Consignment Sale time

I have been buying most of the girls clothes used, pretty much since Katelyn was born (although I do also frequent the clearance racks at Carter's and Target).  I used to go to thrift stores, but that is now too time consuming with the two girls to bring along.  For over a year now I have been going to consignment sales.  I mainly go to Up Up and Away in Orange County.  While the prices are not quite as good as at the thrift store, I can be sure that my time will be well spent and I still come away with some great deals every time.  This particular sale occurs 4 times a year and I have been about 5 or 6 times.  It only lasts Wed. thru Sat. and then it is over until about 3 months later. 

Last week Thursday I left the kids with my mom and headed down to Tustin to do some shopping.  It normally takes me about 2 hours to get through everything.  It is a huge sale.  I think as the girls get older and I don't need to dig through the toys and as many sizes of clothes, it will take less time.  I always look around at the moms with crying kids and I am so grateful that I found a babysitter.

This is by far the smallest amount of stuff I have purchased and I was still pretty happy with what I got.  I paid $50.76 for all of the following and one book that I bought for my mom that is not shown.

I bought the rainboots for Katelyn's birthday.  In total, I bought 1 book, 1 pair of boots, 1 dress, 1 sweatshirt, 6 shirts, 1 pair of shorts, and 5 pairs of pants, for $50.76.  Several of the items are GAP, and most are Old Navy, Cherokee (Target's nicer brand), and Carter's.


The next sale in November is already on my calendar!  (At least mentally, Brooklyn took my date book last week and I have yet to find it.)

Construction Zone

For those of you waiting to get another update on the bathroom, here it is.  (See the post on demo here.)

As I previously posted, we did the demo on  July 13.  The following week the contractors came and began the plumbing, building of the tub frame, putting up new walls, the shower pan, and much more.  It took them a total of 6 days to get the room ready for us to come back in and get started with our part.

The new tub deck.

The shower.

Shower Pan.

The opening got wider before it got smaller (to put the pocket door in).

Wider view into the bedroom.

Kyle took off the last week of July/first week of August and worked mainly on tiling the bathroom.  The drywallers came Wednesday of that week and we were also able to get some painting done towards the end of the week.
   Day 1 (Monday):

Tiling!

The finished product for day 1.

Prepping for the floor tiles that need to be added.

I had to paint the entire linen closet. . . Twice. Not fun.

  Day 2 (Tuesday):

We took the bathroom vanity into the living room to inspect it.  The girls enjoyed the bubbles it was shipped in.

Coloring in the vanity box.

Finished this much on Tuesday.

What was done on Tuesday (although pic not taken until after drywall was done on Wed.)

  Day 3 (Wed.):

The wall gets closed in.

The water closet is painted and the shelving started.  (And look at the fancy new TP holder ;-).)

The wall is closed in. (View from bedroom)

                       (No tiling on Wed. due to the drywall)

  Day 4 (Thursday):

Shower getting close to done.

   Day 5 (Friday):

The floor & bench are done. (You can see the paint on the right of the shower.)

New lighting going up.  You can see the light blue here.  It looks darker in person.

Since Kyle went back to work, our progress has slowed a little bit.  We had to tile around the tub before it can be installed.  The tiling has been completed (at least what we can do until the tub gets installed), including the grouting and sealing.  So, hopefully the contractors will come back soon to install the tub, measure for the shower door, and install the pocket door.  Kyle is continuing to work on the door & window casings, which, along with the tiling after the bath is installed, are the main items yet to get done.

I will probably wait until the project is completed to post another update, so it will be a little while, although hopefully not too long.  In addition to not having a useable bathroom, we also have a 72" vanity in our living room.

"Preschool"

We have continued to do "Preschool," as we call it, most days in our house.  As I have mentioned before, I bought a large preschool activity book from Sam's club a while back and we only have about one or two more days of material left in it.  I have purchased a couple more that we will be working through next.  She also has a couple of dry erase educational items that we do after the preschool book.


