Garage Sale

Ashten and Ayden at their first garage sale Watering can $15, robot $17, Milo and Otis $1 Sand toy $57, Elmo $1Sand Strainer $5, Star Wars II $1 Wow these prices are seriously messed up!

A 'real' customer

Ayden during his tantrum climbed a tree and stayed there for probably 30 minutes

My accent probably really was creepy

This morning was so sunny so the kids were playing outside. Ayden came in and asked if he could have a garage sale. I said yes, but told him that he needed to show me each thing that he was going to sell. He showed me a few things and I was happy that there was a chance that they could get rid of some of their toys. Anyway, after awhile of being out there with no customers Ayden got discouraged. I told him we needed to make a sign. So, I made a sign that said Popsicle for sale (sounds good in theory right?) Everyone would want a Popsicle, but probably not everyone wants a used sand toy. Ayden was not happy about the whole Popsicle sale idea, but I talked him into it and he went back out. I decided that I would go out and be a customer to make it more fun for them, I mean we live on a dead end street we don't get much traffic. I texted a few people to see if they would come down and be customers, then I went outside walked right by the boys pretending not to see them and walked up the hill. I turned around and came back, stopped at their booth, and put on my best British accent calling myself Janine. I told them they had some very nice stuff but that I would love a Popsicle. Ayden was NOT happy about this. He kept screaming "YOU'RE MY MOM!!", "I SAW YOU WALK OUT OF MY HOUSE", and "YOU LOOK JUST LIKE MY MOM, YOU JUST SOUND DIFFERENT!" I tried to explain that I was just having fun, but he was very mad about it and stayed that way for over an hour. Ashten on the other hand played along enough that I got a Popsicle out of it. I sat across the street and watched. Ashten got another customer while Ayden was being cranky, Uncle Wes. He sat and visited for awhile, until Valerie and Ben came to the "garage sale". It was lots of fun.

Oh one more funny thing, when Ayden was looking for stuff to bring out he finally said, "Mom can't you just open the garage door?" Like if you are having a garage sale it means that everything in your garage is on sale.

Thursday...for Lack of a Better Name

Ashten and Ayden who is fake sleeping Ben who almost passed out for real
The day started out with the kids and I working on laundry and cleaning the house. In the afternoon, Ben came over to play while Valerie took cupcakes to school. They decided that they were going to have a "camp out". They brought all of their blankets and pillows and lined them up in the hallway. They had lots of fun doing that until I realized that it would me fun for me if they kept the house clean and played in the bedroom.


Ashley, Ashten, and Ayden outside the fort
In the fort
Later that afternoon, Ashley came over to play, while Kristy worked. The boys had so much fun having her over. She helped them build a fort underneath a tree in our backyard. They explored the yard until it time for dinner. Even after dinner when it was pitch black they went back out and played. I usually don't let them go out when it's dark, so it was so exciting to them.

Look at all the devastation

AJ in time out and wearing his brother's shoes

After dinner, AJ was running around in the kitchen and decided to pull handfuls of salad and throw it all over the kitchen floor. I decided that this was a perfect time for him to have his first time out. At first he sat there looking ashamed of himself , then he started crying. He did really well though, he sat for half the time then stood up. I put him right back and he finished off his time. He had to sit a second time out a few minutes later for a similar offense:)

Boys, Boys, Boys

Josh brought his DS and played it most of the time. Ashten was very interested in it and this is how they sat most of the time.

Ayden got some Star Wars school supplies for Christmas, so he sat a drew.Aj missed out on most of the fun as he was sleeping

This afternoon Ben and Josh came over to play while Valerie went to visit a friend in the hospital. All of the boys had a great time together and all of them behaved well. It's nice to have the kids' friends come over to play, it keeps them entertained and out of my hair, somewhat. On the other hand, note to self: don't even bother trying to clean the house with that many kids in it. They literally follow you around and trash any cleaning you've just done. Not that this doesn't happen when there are only three, but it just gets magnified. This brought me to the Duggars, who have 18 children. How do they keep their house so clean?

Goodbye Daddy, Hello Fun!

I'm the king of the world! Ashten
Anderson
Ben is looking for a new place to call home
This morning we took Daddy to the airport to go back to the Philippines. We are all sad and will miss him tons. The boys took it harder than ever this time, but I promised that I would keep them busy and that we'd have lots of fun. So we started off the day by going to the Commons to meet Valerie and the boys. We ate lunch and played on the train and went to Target. After Valerie left, the boys and I went over to the bookstore and looked around for awhile, we found these sticker books that the boys love for 12.95 each, so I decided that I would take them to Costco and get the same ones for just 7.49 for our upcoming road trip to Idaho. What a savings!The boys saw the Halloween Spirit store right near Costco so we went there and picked up some helmets for their Firemen costumes. All four of us had the best time trying on masks and watching the scary robotic ghouls that they had on display there. I tried to scare AJ with some of the masks and the only one that got a reaction was this one:
For a minute anyway, then he thought it was pretty funny after he figured out that it was me:
We headed to the library after that. The boys played computer games and played with the puppets and I picked up some books on tape for the road trip. I listened to my book on the way home from the library and the boys informed me of every bad word they heard.

Ayden: "Mommy, she shouldn't say 'stupid'!"

Ayden: "Why is she saying 'butt'? She shouldn't say that."

Me: "Okay, I know she shouldn't say that, but let's not keep repeating every word she says okay?"

Ashten: "butt, butt, butt"

POWER OFF!!

I guess I'll have to save my book for when the kids are listening to their movie with their headphones on!

Celebration Park

Ayden made this "sandwich" with all the meat and cheese and only 2 of his crackers
What a cheese! This is his favorite outfit and he would wear it all day everyday if I would let him luckily it got lost in the laundry for a few weeks.

Ben found the best spot at the park...a mini swing perfectly shaded
Nothing was wrong with Gavin...apparantly this is what happens when you ask him to smile
When I pulled out the camera he shoved this stick and his mouth and just sat there like he was the funniest thing on Earth.Ben, Ayden, and Ashten I think this was one of their favorite parts. It had scoops for the dirt and then you could put the dirt in those red bowls. They played here for a long time.

We have never been to Celebration Park before so I was glad when I asked Cassi for a suggestion on where we should go this Wednesday and she mentioned having a picnic here. The kids really liked the toys that they had there. Afterwards, we went over to the library got some books and played on the toys there while we waited for Uncle Wes to walk over. We went on some of the Trails in Alderwood Park and tried to get Wes to find a geocache BUT the boys ruined it for him by telling him where it was. We had a fun day and everyone slept well at night!