Rained Out

Last Saturday was our neighborhood garage sale. Every year, some lady organizes it and sends a flier around. She puts an ad in the paper, and then everyone who participates pays for part of the ad. We skipped it last year, so this year I thought I'd give it a whirl.

Sigh.

Garage sales are a lot of work.

Brandon and I spent several hours this past week going through our junk and dusting things off. I went to my mom's to borrow tables for the event (my mom's a semi-pro at garage sales!), which also took some time. We ended up going to the temple Friday night (more on that later), so I didn't have as much time as I would have liked to set everything up in the garage. I was counting on Saturday morning to get out there and set up shop before the early birds started to arrive.

Well, I first heard the thunder at 5:55 Saturday morning. My heart sank. Who wants to do a garage sale in the rain?!? I barely want to do one in the sunshine, to be honest! I stayed there in bed, for an hour and a half, on the fence. On the one hand, I was exhausted from being up until 1:00 a.m. after our temple trip the night before. Going back to sleep sounded good. Plus, it was pouring down rain. On the other hand, my dining room was full to the brim with garage sale items. One way or another, it was going to go out the door. Might as well try to sell some of it.

At 7:30, the rain had stopped. I looked out the window and saw our neighbors opening their garage door. Sigh. I decided to git 'er done.

All this procrastinating made for a less-than-organized start to our sale. People were showing up before we even had all our junk - er, I mean, stuff - out of the house!

It proceeded to rain off and on all morning. And when I say "rain," I mean RAIN. It poured!

Complete with impressive lightning and loud crashes of thunder. Mason is not a fan of thunder. Here he is, with my shooting range earmuffs on, to muffle the sound:


The rain definitely affected the turnout. And I suspect a lot of neighbors chickened out as well - only 8 families participated. This, of course, made my portion of the ads a lot more expensive than anticipated! Bummer. I will say this, though - there were still a fair number of people, given the horrendous weather. I guess some people are serious about their garage sales. And I guess I'm not one of those people. :-)


All told, I spent about 10 hours on this project and netted about $90. And now my garage is half full of junk - er, I mean, donations - waiting to be taken to Good Will.

I think I just might pass on the neighborhood garage sale next year.

Fun facts about Danny

Our Danny is really quite a character. He has such a cute little sense of humor and often tries to make us laugh with his "jokes." And what could be more funny than a swim diaper on your head?


Always fond of hats, here he is with my Crazy Singing Time hat from Primary:


Lately, Mason and Dan have both gotten into this video game online called "Random Defense." For the longest time, they only wanted to sit on Brandon's lap and watch him play. Just this weekend, we realized they can actually both play all by themselves! They don't want any help at all, not even Daniel. Brandon set him up on my computer and he went to town. It's sort of a game of strategy, as far as I can tell - you have to fortify your defense with artillery and research centers and fight off the offensive troops. I'm not kidding - my boys really know what they're doing. Especially Dan! He got to level 20-something yesterday, all by himself! Impressive, albeit addicting for them. Now they want to play all the time. We're working on establishing limits. :-)


A few weeks ago, we got our baby bouncer seat back after loaning it out to cousin Leah, and Dan wanted to try it out. I'm fairly certain he exceeds the recommended weight limit! It was funny to see him climb into it, though. It was almost touching the floor under the weight of him. Seems like yesterday he actually fit in there, my little baby...


Dan is still very fond of his teddy bear, "Soft Ted." When I first noticed he was getting attached to this guy, I quickly went online and ordered a second. After all, I learned through Mason how helpful it can be to have a spare security item on hand. Even so, Dan can always tell the difference between his preferred Soft Ted and the second string Soft Ted. When I try and give him the other one, he says, "No, not this Soft Ted. I want my other Soft Ted!" So much for having a spare!


Finally, Danny still loves to make funny faces. Sometimes, when he takes my picture with the kiddie camera, he instructs me as to which funny face I should make. "No, Mama, do like this!"


As you wish, Danny!

Home grown, baby!

Our tomato crop is starting to come in! Yesterday, I went out to water the Earth Boxes and picked about 10 ripe beauties. And there are plenty more on the vines, so pretty soon I'll need to start thinking of new and exciting ways to use tomatoes.

Today, I made marinara sauce. I have a great recipe, from an Italian family in a previous ward. It's delicious! I just substituted the crushed tomatoes for our own tomatoes, which I pureed in the food pro. It worked like a charm!

Daniel was my little helper throughout the process. He was anxious to see what I was doing, so I let him pull up a chair to have a closer look.

Here's Danny, stirring our pot of sauce!

Now, if I were really serious, I would have made this in bulk and canned the sauce for food storage. But I guess I'm not that serious yet. I only made enough for about two jars, so I just poured it in and put it in the refrigerator. Here's my finished product:


Sidenote: when I first met Brandon, I quickly came to realize how serious his family was about gardening. One of the first times I ate dinner with his family, I recall my father-in-law foregoing dessert, opting instead to eat a green bell pepper from his garden. In all fairness, there was a time in Brandon's youth when they grew a fantastic garden and ate from it throughout the summer, and then canned all kinds of produce for year-round use. The children helped out - whether they wanted to or not - and there is a lot of family pride in the experience, looking back. If you don't believe me, just ask them about gardening. I dare you.

Anyway, tonight we had homemade marinara sauce with pasta for dinner, made with tomatoes from our mini-garden, and it was delicious. But don't you think everything tastes better from your own garden?

It's true! Just ask a Livingston.

New toy for Daddy

Brandon got a new bike! My friend at work and her husband are semi-pro cyclists and were able to hook him up with this sweet ride. He loves it! Quite an improvement over the old 1987 Miyata.

