Back to Reality

What have we been doing for the past week or so? Well, honestly, not much. Amy's been gallivanting about in the northeast with her family while I've been working and relaxing, just taking a break to enjoy the simple things, like watching the $100,000 Pyramid Marathon on New Year's Eve. I have enjoyed my son's great love of his Christmas gifts from Santa, who bought them from a lovely little website called eBay. Have you heard of it? :) Here's an eBay store to get you started. Santa spent a grand total of $40 and won a Little Tykes Turtle Sandbox and a ukulele from Hawaii! Seriously, I don't think the ukulele (aka the guitar, or as Noel prefers, the "tigatam") has come out of his hands since Christmas morning. I love a good bargain, especially when, in his eyes, it's the greatest thing on the planet! It was nice enough on Christmas day to actually use the sandbox. Occasionally, there are perks to living in the south-like you can take your kid out and let them burn off energy for hours in the "dead of winter"!

See the cute brown warm-ups in the sandbox picture (and again with the awesome boom box hoodie)? I got them on sale at Old Navy for around $6. The boom box hoodie was also on sale for $9. Hurray for Christmas gift cards! I really love Old Navy, because while everyone and their dog (literally) shops there, you can have your entire family looking adorable for practically nothing. They're always having awesome sales, and I have managed to find the ONLY pairs of maternity pants that I can stand at "The Navy". And you want to know what I spent for 2 pairs of these perfect pants? $14 TOTAL. Of course, now I can find none of these things on their website, but just go in the store and take a look around. I can promise that you won't leave empty handed and you will have spent just a tiny amount of money.


What would a holiday break be without a little room decorating? FLOR sent me this rad carpet for Noel's room and it is PERFECT. If you have never checked out FLOR modular tile carpeting, run to their site right this second! They have this great line for kids, and an enormous selection for adults. This is perhaps the answer to your never ending quest to find a carpet that doesn't look horrible after a week with a toddler in the house. FLOR is basically big squares of carpet that you put together. You can purchase as many as you like, and the beauty is the versatility. They can carpet an entire room, or a small space. The "installation" of Noel's floor took a grand total of about 10 minutes and it looks great. If you're outfitting a whole room, you can cut squares to fit the space. I have seen my carpet future, and it is FLOR.

Here you can also see Noel perched on his Land's End bean bag. Isn't it fresh? This is not a bean bag that is going to fall apart on you. This thing is built to last. I don't see any bean spillage happening here. The greatest part, is that the cover comes off and is machine washable! Your kid spills milk on it? Throw it in the wash. You decide you hate it after 10 years? Land's End will take it back and refund your money, no questions asked. That's a pretty sweet deal. The bean bag definitely is a nice touch to what is now a "big boy" room.

Finally, I have one more picture for the back to reality montage. Noel's favorite piece of winter clothing is his robot fleece from Zutano. The fleece came with this cute pair of courdroys, and stripey shirt. Again, you can depend on Zutano to bring quality to the table. I have found all their clothing to be durable and they fit to last. You buy a 2T, it's actually a 2T, and not a skin tight shirt made for an infant. If you cloth diaper, you don't have to worry about whether or not the pants are going to fit! I love their bold colors and zany graphics. There's nothing else out there quite like Zutano.

We'll kick next week off with a Land's End Giveaway, but in the meantime, enter the same giveaway here. That's right, we don't mind showing another review blogger a little love!

The Mums wish you and yours a happy and healthy 2008!