The frequency of preschool in our house has been kicked up a notch recently because of new purchase we made.  We bought our first iPad.  And we all love it.  It probably gets used too much.  The girls are generally not allowed to use it all.  However, I have been able to find a bunch of free educational apps that have been good for Katelyn.  She is allowed to play on it for about 20 minutes after we finish the other items.  It has served as a great motivation for her doing the work without whining and she asks almost everyday when she can do preschool because she wants to play on the iPad at the end.

The past couple weeks we have focused on writing her name.  She has it down pretty good now, at least on lined paper.

Tomorrow I hope to start teaching her to read!

Couponing Again

I don't post about my coupon shopping trips very often.  In part because I don't consider myself an 'extreme couponer.'  Also, I haven't been doing a whole lot of couponing yet this year because busy season was so nuts and so long and I usually go to the stores in the evening when Kyle gets home from work.  Well, I had a good shopping trip this week that I think might motivate me to get back into the swing of things.  A couple weeks ago our closet where I keep all the cereal was basically empty and I actually paid full price for cereal a couple of times (not something I do very often).  It is now overflowing again with cereal as there have been a lot of good sales and a couple good trips (I aim to never pay more than $1.67 a box).

On Tuesday of this week, I went to Ralphs and purchased all of the following for a total of $25.03.  My receipt shows a savings of $82.68.  The highest cost items were actually the potatoes I needed for dinner that night, followed by the grapes (which were still a pretty good sale).

I get most of my shopping ideas from different couponing blogs that match the sales ads for the week with the coupons to get the best deals.  I just found a new website that has good matchups for our local grocery stores (www.ocdealmama.com  I also use www.southerncalisaver.com).

Demo Time!

So here is the start of the bathroom pics.  If you have talked to me at all in the last month, you know that we are in the middle of a huge bathroom remodel.  We haven't used the shower in our master bathroom for at least two years, probably closer to 3.  We started noticing a bubble of water in the paint on the kitchen ceiling (just under the master bath) and halted all showers in our bathroom at that time.  We had a plumber come out to take a look at it and he was sure that it was the shower door and if we got a new flap at the bottom of the shower, it would all be fixed.  Yeah, right.  Didn't work.  So, we've been busy saving money and waiting for busy season to be over so that we could do much of the work ourselves (and by 'ourselves', I mean mostly Kyle).  We didn't figure it was worth redoing the shower and leaving the rest of the bathroom the way it was (not very nice, very builder-grade), so we are redoing it all - so excited!
Some have asked for pics, so . . .  here is the beginning of them.

Before:

From inside our bedroom.

The opening to the bedroom (about to get a lot smaller)

Demo Time!:

The first hit with the sledgehammer.

Happy that it is finally happening!  (And that it came out pretty easily.)

I came home from picking up the girls and Kyle had the entire bathtub out.

An empty bathroom.

We are switching the water closet door so that it no longer swings inside and we have straddle the toilet to get the door closed, so that's why the door is gone.

So, I think that we came to the conclusion that the tile was laid directly on drywall, with no water barrier, which is why there was water going into the kitchen ceiling.  So basically our assumption that the only way to fix it was to demo the whole thing was correct.

We were able to give away the counter top & sinks (boy were they heavy), mirror, and medicine cabinet on craigslist, which made one happy husband as we weren't renting a dumpster and they took up a lot of space in the sideyard.

A big thanks to my parents who have had the girls a few times (including during demo) so that I can assist Kyle.

I will keep you in suspense for the pictures under construction ;-).

Crazy Busy Week

The week after Grandpa & Grandma left (which was also the week after the 4th of July) was a crazy week for us. As I mentioned earlier, Katelyn was enrolled in swimming lessons.  It was a 2 week, 30 minutes everyday class.  She loved it and her teacher.  There were 5 kids in her class, one of whom was a little girl about her age that she really enjoyed talking to during class.

Normally, when Katelyn is swimming with me, she has a nervous giggle the entire time she is in the water or whenever I ask her to try something.  It was very encouraging to see her get past this with her instructor.  The area of the pool where her class was was only 2 1/2 feet deep - perfect.  While she didn't pass to the next class (I didn't expect her to), she did learn a lot of things and I thought she did great for her age.  She does very well at putting her whole head in the water, kicking with the kickboard (assisted) and blowing bubbles.  Also important is that we are trying to get her into environments with other kids and an adult to listen to besides mommy & daddy.  (I just signed her up for soccer this past week - to start in September!)

