I. Love. Yard Sales.

I came across my love for yard sales at the end of the summer last year. I had no idea how much fun and how addicting it could become. I have always been one for a deal, but the deals you can come across at a yard sale are like no other. I am pretty sure I could become a borderline hoarder because I find it really hard to pass up a steal. Although I totally passed up a Dora kitchen this weekend that I know Brylee would have loved, but I remembered that her room is already filled to the brim as it is. I was proud that I resisted.

I don't know what it is that makes me feel so good about going out for the morning, coming home with a haul and being able to say that I only spent $6! So I thought I would share some of my finds. Like I said I have only really gone out 3 or 4 times total. I have a feeling this wont be the last of my "treasures" blog posts.


This cute little swimsuit and hat were .50 cents each. They were seriously brand new, the girl said her baby wore it one time. Score! The baby model in the picture did not come with the purchase but shes a total keeper too.


I had to bring Brylee home a prize for staying home with Daddy for the morning. She loves the Dora music box($1) and has already filled it with her own set of treasures.

I started looking for a sandbox online to purchase. They were anywhere from $45-100+ It hit me, why am I going to buy a sandbox when there is KSL? So I immediately got on KSL website and typed in sandbox. You guessed it, someone had posted this gem 30 minutes prior! I called them up and picked it up the next day for $18. Its in way good shape and there was this exact one just a couple listings below that was totally beat up and was missing the eyes for $25. I totally felt like I got a deal with this one.

The same lady also had a few other things listed. Jay and I are on a get in shape kick and have started taking the girls on walks, like uphill walks. Hard ones for me since I never work out and pretty much hate the word. So we were just going to get one of those cheap umbrella strollers since I don't have a double stroller to push the girls in. But then I saw this Eddie Bauer stroller

that had barely been touched for $15, Sold!

She also had this crib bumper pad, sheets, accent ruffle and matching curtains listed for $10 but since I didn't love love it I thought I would offer her $5 and see what she said. She was happy to do that.

We had a minor mishap with the crib set bumper pad that we had used for Brylee. Lets just say it involved vomit, middle of the night, and crib bumper strings tied in double knots that I could not get loosened. Snip, snip, snip......

So I was totally glad to get some for Aleah for $5! They were also pretty much brand new never used. Her husband had just gotten a job out of state and they were moving but trying to get rid of everything they owned. She prob would have given this stuff away at this point.

Disney Princess play shoes- $5(way more in the store) and the lady told me that these ones were given to her daughter when she was too old to be interested in them, so the girl hadn't touched them. Win for me :)

ABC's magnetic letters-.50 cents

Barbie Piano in perfect shape-$5. I actually found this deal last summer and Santa gave it to Brylee for Christmas. She loves it! Jay doesn't love it! haha

Vintage 1981 Annie game-$1 Since it was my favorite childhood movie and all I couldn't pass this one up. I googled it and found out that it is actually worth money, but to be honest its not really that much money so I gave it to Brylee to play. She loves it, even though we still haven't really even figured out how to play it. She wants to play it all the time. It was in awesome condition when I got it. But now that Bry has got her hands on it, it is a little beat up. Oh well, let me repeat $1.

The High Ho Cherry O game was a total hit as well.($1) She calls them apples, and wont let me tell her otherwise.

The Radio flyer bike on the left with Carter on it was $5. Looked brand new and in stores sales for around $65

Other mentionables- Lots of kids books in great shape .10 cents, a whole set of glasswear brand new-$3, little girls ladybug tutu's-$1 each, cute baby pjs/clothes-.50 cents

The one thing I need to work on is my negotiating skills. I feel bad asking less for something that is already so cheap. But it is the name of the game. Or so I am told. So far what has worked for me is just asking the person, how much they want for this? They say $10, I just kinda put it back down and give them the, oh sad if that was less I would totally buy it look. And they usually end up saying but you can take it for $5. Haha I suck

I can't wait to see all the steals and deals I find this summer when yard sale season is in full effect. Plus I have some awesome YS buddies that I go with that feel the same way as I do about all of our fabulous finds!

Milestones for Brylee

Watching your kids grow is definitely a bitter/sweet thing to do. Why can't Brylee just keep on believing that the Provo tabernacle and the Provo library are both castles. She has to point out the "castles" every time we pass them and asks when she is going to get to go to the top of the castles.

