The World's BEST Baby Shower!

Do you know what a crappy friend I am? A really bad one...really, really, really bad. I'm that friend who had some of her best buds in the whole wide world throw her a shower (oh, about 9 months ago!) and I have never blogged about it. Yes, there were extenuating health concerns at the time...but that's no excuse! These two lovely ladies threw me one heck of a baby shower and I dropped the ball sharing it all with you...

So in the spirit of "it's better late than never" feast your eyes on the world's best baby shower!

Two of my besties...T and B...spent so much time and effort making this a great weekend for me. Check out the decorations:







The food...




The gift table...with the CUTE homemade clothing-closet tags from B!

The little girls present were busy checking them out...

The guests started to arrive, and I took my seat to welcome most of them...I was pooped by this time!




Before long, the party was hopping, and we started playing some games that B came up with. I LOVE this face that my Mom is making while playing the "Guess which baby food this is game!"

Obviously the baby diaper/candy bar game was a hoot!
I think that I was laughing at Jenna, who actually tasted the baby diapers for her guesses...
Before long, it was time to get to the gifts!

We were blessed with SO much by our friends and family that day! Truly blessed...

Good thing that I had my little helper there!













And then it was MY favorite part of any party...CAKE time!! There's a story behind the cake (isn't there always?!?!) but look at it's gloriousness first, please! The lady who made it copied off of the shower invitations and did a FABULOUS job!

Doesn't it look all yummy! It was white with raspberry filling...I'm hungry now just typing that. Now for the story...If you look closely at the picture above, you'll notice that the bottom right corner is a little...off. To say the least. Well, what happened for sure is still a mystery, but we have two theories. T lives a good bit away from me, in Boerne, TX, and had the cake made by a friend of hers who makes really wonderful, yummy cakes. Because she lives so far away, there was a question about transporting a cake that far. For any of you readers who bake out there, you know that things can happen when transporting baked goods that have icing!

We're not sure if the cake got too hot, which made the icing unstable, or if just the jarring ride brought about the disaster. Either way, by the time that T got the cake to our house, she was nearly in tears (and half frozen for trying to keep the interior of the truck cold!) because the right side of the icing had crumpled and fallen off. B and I assured her that we could repair it somehow (although we weren't really sure how to go about it) and T got on the phone with the cake maker for better suggestions. We eventually went with the toothpick route and before long, it was all shored up and looking better. You can see in this photo how the icing crumpled a bit...

And here you catch one of our hands in the act of the repair...

In the end, I think that we did a good job...check out this close-up of the worst corner...

It all turned out well, and since T and B were going to do the serving, I just told them to cut that side first, removing toothpicks as they go, and no one but us would know the difference! I think that the photos speak for themselves...no one was the wiser, as the taste was PHENOMENAL!!

I just see lots of people eating cake...not complaining about it!

Overall the shower was one of the best parties that I've ever been thrown! All of the thoughtful details and personal touches really made it special...and Brent and I got enough gift cards to go shopping the next day and come home with these important items...





A great party all around...thanks ladies!! There is much love in my heart for you two...despite the lack of posting evidence! :) LOL!

“What’s for Dinner?”

This used to be my LEAST favorite question asked each and every day. I hate, hate, hate deciding what’s for dinner. I thought that I hated this task so much because I don’t like making decisions. But let’s be honest here, to those of you who know me in real life, I love to make decisions. Thrive on it, in fact. I’m in my element deciding when to do what…aren’t all Type-A personalities that way? We might not like to admit that we are, but we are. So that couldn’t be the problem…

Then I decided that my dislike stemmed from the fact that I didn’t know how to cook that many meals. You know, you’ve got a few staple items that you can whip up/out in a heartbeat that are always crowd pleasers, but your repertoire doesn’t consist of more than 3 or 4 meals…and who wants to eat the same thing over and over? But the recipe books that line a corner of my kitchen and an overflowing-stuffed-to-the-gills recipe BINDER suggest that this is not my problem either. (And yes, I tried to argue with myself that most of the recipes are desserts…but then I’d be a big, fat liar on top of everything else!)

