Bobbies!

< There's no question that little girls and little boys are different.  Obviously it must be just an innate thing.  What makes a little boy love a tractor (my dear nephew Camden) and a little girl love a Barbie doll?  This morning I was out yard-saling with the girls and Elaine came along.  I ask Calleigh every week if there's something in particular that she's looking for this week at the yard sales and every week it's the same answer, "Barbies."  So we're at one sale looking around.  There are some toys and such that we're looking through.  Then I hear a lady ask one of the persons in charge of the sale, "How much for these Barbies?"  I look over and there's the lady peering into this pink container.  Obviously Calleigh and Aubree heard the lady at the same time I did because in a flash, they were both running as fast as they could to where the lady was standing, eying up the Barbie she was holding, and Aubree is chanting, "Bobbies, Bobbies!"  The excitement mounted even more when they looked into the container and saw all the Barbie stuff.  They each took one and I knew without a doubt that we would be making a purchase.  I ask the man how much the Barbies are and he says "$5 for the whole thing."  I told him I only wanted like two of them (I only bring a certain amount of money with me to the sales and I didn't want to spend $5 on Barbies!) but the next thing I know, it's Grandma to the rescue!  Grandma gets out her $5 and Calleigh and Aubree (although I think Calleigh sortof thinks they're only hers) are the proud owners of a new Barbie container and all the exciting dolls and clothes that came with it.  It was a successful day!!

That's the new pink Barbie container in the middle.  It even has a little handle so you can take your Barbie's "on the go."

Later on, we had another stop at an estate sale.  I typically avoid them because it's rare that you'll find kid's clothes at them, my main objective to yard sale-ing.  But we decided to pop in and Elaine hit pay dirt.  She's been looking for a new sofa for their den and she found one that she immediately fell in love with.  A great deal!  We marveled that it was kind of sad though.  This was a very organized estate sale where a company comes in and is in charge of the sale.  They take credit cards and charge sales tax.  No doubt some poor family ran out of money and the last step was to sell all of their belongings.  They were even selling unopened bottles of wine and I marveled that there was some to sell.  I guess things weren't so bad that they had to drown their sorrows away with the wine.

While driving around to sales, we came across this plaza that already had Christmas decorations up.   I can't remember seeing these kind of decorations out before Halloween.  Inside the stores, yes, but not these.

Going back to earlier in the week, Wednesday morning we had a little adventure with Marlee.  While we've been relieved that she doesn't appear to have anything major wrong with her (although that's sortof still up in there air), she's still battling some ear problems.  We don't know for how long or why it happened but she's had dry, cracked ears for a number of weeks.  Well, Wednesday it all came to a head when Duncan noticed some blood droplets on the floor.  Sure enough, one of Marlee's ears had started to bleed.  Before we had figured it out, she had been up in our room, on our bed, and a number of other places.  It was like Hansel and Gretel.  You could follow the blood trail and see everywhere Marlee had been.  No biggie on the wood floor but not so nice in the bedroom.  I even followed the trail to the closet and I could see that she must have shaken her head standing next to the closet door because there was blood spatter all over it.  I felt like a CSI detective at that point.  The real problem came in when we couldn't get the bleeding to stop.  She's had a problem with blood clotting so that obviously didn't help.  We put pressure on it and as soon as it looked like it would stop and you let go of her ear, she would shake her head and it would start up all over again.  We finally put some band aids and a bunch of gauze on it and fortunately that did the trick until we got her to the vet at 9:20.  They cauterized both her ears and that stopped the bleeding.  Apparently it will just go away on it's own because they didn't offer any solutions to remedying it.  The good thing about the trip to the vet was that she had to get her stitches out so I had to go anyway.

After that drama, we trekked over to Yolanda and Emma's for some play time.  A good time was had by all although Aubree drives me nuts because she's constantly trying to go up and down the stairs.  Oh how I appreciate our gates!  Yolanda fed us a great lunch including an authentic Spanish tortilla.  She's really a good cook and I'm all too happy to try her stuff.  Calleigh also loves having lunch there because she knows she'll get juice.  I notice she tends to not eat as much when she has the juice.  I present to you Exhibit A of why we don't have juice at home.

We finally struck on something in our prayers tonight that beat out the Science Center. I think I mentioned that Calleigh prays every night about going to the Science Center the next day.  And every night when I correct her and tell her where we're really going, she gets right up in my face and says "No, we're going to the Science Center."  Not rudely or anything, just very firmly.  So tonight when she said thanks that we're going to the Science Center I said, "No, tomorrow is Sabbath School."  This time she said, "Oh yeah, that's right, that's right, it's Sabbath School."  So Sabbath School trumps the Science Center.  Good to know.

Another thing Calleigh cracked me up with is her cleaning up.  As I am sure happens with most kids, it's rare that Calleigh actually likes to pick up her toys, although there are occasions where she'll just pick up on her own.  Not sure what happens in those cases but I'm not complaining.  Anyway, last evening I told her she needed to pick up before we went upstairs for a tubby and she stated very matter of factly, "No, I don't like to pick up toys.  I only like to take them out and play with them."  I think she thought this was a legitimate reason and she would be excused from it.  I told her I appreciated her honestly but that's just not the way it worked.  Meanwhile, there's Aubree dutifully picking up all the Weebles without even having to ask her twice.  For whatever reason, Aubree loves to clean up.  I'm quite surprised that Calleigh hasn't figured this out yet and worked it to her advantage.

That's all the "excitement" from the Grodack household this week.  Actually, that's a lie.  Duncan got a new smart phone through work (the Blackberry has been retired) and of course, that's like the greatest thing since sliced bread.  Duncan + Technology = we don't see or hear from him for a few days.  I'm just kidding buddy. I knew you would be reading this and couldn't help but say it!!

Aubree now actually asks for magazines (even says the word) when she's on the potty.  She was intrigued with this particular one because she thought that was Calleigh in the picture.  When she's done, she says "All done."