A $4 wreath and a 40-cent hat

A couple weeks ago, I awoke to a wonderful email from my even-more wonderful husband. "Spring clearance is now 90% off. Good time to buy that spring wreath you want." I immediately called him to see if he knew which area store had the biggest remaining selection. He said that the Lewisville store and the Hurst store were both good options. Given that Lewisville is closer, I fed Austin breakfast and we were on our way north!

I got there and found that they had zero selection of custom-made spring wreaths. They had tons of summer ones, and lots of pre-made spring wreaths, but none of the big ones which were now 90% off. I did end up buying a few things, though. I mean, I was at Michaels. How could I not!? I bought Austin a Smurfs book (for his birthday, I'm telling myself) and a hat. 

While cruising around looking at all the different wreaths, we kept passing this stand of 4th of July stuff (which was all on clearance), and it wasn't until the umpteenth time that I noticed Austin eye-ing this silly hat. I picked it up and put it on his head. After laughing like a crazy person, I checked the price, and with it being on clearance, it was $.40. I HAD to get it. I told myself that even if he wore it one time, just for a picture, it would be worth 40 cents. It has been well worth it because not only did I get him to pose for a picture, but Georgia too! (Good thing their heads are about the same size!)

But, having set out on this journey to find a spring/Easter wreath, I decided to head to Hurst. Being still relatively new in the area, I don't have a good sense of where things are located. I knew that Hurst was west of me, but how to get there, and how long it would take was beyond me. I was unable to pull it up on my phone because the map would only show the Michaels whose parking lot I was currently sitting in. I called Seth and he gave me rough directions; enough to get me on my way, thinking I would pull it up later. Turns out his 'rough' directions were exactly perfect!

About a 1/2 hour later, I was walking into the Hurst store. I found a helpful employee who showed me the 90%-off section of wreaths, and there. it. was. A big, beautiful wreath with tulips draped on either side. Perfect for Easter. The only problem in my mind was that it had a tinsie baby pink bow. I set off to the ribbon section, sure I could make another one myself. When I passed the custom floral section, however, I saw a big, bright, gorgeous yellow ribbon just waiting for me. The wreath, with the 90% off, was $4. The bow was $12. I don't care. I love it. 

Come over next spring and see my great find!

Georgia Mae hates posing for pictures. 

She really hates posing for pictures when Momma puts things on her like a 4th of July hat.

Austin's turn to pose with the hat!

It turns out that Austin doesn't like posing with silly hats on his head either. 

He'd rather chew on them.

He's an Inchworm!

Will he ever crawl?

Why we thought he'd never crawl...

Momma... What IS this stuff!?

 Several weeks ago, Austin tried 'puffs' for the first time. At first he wasn't sure what he thought, but in the end, he liked them. 

I caught his progression in a series of photos I thought were way too cute not to share! 

Another of Austin's Circus Tricks

 

Please notice how he sometimes can't decide if he'd rather start sucking on his fingers or keep blowing raspberries. ;-) And, if you look really close at the end of the video, you can see how wet his face and neck are from all the spit flying from his lips. Once he gets raspberries going, it's hard to stop him!

One of Austin's Latest Circus Tricks

While we were in WI, Austin decided to clown-it-up for the camera! (note: He can stand while leaning against something perfectly well. He was just being silly.)

4th of July weekend

This year was the most interesting 4th of July I think I've ever had. After celebrating with family in The Colony (fireworks included!) on Saturday, July 2nd, I spent the entire night in the bathroom with the stomach flu! Seth wasn't sick and was a great help to me the entire time. At some point in the night, Georgia Mae also started getting sick, so Seth was kept busy taking care of both his girls. Thankfully, Austin slept the whole time.

The next morning, though, Seth was sick. So, though I was still pretty queasy, I was now busy taking care of him. Austin was a great baby all day which was wonderful. He was content to sit on the floor and play with toys while Seth and I vegged on the couch nearby, just watching. We. were. exhausted. And nauseous. Seth and I took naps when Austin napped, and spent some time playing the Glad Game, so even though we felt like death warmed over, it was a pretty nice day. Just relaxing, chilling at home as a family. 

On Monday, the 4th, we felt well enough to go watch the Park Forest parade. It was super hot, and it did me in, so I didn't join the boys at the pool later that day. I had a date with my bed and some more medicine. Later that night, we found out that we had spread the flu to Seth's family, and both our niece and Seth's dad had come down with it. My guess is that I picked it up at VBS the prior week and "lovingly" gave it to several family members on Saturday. Nearly a week would go by before I was actually up to eating anything, though, so the rest of the week was pretty low-key around here.

Here are pictures I took of the Park Forest Parade.

The whole family, waiting for the parade to come. As evidenced by Georgia's tongue, it was HOT!

When taking the previous picture, I noticed that the tray was exactly at Austin's eye level, so we tipped it to the side so he could see better.

 Here comes the parade!!

The grand marshal is an original resident of Park Forest.

Lots of kids on bikes...

Our neighbor, Kerrie, had an amazing float!

Our neighbor, Carla, is the neighborhood photographer (she did Austin's newborn shots), but I was able to snap one of her!

Some friends/neighbors of ours... The Kowalewskis. Well, three of them.

We even had a baton twirler! She sometimes had two going at the same time!

The finale-- A patriotic-colored bug blaring patriotic music. So fun!

Privacy vs. Email

You may remember a recent post of mine where I mentioned that you could sign up to get email notifications of any new posts (if you didn't read it yet, feel free to now and come back to this when you're done). Well, it turns out that in order to have that service work --you actually receive emails from me when I've posted something new, I have to make my blog public. That means that anyone who knows the address is able to view anything I post. Since this blog is not meant to be public and I intend to share very private things here, that makes me uncomfortable. I mean, I don't plan on sharing super-duper intimate things, but I want control over who sees my posts. I feel uncomfortable knowing that anyone could be reading my words and I wouldn't know it.

I really wanted you to get emails when I post something new because though the stuff is private, I write it with my close friends and family in mind. I mean, I write about stuff that I want you to know. And, if you weren't going to get an email about it, how often would you remember to go look yourself? I know I would forget. Several people have expressed intense interest in reading what I'm writing, so it felt like I was letting people down--with not having the emails go out.

In doing a little bit of research, I found a tool within Blogger that will send an email to up to 10 people when I post something new. I went and looked at my Reader list, and I only have 10 people on there, so this is going to be my (temporary) solution. I automatically added all of you to the email list which will hopefully mean that you get an email notification each time there's a new post. (I imagine that'll be once a week or so.) This is my first post since then, so I'm praying this works.

If I ever get more than 10 Readers (you can have up to 100), I'm not sure what I'll do about email notifications, but I'll have to think about that at that point. If you are one of my ten Readers and would prefer to not get email notifications (for any reason!) please just send me a note and I'll remove you. No hard feelings. I'm not trying to push myself onto anyone, just trying to make it easy for those that would like it to be. Promise me you'll be honest about that.