Since my first two answers proved that they couldn’t hang under the pressure, I had to look further. And I decided that my problem stems from grocery shopping. Or it starts with grocery shopping…and ends with cleaning up the kitchen. Because let’s be honest, if you have no idea what you’re going to cook for dinner by lunchtime (at the latest) then you’re probably going to have to stop for at least 1-5 items at the grocery store on your way home. Add that on top of picking up a kid or two…getting home through the traffic…preparing the meal…eating said meal…and cleaning it all up and you’re left with – well…nothing. No free time. No time to play on the floor with your baby. No time to help your third grader with her homework. And you’re exhausted by the time bedtime rolls around.

And in my house being too exhausted to even take a bubble bath is something close to sacrilege. Bubble baths are THAT important. Yes, they are. I’ll never believe otherwise.

So now that I’ve put a finger to the problem, I can find a solution. My solution? Meal planning. Yes, I mentioned last week that I’m probably the last person on earth to jump on this particular bandwagon, but dude – it solves so many of my problems.

I have an immediate answer when asked my least favorite question (possibly after a quick glance at my calendar to see what the answer should be!) so I look smarter.

I have a definable list of groceries needed for a full week’s worth of food (or month if you choose to shop that way). No more last minute trips each and every day to my home away from home – HEB. I’m able to make my shopping list by pulling all required recipes out and sitting down to make out my list…I also use more of my coupons this way since I’m not frantically scanning a stack of coupons while pushing my cart down the aisle at HEB. Sure there are last minute things that I still might have to stop and get once a week or so – rotisserie chicken, fresh tortillas, milk (if we run out). But going every single day? Thing of the past.

And I can shop first at my own pantry. No more buying the large can of chicken broth just to get home and find that I had one already at home on the pantry shelf. I make my list, pull my coupons, shop at my house first (crossing items off left and right!) and THEN go to the store.

Last but not least, being the true Type-A personality that I am, I also borrowed this idea from a blog: a shopping list built in the order that you go through the store. Genius! No more “Oh crap! I forgot tomatoes!” when you’re over in the beauty department…don’t ask me why being in the beauty department would remind me that I needed tomatoes. Just trust me that it happens. By making my shopping list out by grocery department/section, I can (and do) easily breeze through HEB in a more organized manner. This takes less time for the shopping, and more time to relax, do something crafty, contemplate a nap or just get down on the floor and play peek-a-boo to hear that belly laugh that’s just starting to come out!

I know that I might be the last one on this meal planning train, but man, I’ve jumped on with both bags packed and am enjoying the ride so far. Even Brent likes the idea, despite the miscommunication where he thought that I said that I bought groceries for the MONTH for $70 last week…I said the week, but he misheard me. No wonder he was excited, huh?

I’ll be sure and keep you posted on how it’s going so far…if you’re interested…but so far, so good!

Tis the Season...

Have you ever had something happen (a good thing) and you feared talking about it because you didn’t want to jinx things?


I think that this is especially true when you have a blog. You talk about all sorts of personal business here on the internet that’s open/available to anyone with half an interest to read all about it. Sooner or later it’s bound to happen…you talk about something good…and immediately afterward, it goes away. Because you opened your big, fat mouth.

At least, that’s how things work in my life. So, I’m currently sitting on a “secret” that I don’t want to share just quite yet. No, I’m not pregnant. Just get that thought out of your head. And can I ask why must you hate me so much to wish that on me with a nearly 5-month-old at home? I didn’t do anything to you!

But really. I think that if you talk about things happening with your baby the first time it happens (as I’ve done in the past) then that event might never happen again. Or at least not for the next month. It’s sort of like when the baby learns a new trick and you tell all of your family and friends about it…your family and friends come over to see this amazing trick in person with their own eyes…and the little snot won’t do it anymore. No matter how much you beg and plead.

