For the shopaholics....

In the spirit of Black Friday/Cyber Monday that just passed, I've got some goodies to share with those of you that enjoy spending quality retail therapy time in front of your computer. You can thank me (and your wallet can hate me) later.

First off is a website that I found through a blog I read. It's The Mini Social, an online sample sale website offering its members (free membership) exclusive access to designer brands for mom, baby and child at up to 60% off. Sign up today and you will be notified by email about their upcoming sales (which are actually good). Invite a friend and receive a $10 credit to your account when they make their first purchase. They have the cutest things going on sale all the time and the items are really unique. It's not the usual stuff you would find at your local baby and kid stores. If you sign up, please remember to put my email address (mountainflowr at hotmail dot com) as the person that referred you.

Here is another of my favorite sites. Ebates! I always go to this site before I shop online because this site gives you money back! Ha ha! It really works folks; I've gotten like 3 checks in the mail -from them already. All you do is sign up (it's free) and check to see if the store you want to shop at is one of their participating partners (and to see if they have any coupons). Use the pull-down menu to find the store you wanted to shop at and this site will take you right to your favorite store and give you a percentage of what you spend there. How much money you get back depends upon how much of a shopping...proble...addicti... obsession you have!

The third site that I love is Retailmenot.com because I am a bargain hunter by nature and I hate paying retail when I don't have to. Use this website to find any online coupons that you can use before you go and shop online at your favorite store. Usually, I go to this website first, get my coupons and then go to Ebates. That way I get cash back AND I get to use my coupons (who says you can't have your cake and eat it too?).

But who has time to be going online to look for sales you say? Well, that's where my final recommendation comes in. ShopItToMe.com is like your personal online shopper. You sign up (for free) and tell it what your favorite stores/brands are, what sizes you wear and they will email you when your favorites (in your size) are on sale. How you like them apples? Oh and if you get your friends to sign up to, you get a free gift card (it's true, I got one!).

This was not a paid blog post by the way, I really do like these sites enough to rave about them for free. Do you know of any cool shopping sites? Any hidden treasures that you'd like to share? Do tell.

Well, that's all folks. Go forth and shop!

Just call me crafty

And now, for some Halloween stuff to cheer me up.

Hey! Check out the Halloween advent calendar I made! It's taken me about a year to make it, not because it was so difficult, but because I kept putting it off.

It's supposed to be a Pottery Barn knock-off because I didn't feel like paying $80 for theirs. This is what theirs looks like:



My cost? About 6 bucks.

While we're at it, look at these cute guys I got at Michael's. They keep me company at work.

iTree 2.0

We ended up taking the other tree back. I couldn't get my hands on a chainsaw and it was really brown at the bottom, so we just took it back. They gave R a bit of a hassle since he didn't have his receipt, but after much arguing they finally gave in and gave him a store credit.

I didn't get to go with him, so I was scared that he'd come back with some Frankenstein looking tree, but he didn't disappoint. He picked out this gorgeous beauty. It's a douglas fir and it's almost 7 1/2 feet tall. I like that it's not as fat as the other one, so it doesn't take up my whole living room. Oh and it was cheaper than the other one too.... $21.99!

I'm working on dressing it up...decoration pictures to follow...

My tree needs an I.V.

Thanksgiving was spent at my brother in-law's house. Christian made friends with a giant boy (he was born the same month and year as Christian). My uncle was here from El Salvador, so he got to experience his first Thanksgiving. It was hard to have that wonderful, peaceful, thankful feeling because Cman was crabby, tantrumy (is that a word?) and tired.

This past Sunday we bought our Christmas tree, unfortunately we seem to have gotten a defective one. I put water in the holder three days ago and it still has the same amount of water. The tree is refusing to drink and the bottom is starting to get brown. I can't figure out how to get it to absorb the water. At this pace, it will be all brown before Christmas.

It's also a bit misshapen. It's really full and lush and beautiful at the bottom, but the top is kind of wimpy.

Judge for yourselves:

I haven't put any lights or ornaments on because I want to solve the water problem first. All my other Christmas trees have been well behaved; I don't know why this one is acting up. It was trimmed at the bottom when we bought it, so who knows what the problem is.