These pics were taken on her first day.

Now, just swim lessons alone each day would not be too bad, but it was also the week of Vacation Bible School (VBS) at our church.  Our church has an evening program from 5:30 to 8:30, with dinner included.  This was Katelyn's first year and she had a blast.  Her Sunday School teacher from last year was also her VBS teacher, so she was really excited about that.  I helped out with crafts and Brooklyn was in the nursery until Kyle could come pick her up.  The theme was a camping theme, called 'Upward Bound.'  My kids usually go to bed well before 8, and with swimming in the morning Katelyn was exhausted.  If I had to do it again, I would probably pull her out at 8, before closing exercises (I'm writing this down so that I will hopefully remember to pull out Brooklyn next year).

Katelyn and the crafts she made at VBS (Chime, magnetic picture frame, backpack - which she used to carry her things all week, beaded necklace, and doorhanger).

Let's just say I was very glad on Friday evening when everything was done.

The Fourth

We had a party at our house for the 2nd year in a row on the 4th of July (thinking that might be a tradition).  Almost every house in our neighborhood has a party because our city (unlike many of the surrounding cities) allows fireworks.  This year we had my parents, sister and family, and Pastor Quentin (who's family was out of town) over for the occasion. 

Cousins in their patriotic best!

An American spread

Brookie actually fell asleep during the fireworks.

Kyle watching his work.

Pastor Quentin also brought some fireworks, so we had both he and Kyle working lighting off fireworks at the same time.  Fun!

Grandpa & Grandma visit from MN & my Birthday

Wow!  It has been a crazy couple of weeks with a construction project going on at our house (pics and more info to come soon, I promise).  However, I am still behind in my blogging, so forgive me if I start to cram too much into each post.

At the end of June, Kyle's parents came to visit for a week.  As usual, the girls loved all the attention.

The Friday they were here was my Birthday (last one of my 20's! AHHHH!).  We went for a hike that morning near Arcadia to Sturtevant Falls (SP?).  Kyle really wanted to do a hike, even though it was supposed to be 100+ that day, so we set out early and took a hike that was mostly shaded.  It was by far the longest hike we have taken the girls on since they were large enough to walk it.  We ended up carrying Brooklyn in the hiking backpack and Katelyn on shoulders for the last little bit (which is also the steepest, most up-hill portion).  But, overall, they both did great and I think we all had a good time.

Most of the trail is along a stream.

The falls

Feeling the water.

Friday night we went to BJ's Pizza for dinner. I really enjoy my birthday Pizzookies there.  I wonder how many birthdays I have celebrated at a BJ's?  Quite a few, I know that.  Because I share a birthday with my Gramm, the whole family got together at my aunt & uncle's house on Saturday.

Love my Grandma!  Here we are singing Happy Birthday.

Our mornings were busy the 2nd half of their trip because Katelyn started swimming lessons (Pics to come in a different post).  Grandpa and grandma were able to see her start swimming, which was pretty cool.  On Monday, after swim lessons, we took the girls to their first movie in the theater!!! We saw Monster's University.  It got a little long (especially with 25 mins. of previews), but overall, I think they had a great time.

As they were leaving on the 3rd of July, we decided to buy fireworks and celebrate with them a few nights early on Monday night.  We are allowed to do fireworks in the street, as long as they do not shoot up into the air.

Eating dessert while Daddy sets up the fireworks.

The following Tuesday was Dad & Mom's 30th Anniversary!  We joined their celebration and went to the beach and to Ruby's on the pier for dinner.  (Don't worry, they were taking a whole anniversary trip shortly after they returned from CA.)  Evidently I did not take my camera out at the beach as I don't seem to have any pictures.   On Wednesday we drove Grandpa & Grandma to LAX and stopped on the way to have lunch with Daddy.   - It was a great, exhausting week :-).