So, my “thing” has happened once. Last night it happened again. That makes twice, if your math skills are a bit fuzzy in the mornings. But I think that it will take several more days to make a “pattern” worth talking about and sharing, don’t you?

Therefore, I’m not talking about it…not even thinking about it…and yes, my nose is growing as I type out these lies!

In other news, since I feel like I can’t talk about what I’d really like to talk about, is anyone else feeling a bit “overcommitted” this holiday season? I know that I am…and I did it to myself. You see, like most other people that we know, the crunch of financial strain is being felt at our household. It’s expensive to have a baby…especially one that likes to continue getting sick and make mommy and daddy miss work. In response to this financial crunch, I decided that the best gifts to give our teachers/day care providers/co-workers was homemade gifts. You know, that personal touch.

So I collected recipes and projects and have been amassing a plethora of photoshop gift tags and labels that are just as cute as can be. Everything is all arranged in my head into neat little piles and stacks of how it will all be: the gift bags, the tags that I painstakingly slaved over, the treat bags with their little tags, etc, etc…you get the picture, right? But in reality, I still have to make all the stuff…which takes time. Time to bake. Time to sew. Time to print out all of these god-forsaken tags and cut them all out. Time to tie them all on, just so. And time is something that is hard to come by with a little one in the house. Especially when it’s the 14th of December and my husband and daughter are just now putting up the lights outside! Don’t even ask me about where our tree is…

In the meantime, I’ve also been working on our family gifts…and was so impressed with how quickly I wrapped up all of the shopping for my nieces and nephews this year…forgetting that I still needed to finish up our kids and one all important person – Brent! Luckily for me, lots of places are doing site-to-store now, which takes most of the work out of it for me. Now if only the UPS brown truck will hurry up and deliver everything to me on time…all of my fingers and toes are crossed!

And then cue the crazy music as I realize that school ends THIS WEEK, which means that the teacher present that I was making for Jenna’s teacher? Yeah, I have to have that done this week…not next week, when everything else can wait until. Hello crazy life, I’d like to say that I’ve missed you…but you haven’t gone anywhere, you’ve been here all along. Hiding in the background, just waiting to pounce!

So, tonight I made fudge. At 10 o’clock at night. Because that’s the best time to make fudge, didn’t you know? And tomorrow night I’ll make something else. The following night will be another thing. And lunches? Well, they’re all present and accounted for this week as I run from store to store collecting all of my baubles/packages or cutting tags and such out of the special cardstock that I ordered and should be arriving today or tomorrow. Luckily, I can stalk the UPS site from my phone as I do all of this and fret and worry over whether my stuff will get here in time.

There’s really nothing like waiting until the last minute! Don’t believe those people that tell you that it’s best to finish BEFORE Thanksgiving…it’s really best to wrap presents the night before Christmas…trust me!

I guess since I’m complaining about the lack of time…I should get on to bed before I’m adding lack of energy to accomplish all of this to my never-ending to do list, huh? Okay…you convinced me…Good Night!

Time to Order Christmas Cards Again?

Goodness gracious. Where does the time go? I don’t know about you, but I feel like we just finished putting up the Christmas decorations from last year…now you’re telling me that it’s already time to think about ordering Christmas cards? I know that it’s still early in November, but if you’re a procrastinator like I am…then you need as early of a start as you can manage!

I mean, I am the woman who sent out birth announcements after he turned 3 months old…

Mentioning my birth announcements – did I ever share the final design that I picked? I know that several of you helped me narrow down my favorites, since Shutterfly had TOO many to choose from! Now that I mention it, I don’t think that I did share it with you…well, let me rectify that oversight right now. Here’s the final design that I went with…

Yes, if you’re scratching your head and asking yourself where that design came from, you’re not losing it. That wasn’t actually one of my original favorite choices from Shutterfly. I’m not sure how I missed it in my first pass through, but lucky for me I found it the second time through and fell in love!

Shutterfly did such an amazing job on those announcements that I can’t imagine ordering my Christmas cards anywhere else! There were a lot of cute template designs to choose from, the upload process was super-easy, ordering was almost painless and the cards arrived in the cutest box! All plusses in my book…

So here are the Christmas cards that I’m thinking of using – tell me what you think!

