garage sale!

This weekend we hosted our first garage sale! Let me just say, I have the fondest memories of garage sales at ours and neighbors homes growing up. Us kids always did some sort of stand and it was such a fun couple days. So I was really excited to now be at the point in life to have my own and have kiddos old enough to enjoy it too...it feels like a little life milestone :-)
My mom and aunt both added their stuff too... and it was H.U.G.E. It look us a whole week, working everyday, almost all day to get everything cleaned, organized and priced. Then we had the sale on Friday and Saturday. The highlight of the whole thing was Ellia & Remae's lemonade and cookie stand. They were adorable and Ellia is quite the little business woman! ;) she earned $20 on quarter lemonades and cookies! the sign she made was adorable...definitely a keeper.
All in all, not sure it was financially worth all the work, but we had a lot of fun together AND I have a much emptier, cleaner house (thanks to the hubby's rule: once it goes out, it doesn't come back in). All the remaining items were donated on Monday. As much of a sentimental horder as I can be, sometimes it feels really good to purge!

 making cookies with ellia for her stand...she was so excited!

 check out the adorable sign she made.

eatin their profits :)

happy last-year-in-your-20s birthday to my pete!

Happy happy 29th birthday to my love! Tonight we celebrated daddy's birthday...a nice laid-back night at home with good food and his girls = just what he ordered up. Peter is sooo low maintainance, especially when it comes to birthdays and celebrations, etc. The inner party planner and birthday lover girl inside me automatically jumps to favorite restaurant stops and things to do when birthday time comes around. However... I had to force myself to put that girl aside and do whatever it was the hubs wanted for his birthday... yes, even if that meant dinner and dessert at home and nothing planned :)

I must admit, it was a really fun and relaxing evening celebrating daddy. The girls and I spent the day getting things prepared for him. They made him adorable cards and a special birthday hat that "has to be worn the whole night, daddy!"

If I can't take him somewhere fancy, why not make the meal gourmet and whip out the china...right?! He LOVED his surf & turf dinner complete with his favorite rootbeer and requested carmel white chocolate bars for dessert. we ended the evening with a family movie along with some extra time to tell daddy all the reasons we love and are are so thankful for him.

Thank you Jesus for the best husband, father, love, friend, man and family leader we could ever ask or hope for. I feel so undeserving and so very thankful.

Heres a little look at daddy's 29th birthday:



GBD

Thanks to a couple friends' recommendation, I received my first Green Bean Delivery today.
No.... the postman didn't include a bubble wrapped envelope of green beans with our mail.

Green Bean Delivery provides home delivery of the freshest local organic produce and natural groceries. Before even trying the food, I'm hooked. Its an amazingly simple but unique process...completely customizable. Every week or every other you receive an ice-packed green bin on your doorstep filled with a variety of local organic produce and groceries of your choosing. The best part... the prices beat most of the prices at the grocery (and do so without the tiring lines and crying children ;) Plus Ellia LOVED getting our green bin and unpacking all the goodies.
This week's loot included: broccoli, corn, onion, carrots, apples, grapefruit, oranges, limes, pears, avocado, portobello mushrooms, grape tomatoes, arugula, bananas, green leaf lettuce, oats, chicken breast tenders, and skim milk! Whew - excited to get in the kitchen this week and see what I can whip up with all this freshness! If you are in one of their delivery areas, I highly recommend taking a look at what all they have to offer at www.greenbeandelivery.com.
Take a look:

guilt = new saturday morning alarm clock

ellia: Daddy, why do you like to sleep so long on saturday morning?

daddy: Well honey, when you get older, you don't have as much energy... like your batteries are running low, so you have to charge them up.

 ellia: But I thought Jesus was your batteries?

 daddy: ............and I'm up.

 : ) love her and her little mind.

HE is Risen, HE is Risen Indeed!

