Mama is tired!

Tonight was the night. The night I had to work at the consignment sale. In order to shop early, you must volunteer to work. It's how you "pay" for your early shopping privilege. I worked my regular work schedule at the office, leaving 15 minutes early in order to make it to the sale on time. I got to the consignment sale at 5, and my shift ended at 9.

This time I worked at the front door. Just like leaving Sams, you must show your receipt to leave. And I ask about large ticket items, things like cribs, strollers, high chairs, large bulky items you can't really carry around with you. If you have none, out you go. If you have large items, I have someone pull the item for you while you move your vehicle up to the door. The very nice men outside then load it for you.

Tonight's shoppers were for charity. Each person paid $5 to enter, 100% of that money went to the charity of their choice. They could pick from the list we had. Then, upon checkout they were once again asked who they were shopping for, 10% of their total sale goes to that charity. The second half of the night is set aside for first time parents and grandparents. We sell lots of larger items during this sale. Lots of people buying high chairs, swings, cribs, everything.

My 4 hour shift was over before I knew it. Now I'm sitting home with my feet on the coffee table. My feet and back hurt from standing for the past 4 hours, but I'll survive. I'll just wear comfy shoes tomorrow to work.

Consignment Shopping

We have a twice annual consignment sale here in town. I'm sure there are other sales during the year, but none stack up to this. This one totally rocks. There are 850 consignors. Each consignor is allowed to place up to 150 items, and no more. Each item placed is closely inspected for any stains, tears or missing buttons. Those items are immediately rejected. A lot of the clothes are name brand. My best find last year? Purple Ralph Lauren stripped sweater, looked brand new, for $5.

Yes, I'm a fan of this sale. I look forward to it each year. As quickly as Paige grows, I just can't see spending $50 for a Ralph Lauren sweater for a 3 year old. I'm more of the $5 crowd, than the $50 crowd. My bank account can't afford the full price for Polo. There's a fall/winter sale, and a spring/summer sale. Usually by the time the next sale rolls around, Paige needs all new clothes. That's what happens when nothing from the year before still fits. At the age of 3, Paige is in a size 4. She needs it for the length since she's so tall, but her little waist is more of a 3T still. Last winter she was in a 3T. Last years pants are closer to a capri than a long pant. None of the shirts fit.

I volunteer to work at the sale, meaning I get to shop early. I also consign at the sale (this is my first sale to consign) so I get to shop early for that as well. I shopped today on my volunteer ticket, and I gave my consignor ticket to Aunt Wii to shop tomorrow for her grandson, Xander. The sale opens to the public on Wednesday. The doors opened at 4pm. I was in line at 1:30. Preparing for this sale is easy: go through Paige's closet to see if anything still fits, grab a laundry basket for shopping, a book for reading while you wait, and sit and wait. Lots of people take chairs to wait, that's too much effort for me. I don't mind sitting on the ground. I waited 2 1/2 hours in the heat to be one of the first in line. I was about number 75 to 80 in line. Number 1 in line got there at 11 am.

I did well at the sale. I got 1 toy box (bin style retail $6o, paid $30), 6 pairs of pants, 3 skirts, 2 dresses, and 15 to 20 shirts. Total spent? $117. Probably my best find is a pair of Children's Place pants, size 4 with the adjustable waist, cute little butterflies appliquéd down the side, tags still on. Retail was $19, I got them for $6.50. The person who consigned them got them on clearance for $12.50 at least.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

I loved this book when I was a kid. We moved into a house where the previous tenant had left a few boxes. Either stuff they didn't want or stuff they forgot. I was happy to discover they had left books. This was one of the books they had left behind. I carried this copy around for me for quite a while. Still not sure what happened to it, but I've lost it somewhere along the way.

Today we decided to try and take Paige to another movie. She did much better this time. We got popcorn and Sprite, a treat in itself, and settled in to watch the movie. We didn't see the 3D version, thinking she may not be ready for that just yet. I'm happy to report Paige sat through the entire movie, and seemed to really like it. She did get bored for a bit by the end, but she stuck it out and enjoyed it overall.

Now, I'm laying on the couch blogging (sorry to ruin any glamorous ideas you had about me) while listening to Ronnie read bedtime stories on the monitor. Paige picked the sequel, Pickles to Pittsburgh, as her story tonight. If you haven't read the book, get it and read it to your kids. The movie is a great adaption that had to be greatly changed to make a 20 page children's book into an hour and a half movie. I think they did it justice though. Pickles to Pittsburgh isn't too bad either.

Chores

I'm not some Super Mean Mommy that makes her 3 year old do a lot of chores. But, I do like for Paige to help out. And most of the time, she's willing to help us. Her chores aren't hard, but they are something she has to help with.