I don't ever want her to know that it is L M N O P and not "Elmo P."

I also don't have the heart to correct her when she tells me ever day that she "wants to do it all MY BYself!"

I want her to wear her shoes around on the wrong feet, put her shirt on backwards and point out the moon EVERY time she sees it.

These are just a few of things that I know are eventually going to change, while I standby watching my little girl grow up. The past few months she has really had some big milestones(in my eyes anyway) so I thought I would write them down.

She is going to be 3 in June and I have held off cutting her hair until now. I just didn't see a point. She has the prettiest hair. She has natural highlights that anyone would pay good money for. Her little baby ends are the only curl shes got, so how could I bring myself to cutting them off. Her sides were shorter than the back so I got the courage and had them evened up by my beautiful sister in law Candice.

Brylee was very brave, she had no problem sitting there patiently while she got her hair cut. I guess that's what you get when you wait this long and they are a bit older.

So here is the before(see what I mean by the highlights)

And After

She also had her first visit to the dentist in March. I wanted to have someone besides myself do the cleaning so I had Kristen or "Christmas" as Brylee calls her give it a go and see how she would do. I stayed behind because, again I thought she would do better without me.

She went back fine, sat in the chair fine, but as soon as Kristen pulled out the spinny toothbrush or in Brys eyes, the loud drill that might hurt me, she kinda panicked. So Kristen came and got me because the last thing we want to do is make her at 2 years old have a bad or negative experience. I sat down with her and showed her my gloves and my kisser(suction) shined the sunshine on her teeth and she agreed to let me polish and floss her teeth. She let Dr. McIff look in her mouth and count her teeth. She got a token and all in all I would call it a success.

Next up, Potty training. She did so amazing with this. I have been slowly introducing her to the idea for a long time now but have been wishy washy with really doing it fully. I started out by showing her some potty videos while she sat on her potty and watched. Read her a few different potty books but she never really seemed interested in wanting to go. In fact she seemed terrified.

I decided to test her one day and kept her in her undies near a potty until she went, because she seemed to hold it and hold it until I put her diaper back on her. I was determined not to put the diaper on her til she went. Mess or no mess.

I started feeding her water early, and by 11:00 I knew she had to go. But she just kept on about her day holding on to it. 12 comes around and we had lunch, played after lunch and by now it is 1 and time for her nap. I had worked so hard all morning following her around like a hawk and I was not going to give up and put her diaper back on her. That is big for me because I am a mean mom that hardly ever lets her miss her nap, because if she misses her nap we both get to pay for it.

So we kept playing, doing puzzles, coloring, etc. I started to see her getting uncomfortable. I knew she couldn't hold it forever. She started to cry and I ran her over to the potty and held her there. She wanted to get off and kept asking for her diaper. I held her, until she went FINALLY. She was crying the whole time.

We had a line of toys that had been up for months. Barbie, teapot set, books etc. They had dust on them, that is how long we had been trying to bribe her and she could care less about the toys. So when she got done I put on a big show for her and telling her how big and good she did and showered her with the toys and Cadbury mini eggs. I swear I saw a light bulb go off. From that point on she just went. Like it has been part of her life the whole time. Of course I had to give her a mini egg everytime, two for #2. She has never had an accident at night and has had only 2 during the day and that was because she got too busy playing outside. It felt like forever getting her to that point but really she was very easy when it came down to it.

Since I know nobody would appreciate the picture of her standing next to her first poopy, I will give you this one of her putting a sticker on her sticker chart.

And note to self: A newborn and potty training at the same time is not very enjoyable. She was fully potty trained when Aleah was 6 weeks old. I think I deserve a miniegg or 2 for that one. I am glad I stuck with it.

Way to go Brylee!

We took her to fly her first kite. She loved it!

Little sister came along, but it was just too windy to get her out. I am sure she still enjoyed the kite flying.

And Brylee becoming a big sister to Aleah is a pretty big milestone. She has been the best big

sister I could ask for. She has been nothing but sweet to her. Loves on her, kisses her, sings to

her and when she cries I hear Brylee scream from the other room " I'm coming sister!" She is a little sweetheart, I sure love her.

