to visit yet. Last week I was all ready to take her, she was dressed, I was dressed, we were packed up and planning to visit and go get groceries. She went down for a 1pm nap, and although it USUALLY lasts about 45 minutes, she slept for almost 3 hours, which is unusual, and then didn't get up till half of the daycare crowd and at least one of her teachers would have been gone for the day. It made me sad. But we did get groceries!

I visited a health food store in LaSalle that was nice. I liked the fact that they carried lots of the products that I order online, for the same prices that I paid online. They had Nordic Naturals Fish Oil Supplements, Ecover cleaning and laundry products, Tazo cold teas, Burts Bees, Dr. Bronners, Jason products, and lots of food products also. It was a nice store and I got some Jason Natural Bug spray, and some Ecover Bac-out for the diapers, and some mixed brown rice. Really everything was very reasonably priced. I also discovered a new addiction. Tazo Peach Green Tea. I have some Ginger Peach Green Tea from the Republic of Tea that I really love, and had considered making it cold too, but hadn't tried it yet. Now that I have discovered this bottled Tazo Peach Green Tea, I am thinking I need to buy it in bulk. Ha.

The garage sales are REALLY slow. I have been open an hour and a half and have probably had 5 people, and have sold TWO things. For a total of $1.50. Yeah. I hope I am not stuck with all this stuff. I think it is mainly because instead of doing the usual townwide they have started participating in the "more on 34" yard sales that stretch for miles. And that means that FOUR local towns have townwide sales today. And that seriously takes away your crowd. People really seem to just be hitting the main drag and avoiding all the other side roads, which is sad because there is lots of good stuff in town. Yesterday I got a Fisher Price Little People Noah's Ardk playset for $2, and two wilton cake pans for $1 each (Mickey and Pooh) and a Fisher price Baby Gymnastics Bounce and Spin Zebra ($44 retail) for $10. AND A playskool ride and walk behind car for $5. Good Stuff! Oh and an excersaucer that folds flat for $25.

I was hoping to make enough money at the sale to put towards a new dishwasher, but seeing as how it's totally DEAD I am not convinced that that is even possible. Damn economy. Ha.

I'm even seling a digital camera, a diaper genie II, A brand new sealed box of Huggies, an air purifier, an answering machine, two wine bottle racks, shoes new in the box with tags, a graco vibrating bassinet, TONS of clothes that are all on hangers, about 25 pair of jeans (most of which are like brand new), new in the box Avon jewelry, two boxes of books, playstation games, Xbox games, computer games, and a basket of Victoria's Secret pajamas, a basket of just tank tops for 50 cents each, and a whole tub of sports bras and swimsuits. Seriously people. This is good shit. And. Nothing. No people!

I am really happy that the weather is nice today, but because there is such a small crowd, it makes me think that I would be better off fishing or reading a book in a hammock. I guess I could go get a book to read for the rest of the morning. I recently read Water for Elephants for my may book club, and am going to read Julie and Julia for June, and we are SUPPOSED to read Love in the Time of Cholera for July, but I started and was NOT enjoying it at all. It is so verbose and it just bored me to pieces. My life is too short to force myself to read something that I am not interested in. There are too many books out there to read something that isn't my cup of tea. Especially considering my reading time is limited.

Well, since people continue to drive by and gawk at me, I feel like I need to find a book to read, so everyone have a great weekend and a Happy Father's Day. More later I hope!