good riddance!

Yesterday we had a yard sale. We've been tossing things in the garage for months, and Marc and I spent a large part of last week sorting, deciding, and pricing.

But the best part of all is that the kids went through their rooms thoroughly, with an eye for getting rid of whatever  they don't use anymore! Max and Lucas pulled everything out of their closet, threw away multiple bags of trash, and even cleaned out under the bed! I walked in and found Lucas using the vacuum attachments to vacuum under the bed and declared it the best day of my life.

(They were highly motivated, as we let them keep the money they earned.)

Michelle came down from Salt Lake on Friday evening to help out. She made signs while I made dinner. She slept over and helped us during the whole interminable-feeling sale!

Sadly, it was too busy at the beginning to take any photos. We advertised 9am as a start time, but of course people were there as soon as we started pulling everything out at 8.

Pictures I wish I had taken: the collection of Monsters, Inc. and Toy Story toys that my kids got so much play out of, Max's collection of Star Wars figures, Lucas's bins of Bionicles. The kids were good salespeople! Eva even went around the neighborhood, inviting her friends to come...

Marc tried to sell the Predicta television that he bought his exhibit at BYU years ago. He had several people interested, but he was holding out for more than they wanted to pay. (He's going to go the eBay route.) We gave Jill our black kitchen chairs, and she traded us for the ones she's not using anymore. We've had Jessie's wedding dress in our garage for 7 or 8 years! I tried to sell it on craigslist several times, to no avail. Still no luck.

This was our cash box, with envelopes for each of the kids. Michelle ran to the store for us at one point to get small bills, as we had several buyers come with a $100 bill (and want to buy a small item)! What the?

We had so many books. This isn't even all of them. It shocked me, since when we had our last yard sale about 7 years ago, we sold tons of books. How did we have so many more to get rid of since then? Marc says it's because we're a bookish lot. Amen.

The funniest part of the sale was that our neighbors the Coxes ended up buying tons of our stuff. Between Heidi and her daughters, they bought Eva's play kitchen, the chairs, my glider rocker, car seats, and various decor items. (There were quite a few things that I was secretly hoping the Coxes would buy. I wanted things that I love to go to people I love!)

Michelle has never had a yard sale (but is planning to soon), and she was intrigued by the strange traffic patterns of the beast: basically tons of people would come, then there would be a lull with absolutely no one for a little while, then the hordes would arrive again. She told Max that she wanted him to do a study of this enigma so that she could understand it, and he said he would get his best people on it.

Garage sale pros: we earned $400, and the kids earned $230.  (They got their new wii, with money to spare.) We got rid of a TON of stuff. We organized our garage. The kids' rooms, at least, are clean and tidy.

Garage sale cons: it took a lot of man-hours to get ready for the sale, we had to take two van loads of stuff to D.I. afterwards, we still have a few heavy items in our driveway driving me crazy, and the garage is still disappointingly full and messy.

Yesterday, my nerves were shot and I was not sure that the pros outweighed the cons. Today, after a nap, I concede that they did, if only to rid us of so much stuff we didn't use anymore!

But I don't want to do that again anytime soon.

Jessie's visit

I've let too much time elapse since Jessie's visit, and I have too much blogging to catch up on. I can't face multiple posts, so I've elected to post my favorite photos, all in one!

3 girls in a tub. Crowded chaos, shrieks of delight that can quickly become whines or protests: it's pretty much the way the whole 12 days went. As Grandma used to say when the children were babies, "Happy turned sad!" Things can turn on a dime.

We started out with all 3 girls sleeping in Eva's room. She was delighted. And then, she wasn't. She hurt Bella's feelings, and Bella wanted to sleep in my room. Suddenly, everyone was in agreement that Bella and Fiona should sleep in my room with me and Jessie.

I've learned not to be surprised by these turns of events (especially when Eva is involved). You just never know how it's going to go, so I'm getting better at going with the flow.

As previously reported, we braved the dinosaur museum during Spring break. Enough said.

I love Fiona's expression.

We went to a quilt shop in American Fork I had never been to before. Danger, danger! I wanted so many things. I'm sure I will be back.

Jessie talked Emily into cutting her hair! (She had had it cut shortly before her arrival, but wanted some changes.) I have never, ever cut anyone's hair, and was too terrified to oblige. It looks cute!

Jessie also cut Fiona's hair one morning. Fiona wasn't even particularly cooperative, and it turned out darling! It made me wonder if I could cut Lucas's hair. Marc put the kibosh on that idea.

We were able to sneak away to the temple one afternoon. We haven't been to the temple together other than Jessie's sealing! We did sealings, and it was a very sweet experience.

temple SP

We enjoyed a Creative Friday with Jill. It was quite the day of chaos, especially when my piano students turned up unexpectedly.

Jill brought little packs of m&ms for the girls, and Bella organized hers by color. I used to do that, too.

Jessie reading to all the girls.

Fiona appropriated the Snow White dress and was terribly distressed if anyone else tried to wear it. Jessie said that one of their friends calls Fiona a cartoon character, and the description is so very apt. Her expressions are varied and big.

Cute Bella on the slide. The weather was cool and rainy (or snowy) for much of the time they were here, so when it was nice, they played outside. Hallelujah.

Bella wanted to take Jack for a walk.

I thought the whole thing was doomed to failure, since he has never learned to properly heel and tends to pull horribly, but she would just sit down if she wanted him to stop. Worked like a charm!

