The Greenest Girl You Know!

As far as RECYCLING goes, I'm about the greenest one out there! Between last week's spring clean up in Winnetka and this week's spring clean up in the village directly north of Winnetka, in Glencoe, I am a 'recycling' fiend!

We had an open house yesterday, after church, so we had to be away from the house from 1 to 3 PM, so Matt made a picnic lunch while I finished cleaning the house and we headed over to the park. At the park, we enjoyed a nice lunch while Quinton played on the playground and then flew a kit on the beach, it was all very picturesque.

After all of that fun, Matt and I decided we would drive around to try and have Quinton fall asleep. Well, it worked! In the first 5 minutes, he was out! So we just kept driving up the road that parallels the lake. There are some gorgeous homes along this stretch of the North Shore. At one point, we saw this gorgeously manicured hedge with beautiful flowers and it was all almost TOO perfect. Matt made the comment that all of that landscaping alone cost more than our house in Tulsa! Sad thing is, I think he's right!

Once we hit the next town north, though, we both realized they were having their Spring Clean Up week so Matt humored me by driving around the area and he even HELPED me pick some stuff up! His favorite find was the soccer goal that shouts, "GOOOOOAAALLL" when you hit it square in the middle. Matt was such a trooper. Instead of watching TV at 8:30 pm that night, he went back out driving with me, hunting around in the dark where we scored again with treasure finds.

Below are a few of our finds from this weekend!

This is another all-time treasure of treasures find!

Matt made me pass this one up the first time we saw it but when we drove by it again, I MADE him put it in the car. He was worried about whether or not it would work.

Score! This Barbie four wheeler works like new, it even has the charger with it and the battery intact! Quinton has spent the better part of today playing on it! Matt was worried about the Barbie theme harming Quinont's budding masculinity, but don't worry, I let Quinton make Tool Time-esque grunts while he's riding it!

Another great find was this Kettler bike. Quinton now has three tricycles and one bicycle. Needless to say some of the finds might make their way onto Craigslist. It was too cute and perfect to pass up...can you believe people throw this stuff away?

Here is Matt's soccer goal, which Quinton loves!

At one of our stops last night, I noticed a tall box and it said, "Thomas Train Table" and I thought, this box MUST be empty because who would throw away an unopened Thomas the Train table top? Well, I wouldn't be blogging about it if it wasn't a brand spanking new train table top! Still in the box!

The train table top was a perfect fit for the train table I bought at a garage sale a couple of weeks ago! This is too perfect because the train table top that came with the table had some railroad pieces glued to it and Matt was going to try and pry the pieces off of the table. So now, we have a fresh clean table top for FREE!

Silly people, put out exactly what I need! I was just thinking that I needed to go and buy Quinton a life vest for playing at the beach this summer and VOILA, what should appear in the Glenoce Spring Clean Up but TWO Coast Guard approved life vests, one of the New With Tags! Woohoo!

Now, I don't NEED two Britax car seats but I can totally sell these on Craigslist after I clean them up a bit. Plus, I may keep one around in case any out of town guests need a spare!

The same pile we found the train table top, I found a stack of kids books! I love kids books but do not like their price tags, so FREE is the best ever!

Quinton saw me put these in the car and from the back seat, I hear him say, "Oh, Mom, keeeeewl!" What more can I say? This kid loves bubbles!

The one drawback to all of this is Quinton might start to expect new toys everyday! It's like Christmas around here with all of the toys, bikes and bubbles!

I found this Fisher Price car town in the Winnetka Spring Clean Up adventures last week and yup, Q loves it!

Another super find that Quinton loves, more Lincoln Logs! Someone gave us a starter set for his very first Christmas, I think, and he loves to play with them! Now, he can make a lot more stuff, all for the reasonable price of FREE!

Quinton couldn't wait, so we made the Lincoln Log Castle tonight!

Well, try not to be too jealous of my garbage scavenging skills, we all have different hobbies, right?