First Haircut & First Yard Sale

All three of my children have had the distinction of being born with very little hair.  This has led to my girls waiting until they've been in their fourth year of life before I would let a pair of scissors any where near their heads.  Thankfully, with a boy, being bald hasn't been quite so bad (I can't speak for when it falls out as an adult) and so here is Brady, not even two, already going for his first haircut.  When a little tail in the back started getting longer and longer, I figured it was time. Now, I'm generally a fan of boys with shorter, cropped hair, or even what you would say a buzz cut in some cases but I've discovered this is not Duncan's cup of tea, at least right now, so I acquiesced and kept it the same style, just trimmed up.

My original plan was to just have Calleigh and Aubree gets trims right now because I didn't particularly want to do three at a time.  Furthermore, I didn't want to wait at all.  I called The Hair Cuttery, which is two minutes away, but they didn't take appointments or even allow you to put your name on a list so I turned to Fantastic Sam's which did take appointments.  Plus, I had a coupon.  It was a little farther away but proved to be the best option.  This was to be Aubree's first haircut too so I started talking up the event, how she was a big girl, etc, not that I was particularly worried she wouldn't do well.  Then Calleigh starts talking to her, "Aubree, you know, it does hurt a little bit when they put your head back to wash your hair."  Have you ever just wanted to tell your kid, just SHUT UP?  This was one of those times.  Fortunately, this information didn't seem to phase Aubree too much.  As we were on the way to the appointment, she kept talking about how she was going to the dentist...I guess because she saw picture of Calleigh sitting up high in a chair and it's like how you sit at the dentist.  I told her, "Aubree, no, it's not the dentist.  It's a hair salon."  In her typical fashion she says, "Well, you can CALL it the dentist if you want." Okay, whatever.

As it turned out, neither even got their hair washed although I must say, I felt a little gypped about that since the price of a kid's haircut included it.  But maybe they just try to do it as quickly as possible with little kids.  We didn't have to wait at all and both girls did great.  Since it went so fast and nobody was around, I decided to just do Brady's too.  He started making crying overtures when he realized what was going to happen but I sat him on my lap, got my phone out, and he quickly became oblivious to anything being done to him.  Success!  It all ended well.

"Before."  There is no official "after."

Trying to get an "after" shot proved to be somewhat difficult.  But I had to send Duncan one right away to prove I hadn't chopped all his hair!

Fanstastic Sam's was in an area I had actually not driven to before in my six months of living here so I had to google it to see the directions.  As I did so, I noticed it was next to a CVS so I decided to knock out a visit there right afterwards.  Well, wasn't I pleasantly surprised to walk in and find it five times nicer than the one I usually go to and...it had cars attached to the carts.  Jackpot!  This CVS was almost in Windermere where the richy rich folks live so I guess they must do it up nice for them.  I now have a new CVS.  It might be a few minutes farther away but well worth it.

Yes!

I guess this is the "after" shot.  And yes, we were bundled in up in pants and sweaters again.

Back to last weekend...Sunday was the big yard sale day.  Saturday night I looked at the weather report and saw it didn't predict any rain until the afternoon so I decided to move forward with plans.  This involved baking four batches of cookies, two batches of muffins, and one batch of cupcakes.  Then pricing everything to sell and getting it organized.  It's a lot of work but I enjoyed it all.  I got up the next morning at 6:45 to start putting everything out.  The community was opening the gates at 8:00 so I figured I would need to be ready at the same time.  Since it's still dark here at that time, it felt strange preparing before it even gets light out.  Around 7:00, when things were just starting to lighten up, I had the garage open and was starting to put stuff on the tables and this somewhat sketchy looking white van started slowly driving by.  I was thinking maybe it was an early bird to the sale but how would they get in the gate?  So then I was really getting a little concerned.  It came to a stop right in front of my house...and then papers started getting tossed in my driveway.  Whew!  Scared me there for a second.  I'm supposed to get six but I quickly counted only four papers and then it started driving away so I had to run down the street after it to demand my missing two papers.  I had only gotten four last week too!  I guess it was providential I was out there.
 
