The Happiness Project: Autumn

This week's blissful moment? Taking my 10 month old to the park and letting him crunch around in the piles of leaves. Barefoot.

Share your happy moment, too!

The Happiness Project: Pumpkins

This is my nearly 10 month old baby boy, Jack. We spent Monday at the local pumpkin patch to celebrate our 2 year wedding anniversary. We picked the patch for our celebration because that is where we had our wedding reception. I have always loved the pumpkin patch. It is my favorite place to go. The smells, the sounds, the yummy snacks (I must confess here that Jack had his first taste of funnel cake - which he loved) the hayrack ride, the spook shack..oh my goodness I could go on all day! Getting to share it with my little "Jack-o-Lantern" made it even better. It was almost happiness overload :)

Speaking of happiness overload...

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Take That, Fisher Price!

After bringing home gently used toys for Jack on Craigslist, I discovered that the plastic balls for some of the toys were missing. I searched online for replacements - I looked on Fisher Price's site, as well Playskool. Both sites basically required the purchase of a new toy including the plastic balls. No replacement sets - why? I then scoured amazon.com. They did have a set of 4, but for $19.00?!? I didn't even pay that much for the toy...

Why are you eluding me, cheap plastic balls?

Next, I tried bidding on a set on eBay. Had I won (and of course, I lost by 5o cents. That is how it always happens!!), I would have been the proud owner of 5 plastic balls...for the (still ridiculously high) price of $12.00. The shipping would have been free. Woo. Still too expensive for this bargain shopper!

My favorite thing to do!

Since I didn't win, I got creative. I ended up at Kmart today while waiting for a car repair (hey, touring Kmart is better than sitting at the car place!) and found exactly what I need. I spent $2.19 and now have 12 little balls for Jack to use in any of the new toys we bought. Practice balls - originally for golf - ended up fitting the bill. And for so much less!! Hooray for saving money in creative ways!!

Besides the fabulous price, the best part is that Jack loves his new toys. They're big enough that he can't put them in his mouth, yet small enough to fit into the playsets. Perfect!

I Love Craigslist!

Jack has been growing increasingly more mobile, and was in need of some new toys. I decided he needed some standing toys, like an activity table. He also really needs problem solving toys, like shape sorters. Well. I hit up my local Craigslist and spent a few nights emailing and calling, and for only $35, our living room is full of "new" things to play with!

He loves his new table :)

Flood!

Well. Our week has certainly turned out much differently than I planned. After using the bathroom earlier today, our toilet decided to become a geyser. It was unreal. For 20 minutes, water was spraying everywhere. Naturally, I was the only one at home (with the baby), and I am not only completely unskilled in plumbing matters, but also I am not the biggest fan of wading through toilet water. Our apartment complex did send the maintenance man to stop the flooding (after two frantic phone calls), and he proceeded to tell me that this could have been prevented had I let them know that the toilet handle was too short. Remember when I mentioned I am not a plumber? Yeah.

This was only the beginning of the flood.

After another 3 hours of sitting in the flooded apartment (luckily the mess was confined to the back half), the carpet cleaning crew showed up to work their magic. They were very amazed/impressed with our new lagoon. It was decided that the cleanup process would take two days, and after some intense conversation with our apartment manager, they agreed to let us use their "corporate apartment".

We moved the bare essentials over to our temporary digs. It is very spacious - Jack has had a great time crawling around to explore his new surroundings. Hopefully we will be able to go back to our apartment soon. I have a feeling that there will be quite a mess to clean up there, even after the carpet is dry.