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

I’ve never done a Thanksgiving card, but this one was just too cute to not mention!

#6

And, just in case I procrastinate a little too long, here are my choices for Happy New Year cards…because we all know that I tend to put things off until the last possible moment…

#7

#8

#9

#10

Yep, I think that I’ve covered all of my bases here.

Want another give-away?  I've got a coupon from Shutterfly that’s good for 10 FREE cards of your own for the randomly selected winner!

Comment below telling me which design you like best from the ones I’ve selected. (Be sure and leave me your email address so that I can reach you to give you your code!) I’ll keep the comments open until next Friday (November 19th) for entries…GOOD LUCK!!

And if you're a blogger yourself, and you're interested in getting 50 FREE cards from Shutterfly, follow this link to find out how you can do it too!

My New Love…

I’m really digging ebates.com right now. Seriously. I know that I’m like the last person in the free world right now to have heard about this site and join up…but now that I’ve gotten the hang of it…I LOVE it!

Let me explain it to you all (even though you probably don’t care) like I explained it to Brent this weekend. He’s hooked now too, by the way!

Let’s pretend that I’m running low on diapers. I have two options: run to my local Target/Wal-Mart/Wherever and purchase them, saving $2 with the normal coupon that can be found either online or in the paper. Or I can order them online through Drugstore.com via ebates. When I look them up online, I see that drugstore.com sells them for the same price that I would pay in Target. And they also give you the automatic $2 coupon just like I would use in a normal store, without actually having to use the coupon that I clipped. There’s no shipping for orders over a certain amount (or when they’re running a special), so that’s a moot point of difference.

So what’s the difference you ask – besides having to wait 5-7 business days for the online order to arrive at my office? I’ll tell you. When I buy the diapers through Ebates, I get the $2 coupon…plus I don’t pay sales tax. That’s an 8.5% savings for me immediately for where we live (since sales tax rates vary this could be more or less for you) automatically. Then, Ebates pays me back 6% on my total purchase. PLUS, drugstore.com pays me back 5% on my purchase in their own store dollars for me to use during the next quarter (kinda like how CVS dollars work). So, if you think about it, I just saved almost 20%!!!

source

Wow. And when you look at the cost on a per diaper basis, I would pay $.27/diaper if bought in the store (when using a coupon)…but I will only pay $.19/diaper. $.08 might not seem like all that much to you, but factor it out a bit. The average family that uses disposable diapers will go through 60 diapers in a week or 3,120 diapers in a year. That $.08 adds up to a savings of $249.60 on a yearly basis! Holy cow!

Or here’s another example. I talked about my high chair situation before, I think. Well, I’m thinking about going ahead and ordering it this week or next week to give it plenty of time to get here and give us time to get it set up before Jax actually needs to use it. I looked online today and found it at diapers.com for $116.99 (jeez, high chairs are expensive!), which is a store that Ebates works with. Diapers.com offers free shipping on orders over $49 so there are no shipping charges, which makes it the same as picking it up in the store. Except that I also won’t pay sales tax by ordering it online – an immediate 8.5% savings to us. Also, right now through 11/15 diapers.com is running a promotion for first-time customers giving them an additional 10% off of your first order (on everything except diapers), so I’ll save that too. And I’ll earn 1%-5.5% cash back on my purchase by going through ebates to get it. So the total potential savings is anywhere from 19.5%-24%...and the price is $13 lower than the price that I would pay at Target anyway!

It just seems to keep adding up. And the more that I use the service, the more benefits that I see to using it. Sure, it takes a little planning to order diapers online…but if I missed something and got into a bind, it’s not a big deal to run to my local store and buy a small pack to hold me over until my order arrives. I haven’t had to do that yet, but I could if needed. And since I didn’t have to use my physical coupon when I ordered online, I would still not pay the normal price.

