One Person's Trash Is Another Person's Treasure

There's a Montessori school on our block.  Every so often they leave stuff sitting out on the street.  Luckily, it's not a well traveled street, and we're able to snag a lot of it.  Recently, they left 5 perfectly good children's school chairs out.  I saw them, but I was in a hurry.  I was going to call Robin and tell him to run over and get them, but I didn't.  When I got home that night - like magic - there were three of them sitting in our dining room.  It turns out our neighbor saw them.  He grabbed two of them for his family and brought the other three over for us.  Thank you Dan!

Yesterday, they left a Little Tykes play house out.  I sent Robin over to get it.  The bottom is full of dirt, so it was quite heavy and it took him awhile to carry it home.  It's in rough shape.  It's really dirty and it's missing most of the parts like the door and the flower boxes, but I don't care.  I've been wanting to get something similar.  I saw the exact same one on craigslist for $100 two days ago.  They retail for $600.  Ours is missing parts, but it's free.

I've blogged before about wanting a triple jogger.  I want one with front wheels that rotate, but today I saw one on craigslist in Golden for $50.  It's an older model and the front wheels most certainly do not rotate, but it was in excellent condition for its age.  It has pockets on the back of each seat, a storage area at the bottom, brakes that work, no holes and a sunshade.  It was REALLY dirty because it had been stored outside for quite sometime.  I talked her down to - ready for it - $25.  Unbelievable steal.  It's not exactly what I wanted, but the price was more than right and beggars cannot be choosers.  It was actually at a consignment store, and I also got two children's picnic tables (they look brand new), a well-loved cozy car and a 50 piece MegaBlock set with a wagon all for $80 (that includes the stroller!!!).  I brought the stroller home, got out the hose and scrub brush and viola:

Now I'll have a much easier time taking the girls for walks around the neighborhood.  It won't fit through any doors, so I can't take it to the library.  It does fold up (sort of), but it doesn't fit very nicely in the back of the Navigator.  This will be used primarily for walks around Golden.  It will be much easier to push than the triple-wide umbrella stroller and pulling the choo choo wagon is quite a workout!

Wonderful Wedding Weekend

My best friend got married on Saturday.  We've been friends for nearly 20 years.  It was such a beautiful ceremony at the Evergreen Lake House.  She married her high school crush.  They had a HUGE wedding party - 10 bridesmaids and 10 groomsmen.  It was such an honor to stand up there with her.  I couldn't be any happier for her. 

The long weekend started with the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner on Friday night.  The wedding was on Saturday morning.  The weather was beautiful; it was warm but not too hot.  Following the reception, the newlyweds hosted a BBQ at their house.  They partied until 2am, but we brought the girls with us we had to leave much earlier than that.  On Sunday, we all attended a birthday party for another friend's son.  Happy Birthday Jayden!!  On Sunday night the bride and I had dinner with friends in town for the wedding from Canada (she's 2nd from the left in the photo below).  It was an exhausting but simply wonderful weekend!

As our gift, Robin was the photographer.  He's still editing the photos, but here's one of the happy couple - I'm in the background.  This shot doesn't encompass the entire wedding party. 

The girls had their first non-family babysitters on Saturday.  Two of my former co-workers watched the girls for us.  They were there from 7am until 4pm.  They said the girls were good, but I could tell they were a bit exhausted.  They're a lot of work!  Here are some shots they took while we were away:

Katie always has serious bed-head issues!

Cherrie and Maggie

Ready for lunch!

Kathy

My great aunt made these hats for the girls.  Pippi Longstocking!

Congratulations Erica and Jeff!!!

Memorial Day Weekend

We had a busy weekend!  We were supposed to meet up with friends from Atlanta on Monday morning, but due to some potential sickness on their part, we did not.  Instead we went to the park with our neighbors.  The girls and Sam had a great time.  Katie was pushing the push toy all over the park even though we brought it there for Maggie. 

In the afternoon, we went to a BBQ at a friend's house. They have a newborn, and I was so excited to meet Ella. Another friend with a newborn was there too. So please to have met you Ella and Ian. Robin had already met them because he did newborn shots for both of them when they were just a few days old. Robin's photos were framed and hung in Ella's nursery. 

Here are the girls at the BBQ (it was windy and chilly!) with Wyatt.  I didn't ask permission to post Wyatt's photo, but since you can't see his face I'm going to assume it's ok. 

