Oct 02
Everyone,
This morning, my friend Lala and I set out before the sun came up. We headed off to the fall twin consignment sale! This year, I wasn’t in the market for lots of clothes. Thanks to many generous donations of friends, we have ALL the clothes we need for this winter.
Well, everything but coats and shoes. So that’s what I went looking for. And I hit the jackpot! I got 3 heavy coats (I already had one from a friend) and 2 rain coats. Score!
Next up were shoes. I got the boys each a pair of sneakers that were brand new. Both of them! Also, I got them Sunday shoes that looked like they were hardly used. And I got Butterfly a pair of purple mary janes, black mary janes (for church), knee high black boots (for fun). Whew, that was an ordeal. I was hoping to find some snow boots for the boys but I didn’t find any.
Then I headed over to the books to see what I could find. There were several titles that I saw from last night that I wanted. I only got one I wanted. I still bought other titles as well, and some dvds for Christmas.
Then I bought an airplane, an airport, some flashcards, and some little people. These are for Christmas too. Oh, also a few trains for the boys.
I went to the clothes section to see if there was anything super cute that I just had to buy. Nope. I was actually pretty disappointed in the selection of size 3T clothes for boys. Not much there! And nothing matchy matchy for twins. I knew that would go away as they got older, but I thought I had another year at least! Oh well.
All in all, I spent about $150 for all of it. Awesome!
Then I helped friends look for their things. I love looking through the sale just to browse. I always find something to buy! (This time it was the trains for the boys…but I couldn’t pass them up!)
Looking forward to the spring sale!
Safire
Safireclothes, consignment sales MCPOM, twin sale
Jan 05
Everyone,
A list (I am good at making those!) to me about our little trip.
-Go to bed early! When you have to be up by 3:30am, it’s nice to go to bed around 9pm.
-Do not stress that your only pair of winter church shoes ripped open on Sunday. You can actually go to the store and buy things at a physical store. The internet is not your friend when you have a close deadline. Also, if you do not find something, realize that your mother has this week off and might love to go shoe shopping with you. Possibly your Nana too.
-Do not stress that the only pair of jeans you own ALSO ripped. (Juice got clothes for Christmas…maybe I should have asked for some too?) Knees don’t really feel cold, right? Edited to add: Yes they do! New jeans in my future. See above for information about shopping.
-Do try to remember everything you need to remember. It will be early when you leave. Get everything ready tonight.
-Do not try to clean the entire house before you go. You can leave the house messy. You can clean when you get home. Stop using your new steam cleaner for a few days. The thing needs a break! And you don’t have to sanitize the house right now.
-Do try and finish the laundry today, however. There is nothing good about mildew smelling clothes in your washer when you come home.
-Find time to give Juice a back rub. He is using his vacation to shelp you and the kids across the country so you can spend time with your family and hasn’t complained about it yet. Nice guy. Gold star for him.
Safire
Safireclothes, Juice., shopping, trips to Utah
Dec 13
Everyone,
Taken for the benefit of Nana-Great who bought these for the kids. They were actually all wearing them at the same time so I thought a picture was in order!
This was a quick shoot, no time for the cool big flash or even any kind of coaxing. I just snapped away at what was happening. This is the one picture that Butterfly is not scowling in and Pirate does not have his eyes closed. Pirate is standing up off the chair to go slide down his slide. They spent 20 minutes zooming off that slide because these pajamas are slippery!
Pretty cool pajamas if I do say so myself!
Safire
PS- A note to Nana-Great…they fit fine although it’s kind of work to get Pirate’s feet into the right place. He’ll wear it for another few weeks and enjoy it. Professor goes around the house with his arms out in it saying “Zooommmm!” so I think he likes them too. As for Butterfly, she is insisting they are cold weather clothes and not pajamas so she is happy too. Thank you!
PPS- A note to Nana (my Mom)…Does this face look familiar to you?!
Safireclothes, Great Grands, Sunday Pictures
Sep 02
Everyone,
I know, I must be boring you with all this talk of clothes. But apparently I need to talk about them because that’s all I’ve been thinking about lately.