I also got a nice wreath at a yard sale. It's big and beautiful and it only cost me 2 bucks. That's what I'm talking about man! I guess the two dollar wreath balances out with the $140 I spent at Pottery Barn Kids yesterday right? right? Yes, I thought so too.

8 secrets/things I haven't blogged about

I was tagged by Elizasmom a little while back, so it's meme time. I guess mine will be more of a eight things I haven't blogged about theme because obviously if I wrote about my secrets...well, then they wouldn't be secrets. This also means I can squish in a bunch of unrelated things that I've been meaning to blog about (but have been too busy to do so) all in one post. Ha ha I'm tricky like that!

OK, so here we go in a completely random order:

1. This year, when we go to El Salvador for the holidays, I will be flying over there with Christian, all by myself. My mom will be heading over on the 24th, and I will be leaving on the 27th (Ren has to stay and work). This terrorizes me to no end. I am fearful about how I am going to handle luggage, stroller, carryons, tickets, security checks, and toddler all at once. I decided to get one of those little child harnesses so that CMan could walk around if he got sick of the stroller. R was totally against it, but unless you've seen the video of the break dancer that kicks a toddler 5 feet in the air, you cannot fully appreciate the need to have your children next to you at all times (especially in crowded places). The speed at which these children can break away from your hand and run off is quite scary. Anyway, so I got one of those cute little monkey backpacks hoping that he would like it and be excited to wear a backpack. No such luck. I can't even get him to put one arm through it, much less buckle the thing up. I have about 31 days left to convince him, so we'll see how this goes. This past weekend, we saw 3 little boys with the monkey back packs on. I made sure to point out all three of them to Cman.

2. We went to Andrew and Rebeka's pirate party at the Children's museum a couple of weeks back. Cman had a great time playing with his friends on the playground, sitting on a bike, dancing with a hula hoop and exploring the museum. Happy Collective Birthday to the Mejia family (they are all in November)! Oh, and I actually got him to wear the pirate hat on more than one occasion!

3. We went to the harvest two weeks ago and I bought myself a cute quilt with a gingerbread man on it and some yummy dip mixes. We went to the historical village and hung out with some Pirates from the Florida Keys (Pop quiz: do you recognize any of those people from somewhere else?). Cman loved the cannon and I had quite a hard time pulling him away from it when it was time to leave.

4. Later that day we went to Gianna's (CMan's niece) first birthday party. Chris had a great time playing with the "boons". They had a cotton candy machine and face painting, but he didn't want anything to do with either of those activities.

5. I don't believe I've showed you the pictures from his last photo session (and his Halloween costume), so let me share now for a bit:

6. Mr. Cman surprised me in the car the other day. He and I usually count things together so that he can learn his numbers. He's never really counted by himself (he always wants me to do it and he repeats), so the other day we were driving around and he started talking in the backseat saying "one"...."one"...."one"...he kept saying it over because he wanted me to repeat, so I said "one" then he said "two" and I said "two" and we kept going like that until he got to number 10. I was quite impressed thinking wow...he can count to 10...news to me! Then I hear this from the back seat... "eleden"...and I go "eleven"....and he kept counting until 15. That daycare lady sure is teaching him alot because he and I usually don't count more than 10 things. I decided to say "sixteen" to see if he could go further and he did...all the way to 19. I had to say 20 for him; perhaps that's as high as they've taught him. He also knows all of his letters now. He can point to a letter and tell you what letter it is and/or you can ask him for a certain letter and he will give it to you. He also knows what sound most of the letters make.

7. I found this little tidbit online the other day. This was a pep-rally at my high school. Unfortunately it happened 2 or 3 years after I had already graduated. Needless to say I would've loved to have seen this in person:

8. The holiday shopping has begun! Amanda and I went shopping on black Friday and spent way too much money. I got some presents for Chris (aka the most spoiled boy in the universe...aka TMSBIU) and about 60 DVD's (yes, that is not a typo) for about $3.81 each. I've got quite a collection going...pretty soon, I'll have to start renting them out to people.

It appears that I have run out of numbers and I still have more to share, so I'm off to write my next post!

