Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Garage Sale and More

We Sara decided last minute to participate in our community's garage sale on Saturday.  Since we have so many of Trevor's old clothes that are taking up way too much space in totes in the garage, it was time!  Plus Ashley had outgrown some of her clothes and the maternity clothes had to go.  So Thursday night and Friday night we spent preparing for the sale.  A big thanks to Grandma Pauline, her friend Mary and Papa John for helping hang clothes so that we could fulfill our vision of a neat and tidy garage sale.  

It worked.  All of the major pieces of clothing were hung with care and by size.
 Pajamas, socks, bibs, onesies, hats, blankets, shoes were put in bins on tables. 
 People kept asking how many boys we had.  It was pretty embarrassing to say we only had one!
But the sale went really well!  Shoppers were calling their friends to come to our sale.  We marked each clothing item $1 and gave volume discounts :)  After our expenses we netted over $300 and we still have a ton of clothes left to sell so we left them on hangers and packed them in totes by size and we will participate in the Fall community garage sale in hopes of selling more!  We know for sure that the 'sisters' will be back - they loved our stuff.  Three of the sisters had more than 20 kids between them.  One had 10, one had 8 and one had 5 with another on the way!!  One of the sisters said that she came from a family of 18.  Wow!  They even wanted to know if we would ever sell Trevor's wooden playhouse in our courtyard.  Never say never :)

Grandma Pauline and Papa John took Trevor to a huge library event during the garage sale and boy did he have fun!  He came back home one worn out little dude!
 He's learning how to play 'bags' like his Daddy!
 Showing off his mad jumping skills!
 Playing the drum, making Uncle Jim proud!
 A 'toy' walk.  Pretty sure he was trying to jump from number to number!
 Racing cars:
 Driving cars:
 Vroom, vroom.  'Pigeon behind the wheel' is his new thing :)
 And a fun dinosaur to round out the day.  Thanks Grandma and Papa for taking Trevor and showing him so much fun!!
 On Saturday night Nicci and Sara had their long awaited Rave Run 5k.  Neither of them are runners but Nicci said after Kendall's passing that she wanted to train for a 5k so Sara said she would be her running partner.  Well, neither of them really liked running all that much so training went by the wayside.  Luckily this was a very low key event - people pushing strollers, people skipping, people stopping to take pictures along the route so it was no big deal for them to just walk with short bursts of jogging.  They completed the course in 47 minutes.  Not too shabby considering they maybe jogged 6 minutes total.  Who cares!  It was just great to catch up and spend time together!!

Trevor is very into building rocket ships these days.  We think he may be an engineer when he grows up because he likes to know how things work as well as build them. 
Plus it's way fun to knock them over!  Super boomers!

Friday, April 5, 2013

Ashley 4.5 Month Pics

 Remember when we said that Sara went down to her friend Leslie's house for the kids to play and for Leslie to play around with a Canon camera?  Well she just posted these pics on Facebook of our precious angel.  Of course we are completely biased but what a cutie!!!!  

Leslie had purchased this bunny hat for Ashley to model and we just think she is the cutest Easter bunny ever!  Leslie is so incredibly talented but not only that she is an incredible person.  We are so blessed to have met her.  Sara and Leslie both commented that it feels like we have known each other for a really long time.  We'll for sure be getting the kiddos to play again soon!  Maybe the husbands can meet too!



 
 Got my toes!
 A girl can't wear accessories all the time ;)  Love this picture of Ashley without any.  She has such soulful eyes and a coy little smile!
 Leslie's daughter Maddie was smitten with baby Ashley!  We think it was mutual!
 Ashley is just a content baby. 
 She takes everything in!
 All those details you never want to forget.  Like her hands...
 ... and her sweet profile! 
Check out her blog to see what Leslie said: http://lesliestyler.com/blog/?p=11068
And if you're in the area and want to hire her you can find her info there too.  She's amazing!

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Adventure!

On Tuesday after Trevor's preschool we headed down to Gilbert to see Sara's friend Leslie and her kiddos - Elijah who is 5 and Sierra who is 2.  Before we left Ashley had fun showing off her strong abs by trying to sit up in her car seat!!