So. Clothes. How do you keep clothes clean? I swear between my 3 kids I am always washing something or pretreating something. The past 2 weeks or so I have washed something every single day, as well as doing all the rest of my laundry on my laundry day. Well, I should have been doing laundry on laundry day. But I was so burned out with laundry every day that I just wasn’t keeping up with it. Then I thought, “Why not just do this every day?” I’ve been trying it out for the past little while and it’s been working great. I think, any way. I have a lot less laundry to put away. I do kid laundry, then our laundry, then towels, then kid laundry, our laundry, sheets. And when I need to do whites, I’ll do those that day and start up my rotation a day later. I also throw whatever is stained in with whatever I’m doing that day.
Speaking of stains, my mom is the queen of stain removal. I am trying to become so but it is slow going. I have started to use this stain removal called Soilove. It’s pretty good, and seems to be working for most things. Plus it has so many other uses!
One other thing I do is I make up my own laundry detergent. I take half a cup of borax and washing soda, and add that to a cup of grated soap. I use fels naptha soap and it is working beautifully. I also mix them together in my food processor. I usually make a huge batch of it, mixing at least 4 bars of soap (grated) and about half a box each of the borax and washing soda. I figure I make about 96 loads at a time and it only costs me around 7 or 8 cents a load. Pretty cheep! I make the powdered soap but if you want to, you can make this into a liquid (more like jelly than liquid) by cooking down the soap with water before adding the borax and the washing soda. I don’t do this because I think it takes forever and I also don’t have a 5 gallon bucket to put it in. Or even a place to put this supposed 5 gallon bucket. So, I go powdered.
I think I am boring myself now. I’m off to find something else to do. Oh I know, picture clean up! I am excited. And sarcastic.
Safire
PS- I went with Lolli and AJ to a castle park today and we had so much fun! The boys took 3 hour naps afterwards, and only 3 hours because I woke them up when it became 5pm. A fun day! No pictures though because I forgot my camera. Oops.
Safireclothes, laundry, Lolli, play parks
Sep 01
Everyone,
So today my big project is to go through all the winter clothes I have for the kids and see what I need and what I don’t need. Why today, you ask? Well, it’s not because the weather has been GORGEOUS in the low 70s and sunny and supposed to be like this for the rest of the week. It’s because my twin mom’s group semi annual sale is coming up.
Are you ready to rumble?!
For all you local ladies, if you have kids from baby to size 7, this is THE place to get clothes, toys, books, movies, baby gear, and supplies. Seriously, the quality is amazing and the selection is huge. In fact, in the spring, the lines were so long they redid the layout this time. They are checking out in the hall and hopefully the lines won’t be so bad. (This is what I got in the spring sale.)
Do consider coming to this sale. It’s one of the biggest in the area with over 600 families selling things. It’s a $2 entrance fee and it’s open to the public at 9 am sharp. You’ll want to be there by at least 8:30am to wait in line to get in. This year, NO STROLLERS are allowed. And children are strongly discouraged. I am looking forward to a kid free morning, although I’m sure Juice is not as excited as I am. 
The sale is at Julius West Middle School at 651 Great Falls Road in Rockville on Sept 12th. Check out their website here for more information.
I’m so looking forward to this sale! I need coats for the boys, and some toys for Christmas. It looks like thanks to the generous donations of friends and family I won’t need to buy many clothes for them this season. But I’ll be there! So local ladies, who’s coming along??
Safire
Safireclothes, MCPOM, twins
Jun 09
Everyone,
I’ve been in Utah for almost a week now. The time seems to be flying by. There is so much I’d like to do and see and I’m anxious to get out and do it. But the kids need time to adjust. I think Professor needs it the most. He has been cross, cranky, clingy all day today. They all have small colds (lucky us, sick AGAIN) but he is really unhappy. Poor kid.
Today my SIL Angel (married to my only sibling) and I went shopping. I don’t think I’ve bought clothes for myself in about 2 years. My church skirt I brought along has a huge hole in the back right across my butt. So. I need something else to wear. We went out shopping today and I think I found something fairly cute. It’s knee length and I never wear knee length stuff. My legs are so long I always think that I am showing an insane amount of skin. This one isn’t too bad. My mom watched the boys and Butterfly and Juice spent the afternoon at his parents house. It was fun to get out with just Angel and no kids. She got a skirt too.
My mom went through her closet and was cleaning out a bunch of stuff. And hey, I fit into a bunch of stuff she was planning on giving away. So I got a few new capris and a new pair of shorts, a skirt, and a shirt. Nice! Shopping without money is always the best kind of shopping, don’t you think?