The girls bedrooms

Brylee definitely needed an update on her room from being a nursery to a big kid bedroom. Of course she is still only 2 years old, so I wanted to take it from baby to "big girl" but still wanted to keep it looking young because of course she is still my baby.

We started her out in her crib toddler bed to get her used to the idea. I was so nervous to make the transition from crib to toddler bed. I had it so good with the crib, knowing she was safe and wouldn't be getting out and doing who knows what. Back in November I finally did it. On night one Jay and I tucked her in and did our regular night routine, said goodnight and closed the door. We went and sat down in the living room waiting to see what she was going to do. 5 or so minutes went by and she was still in there. I looked at Jay, smiled and said with pride" I don't know what everyone is talking about, that was easy!" About the time that sentence came out of my mouth here comes Brylee tottling out and looking at us like, I'm ready to play! I walked her back in and said that it was bedtime and she was not to get out of her bed. 3 minutes later she came out again this time with a book in her hand, like we had forgotten that we had told her to stay there. Jay picked her up and didn't say a word, put her back in her bed and walked out. From that point up to this day she has not got out of her bed even once. Not during naps or during her "sadness" time. I have no clue why she doesn't get out, but I am not about to question it.

Since we had a baby on the way I decided it would be a good time to get her a bed of her own. She loved it from day one, and she has only rolled out of it once(sad).

The rooms are still a work in progress. I am going to have Jay build a cute bookshelf/reading area but he says that he will put it on his list(which I know a bookshelf is at the bottom of) so well see if we ever get that done.

The thing with re-decorating is what I would like to do is just go to every store and buy all new things. Well I am not that lucky and I have to use what is on hand. So I did what I could with what I already had. The Brylee letters that were in her nursery used to have light pink ribbon attached to them and they hung that way. I decided that taking the ribbon off made it look a bit more grown up, then I broke out Jays drill and drilled holes in the back so they could hang on the nails. I was pretty proud of myself on that one cause usually that would have been his job.

The two things I did purchase were her bedspread and the vinyl. I am amazed at some of the deals online shopping has to offer. And online shopping is all I been able to do recentely because I am too terrified to take my new baby strolling around town with all the sickies in the world.

So this is what I have so far

I was only going to do a bird theme in Aleahs room but when Brylee saw the birds purched up on the curtain rod and light switch she absoltely had to have some too.

I know the days of me being able to pick out what goes in the girls rooms won't last forever so I better absorb it while I can!

Yep, this happened to me

I recently came across an article online that was titled "Mother given wrong baby to breastfeed." I know the first thing you would think is how scary to have your baby switched! But the second thing to cross your mind would be, how could you ever not know you weren't feeding your own new baby!? Well this(almost)happened to me. Here's the story....

It was the first night in the hospital and I was beyond tired not to mention I had taken some of the pain pills offered to me by the nurses. I love keeping my babies with me in my room as much as possible but in the hospital I delivered at they take the babies every four hours to get there vitals and such. At midnight they came in to get Aleah and the nurse asked if I would like them to keep her til her next feeding. I was thinking that it wasn't a bad idea because then I could get some much needed rest.

A few hours later a male nursery nurse(I think?) came in with the baby cart and rolled the baby girl next to my bed. I was absolutely out of it. I know all moms of a newborn know the feeling. I am going on two or three hours of sleep in the last 24+ hours and the pain meds weren't helping the situation. I looked at the baby and thought, hmm did they bath her again? Because it had looked like they combed her hair a little different. Same pink bow, but slightly different hair. I think I might have even said something like"Hi little sweetheart" to the baby. The baby girl was just alert as ever and staring up at me. He then proceeded to check my hospital band. Next words out of his mouth,"Hmm wait. (enter babies last name) right?" UUMMM no it's Allred, I said. "This is room 14 right?" He was just as confused as I was. "It looks like they put the wrong room number on her cart, well now you know why we check your wristbands every time" I really think I might have laughed at this point. I looked at the baby again and said, wow she really looks like my baby. "I will go get your baby, sorry about that."

When he brought MY Aleah into me he said "WOW, you were right those babies did look a lot alike" and continued to apologize. So yes, judge all you want, if that baby was handed to me I would have fed her for sure. I am glad it didn't go that far and thankful for all the precautions that they take at the hospital, but it is definitely a funny story for me now to think back on. Little sister was almost switched at birth(not really)!