Trevor of course fell asleep in the car before we got there (the kid usually still naps 2+ hours every day) so Mommy parked in a shaded area and let him sleep before going to their house.  Don't want to have a crabby kid!!
Well the kids played great together, Mommy and Leslie had a chance to chat and Leslie even snapped some pics of baby Ashley to try out her friend's Canon camera (she usually shoots with a Nikon).  We were there for over three hours before needing to head to the Scottsdale airport to greet Daddy!  

Trevor kept wanting them to open the gate but Mommy said we just had to wait outside.  Wait he did.  Patiently even!  

 And as soon as Daddy's plane pulled into the hangar, Trevor took off and just kept jumping up and down, waving and yelling for his Daddy.  Quite a nice welcome!
After that we headed to Portillo's (a Chicago hot dog restaurant) that recently opened in Scottsdale.  Pretty yummy!!!

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Trevor meets Henry





On Monday, Grandma and Grandpa Hillins picked Trevor up to go over to their friends house so that Trevor could meet their grandson Henry who is just a day or so older than Trevor.  These boys apparently hit it off and had so much fun playing in the pool that they wouldn't get out!  So glad that Trevor gets along with so many kids.  We hope that continues!!!  Such cuties!!

 And in case you are wondering about Ashley's sleeping habits....our good girl didn't wake up until 7:45am on Tuesday.  Mind you she always goes to bed at 8/8:30pm.  She can sleep just like her brother at this age!  She must have known that Daddy was on an overnight trip and wanted to let Mommy sleep, although Mommy kind of misses their special nursing session in the middle of the night.  Can't win!
 

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Mark the date - Ashley sleeps through the night!




Ashley had been getting up just once a night around 1 or 2am to eat for the past several months.  Well the past week or so that time had moved to 4am on the dot.  She's a routine baby - just like her Mommy!  So we're not sure if she was just exhausted from the busy Easter day or what but she didn't wake up until 6:30am on Monday!!  What a treat!  (See that little stinker got her arms out of her swaddle...maybe she just needs her arms to sleep all night??)

Monday, April 1, 2013

Happy Easter!

As mentioned earlier, on Saturday morning we joined up with two of our neighbors to put on a little Easter egg hunt for the kiddos.  Have we said that there are five 3 year olds within a five home radius to us?  We are pretty lucky!  The kids had a blast!

Trevor was very into this egg hunt.  He had lightning quick moves to find the eggs!
 After the egg hunt and a yummy breakfast, we celebrated Gabriella's 3rd birthday.  Oops we should have called her Cinderella like Trevor does :)
 On Sunday we attended mass with Grandma and Grandpa Hillins before heading to a nearby country club for brunch.  They even had an Easter egg hunt for the kids and since this wasn't Trevor's first rodeo he was raring to go!  He looked so cute in his little seersucker suit from Grandma and Papa!
 He was only supposed to find three eggs before they did a second round but someone (name withheld!) encouraged him to keep finding them.  :)
 Quick pic with the Easter bunny!
 Trevor was not a big fan of the tie but agreed to put it on for a few pics.  He put it on alright but he sure wasn't going to smile!  Classic Trevor expression here!
 The Hillins clan at Easter! 
 Three generations of Hillins men!
 Trevor was a sport with all of the pictures...
 ...up until it was our time to have a family pic!
 Oh well.  We'll just take one of Mommy and daughter by Papa John's pretty flowers:
 Yep, not having it!
 Well maybe a little smirk!
So while Trevor got his swimsuit on we snapped a few pics of the girls:
 And one of Daddy and his little princess:
 Ashley looked so adorable in her Easter dress! 
 We think she knew she looked cute too!  So happy!  (Behind the scenes though was Papa John making his popping sounds and getting Ashley to smile!!)
 All ready for swimming Mommy!  We found this suit for her which is nice because she can't yet wear sunscreen but this protects her quite a bit!
 Oh wait, first we head to have Trevor's fifth and final Easter egg hunt of the season!
 He was so excited to learn that some of the eggs contained money!
 Papa John heated the little pool and we all had a lot of fun in it.  Trevor sure liked splashing his Papa and Daddy!  What a stinker!  
Ashley was perfectly content in the 'office' that Grandma and Papa had at their house.  Just like her brother she really liked the red and white twirly tent!
We had so much fun over there that we stayed til after 7pm!  Surprisingly we all had a late dinner too - ham, potato salad, beans, the works!  Thank you Grandma Pauline and Papa John for a fun Easter day!