Ode to Freecycle

Freecycle makes my life rich and grand.

With all of the free stuff I've received, I could outfit a band.

A band of kids that is, with toys and swings

The sorts of things that make moms sing

I'm thrilled with the gifts

I'm thrilled with the stuff

I'm hoping that there's more than enough

To go around again and again and again and again...

Here are the latest items I've added to our growing collection of recycled items from Freecycle (baby swing and kid's kitchen). If you haven't checked out your local Freecycle community, you should. You never know what kind of deal you'll find!

Stooge update

Turns out the guy who lived across the street from the knuckleheads just rented his house out to a cop. We saw her pull in tonight in her patrol car. That makes things look a little brighter!

Three stooges

I spent an hour this afternoon chatting with our retired neighbors. I went over to thank Bill for repaving the ramp up into our driveway (friends' cars bottom out driving up it) and in the process heard a crazy story. Apparently, two weeks ago their daughter who was visiting them caught three college boys stealing beer out of the fridge in their garage at two in the morning! I was appalled to hear this. Their daughter chased them down the street (resulting in a dropped bottle and shattered glass in the cul-de-sac) screaming "bring back my beer!" They jumped the fence into their yard and locked themselves inside the house. The cops showed up and knocked but of course the kids didn't answer so the police left. Our little street only has 5 houses on it and I know at least three of us keep our doors unlocked so this has thrown me for a loop. We also keep our garage open during hot days and nights to help cool off the house. Maybe they only want beer and not biking equipment or a dirty deep-chest freezer but still I'd rather be safe than sorry so the garage will now be closed. Can you believe it? I'm thinking of walking over there and giving them a jar of change as emergency beer money so they'll leave the neighbors (and hopefully the rest of us) alone!

10 months and counting

Parker turned 10 months old last Friday. I just got around to uploading some fun pictures we've taken of him the last few days, including one of him trying to walk down the street with assistance! Here's our little monster.

As for the part about counting...

Sure we're counting down to Parker's 1st birthday but one month after he turns 1 I turn 30! So I'm bracing myself for periodic outbursts of immaturity to get it all in before I supposedly become responsible and sophisticated :) Here's to some fun times over the next three months!

A homecoming...of sorts

Yesterday we picked up our Subaru from the service department of the dealership where we bought it. We took it in over a month ago because it was making a "strange" sound. Did you catch that...a MONTH AGO! We had temporarily owned an '09 Outback as a loaner vehicle which, over the course of a month, we managed to coat in graham cracker crumbs and put a chip in the windshield thanks to Missoula's chip-n-seal road paving program. So for over a month the dealership kept trying to figure out this strange noise was. After replacing some bearings, the noise was still there so in the end, they replaced the entire transmission. That was pretty disconcerting to us because the car is less than 3 years old and has under 16k miles on it. Fortunately, all of the work they did, along with this transmission, is covered under our original 5-year warranty so we'll see how it goes. One this is for sure: after driving an automatic for a solid month, it took a few minutes to remember how to drive the stick. Then again, I was still forgetting to put the automatic in park before trying to take the key out up for the whole time as well. It's possible that I'm not suited to be driving at all :)

She really did it!

Maybe it was a fluke but this evening Madeleine peed in her potty! Today I got her a book called "My Big Girl Potty" by the same author and illustrator as one of her other favorite "transition" books, "I'm a Big Sister Now" that our friend Jen gave to her right after Parker was born. We read her new book about three times this afternoon and then tonight while trying to get her changed and in jammies she announced that she needed to pee so Justin ran with her to the bathroom and got her on her little pot. She didn't get much pee inside the potty (aim is something we'll explain to her some other time) but that doesn't matter. We have been really patient waiting for her to be ready and maybe the time is almost here. Even if it's not, we at least have a positive experience to reference now. I'm one pretty excited mom!

Long overdue...and I mean long!

Here's Parker in one of Madeleine's more recent photos:

Here he is after I got the scissors.

I may have gone a bit short on the bangs but at least this cut should last a while which is good considering how difficult it was to keep him still!

The winning weed

Thus far, this is the longest root of any weed I've pulled from our back yard. It's from the nasty knapweed plant which is considered a noxious weed here in Montana. We have them growing amongst the dandelions, clover, and crab grass. Maybe one day we'll actually have real grass.

The swingset

We finished assembling the swing set I got from freecycle this past weekend and without any arguing :) We had a great time watching Madeleine explore all the different ways to swing. It's proven to be well worth the $7 it's cost us in bolts from Ace. Justin even professed it's my best free find yet! I guess I'll have to find a free car to out-do this one. It's possible, right?