May Photo A Day - Day 8, 9, and 10

Day 8 - Blue

My something blue. I found this plate sometime around 2005 at a thrift store or a yard sale, back when Brian and I were newly married and had nothing better to do with our free time than to drive around and hunt for hidden gems and drive through neighborhoods admiring fancy houses, lolz.

I spotted this glass serving plate, it's gorgeous and about 15-inches in diameter, and I just love the color and had to have it. I think we ended up purchasing it for $15 and found it retails for $150.

Day 9 - Favourite

One of my favourite things in the world-- BOOKS!
I glanced at our belongings when we moved into our new home at the end of March of this year, and laughed on the inside when I realized a good 20% of our belongings were books! I mean, this includes kitchenware, clothing, linens, toys, DVDs, etc. And books took up at least 15 moving boxes!! We love books. We have four bookshelves measuring 7-feet tall and the only reason they aren't full is because I gave away about 200 lbs of books (I think it was close to 60 books) before our move.

Day 10 -  In the Garden

We were to take a picture of our garden, or find a garden to photograph.
I splurged last weekend and bought $50 in annuals, and Erika and I had fun planting these flowers in our flowerbox near our front entrance. Spring is here!

Cops at house at 8 AM today

At 8 AM I awoke to what sounded like a dull thumping sound outside our bedroom door. I told Brian to go check on it.

Turns out it was the cops at the door. Returning our toddler and dog.

So two things:
1) Erika knows not to wake us in the morning. If she wakes before us, she goes to potty, fixes herself breakfast, and plays on her own until we wake up. I know, our 4-year old is like super amazing.
2) Erika's morning and evening chore is to make sure our dog Kade goes out and pees/poops. Up until today, she waits until we're awake before this happens.

But today she took the initiative to put her shoes on and take Kade out. Except she didn't realize that the door self-locks; she returned to find the door locked.  The front door and the back sliding door were locked too. She pounded hard and rang the door bell. Most of the time, I don't even notice the door bell because Kade will start barking up a mad storm... but this time, Kade was on the outside, so there was no barking dog to alert us. (Oops)

Luckily, my super mature 4-year old stayed calm, and waited by the front door until she spied a neighbor on a morning walk. She ran down our driveway to the road, flagged the neighbor down, and asked: "can you help me?"

Erika says that the neighbor replied: "Sure, honey, what do you need help with?"

Erika then proceeded to explain that she was locked out of her house. The neighbor came to the door and tried, unsuccessfully, to rouse the two sleep-deprived parents, tucked away behind closed doors in the bedroom. So she called 911 and the police arrived. Who I suppose either pounded harder on the door, or after all the knocking from Erika, the neighbor, and then the police, I finally woke up and sent Brian to the door in his underwear. (Thanks for returning my kid and dog, officer!)

I related this story to my friend over lunch today, and she asked, "so what did you do when you found out?"
I told her that when I woke up and heard the story, I went to the door and showed Erika how to check whether the door was locked/unlocked prior to her leaving the house. Then I had her demonstrate locking and unlocking the door, and checking to see if she knew which was lock/unlock.
My friend gave me an incredulous look and said "you mean you didn't say NEVER GO OUT OF THE HOUSE WITHOUT MOMMY OR DADDY!?!"
(That didn't come to mind, honestly. Erika's just not that type of kid?)