1. Feeding the cats. We keep the cat food in a cheapie plastic storage bin under the shelf where the bowls are. Paige pulls it out, takes of the lid, scoops a coffee cup full into the bowl and closes the container. When it's full she can't push it back onto the shelf, but she will ask for help. Mommy still gives the cats water since that's very messy.

2. Putting away her shoes. My shoe fiend child would leave shoes all over the house. Where they came off is where they stayed. Not anymore. One of her jobs is to put away her shoes when she takes them off.

3. Pick up her own toys. This is where we have issues. Today I got Paige early from daycare (I get off work 2 hours early on Friday.) When I picked her up I told her she had to pick up her toys. My living room was covered in them. What should have taken 5 to 10 minutes took an hour and a half. There was a timeout involved. She does not want to pick up her own toys. She says it's "too hard" or they are "too heavy." Funny. They weren't too heavy when she was playing with them. Maybe Fisher Price should look into lighter toys.

That's it. Three chores for a three year old. Maybe when she turns four in January I'll add something to the list. For now, we're doing good with the chores she has. And SHHHH! She doesn't know the word allowance yet.

Procastination

I'm not much of a procrastinator. I'm more of a "let's do it and get it over with" kinda girl. I don't know what's gotten into me lately. There's only the typical issues going on in my life, nothing out of the ordinary. Paige has been saying and doing lots of funny things, but I still put off blogging.

Saturday we were killing time at the mall while Ronnie's car was getting an oil change at the Honda dealership next door. We did our usual rounds of the stores we like to look in. As usual Paige wanted a lemonade from Chick-Fil-A. After all, they do make the best lemonade ever, but I digress. We left The Disney Store and I walked down the mall to get the lemonade. I met back up with Ronnie and Paige, with Paige looking proud of herself. Mommy got a new ring. Ronnie saw a ring being advertised on a sign outside of Kay Jewelers, and thought I would like it. He and Paige picked it out for me.


It's very pretty, and yes it does look like something I would wear. Ronnie said he got it because he doesn't buy me enough pretty things. He likes to buy me pretty things. I do like pretty things, but I'm also very much a gadget girl. A new iPhone or flat screen monitor are very exciting to me as well.

When Aunt Wii said something about the ring, Paige put her hands on her hips, cocked out a leg to twirl on and said "I picked it out. All by myself. Because I know how to pick out rings." OK then, all credit to Paige. Daddy just saw the sign, asked about the ring and paid for it. And in case you're wondering, there was no occasion. My birthday is in April, and our anniversary is in June.

Paige's Stairs

The thing that sold me on Paige's big girl bed is the stairs instead of a ladder to get to the loft. I just think that's the neatest part of it. And to make it better, each stair has a little drawer that you can pull out and store special treasures in. When Ronnie put it together, he left the drawers empty so Paige could fill them with what she wants.

Yesterday, she used them for the first time. There are 5 drawers. She decided last night that they are now beds for her animals. Nemo got the top drawer, pink puppy got the second, and Lenny from Wonder Pets went into the bottom drawer. The other 2 remained empty. This morning she got Nemo out and brought him with her. The others are taking very long naps in their little drawer beds.

I know this is just the first of many things that she will put in there. And really, finding a pink puppy stuffed into a drawer is probably the most normal thing I'll find as she gets older. One day I'll look back and think it wasn't so morbid to stuff your pink puppy into a drawer that reminds me of a vampire going to sleep in a coffin. I'll wish for those days as I find more and more interesting items in there I'm sure.

Post Vacation Stuff

I'm having a hard time getting into the swing of things in my post vacation world. There's been things going on here and there, but nothing to keep me away from here. You'll be happy to know things are progressing here the same as they are in the rest of the world. Halloween is approaching. We will be a family of Pirates this year. Paige picked the theme, and we found matching costumes. Yes, I've already bought them. I like to shop early. I'm planning a Halloween party for Paige's friends. So far I've got a few games lined up. My favorite is pin the heart on the skeleton. It involves a 3 foot neon green skeleton and hearts made from construction paper.

The large twice a year consignment sale is coming up soon. This is my first time selling clothes. Each sale I can consign 150 items. So far I have 31 tagged and ready to go. I have a lot more tagging to do this week. All clothes must be dropped off Saturday morning. At 10 AM. I'll be out there early to drop off. The last weekend of the month is when I get to shop. I'm hoping to make enough from selling my clothes to pay for what I buy this time around. Absolutely nothing from last year fits this year. Paige is in a size 4 for length, but needs probably a 2T or 3T for her little waist. Adjustable waistband is my friend.

I promise to try to do better. I have ideas rattling around in my head, I just need to get them out.