At about 7:15 the girls were already awake and downstairs.  Usually they aren't up until around 8:00 but I could tell they were excited for the sale.  They helped me finish prepping and were all ready to go and sure enough, a few people showed up right at 8:00 including one gentleman who bought two pairs of my sandals.  Hey, I don't judge.  But if Duncan ever went to a yard sale and bought me sandals on his own accord, well, I just don't EVER see that happening.

The girls eating their yogurts at the end of the driveway before the sale started.

Elaine came just after 8:00 as well and was there for the duration of the sale which was a huge help.  Duncan was in and out helping too so everything was well under control.  The kids kept themselves pretty well entertained playing with the toys and such that we were selling.  I only had one meltdown over any of that which came from Calleigh on Saturday night when she realized I was selling one of the cash registers.  We had two exactly the same and there seemed to be no point to it.  She freaked out about it and when I went upstairs to get them ready for bed, she snuck back down and came back up with a little smirk on her face.  She said she had taken the price tag off the register and had hidden it so I couldn't sell it.  After a few minutes she appeared to feel sorry for hiding it and admitted she had put in the pantry.  Later I went into the pantry and looked high and low and could not find it.  Apparently she had down a superb job hiding it.  So Sunday morning, I demanded she tell me where it was in there  and this time she made a beeline for my closet and dragged it out from under some clothes.  Yup, she had said it was in the pantry just so I wouldn't find it.  That stinker.  In the end, someone did buy it but fortunately she had apparently by this time come to terms with it's departure from the family and didn't make a fuss at all.

They made baby cradles out of magazine racks and baskets.  

As expected, we didn't get a ton of people to the sale, I'm sure because a) it was Sunday and not a Friday or Saturday and b) the weather looked ominous a lot of the morning.  But, we did make about $135 and also another $35 from selling the baked goodies and lemonade so I call the outing a success.  It's not just the money I enjoy but also meeting people and just seeing how people operate in general.  One thing that was interesting is that I would say about half the people that came were men by themselves.  Strangely, only one of them, and not more, was looking for gold.  I always hear older men at yard sales asking for that.  Sure enough, we did get one guy in like his 70's I would say, give us his speech about whether we had gold, watches, coins, etc.and how he was an honest guy, etc.  I never quite know if they are honest or just really good at being slimy.  At any rate, he did chat with us for a bit and then gave the girls $20 for our fund so that was at least very generous.  You may recall that I mentioned we were selling the goodies to help the Adventurers raise money to purchase a wheelchair for someone.

Around 12:45 the wind was blowing really hard, things were slowing down and the rain looked it was coming on soon so we called it a day.  Now to just get the rest of the stuff over to Goodwill at some point.  Anyway, we had a good time and I'm sure we'll do it again in the future.  Oh, and Calleigh had major success because Elaine had brought over a scooter they had that they had forgotten about and Calleigh was all over it.  She is now obsessed with it and rides it constantly on the patio and begs to go for walks.  So if nothing else, the sale was a major win for her.  Grandma didn't even charge her :)

After naps, we headed over to Ron and Elaine's to celebrate Ron's birthday.  I was more than happy to partake of Elaine's excellent cooking and not have to make supper!  We had a good time.

Let's see...other highlights of the week.  Tuesday evening we went to Chik-Fil-A as they were having a petting zoo and little egg hunt for the kids.  We haven't been there in ages because they stopped doing the Kid's Eat Free on Tuesday nights...information I was happy to share with them as they rang up my purchase. The Bergherms and the Zbaraschuks were there too and it was nice to have a mid-week diversion and chat with them.  As far as the petting zoo, only Calleigh partook of it as both Aubree and Brady were content to merely watch from the sidelines.  Those two!  