What a day for celebration and reflection on all we have to rejoice over in the Lord! His Sacrifice on Friday and His power to rise again on Sunday that made Salvation possible. Overwhelmed with thankfulness over that reality today.
Whew... such a full day. Fun and tiring! We started with a great church service, challenging and emotional. Came straight home to get last minute things in order for the whole Edmonds clan (19) to join us for Easter. We had an amazing lunch (including tons of delicious desserts of course) and spent hours trying to entertain 9 kiddos with all the Easter fun we could pack in.... Egg hunting, egg dying, cupcakes, easter baskets, candy, crafts, etc. etc. The guys enjoyed chilling out watching the Masters (I tried to sit down every now and then for 2 secs to catch up on it... but well, you know how that goes).
After everyone left, it looked like a bomb went off... but another day because I certainly don't have the energy to clean it up yet! We gave the girls their Easter bags from and nana & papa and their "basket" from us, but at this point they were sugared-up-and-no-napped-out! We enjoyed reading them "What is Easter" and talking once again before bed about the true celebration of this day. (If you've never seen these books by Michelle Medlock, I highly recommend them. They have them for several different holidays. They are cute rhyming books that the girls love. The words stick with them and they talk about all the fun stuff we enjoy and then the true meaning of the said holiday.)
Peter and I finally got more than 2 minutes together to just veg and relax after a long day.
Anyway, it was a fantastic day. One of the better Easters I have had in a while! Here are a few pics from the day.... (now, off to tend to that bomb!)

my easter beauties!

not bad for only being allowed "one shot!" but coulda been better!

carrot cupcakes - turned out pretty cute! also made vanilla with chocolate buttercream and carrot cake with cream cheese frosting - YUM

Easter baskets from Aunt Tiff & Uncle Pete complete with kites for the boys and princess stuff for the girls, of course candy, and we also made "Easter S'mores kits" with peeps for each of them

 

Egg-hunting-cuties!

all the cousins checking out their loot!

egg-dying

girl-craftin'

the girls opening their easter "basket" wheelbarrow from us
with garden fun, books, stickers, etc.

  

  

completely adorable in their easter dresses if I do say so myself :)

an unexpected treat

talked the hubs into a quick, easy and yummy dinner out at our fav casual italian spot in uptown, Pasquales. We had a nice, relaxing dinner as a family and headed out. We had gotten through the parking lot almost to our car when a man came sprinting to us. He waved us down and then handed both girls each a $5 bill. He proceeded to tell us how relaxing his dinner was next to us and how we had the most well behaved kids he has ever seen. He said they deserved some ice cream and we should use the money to take them to Graeters for a treat. We said our astonished "thank-yous" and he was off.
We were completely shocked! What a fun and thankful parent moment. We just looked at each other, smiled and said "I guess we should go!" :)
thankful for the blessing of a sweet reminder of how dear and precious my kiddos are from outside eyes- its easy to get lost in the day-to-day-please-stop-fighting-over-toys-be-patient-stop-fussing-please-restate-that-sentence-without-whining stuff. They really are amazingly wonderful girls and all the credit goes straight up to the Giver of everything good.....
everything good.....even carmel ice cream from Graeters :)

finger feat

so so proud of my little girl and her recent feat! ellia's been sucking her first finger, or "my one" as she calls it, since she first found it as a newborn... 4+ years! when she turned 3 we started occasionally trying to nix the habit but never really enforced anything. at her last dentist appointment about 2 months ago, they said it was time to get serious about it. ive explained how continuing to suck her finger would hurt her teeth (and any other negative things I could think of) hoping that would merely be a good start. she wasn't seeming to catch on so we starting mentioning possibly putting a band aid or something on there as a reminder to her, but hadn't gotten that far yet.

One day she told us (with a very matter-of-fact-ive-really-thought-through-this-and-this-is-what-ive-decided tone) "I'm just not going to suck my finger anymore." We found it cute and funny and said "okay-great idea!" with no thought to it actually meaning much.
2-3 weeks later and I haven't seen a finger in that mouth once, even at bedtime. We've been amazed and so proud at the realization that she had just made up her mind and stuck to it. I'm not sure what actually triggered the decision, but no matter!

Today we decided it was time for a little reward, so we headed to Toy's R Us. We let her pick out something she wanted, which turned into more of a day-trip than we planned :) but hey! we were even able to use it as a little math-learning-time. She was given an amount to spend, so she would look at the prices and determine if it was too expensive or within her budget range. I was impressed at how well she did that... all the way through the store. (she was especially excited to discover she could, in fact, pick out more than one item as long as it was under her given amount = SCORE!)

here's are "big" girl with her chosen reward treats... a kindergarten learning activity book and a dora playdoh set!