Paige's Big Girl Bed

We're home. I think the travel update and pictures will have to wait another day. The big event was revealing Paige's new bedroom to her. We've been planning this for a little over a month now. That's how long it took to get the furniture special ordered. We fell in love with this loft bedroom set. The top is a twin, the bottom a full, the left side is stair with a drawer in each stair, and the right side is a dresser. We don't need the full bed setup now, so Ronnie converted that area into a Princess Fort. Every kid needs a fort in their room. Ryan and Jeff want one now.

Here's a before picture. Her crib converted down to a toddler bed. And would have gone to a full bed had we wanted to do that. The closet has no doors, and the windows are covered only by blinds. Ronnie called this his Trading Spaces Workout. And if you ever need a Trading Spaces partner, let us know. Ronnie would totally rock!!!

Her chalkboard wall.

Ronnie started by painting 2 walls pink. He also moved shelves from above the bed to above the chalkboard wall. The closet and the blinds have matching sheers over them now. He moved the baby furniture into the attic. Well, except for the dresser, that's in the closet and actually holds her clothes. The new dresser has blankets and dress up clothes. He had help from Ryan and Jeff to move the big girl furniture into the room and putting it all into 1 large piece.

Once he got the loft in place the real work began. That's when Daddy had to put up the shelves. And create the Princess Fort. To create this, Ronnie actually sewed the curtains for this. Then he moved in the doll house and lots of stuffed animals. But it didn't seem quite finished to him. To play on the floor like that she needed some throw pillows. So he made them. That's right folks. Ronnie builds furniture (one day I'll post pics of the computer desks he built), he paints, he sews, and he draws. He's a natural for Trading Spaces.

Here's the final results.


The big reveal.


Taking off shoes to get up into her bed.


Showing Daddy the pillows match.

She couldn't wait to crawl into bed and read.


Paige loves her new Big Girl Room as she calls it. Ronnie did an amazing job of transforming the room while we were gone.

Having a blast

We have been going non-stop since we got here! Of course getting here was an ordeal in itself. Paige did great on the flights. She loved watching the take-offs. And being above the clouds was wonderful. She got so excited about that. On our first flight there was a family behind us: Mommy, Daddy, 1 year old boy. If the flight had been any longer I would have come off it in handcuffs. The entire flight that insert not nice word for a woman here talked very loudly in her very whiney, nasely voice about how scared she was of flying, how much she hated it, and how scary it was. Wonderful. Here I am flying with my 3 year old for the first time. Every time she got really loud so did I telling Paige how much fun flying is. I even started telling her how Uncle Ken jumps out of airplanes. She decided he's crazy.

We had 1 hour in Atlanta to go from terminal A to terminal D. Or so we thought. We were delayed taking off from our departure airport. We had 25 minutes to make our connecting flight. We just barely made it. Thanks to lots of running and the Atlanta tram we made it just before they closed the door.

There's a lot more to tell and lots of pictures to post. We've been to Myrtle Beach, played around on the Boardwalk and are getting ready to go out on the boat. As soon as Paige wakes up from a nap that is. First once since we've been here. She's been exhausted most of the trip. She just can't seem to stop herself from going, going, going. I think we may need a vacation to recover from our vacation! Expect more tomorrow or the next day when I've recovered a bit. We fly back home early tomorrow morning.

And We're Off!!!

Tomorrow is the much anticipated trip to Aunt Kim's in North Carolina. Paige is very excited about riding on a plane. Almost everything is packed. There's just a few last minute items for tomorrow morning. We'll be getting an early start, leaving here by 7:45 to make it to the airport in time. Paige and I will be back Monday morning.

Daddy has a few projects to do around the house while we're gone. The big one, OK the only one, is to change her room into a big girl room. The furniture will be delivered tomorrow afternoon. He has some ideas for painting and decorating. Pink will be a prominent color I'm sure. I leave it all up to him to do as he wishes.

This has been a very hectic week for us. Monday Paige saw the doctor for a rash on her bum and thighs. It's been there for a while and I've tried everything I can think of. Turns out it's a bacterial infection of the hair follicles. Don't ask me the name, I have no idea other than it's a long name. Very common. And nothing would get rid of it because we needed a prescription lotion for the bum. It's getting better.

Monday Paige had a little accident at daycare. She fell climbing the jungle gym ladder and got a bad nose bleed. They got the bleeding stopped, but she needed Mommy. The blood on her dress really upset her.

Grumpy, my Dad, went into the hospital Monday morning. Tuesday afternoon he was moved to ICU. Today is his birthday, and as a birthday gift he was able to move back to a regular room. He's doing much better now and looks like he'll be out of the hospital within a couple of weeks.

If I have time I will post some pictures while we're out of town. If not, I'll be back on Labor Day and hopefully I'll have some great pictures for you.