Safire
Safireclothes, trips to Utah
Sep 27
Everyone,
Back from the huge consignment sale. I got some super deals. All of this stuff only cost me 100 dollars! 2 heavy duty coats for the boys, 
one brown, one blue. 9 pairs of pants (oops, I meant to get 10…), 12 long sleeved long pant jumper outfits. Some with feet. 3 actual outfits. 3 long sleeved onsie shirts. 3 pairs of mittens (oops, I meant to put a pair back and never did). 3 winter hats (what is with me and odd number of things?!) but these winter hats are for next year. 2 of these hats have mittens that match them. 2 pairs of 6-9 month old soft shoes (score!!).
For Butterfly I got some nice things too although I didn’t think I would. Happy accident. 2 pairs of pants. 2 shirts and a pair of holiday red polar bear pjs. These pants and shirts are for the resource center where we paint and do crafty things. This way, I won’t care if they get stained. (Looking closer at the shirt, one already has paint on it. Perfect for what I need. And it was only
a dollar!)
I went a little crazy in the toy section this time. Normally I don’t. But I went there first because there was not a huge crush of people and got some cool things. A book for Butterfly’s church bag. (My little pony look and find.) A birthday present for Butterfly’s BFF Vinny. (Leap pad book thing. He’s turning 5 and this will help him get into reading. It was a steal at 4 dollars!) Christmas presents include a play kitchen for Butterfly (I wasn’t going to do it but it was 3 dollars and it’s small and we should have some room in her room for it. Hopefully!), play food and dishes for the kitchen (2 dollars). See and stack blocks for the b
oys (2 dollars). And a Care Bear movie for Butterfly’s stocking (4 dollars).
I got almost everything on my list. I didn’t get any costumes (they were eh and people were swarming them so I didn’t get a great look). I didn’t get a new high chair which I may regret. (There was one that matched our old one for 40 dollars with all the toys and stuff. Kicking myself about that one a little!)
At the sale, the girl racks were all nicely spaced out. And the boy racks were so jammed together I had to lean into the clothes with my butt hanging out in the main isle to get to them. I’m sure there were some great deals that I missed in the back. I think they may need to move to a bigger venue next year because this one was to the gills JAMMED with baby stuff. I love going to this sale though because I get all of their clothes for a really good price. I can then afford to buy other things a little nicer. Like shoes and Sunday clothes and more toys for Christmas. I will probably volunteer at the next sale and sell some of the infant clothes that they boys never wore or only wore once. And a few odds and ends, a few toys and the like.
Now with these buys, all the clothes our friends have given us and the clothes I’ve bought Butterfly on sale, I think we are set for winter. Well, except shoes for Butterfly (ordered today), tights, socks for the boys, and a few other odds and ends. We are set for fall! So bring on the cold weather!
Oh, before I forget. There were 2 of these huge sales today. One by my moms of multiples group, and one by just moms in the area. I went to both back to back and let me tell you, the multiples one is MUCH nicer. Small space aside. The clothes are in better shape, they offer more, and it’s cheaper than the other one. So all you local gals, gear up for the end of March when they have it again. You better believe I will be there.
Safire
PS- Edited to add…here’s a look at the sale the night before. Tons of stuff!
Safireclothes, consignment sales
Aug 02
Everyone,
I just looked at my pictures from when the boys were first born and up through now. I have over 700 pictures spanning 3 months. Yikes, how am I ever going to go through them and organize them!? I have to because eventually I’ll be scrapbooking them (probably in about 2 years…I am horribly behind) and I really won’t remember what was happening or who was what unless I at least label some of them. I did at least get all of July done so if you’re on my picture list, you should have gotten them.
We are having fun with Bee. It was so nice for me this morning to lay in bed until 10am and know that Butterfly was taken care of. We haven’t done much beyond grocery shop and regroup from no help but we’re off on some adventures next week. I can’t wait for the beach again!
A friend at church just gave me a huge bin full of boy clothes. Mostly 18 month to 4T. This is going to be a huge help when they are older! She said she wished she had 2 of everything, but I’m glad she doesn’t because it looks like the boys’ body types will be different and I would have ended up buying 2 separate things anyway. She gave me a bunch of really cute sweaters and such so I’m excited for them to be old enough to wear them. She says she is excited to see the clothes on my boys and remember her boy in them. Ahh…good times.
A big shout out to my sil and her twins who are finally home from the hospital! We can’t wait to meet them!
Safire
SafireBee, clothes, family pictures, twins