*UPDATED* OY! I forgot to tag someone! Here you go Amanda, I know you had some stuff you needed to blog about. Ha ha.

You know Dasher and Dancer and Master and Visa...

Ah yes, the holiday shopping has begun. What fun!

I'm not being sarcastic by the way. I love going Christmas shopping and Black Friday is my favorite day to do so. I guess I just enjoy the thrill of the chase and beating someone up for a good deal. I guess that also explains why I like yard sales and Ebay as well. I love their new advertising slogan..."shop victoriously". In my case it's more like "snipe victoriously". Yes, I'm one of those nasty snipers that will come when there are 2 seconds left in your auction and take your precious goods from you right under your nose. It's fun when I win that way, but it also sucks big time when I don't win, or when someone does it to me, but hey, that's part of the game right? You win some, you lose some.

Well, this weekend, I was on a losing streak. I was about ready to pull my hair out. First off, I was on Ebay, stalking this cute Pottery Barn Kids full/queen quilt with snowmen on it (or how Cman would say..."Sho-men"). Due to the way they had listed it, it hadn't gotten many bids and was only about $40 (normally these go for over $100). I was all ready and poised to snipe it away, but unfortunately, I miscounted the time and ended up pressing the button about 1 second too late. The auction ended at $41 dollars. F*ck!

On Saturday, I was on my way to the Harvest when I spotted a lovely yard sale on the opposite side of the road. Normally, I don't stop if it's on the opposite said (yeah, ok, who are we kidding here), but they had a cute little tikes house sitting on the grass and I wanted to see how much they wanted for it. Mind you, I've been searching for weeks now for that elusive playhouse in the stores, but no one seems to have it in stock and I don't want to shell out an extra hundred or so in shipping fees (bringing the total cost of said house to about $400...I don't think so). So I made a lovely U-turn and pulled into the yard sale.

I was with CMan, so parking and getting the stroller and child out takes a bit of time. They had a Christmas tree tent there too, so we went inside to look at the trees for a bit. I looked at all the junk they were selling for a little while and finally made my way over to the house. There was a lady there inquiring about it, so I went over to ask what the price of it was to establish interest. The guy goes "we just sold it to this lady"....so I said "how much were you asking for it?"....he goes "10 bucks". People...I just about died. (10 bucks versus $279.99 plus tax...cry with me for a second please).

Shopping Tip: If you see something in a yard sale (or on Black Friday for that matter)....RUN, do not walk, towards said item, jump on it and claim it as yours, even if it requires trampling people and small animals.

Halloween Lunch Run

Oh my God people...have you SEEN the Halloween stuff at Target yet?

I went to Tarjay during my lunch hour today and was completely mesmerized by the Halloween aisles. I think the next time I go, I'm going to go to the camping department and get a tent so I can set it up in the Halloween department and sleep there. Yes, that's exactly what I'll do.

I bought a couple of goodies for Cman's birthday (in 2 weeks)....but we all know they're really for me right? (snicker snicker)...By the way, I paid only $5 for each of those toys.

Bwaahaha... I love finding bargains!

Frugal Friday

R and I went to a store that shall remain nameless and saw this lovely vase on a table top. It was filled with water, stones and a single leaf. A lovely accent for our home he thought. I felt it was a little large and there was really no place to put it, so we didn't buy it (or even look at the price) and kept on walking.

A couple of days later, R still wanted that vase, and I acquiesced, so he headed to said store to purchase it. He came back without it. The reason? They wanted $53 dollars (+ tax) for it (for the large one that we saw). It's a nice vase and all, but hello, I don't think so.

So my awesome hubby took matters into his own hands:

- Small glass vase from Walmart on clearance: $2.99

-Bottle of river stones (not on clearance...Grrr): $5.95 (or better yet, rocks from your back yard: free)

-Leaf from your neighbor's front yard: free

-Pretty (not as huge) vase that didn't cost us an arm and a leg: Priceless!

YAY ! TADA!


The dining room chair you see in the corner will be the subject of a future Frugal Friday (say that 10 times fast) installment. I also have a garage sale post to share with you. Stay tuned: Fun times ahead!

Oh and for the Star Wars geeks fans....May the fourth be with you (hee hee, sorry, I couldn't help it).