Progress Report

Usually if Luke gets quiet, it means trouble. But on this occasion, I found him, "I feeding my baby!!!"

 Katy, David, and Luke did VBS last week. Our church doesn't do one, but we went to one this year where we knew lots of other families participating. They LOVED it. It was such a great program, the people were so friendly and gracious, the theme was applicable and age appropriate, the music was awesome. I cannot say enough good things. Luke got a little nervous at drop off but was always fine within a few minutes. And I sent him in a pull-up and he was dry every day. Shew!

Wacky Wednesday at VBS. Backwards shirts and mismatched shoes and wild hair. Love. Also notice it was so humid that my lens was steaming up. Good week to be inside the church in the AC.

So: Garage Sale Report!! It was a huge success. We were super busy both days with just a few dry spells and we had great weather. I felt like I worked like a horse and earned every penny! We sold 90% of the big items that we had. My mother-in-law brought her truck and that was really helpful for delivering some furniture to people and taking stuff to Goodwill afterward. My mom met tons of new neighbors so that was fun for her. Between Melanie, mom and I, we made over $800. My share of that, including a few things that I sold at the consignment shop or on craigslist afterward, was over $350. I figured out that when I calculate how much time I spent on it (prep work included), I made about $8 an hour. Which isn't great money, but it's more than I would have earned if I hadn't done it at all, right?

Oh, and Katy and David made $50 at their lemonade and cookie stand. They loved it.

Now my basement is SO SO SO SO SOOOOO much better. The kids can play down there and it doesn't stress me out to walk down the stairs. I got motivated after the garage sale to do something to pare down and organize all of the kids' clothes in the basement. I have all the girls clothes in sizes between Katy and Anna (6.5 years!) and boys' clothes between David and Luke (2+ years!). In two seasons, that is a ton of clothes. (Not to mention in Katy and David's closets I have hand-me-downs that people have given me that are in sizes-yet-to-come). I went through every box and picked out stuff to donate and reorganized into bins. 

So before the garage sale, I couldn't even get TO these boxes of clothes. This gray floor space in the front did not exist. But here is my previous clothing storage area.

After! More floor space, much more organized, easy to get to if I need to add or take from something.

Fancy labeling with masking tape.

I donated 7 boxes of clothes. At a certain point it's more than one person can handle.

Finally, the patio project. Brian has made some progress where he can. He used his mom's truck to get the rest of the gravel and level it again. He rented a tamper to tamp it down. This coming weekend, he will have the sand and the stones and try to finish it up. (Then he'll have to level the ground and plant grass seed, etc).

It was raining hard this morning so he wanted me to take a picture if there were puddles so he could see any uneven spots. 

Speaking of the hard rain, I dropped Katy off this morning for her week of Girl Scout day camp, and it was pouring pouring pouring down rain. I felt so bad for her and all the girls and leaders. I got an email from her unit leader an hour into camp saying they were safe under the shelter at headquarters. (Gotta love technology - we are so spoiled with communication these days!) So I hope she wants to go back tomorrow after such a soggy day. I expect her home any minute...