Yard Sale and recent happenings

So, last week we had a super busy week. Thursday night started the marathon as I headed to Panera Bread for our bake sale donations. On the drive I got to chat with our homestudy social worker for the very first time! Her name is Helen and she seems like a very nice lady. After that, it's a little blurry, but I will do my best!

Friday morning we were up an at'm but not too early. We headed to Walmart and had ourselves set up and ready to go. The kids were so excited to hand out flyers, but when it actually came down too it, they were too shy. When they got up the nerve to actually hand someone a flyer, their excitement would get the better of them, they would giggle and put their heads together to talk about it and they would miss 3 more people.

Too cute!

So anyways, if yard sale fundraisers are lots of hard, physical work; walking away feeling like the people who bought your stuff or donated stuff got the better deal after they badgered you into a lower price.....bake sales are the opposite. We sat and smiled at people, we were blessed and encouraged by so many, including the little old lady who came bounding over with a $20 in her hand so excited to tell us that she had two of her own, grown, adopted children. The sweet old men who would pull out a couple bucks and give it to us, not really wanting to chat ;) The friends who stopped by to buy a goodie or 2 and encourage us. We had one lady that was given a flyer (by mom) and was walking away but came back after she read a bit. She bought $10 worth of goodies and paid with a $20. :) She was an angel! The relatively sweat-free morning we had was blissful fundraising.

Our Walmart Bake Sale gave us $184....not bad for 4 hours hangin with the fam in front of Walmart!

Then we headed home to pack up all the yard sale stuff and do the Panera Bread run again. Saturday morning started much earlier. I ended up with a headache at 2 or 3 am, got rid of it, but was up at 4:30 am for the day. I finally gave up sleep and decided to surf some blogs before the yard sale mayhem started.

We had a WONDERFUL spot to have the sale this time and WONDERFUL weather!! :) My friend Dana's church let us use their parking lot, we actually ended up using a great covered picnic area right next to the parking lot, we stayed out of the sun and Dana and her hubby helped keep an eye on the kiddos and eventually took them to play at their house.

The morning started off a little stressful, I had a lady that was a paradox for yard sales. She spent a lot of money, so for that I am grateful, the method in which she spent it almost sent me over the edge. First let me tell you that this lady had a sort of yard sale kit...the lady brought batteries and screw drivers and such so she see if things actually worked. Okay....that's fine. Then, she had so much stuff, she asked if she could have a box...hmmm.... that's fine, but I'm not sure you can take it (remote location, I have to get this stuff back to my house somehow!) Then, as things are really starting to pick up...she wants to negotiate her huge pile....one or two items at a time! And she wants to pay as she goes! To top it off, she unashamedly has told me, she is buying this stuff to turn around and sell it at the flea market! That would have been fine if not for the table....let's just say she bought it for way less than I had planned on selling it for. I was glad that she had to be at work by 9, let's just say, I was neglecting the other customers as she bought her box full of stuff $0.75 at a time! ;)

This sale, we didn't have a lot of big tickets items, most of those have been sold at the others, but we still did great. We had a bake sale along side of the yard sale and it's a wonderful conversation starter about the adoption. Since people zero in on the yard sale and seem to pass over the adoption fundraiser sign, the bake sale was a way to let them know what the whole sale was for.

Here is a picture of my sweet and hard working hubby. (Note: my poor hubby might start having an aversion to this 2 simple words "yard sale".) He has worked so hard packing and hauling this stuff all over this town!

My Grandma in Ohio sent us adoption shirts from a girl at her church that is adopting! I was so excited to get to wear something with Africa on it!

So, for our 4th (sort of 3rd) yard sale, we made a wonderful $490!!! That was after we took out lunch and on the advice from friends, we did not advertise this time in the paper. We didn't even need to, we had great traffic all morning long!

Unfortunately, after we were packed up and got back to the house, the day was not over...you remember I said marathon, don't you? We had committed to helping out with the parent's night out at our church, so off we went to the other side of town. The day ended at around 9:45pm when we finally got home and put the kiddos in bed. Geez, I'm tired just recounting it for you!

Since then, the girls and I have been getting some school and yard work done. Kelly is working nights, so at night I try to get adoption paperwork filled it, though I am not as diligent as I could be! I don't even have tv to blame it on!

one last note.....It has nothing to do with any of this, but I thought I'd share a sweet picture of my babies! They started swim season this week and it's so obvious that they are not really my babies any longer. Big sis is way over in the "big kid" lane and little sis jumped right in the first day and didn't even look back, just swam! What a huge change from last year!!!