Big Trash Day

Firstly, I'll start by captioning the pictures. There's a Miniature Golf Course near our house, and everytime we drive by, Chloe gets so excited to see the castles (there's a big and little one). This last Monday, we finally took her to see the castles and play minatures golf. After the tenth hole, she just walked off. Which is fine, because that's about as much patience as I have for miniature golf.

After supervising intently for most of the golfing, Addie eventually fell asleep in the backpack.

Chloe fell asleep later on the blue couch. She then woke up, switched couches, drank some juice with Dad, and fell asleep again. He got up, she rolled over, and continued to sleep though she was half off the couch. We scooted her back on, put on her pullup, and put her to bed, where she slept until the next morning. It had been a busy weekend.

Most of the busy and excitement was because Aunt Kiki came to visit. Chloe was so excited to see her, she got all dressed up. In one of Addie's dresses.

Addie was so excited, she mashed Fruit Loops into everything.

I was so excited that I didn't take pictures all weekend long, and only managed to document proof of the visit at 6 in the morning before she left. So, because I love my sister and am so happy she came, you all get to see me way too early in the morning. Seriously, how cute is my sister. She out dressed me the whole weekend, much to my surprise. She and a couple of her mission companions were taking a road trip through their mission, and she managed to finagle a couple of days with us out of the deal. It was so nice to see her, and I love her so much. Chloe was obviously also very upset about Katie leaving.

And one final shot of Addie. I've been wanting to accent my kitchen with orange, but I really wasn't planning on using pureed sweet potatoes. Apparently she has other plans.
But onto the title of my post today. This title can be taken many ways. For one thing, Addie has been waking up at random times in the night, shrieking bloody murder, and then going back to sleep. I, unfortunately, have not been going back to sleep so well, so today might not be worth much on the little sleep that I got.

Also, this entry may just be a big dumping ground for all the random stuff that we've been up to lately that I haven't written about.

But specifically, it was big trash day in our neighborhood, and I embraced my white trash heritage and went for it. 3 times a year, we have a big trash day, and everyone piles all the stuff that's too big to fit in the bins on the curb. In honor of this event, we cleaned out our garage. And everything we put on the curb was gone within an hour, though we never saw any of it actually disappear. Well, driving to and from stake conference yesterday, and seeing all the piles of stuff on the curbs . . .when in Rome . . . I suppose if you call it recycling, it sounds a lot better, but if I tell what I got, it sounds even better! I got a Little Tykes slide and picnic table, an iron garden trellis, a birdbath, a small ironing board, and some lattice fencing. When you add that to the "new in the box" trellis garden bench for $10 at a garage sale and a rotary tool, it was a really good weekend for taking charge of other peoples castoffs. I have to say, though, some of the garage sales I hit were pretty amazing. Seriously, do some people never throw things away? Or maybe they're just reselling all the stuff they picked up off the street that other people threw out. I'll let you know when we have our next garage sale. As a side note, though, our garage is making us so happy right now. There is room to open all the car doors, the cobwebs are down, and it doesn't crunch underfoot when you walk. Bracken and I have been opening the door and just looking because it looks so good. It was a very productive weekend.


Some other things we've been up to:

• Bracken finished the semester, and even got an A in the class he was most worried about. Hooray! One more class to go towards the MBA.
• Addie is inching on her belly. It really looks like an inchworm crawling, because she humps her bum up in the middle.Addie has also successfully pulled up on the couch now. She is moving!
• I got a head and foot board for our bed--it's the first time either of us have had one. We also got a new mattress--another first for me. It is delicious. In honor of these new additions, I finally made curtains for the room. They cost me zero since I used fabric I'd been given, and recycled the knobs I'd take off our closets when we moved in to hang them. I'll post some pictures once I finish putting up the trim on the frame.
• I finally filed all the papers on the counter. I thought I'd just let it go for a few months. No, it was more like a year.
• Because we've been in our house a year now! I can't believe how fast it has flown, and how many projects we still haven't done. But that's okay. We love being in our home and doing the work of homeowners.
• We put up our pool. We had three days of 100 degree weather, so we hurried to move out all the wood chips, fill the area with sand, and put up the pool. Chloe had the time of her life as we moved in the sand. She jumped from pile to pile, took off all her clothes, and left a sand trail in the toilet everytime she used it for the next few days. I honestly don't know what I'm going to do for her birthday. I think everything will be anticlimactic after the sand party. Bracken and I ended up putting up the pool by the light of the moon because we knew if we didn't get it done then, we'd never be able to keep Chloe off the sand long enough. Right after we got the pool up, the temperature dropped 25 degrees.
• Chloe is dry almost every morning now, and has had no accidents! To reward her for this success, I have taken away all her sippy cups. I know, I'm mean, but she's almost three and we're tired of being woken up by a little face whispering, "Milk, milk." She seems to be handling things pretty well.
• And finally, welcome to Will, Ryan, Abigail, Mason, and all the other babies who have joined our world lately. And congrats to the mommas. Good luck.

Now, since my little one is making noises, I'd better wrap this up. I'm vowing to be better about posting, so it won't take so long to read my ramblings.