I was expecting today to be pretty slow for yard sales because of Good Friday/Easter but it turned out to be pretty good.  It was around 11:45 and we had made our way to Altamonte and I still had a few places on my list when I looked down at my gauges and noticed the lower tire pressure light was on for the front passenger tire (opposite side of the flat tire).  I prayed it was just a little low but when I pulled over to look, nope, I had that stinking feeling.  There was a 7-Eleven a half mile a way so I slowly made my way there thinking maybe I would fill the tire with air and we could be on our way but when I checked it again it was clearly going flat and not a little low.  Another flat tire!  What bad luck.  This time Allen wasn't around to rescue us so I had to interrupt Duncan who was in a meeting with his boss but he was able to come pretty quickly and change the tire despite having to step on the nuts with his dress shoes.  I gave in to the fact that there were would be no more yard sales that day and since it was lunch time, we decided to go to Cracker Barrel which was right across the street.  The food came pretty quickly but after it did, Brady started crying about who knows what and we had to take him outside FOUR times in a ten minute span because he would not be quiet. Aubree then had to piddle as soon as I got a moment to take a bite of my food. And then Duncan was on his phone most of the time doing emails, although understandably so since he was working and all. When it was finally over I was like "Well, this was fun.  We should do these weekday lunches more often."

"I help you.  I help you."  Of course, Brady wanted to help me get the spare tire out. Some day my little man, I won't need Daddy to rescue me because I'll have you.

Other than that, things are going well. I actually forgot to mention that I've still been having some nausea despite being in my 17th week.  I hadn't refilled my Zofran prescription thinking I should be fine at this point but one morning it was really bad and I had nothing.  Sure enough, within a few minutes I was standing over the toilet thinking, this is nuts to be doing this at this point.  Definitely the latest that I've felt sick to my stomach with any of my pregnancies.  Needless to say, I immediately refilled my prescription and I've been popping them here and there...just in the mornings I don't feel well. It's not every morning, fortunately.   This past week I think I've also felt some movement for the first time.  It's always hard to tell at first.  I'm still hanging in with the regular clothes although I'm only down to about three pairs of pants (yes, still having to wear pants as it got cold again this week) so the transition to maternity is on the horizon.

In closing, here are a few conversations with the girls.  The first one was at breakfast and centers around the fact that Aubree is just a terrible breakfast eater.  She may have a much wider palette than her two siblings but when it comes to quantity, she eats barely half as much as Calleigh and breakfast is the worst.  I constantly have to tell her to sit down and finish her breakfast or seriously, she would probably eat like two bites.  So that prompted this exchange:

Me:  "Aubree, sit down and finish your breakfast."
Aubree pretty much ignores me and gets up to do something.
Calleigh: "Aubree, stop it and eat."
Aubree: "You stop it."
Calleigh: "No, you stop it."
Aubree: "STOP."
Calleigh: "Aubree, don't you know one of the commandments says to obey your parents and you aren't?"
Aubree: "Well, in China they have a commandment that says you can't say 'Stop it'."

Good to know!

Another time I'm having a discussion with Calleigh about pirates, apparently a topic that is still on her mind following Braelyn's party.

Calleigh: "Mom, do you know any pirates?"
Me: "No, I can't say I do.  Pirates generally aren't good people because they steal stuff from people on boats and ships."
Calleigh: "Well, there are good pirates, you know."
Me: "Oh really?"
Calleigh: "Yes, like Uncle Terry is the pirate of his boat."
Me: "I think maybe you mean he's the PILOT of his boat."
Calleigh: "Oh...yeah."

Some parting pictures...

All hands on...Aubree's face.

Sharing a smoothie on an outing with Daddy to pick up the repaired tire.

Nature Hunters!  Calleigh was able to utilize one of her nature hunter gadgets when she found this bug in the backyard. She named him Ditchy.  I have no idea why.  She let him go later in the day.

Aubree's rendition of Zdeno Chara of the Boston Bruins which she drew completely unprompted Wednesday morning. She even remembered the "C" for captain that he has on his jersey.  I'm sure if she had drawn it the next morning, he would have had a massive frown on his face from the B's blowing a game to the hated Canadians and failing to get Jerome Iginla in a much needed trade.

Calleigh's nest creation from Adventurers on Wednesday.  They were very pleased with all the money she had raised for the wheelchair, incidentally.

Have a happy Sabbath and Easter!