And ALL of those savings goes into our savings fund…the totals just add up week after week. We get SO excited to see it add up…just putting us that much closer to our vacation on normal purchases that we would make anyway! Love it!

Yes, we know that we’re big dorks for getting THIS excited over saving money…but it truly is addicting once you start paying attention. What do you do to save money in your household? I know with all that we do, there’s SO much more that we could/should be doing!

Fabulous Followers Give-Away!

Happy Friday y'all!  I hope that your week has been good...mine's been a million times better than last week was, so I don't suppose that I can complain all that much!  In fact, I'm feeling so good...and feeling so much love from the blogging community that I'm going to do a give-away...are you excited?!?!
 
I hope so...this one came to me through CSN Stores and I'm SO excited to offer it to you!  Have you heard of CSN Stores?  I'll admit that I hadn't heard of them before they contacted me to do a give-away, but let me tell you...I was quickly won over with all that they have to offer!  CSN Stores has over 200 online stores where you can find everything from cute shoes, to a funky end table, or great cookware.  I quickly marked them on my Favorites as a site to shop at soon!  Especially with the holidays coming up so fast - this is the perfect one-stop-shopping spot...

CSN Stores is offering one lucky reader a $20 gift certificate! 

Here's how to enter:
  1.  Vist their site over at CSN Stores and comment below telling me what you'd be shopping for if you won.  Nothing specific, just in general...shoes, cookware, furniture, clothes - with over 200 online stores, the possibilities are endless!
  2.  Be sure to leave your email address in the comments so that I have a way to contact you! 
  3.  Note - this give-away is limited to US/Canada residents ONLY

Want a BONUS entry?  Then click to the right and follow A Mother...Again through Google Friend Connect.  Just comment below and let me know that you either already follow or are now following to get your extra entry! 

That's it!  It's that easy!

This contest will close on Thursday, November 4th at 11:59pm (CST).  I will randomly selected a winner using random.org and notify the winner.  You'll have 48 hours to contact me back before a new winner will be selected. 

It's Friday, so you know that I'm hopping along today...




Join along for the fun!  So be sure to follow along with A Mother...Again, and get entered for the $20 gift certificate to CSN Stores.  Happy Friday!

I received no compensation for hosting this give-away from CSN Stores.  They are providing the $20 gift certificate for a give-away of my choice - I set the rules and limitations and simply provide them with the winner's name and email.  CSN Stores will contact the winner via email to award the certificate.

Coupon Cutting Tips

It seems that saving money struck a chord within several of you guys, so I thought that I would continue from my post the other day about how I’m saving money each month and offer up some more tips/advice/things that I’ve learned over the last few months. Some of this is common sense stuff, but if you’re like me, sometimes you have to spell it all out to really “get it.”

In regards to coupons, be careful about coupons where you have to buy multiple items to get larger savings. Like buy three of this item to save $1. If it’s a perishable good, you might not be able to use all three items in time, and you spent more money than you might have to begin with. Remember that the #1 rule is to not spend money that you wouldn’t normally spend. For example, when I had a coupon for $1 off Pop Tarts, but I had to buy three boxes, that was an ok coupon for me since I eat Pop Tarts at work…and they won’t go bad over the course of time. But when I had a coupon for $2 off a frozen breakfast entrée that I thought we would like to try, I didn’t end up using it since I would have had to buy 2 of them and I didn’t know that we’d like it. I’ll wait for them to go on a normal mark-down sale and try one box…then look for the coupon again if we like them and they’ll keep.

Also, be sure to read the fine print. A lot of times, companies will put a picture of the most expensive item in their line, but the coupon is actually good for ANY item in their line. You don’t always have to buy what’s in the picture…but sometimes the coupon is ONLY good for the item shown in the picture. You have to read it to know for sure.