After the BBQ, we came home and put the girls to bed.  Then we joined the neighbors for their BBQ.  It was soooo cold.  I had my first Hot Toddy.  It was interesting.  We ended up going inside before it was ready.  It would have been much easier to drink had we still been freezing outside. 

Robin took the girls on a long walk yesterday afternoon.

Proud

Annoyed

No more pictures!!  Papa-paparazzi

Chill-laxin'

Bubbles!!  Maggie kept blowing spit bubbles.

You can see Robin in this one.

Bored or maybe hungry - eating her shoe.

Robin and the girls.

After the long walk, it was bath time!

Story Time and the Botanic Gardens

After walking the bank last Thursday (see my last post), we stopped by the library on our way home.  It just so happened to be story time.  Our local library has story time for toddlers and for "babies."  We were there for the toddler story time, and it was a bit too advanced for the girls.  They didn't know what was going on.  I was afraid to take them out of the stroller because once they have the freedom to walk around, they scream when I try to put them back in the stroller.  Screaming at the library would be such a nightmare, and it's not like I can just carry all three of them out of there while pushing the stroller.  This could get interesting.  Next time I'm going to go to the "baby" story time, but I'm still scared to take them out of the stroller.

This morning we took the girls to the Botanic Gardens again.  It was much nicer this time because Katie and Izzy-B can walk around.  They had a lot of fun playing.  True to form, when we put Katie back in the choo-choo wagon to go to another part of the gardens, she screamed.  UGH!  At one point, kids got into our empty choo-choo wagon and their dad took them on a ride.  We didn't say anything because they didn't leave the area we were in, but it took them a few minutes to figure out that it didn't belong to the gardens.  The dad was pulling the kids around, but it was the mom who realized it belonged to us - of course!  It was really warm and sunny when we first arrived, but it soon turned a bit chilly.  The last time I tried to use the sunglasses, the girls kept taking them off.  This time they left them alone. 

Sold. Closed. Broke.

And when I say broke, I mean broke.  We closed on our house today.  It happened pretty fast.  We went under contract just 16 days ago.  The buyer paid cash, so that made the whole process faster.  On the one hand it's a major relief to just be done with it.  On the other hand, we were taken to the cleaners.  The highest offer we received and the one we accepted (after negotiating, of course), was less than what we owed the bank (it wasn't a short sale though).  Plus, we still had to pay closing costs and the 6% commission. 

Yesterday morning, I walked with the girls to the bank to take out every last penny of our savings and take out a large chunk from our line of credit to bring to closing today.  Now, I have to pay interest on a loan just to sell our house.  I feel like I never want to own a house again.  It was supposed to be such a great investment, but it ended up being a money pit.  We put at least $30k into renovating and updating parts of the house, and we still had to bring nearly that much to closing.  Just thinking about it makes me want to cry. 

We specifically set up closing so that we didn't have to meet the buyer.  I don't want to know anything about him.  I know his name, and that's enough for me.  He doesn't get possession of the house until next week.  We still have to move all of our furniture (for staging) out of the house.  Because the closing came so quickly and there were crucial deadlines for objection this week, we didn't want to move the furniture out in case it fell through and then the house wouldn't be staged for future showings.  We don't have room for most of the furniture at our new house.  We're going to be living in a cramped space for a few weeks.  I'll post most of it on craigslist, but I'd also like to have a yard sale.  We can't do that for at least three more weeks because of existing weekend plans.

I am sad that the house the girls came home from the hospital to is no longer ours.  It also had the most amazing yard and garage.  I miss that part of it.  However, we bought high and then had triplets.  Our financial situation changed so much that we just couldn't afford to stay there anymore. 

Now, we start fresh - we do our best to pay off the last of our debt and start saving again.

Our first house - notice the huge garage to the left behind the white fence:

Male Visitors

The girls had two male visitors today.  First, our friends brought over their 6 month old son, Wyatt.  He's adorable, and he's big!  He's 9 months YOUNGER than the girls, but he weighs as much as Katie (21lbs).  Wyatt was quite overwhelmed by all the chaos in our house.  He was not a fan of the crying and screaming and toy sharing. 

Later in the afternoon, the girls had another male visitor.  Sam (from yesterday's post) grabbed his dad's hand and pulled him out the door saying "babies, babies."  As they got closer to our door, Sam was saying "girls, girls."  SO CUTE!!  He came in and played with the girls in their upstairs playroom.  Then we went outside and set up the Step 2 water table that I bought today.  When we first went outside, it was warm.  Everyone got soaked, and the clouds quickly rolled in.  All four kids were shivering.  The girls and Sam are going to have a pretty great summer together!