Eva had to get in on that action.

Eva, reading to Fiona to cheer her up. She seemed to champion Fiona mainly when she and Bella were on the outs.

We got to see a lot of Emily while Jessie was here, since she had reading days for finals. She is so entertaining and such good company - we are always happy to have Emily around!

We played quite a few rounds of Bananagrams. Max loves it; Lucas hates it.

The plum trees bloomed! Always my favorite 2 weeks of the year.

Bella's treasures.

I love this picture of Fiona (not to be outdone, she had to have treasures as well).

Eva did, too, of course.

No visit to Utah is complete without a trip to the distribution center.

One day they spent the whole morning making a dinosaur museum in the family room.

Bella made everyone name tags, which consisted of names and eye color. (Except for Marc's, which simply said "happy customer.)

Later, Eva had to go to school, and the museum was closed, obviously.

Check out that static-y hair!!

Bella and Eva neglected to finish their yogurts, and my favorite cartoon character took over, two spoon-style!

Emily bought us all fountain drinks.

We did a decent amount of baking. One day, Jessie and Emily pulled out no less than 7 bags of coconut in various states of fulness. I endured much teasing about it. In my defense, I can only say that my lazy susan has been non-functional, so it was hard to see what I had and what I didn't. I guess I was making damn sure I had coconut on hand!

The girls enjoyed watching Lucas play video games in his room. One day, he told them he wanted a little alone time, so they migrated to the hall and took up a new position there.

(Incidentally, Lucas was very sweet with them. He was quite the peacemaker and broke up many arguments. He also played with them on multiple occasions. I love that guy.)

A collection of the friends Jessie has made for Eva over the last several years. (I love them all, but Fox is my favorite.)

We were hoping that, now that the girls are older, we wouldn't have so many sharing boot camp issues, that they would just go off and play and leave us in peace. Not so. But we're holding out hope for next time! It was definitely trying at times, but all worth it in the end.

I wish my sister didn't live so far away!

breaking news: we left the house!

Our President's Day started off with a bang as I took Lucas to the doctor -- ear infection. It's been bothering him for a few days, but apparently not enough to keep him home from school or church. So, another scrip for amoxicillin!

Marc's parents called this morning and asked if we wanted to meet up at the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point. Marc was working, Max wanted to hang out at home, but Lucas was game and Eva was over the moon with excitement. She is majorly obsessed with dinosaurs and has been asking to go to the museum.

The low light conditions made for blurry photos, but -- hey -- it's my blog and I'm posting them anyway.

Both of the kids loved the sand and water tables where you can create dinosaur habitats. Dams, canyons, flash floods -- mayhem and destruction, the choice is yours!

This is for you, Jess. I'm pretty sure that "Weirdicus" is another name for these fish.

I was fascinated with this specimen of many many ammonite fossils (just a small portion to show detail).

Fascinated, yet vaguely repelled at the same time. Who can blame her?

Yes, folks, that is a woolly mammoth trampling a human. Does the fact that they're in skeleton form really lessen the terror in this image? (Luckily, Eva walked right on by this exhibit.)

Lucas looking at an egg as big as his head!

Lucas was determined to get this shot. At first Eva thought he wanted her to get inside the shark's mouth and ran away in terror. We eventually persuaded her to come back, but she
was a reluctant participant.

The only other thing that scared her was the 3D dinosaur IMAX movie. The ticket agent assured us that it would not be too scary for a 3-year-old, and yet, she was starting to whimper at the very beginning, just from the music.

Still, even without sitting through the whole movie, we were there for 3 1/2 hours! I don't know that Eva would have ever left willingly, but I pulled out the big guns: looking for a souvenir in the gift shop (Grandma & Grandpa's treat). Lucas chose a stuffed dinosaur and Eva chose a snake and some stretchy lizards.

We were all thoroughly exhausted by the time we got home, but hey! We actually left the house and did something fun for the holiday, so it was a good tired. (I can say that now that I've eaten dinner, the kids are in bed, and we watched House and 24.)

the longest day

Today was the big day when Lucas and I got up at 5:30 to go to the dentist.

He was so cold, he wore his coat and used a blanket that they had in the office and he was still shivering!

The nitrous they gave him upset his stomach, so by the end he was writhing on the table. I've never seen the dentist pull a tooth so fast! Lucas didn't even know they had done it. Once they switched him back to oxygen he started to feel better.

It felt so weird to have paid and be leaving the dentist at 6:48 a.m.

We saw a sunrise on our way home.

I guess he wasn't completely recovered because he threw up in my van on the way home. :(

He rested on the couch for about 3 hours while the numbness wore off and his stomach recovered. Then he was able to truly delight in the tooth that was returned to him:

I think I'll refrain from showing the actual tooth, because it is kind of nasty (it has a big hole in it and a very long root!). After lunch, he went to school and showed it off to his friends.

Besides that little adventure, I finished making a Christmas gift, played "egg in the nest" with Eva, went to Borders, talked to Jill, took Max to cello, went to Barnes & Noble, went to Jo-Ann's, talked to my s-i-l Michelle, wrapped gifts, packaged gifts for tomorrow's mail, made visiting teaching appointments, talked to Jessie, listened to Max's new pieces, uploaded photos to Smugmug..... and I haven't eaten dinner yet.

A little while ago, I asked Lucas if he could believe that it was just this morning that we went to the dentist. We both agreed that that felt like yesterday because today was a very LONG day!