Try to stack your coupons. If your coupon is a manufacturer’s coupon (what comes from Red Plum, SmartSource, P&G or coupons.com typically are manufacturer’s coupons) and your local grocery store is running a sale on the item, you can usually score double! You would get the store discount AND the manufacturer’s discount. For example, that same coupon mentioned earlier for the Pop Tarts? It just happened that Wal-Mart had all Pop Tarts marked down the week that I bought them as just a regular Wal-Mart roll back…so I not only saved the $1 from the manufacturer, but I also saved an additional $.50 per box from Wal-Mart. I basically got one box free, if you think about it. Just be careful that the discount the store is offering isn’t the manufacturer’s discount…some drug stores offer the manufacturer’s discounts but cleverly disguise it as their own coupon. If that happens, your coupon won’t work because you can only use a discount/coupon code once unless otherwise stated.

Start out knowing what you pay for items. This is just good shopping sense overall, and something that my Mom taught me at an early age. I noticed that my boyfriend’s Mom would go to Sam’s Club and buy all of their groceries there, whereas my Mom would just buy certain things from Sam’s Club. When I asked her why she did that, she explained about cost/item or cost/pound (ounce) and that just because it’s sold in bulk doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s cheaper to buy in bulk. You have to know what the price of detergent is normally to know if a store is running a good sale on the item. This is also true on coupons. I had a coupon for Lysol disinfecting wipes, when we would normally buy the Clorox brand. When I got the store, I had my coupon out and ready to use when I looked/compared the two brands on the shelf before I added anything to my cart. Yes, I had a coupon for the Lysol brand, but the Clorox price (not on sale) was still cheaper to buy even without a coupon. So, I threw that coupon away and didn’t use it. You have to be a smart shopper! (Thanks MOM!)

When I know that I’m going to the grocery store for a few items, I will typically take a minute and glance through my coupons before going inside just to see if there’s something else that I might want to go ahead and pick up. You know, something that we NEED. You don’t want to drive all over town and spend the money that you’ve saved using coupons on extra gas money! Make your shopping trips count.

"Friend" your favorite stores.  These days, most stores offer an email list that you can get signed up on for extra/additional savings that in most cases are just offered to their "fans."  My favorites?  JoAnn's, Kohl's, Carter's/Osh Kosh, JC Penney (they offer GREAT incentives to their email listing!) and Babies R Us.  I also like BRU and their Rewards club...I've gotten several $5 off coupons through their points program - they add up faster that you will expect.  I have also joined a mailing list (email or snail mail) if I think that it's a store that I'll start shopping at if they have good coupons/discounts offered, and then later go back and cancel if I find that I don't like the store as much as I thought that I would...that's okay to do too!  You can usually get anywhere from $5 off your next purchase on up to 10-20% off of everything in the store...great deals!  I clip these down or fold them to also fit into my accordian coupon file so that I always have them with me when I'm out and about.

Keep up with what you’re saving. Although none of this takes that long to do, and most of it can be done while watching TV, sometimes it seems tedious and time consuming. (I do mine in small steps, because life with an infant in the house is unpredictable at best, and I’ve found that doing things in stages that can be put down and picked back up to finish later works best for me.) But when I go to the store, use 10 coupons and then look at my receipt and realize that I only saved $3.89 it can be discouraging. That’s why it’s important to keep up a tally of your total savings…not just trip to trip. In the spirit of things, I think that I’ll put up a counter on my blog so that I can share what I’ve saved for the year so far…updating the total each week. I think that would be interesting to watch it grow and help keep me motivated!

As always, the things that I'm sharing here with you are what works for ME. It might not be the best way, it's definitely not the only way, and there might be a better way out there to do it...but this is MY way.  There are some others who would argue directly against some of the tips that I think help my way work better...and that's ok.  That doesn't mean that their way is wrong, or that my way is wrong for that matter.  It just means that there are several options and methodsto achieve the same goal.  You have to find the plan that works best for YOU.  My way might not be it...I just wanted to share with you in case it was something that might work for you. 