He's still waiting on the new pedals and shoes, and then he'll be set. My friend even sent a box of leftover racing gear for Brandon - jerseys, shorts, etc. - so he'll look quite professional. And apparently, my friend's team was sponsored by Papa John's Pizza. Brandon's new bike shorts say "Better ingredients, Better pizza" right on the rear end. Awesome.

He's riding once a week with a group of guys from work and really enjoying it. They rode 52 miles last Tuesday! Wow. That's far.

What a big boy!

These past few weeks, I've been working diligently with Daniel in the potty training department. I'm happy to report, things are going really well!

As you may recall, my first experience potty training - with Mason - was one of the hardest things I've ever done. He was terrified of using the potty, and I tried everything. Everything! It took a long time, and finally we just had to take away the diapers and let things get a little wet. It wasn't pretty, but ultimately he figured it out and we celebrated like crazy when he finally got with the program.

Danny, however, has been another story. He's really taken to it and has no problem peeing on the potty. We're two weeks in now, and he's wearing his big boy pants most of the time, without accidents. He's even gone #2 on the potty once, which was quite a surprise to everyone. Go Danny!

A few things that have made this round of potty training easier: First, we bought a new potty and new Thomas underwear for Dan - his choice. This little "froggy potty" was purchased at Target for about $12 and it is fantastic. Works great for boys, it's easy to clean, and he can use it himself if he needs to without any assistance. I tend to carry it to wherever he's playing in the house and just remind him frequently to use it. So far so good!

Note: Mason is modeling our old potty here, which is a complete piece of junk. Do not buy that potty. It's a pain to clean and the splash guard doesn't stay on at all. It's also sold at Target, and I'd avoid it if I were you.


Second, Daniel is motivated by Tootsie Rolls. I purchased a bag of 400, and so far so good. Plus, Mason gets one too if he helps Danny get to the potty on time. Thus, it's a team effort. We've had to take more care in our tooth-brushing, though, and in hindsight I wish I'd picked a less sticky reward. But it's working, so I won't complain too hard!And I just have to include this last shot - now that's concentration.


Well done, Danny! We're so proud of you.

Two peas in a pod

Mason and Daniel are really best friends. Sure, they fight and argue like all brothers do. Each can be quite bossy when he wants to be, but overall, they love each other and play together beautifully. In fact, I am so glad they have each other. They have a lot of fun together.

Here are some snapshots from our summer so far:

Nana gave Mason this cool inflatable easel last Christmas, and we've finally been able to put it to use. Theoretically, you paint with the special paint and then hose it off with the garden hose. In practice, it's a little more difficult than that to actually get the paint off, and the person in charge of the cleaning step pretty much gets drenched.


Mason and Danny nearly exhausted the paint provided in the kit in about five minutes, but they sure had a good time doing it. And what art! It's a shame we couldn't keep it.


Here are the boys, testing out Brandon's sleeping bag prior to camp. Literally, two peas in a pod!

My brother's birthday is the last day of June, and the boys helped me make some homemade oreo cookies for him. Don't worry, Chris, I didn't put the spatula back in there after Danny licked it clean.

Since it's summer in Ohio, we've spent a fair amount of time outside playing in the water. Fun times! Here's Danny, making a water slide for Mason by pointing the Elmo sprinkler at the mini roller coaster.



It's been a low key summer, so far. Mason's been taking swimming lessons this past week and has another week to go. Danny wants to be in that water with him so badly, but he's not old enough. The first day, he just cried and complained the entire time, he's not used to being excluded from something Mason gets to do. He's settled into it a bit, thankfully, and now we hang out in the sand play area while Mason swims. It's all good.

You know, I have always been an avowed fan of winter. Each year, I'm almost sad when winter ends, I love so many things about it. I know, it's odd. But I have to admit, I am really loving this summer: cookouts, swimming, fireworks, sunscreen, trips to the park, Icees, and sand in between the toes. We are having a great time together and I might even be a little sad when autumn creeps up on us...

Scout Camp

Back in June, Brandon went off to Camp Chief Logan for several days of Boy Scout camp. Brandon is a leader in our church Young Men's program and the Varsity Team Coach for our ward troop. What an adventure! They stayed in camp tents and had a good group of guys in attendance.

It was a flurry of activity leading up to his departure. For example, I spent about an hour and a half sewing patches on his new Scout shirt:

For those of you who've never had the pleasure of sewing on Scout patches, let me just say: it's not that fun! For one, it's rather hard to get them on straight, and for another, it's near impossible to avoid jabbing yourself with the pin about 100 times. I'm told it's even more fun to sew on the scads of merit badges the kids earn, so I'm glad I have a few years before I need to worry about that.


Brandon had his own tent, chock full of creepy crawlies. *Shudder*


I'm omitting pictures of all the kids in attendance, since I don't really want to post pictures of other people's children on my blog without their permission, but I can report that, from the looks of things, a good time was had by all. And if fun were measured in the amount of dirt found on their persons by the end of the week, then I'd say they had the time of their lives. Seriously, I wonder if some of those kids even brought a change of clothes!

I can also say without hesitation that Brandon was sorely missed at home. The boys just couldn't understand why Dad wasn't coming home at night! He's traveled before, but for some reason, this time they really missed him. Plus, Scout Camp is located in the middle of nowhere, without cell phone reception, so once Brandon hit the road, I didn't speak to him again until he came back four days later. It was so strange! We've been apart for longer than that before, but I've never gone so long without at least talking to him on the phone. I'm not anxious to repeat it!

Anyway, here's to all the dads everywhere who put in some serious hours in the heat, mud, spiders, mosquitos, and sweat that is Scout Camp. My hat is off to you.