Aleah's birth story

Aleah's Birth story

Born: Feb 2, 2012 at 10:05 weighing 6 lbs 14 oz

We went to bed the night of Feb 1 at around 10:00. At this point I was used to not getting much sleep but this night I could not find a comfortable position what so ever, so I went out in the front room and turned on the t.v. Around midnight the contractions began. They were pretty regular but not too strong.

At 2am I decided I better start timing them. They were every 5 minutes or so at this point. At 4am I got on the internet to check my email and that's when my water broke. I had not woke Jay up to tell him anything was going on. He had no idea I had been up all night contracting but I figured it would be better for him to get some sleep. Also I had two "false labors" within the week so I wanted to make sure it was the real thing. So I went in our room and calmly said, "Love, my water broke." You would have thought I told him there was a fire in the house. He shot out of bed, I think he was still half asleep and started running around trying to figure out what to grab. Of course I had everything packed and ready so I am not sure what he was doing but I just sat back and watched. It felt like in the movies when the husband forgets to take his wife as he is driving off to the hospital. We finally got our things in the car and Jay grabbed Brylee out of bed and we were off to Shae's to drop her off. Jay was still kind of in panic mode and in the parking lot of the hospital I had to stop and say, "I need you to calm down for me." You would think he was the one in labor. From that point on he was very calm and reassuring throughout the whole process.

I had an induction scheduled for the day before, but I had cancelled it because I really wanted her to come on her own. So when I showed up at the hospital the nurse told me that all the nurses were betting that I would come in that night since I had cancelled the induction. And they were right. And I was happy that I was able to come in on my own.

We got all checked in and my contractions were every 2-3 minutes and I was dilated to a 6. I was practicing my hypnobirthing which was working great, I had no pain and thing were going good. I wanted to walk around but the doctor advised me not to walk since my water broke he was worried about something, I cant remember exactly what. So all I could do was lay there. The doctor came in and checked me around 7am and I was now dilated to a 7. Another hour or so goes by and he comes in again. I am staying the same now and he offers to start me on Pitocin. He said, "Well we could go on like this for another 7 or 8 hours or we could give you the pitocin and your baby will be here in a half hour." Hmmm a half hour sure sounded great to me about then. I was still not in pain but it definitely isn't the most comfortable thing in the world to be laboring for that long. So I told him that we could start the pitocin but first I wanted to get my epidural. He said,"Of course, lets get started!"

I got the epidural at 9am. I was so numb it was the weirdest feeling ever. I didn't like it, and asked the nurse if she could turn it down. She said it would get better and it actually did get better after a little bit. When I had my epidural with Brylee I was able to feel my legs so this was just very different. I was checked again around 9:45. Dr looked at us and said "Lets have a baby!" I was like, Huh, that's it? So they got all set up and he said, "okay here comes a contraction go ahead and push." There was her head. Push again, head out. Push again, shes here! She came in one contraction! The cord was wrapped around her neck twice, but it didn't seem to cause her any distress during the labor so that was good. It was the easiest pain free labor I could have asked for. Aleah was here and more perfect than ever. She cried right away and I was able to hold and nurse her almost right away.

I was totally expecting a big baby because Brylee was 8 lbs 13 oz. But she was just a itty bitty 6lbs 14 oz. She was born at 10:05. There were a lot of similarities between my girls births, like I went into labor on the night of their due dates with both, both times started timing contractions at 2am, both girls water broke at 4am(but Brylee was 24 hours later than Aleah), Bry was born at 11 Aleah at 10. One big difference though was that Bry's labor was 33 hours and Aleah was only 10. I'm not sure how they decide how long labor is but from when the regular contractions start is what I am going off of. I will take the 10 hours in a second over my first experience!

It is so lovely to have her here with us, she is a little sweetheart. Very calm and she has slept all night since day one(I wake her to eat and diaper change of course) She is now 2 weeks old today and we are so in love with her. Even Brylee seems to be adjusting to her, she is very gentle with her and is my happy helper as much as she can be. I feel very blessed to be my girls mom and couldn't be any happier at the moment.

We did our newborn picture session with her and I only have a small preview from it, so more to come :)