If you clip coupons, do have some other tips to share with me? Like maybe someone could explain to me how CVS membership works…it seems SO confusing to me that I haven’t even attempted to tackle THAT one! I’d love to hear about your tips and tricks…

Just A Little Something

So I ran out of Bath & Body Works hand-soap last night. I typically order this stuff in bulk, so when I run out of soap, it's always sort of shocking. I mean, when you get a BOX of it on your doorstep that lasts several months, it's still somehow shockig when you run out.

Luckily, we were doing a BBQ with friends and Nikki mentioned to me that Bath & Body was running a big 75% off sale. So, after resting most of the morning (after being on my feet all evening cooking my legs/back and right foot were KILLING me!) little Jenna and I took off yesterday afternoon to run some errands.

One of those errands was running into Bath & Body. Score for me - they were still running the sale and they had their hand soap on sale 6 for $20. After scooping up some new scents and old favorites, I noticed that Jenna was captivated by something else. This little guy:

Yep, that's a little rubber casing that you can loop around your purse/back pack. Or a diaper bag, maybe? Since the little bottles were also on sale (5 for $5) Jenna and I both got a holder and each picked out a few scents. For these, I went with some old favorites:

Warm Vanilla Sugar

Coconut Lime Verbena

Midnight Pomegranate

Have you seen those little things? For $.50 I thought that it would make a GREAT addition to my diaper bag, and thought that I'd pass along my "find" for all those other moms-to-be or current moms right now!

Another Craigslist "Find"

Check out what I managed to “score” yesterday off of Austin’s Craigslist: Do you SEE all of those bottles? I mean, do you really see them all? Here, let me zoom in a bit and show it all off: That’s FOUR bags of bottle nipples, another bag of storage lids (for breast milk), 2 sippy cups, an unopened box of Medela pump converters to the Avent bottles, more sealed storage lids, and the manual Avent breast pump – complete with adapters, bags and such. Then there are 6 used 4 oz. bottles with rings and lids, 4 NIB 4 oz bottles with the storage lids only (but they’re the same as the regular bottles, so you can interchange the lids, nipples and rings). There’s 5 extra rings, and an 11 oz. bottle. And then TEN 9 oz. bottles complete with rings and lids.

Would you like to guess what I paid for all of that? Go ahead, take a guess - you’ll never in a million years get it right!

I paid $30 cash for that whole box of Avent bottles/supplies!!! What a find! Yes, I know that they’re all used – I get that. But I remember having new, shiny bottles with my daughter and after one or two washings, they looked to be in the same condition that these bottles are in. I kid you not. I plan on tossing all of the nipples out, and at least buying new nipples, since that’s the only part that he’ll actually have in his mouth. The rest will all be washed and sterilized and ready to go. And yes, I realize that I could wash/sterilize the nipples too, but Brent’s drawing a line at using used nipples. He gets the cost savings – there was at least $150-$200 worth of Avent products in that box that I paid $30 for, but he totally doesn’t mind spending $25 on new nipples at each stage of nipples to get new ones. And I’m ok with that too, since I just saved SO much on actual bottles!

Update on the crazy play-pen lady. Brandi, my good friend, was most persistent and managed to get the missing parts from the crazy play-pen lady. They are now at our house safe and sound. Not that it didn’t nearly drive us both crazy dealing with crazy play-pen lady – but it all worked out in the end. I just wonder why some people who use Craigslist expect more for less?

Why couldn’t every transaction happen the way the bottle one went down? I contacted the seller, she still had the product, she agreed that I could have it, we arranged a meeting place/time for the next day, and we stuck to it. Even though her little boy ended up being sick, and she needed to move the time around a bit, we still worked with each other, respected the other’s time and other responsibilities, and followed through with our ends of the bargain. I paid in cash, the amount that she wanted, and she provided me with a complete product. She even took the time to go through the box with me before I left just to make sure that everything was included. And she apologized for it being just in a box and not wrapped up all pretty! Like I care what it came in for $30!!!

So I’ve just decided that Craigslist is hit and miss. Sometimes you’ll get the crazy play-pen lady, and other times you’ll get a nice, normal sane person. It’s a crap shot either way. Have you had luck at finding things on Craigslist? I’m curious to hear.