Good, Clean, Cheap Fun

Its so fun shopping for girl's clothes.
Faith thought this dress made a great blanket for her baby.
My big splurge- a knit dress and jacket from Gymboree. (I paid $16) Its SO cute.
Most of our "bounty" other than the toys & books my kids were dragging away while I tried to take the picture!

This weekend has become one of my favorite family traditions, City Wide Garage Sales. My Mom and Charlene both came to join me in my biannual bargain hunting. We had a lot of fun, although not as many funny memories as other weekends. Here is a roundup of our great deals:

-A toddler cash register for $2.50 for Faith, Grace got a big girl one for her birthday and now Faith can play Grocery Store too.

-A Beauty Shop for $4. Grace was doing her ritual of asking what our favorite part was at dinner (from Dora). Grace stated her favorite part was this fun find.

-Fisher Price Dump Truck for FREE. I asked the man if he would take a dollar, he said you can have it. (not sure why either)

-A cool big basket for $.50.  I heart baskets, especially cute cheap ones.

-A ugly fur covered stool for $2 which I already recovered with black fabric and works great with my desk.

-A tractor floor puzzle for $2.

-A Minnie Mouse costume for $1, maybe for a future Halloween.

-Assorted books, toys, & fun for the girls.

This is the first time Grace showed excitement at checking out the sales. A future yard saler in training!

(BTW: That is my new red couch in the background of the picture, notice it is not in the basement. But more on that later...)

Project Monday

Our somewhat ugly yellow house, soon to be tan or something neutral! Oh, and hopefully a new mailbox and house numbers too. And maybe a new porch light fixture. (Hopefully Jeremy didn't read that last part...)
The girls loved the railing- Grace told her dad he did it perfect.
As you can see before the railing there was a dangerous drop off for little people.

As many of you probably know Jeremy and I tend to buy "fixer upper" houses. We usually do a majority of the work before we move in and then keep working on them as time allows. Well this is the longest we have ever lived in one place, and we are still finding LOTS of projects. Since we moved in we have put a new roof on the house, taken out the chimney, installed a shed in the back yard (that Jeremy built with his dad), ripped up carpet & refinished some of the hardwood floors, replaced all the curtain rods, painted pretty much the entire house, put down laminate in the kitchen, painted the kitchen cupboards, installed new stair rails to the basement, and a lot more I've probably forgotten. Did I mention we had to take down some nasty wallpaper? (not a fun project!) But, we are also in the process of several projects. I get ideas for improving the house all the time. I see an idea in a magazine or see a organizational issue etc. and my mind goes crazy. Unfortunately my poor husband can't keep up with me and it drives him crazy trying to think about a million different projects at the same time. So since his skills are highly necessary for 95% of the projects we do I have repented of my ways (sort of) and we started something called Project Mondays. Each Monday we choose one project to work on. One of us get the supplies we need that day and then we dedicate Monday night to completing or moving along that particular project. So far we have put up privacy film on our bathroom window (I really don't recommend this one it is a perfectionist's nightmare), fixed our couch, and installed a much needed railing on our tiny front porch. We are currently also in the middle of redoing our upstairs bathroom, building a snack bar in the basement, tearing down the old dilapidated car port in our backyard, seeding our lawn, and having our house painted. Oh dear, did I say I had changed my ways?? Anyway, I am terrible at taking before and after pictures. Which is quite disappointing because just blogging about the things we have completed makes me see how far we have already come. So I am hoping to occasionally blog about our Project Monday success stories. Here is the railing Jeremy installed on Monday, it will be painted white to match the rest of our trim when the house is painted (Did I mention we are actually hiring someone to do that? PRAISE THE LORD!) Today we are going to pick up a new couch I got a steal on, buying it second hand out of the paper. I am praying I can fit and the current sectional we own in our basement & it still look good. I'll keep you updated on how that goes.

Pirate Nation

This weekend was our Pirate Nation youth retreat. This is the second year we have co-planned a weekend retreat with Calvary Baptist Church. It was a great weekend. The spirit of God really showed up and to see Him moving made the week of total craziness preparing for the weekend totally worth it.  On top of Jeremy's role of co-leading the weekend our home was a host home. We had 11 & 12th grade boys staying in our home. At first I was somewhat (okay very reluctant) to have boys. I told Jeremy that I didn't know what to do with boys, we have girls!! But, the young men who stayed in our home were awesome. They were so polite and appreciative. I really enjoyed cooking for them. We also designed a game of Monopoly that went around the neighborhood our church is located in. The kids had a great time.