Overwhelmed.

To say that I've been completely overwhelmed over the past week or so is quite an understatement. We finally have our house listed for sale, though it is by owner so that means the marketing of our home is up to us. So in between being exhausted (just pregnancy and ulcerative colitis stuff), volunteering at Jaden's school two days last week, keeping up with the different kids' activities and groups we're involved in, I felt swamped by all of the house "stuff" that needed taken care of last week and the major cleaning we had to do before our first open house this past Sunday.

After two easygoing mornings where Sienna and I just came home while Jaden was at school and caught up on "life" I'm feeling semi-myself again. Once I finish up a few more things on my to-do list I'll really feel good!

I decided I'd share about my afternoon with my girls on Sunday tonight. We had to be out of the house for 5 hours while Scott finished up getting the last couple of things put away before the open house and then ran the show while prospective buyers came through. So an alternate title for this part of the post could be "How to entertain a 3 and 5-year-old while out and about for 5 hours..."

First, we went to Panera and had a nice, long, leisurely lunch...


As you can see the kids were super pumped about their chicken noodle soup and organic yogurt! I was pumped about my salad :)

Then we went to The Great Escape to look at swing sets. I thought it would take awhile and that the kids would want to try everything out, but they pretty much settled on this one from the start:


It has a little clubhouse area and a slide. I'd love to get them that one for the new backyard!

Next, it was onto Lowe's, or as my daughters call it, "The Tractor Store." I needed new stainless steel wipes and figured the girls could waste some time testing out the tractors...

Since it's the end of season, they're down to only two floor models left...darn. That stop took much less time than I would've liked! ha!

Fourth stop: Target. I'd noticed that Jaden's dance outfit was getting a little too tight and decided she needed a new one.

Sienna then looked at me with those big blue eyes and just as sad as could be said, "I don't get to get one" so I caved...

Thank goodness I don't let those baby blues get me every time! They'd been so well-behaved up until this point though that I just couldn't help it.

Next up...the playground! I figured we'd spend at least an hour there, and boy, that hour went by more quickly than I'd expected...


I talked with Scott and he still had buyers coming through at that point so we had about an hour and 20 minutes left to kill. So we went to Heinans to get dinner groceries...

Then we were hungry from all of our playing and shopping, so we needed a little french fry snack from McDonalds, and something refreshing to drink...

Finally, we swung by the new house to admire it:

And then drove the long way through the National Park to get home.

I was one tired Mama after 5 hours of being out and about, but Jaden and Sienna were so good which made the afternoon together really enjoyable. I hope that we don't do too many more showings and open houses where I have to take them out for long periods and entertain them, especially when the weather really cools down. But on the other hand whatever it takes to sell this house!

I'll hopefully get my 17 weeks post up tomorrow and maybe a pic of Sienna making her very own pretzel at Auntie Anne's. We get to go tomorrow morning for a fun little preschool parents field trip. Looking forward to it!