Favorite Things My Gap Jean Jacket That Can Go Anywhere

I love my Gap jacket. What can you say about something that is so easy to dress up or down and is timeless? I'm taking a new look at my wardrobe and getting rid of things that no longer fit me or my life. Like most of us, I have far too many things that I don't wear or don't want anymore. So I'm spring cleaning my closet and donating what I no longer need.

Of course, I'm keeping my Gap jacket and I'll be wearing it a lot more now that the weather is getting warmer.

I remember when the Gap was just a tiny hole in the wall store filled with only jeans. Yes, I'm really dating myself by saying this but it's true! A few walls of jeans and that was it. How far they have come. Me too, I guess. Love my Gap jacket and it definitely remains one of my favorite things.

Finding Decor Inspiration

This last month I have been trying to makeover my living room. It has been the same drab room for almost 3 years now and I need change. Its the Spring time and I want this Spring and Summer to feel more inspirational. I have started to realize my surroundings are greatly effecting my attitude. I can be a frugal shopper so for me its harder to spend a lot of money on something nice if its for me. Its easy to buy someone else something nice, just seems harder to rationalize something nice for me. So I have told myself to decorate for the person I would like to be, rather than the me right now.  My sister Sam and my Mom have great decor sense they shop great places to find their decor. They seem to decorate as if the house is apart of their personality and I love that. I want to be more that way.

To get inspiration for redecorating, or should I say decorating in the first place! My room is a bare lifeless landscape. It needs personality. I went to the local mall and visited a few stores to get ideas from. I did sneak a peek at the sale items to see if there was anything I had to have. Its the frugal woman in me that hates to pay full price. But if its a piece I feel will make my room complete or is the piece that the room will be inspired from I am willing to pay full price for something like that.

Restoration Hardware is a really cool store. Its a sophisticated store full of updated classic high end furniture. I told my husband we could just bring our laptops and son and live in the store lol. It has a winter feel to me though. It has rich colors and would be beautiful for a den or a living room.

 Pottery Barn has been a long time favorite store of mine. They have cute stuff at a reasonable price. I love the light feeling of their products. They have colorful items that fit with my personality. I love the white Spring look that they have display at my local store. It reminds me of the ocean and looks so fresh. Its beautiful but with a wild 2 year old there is no way I could have a white living room or bedroom set up. I looked at many of the accessories as a small inspiration. It was so fun to look at all the great home decor items at my local mall to find ideas for my living room makeover and future ideas for other rooms.

What is your favorite store to look in for Home Decor inspiration?

Home Depot Kids Day

Our little family

Our local Home Depot puts on a Kids Day the 1st Saturday of every month and it's FREE! We had heard about them and decided to take the children to see what it was all about. When we got there we were surprised at how nicely it was put together and fun it would be for the boys. We were not sure about Baby L (not the baby anymore so I am calling him Little L) would do, he is kind of young for tools and a structured task. I have to say he did really well, I just had to bust out a snack in the middle of it to keep him busy! But all in all it was good that we let him participate, he loved every second of it. All of the tools you need for the simple project were out. This month it was a little race car. They boys got to use wood glue and a hammer!! It was so cool to see them build their own little race car :)

My boys...hard at work :)

JJ concentrating so hard on hitting that hammer :)

Little L doing his thing!

It was a great family day and it was FREE!! I recommend you see if your local Home Depot offers this or something like it.

Spring time brings out the Easter Bunny

At our local mall the store Children's Place hosted a Garden Party where they served cookies, lemonade and invited the Easter Bunny. My son is so sweet he waited his turn in line, waved to the lady dress as a fairy, he was all smiles. Until it was his turn to sit on the Easter Bunny's lap. He put his head down, his little arms went to his side all stumped down, then his little bottom lip stuck out like he was gonna cry. He shook his head and told me "no". It was so sad. He normally likes characters like Chuck E Cheese and our local baseball team mascot. I told him it was fine if he didn't want to sit with the bunny so I asked him if he would like to give the bunny a high five. He smiled but would not do it until he first saw me give the bunny a high five. He smiled ran up to the Easter Bunny and gave him a big high five. He did not sit in the Easter Bunny's lap but he left with a smile on his face and that made me happy. Maybe next year he will be ok with it, maybe not just as long as he is happy I will be happy too.

Plus it was Free Pretzel day at Aunt Annie's at the mall! We both got a pretzel and then played at the mall play center. It was a great day and free!

Magic Mouse Toys in Seattle

My family and I moved to the Seattle area when my youngest child Megan was six years old. We loved walking in all the different neighborhoods in Seattle and making new discoveries of things we liked. In Pioneer Square we found the most delightful toy store called Magic Mouse Toys.

This has become our favorite toy store, and we have come here many times through-out the years to pick out birthday and Christmas presents. There are two floors filled with the most beautiful and unique toys imaginable. Dolls, puzzles, educational toys, games, cars and more will be sure to completely delight you and your child. And if you don't have a child, this magical store will delight the child in you.

My daughter Megan is all grown up now. We were recently walking by Magic Mouse Toys and I said to her "Remember?"

So if you are in Seattle, or planning to visit Seattle, go to Magic Mouse Toys. Like the name says, this store really is Magic.

Online Shopping at CookiesKids.com #luvcookies #CBias

As a Frugal Mom I love to shop online. I have found some of the best deals to be online with coupon codes. Finding a store that has great brands and low prices makes online shopping even more fun! As it has been getting a bit cooler and it rained a week or so ago I have realized my son needs new winter clothing. Everything from last year he has out grown. I did not realize until I was a parent myself how many times I would be purchasing a whole new wardrobe every season. All of his pants are too short, shirts do not fit, sock and shoes there is no way they are going on.

I had to go through his closet putting away his clothing that no longer fits (this was tear filled I cannot believe he is almost 2!) I put away some of my favorite items along with his summer clothing for the season we just had. After the sorting a putting away I came up with a list of the things he really needs. Pants, Socks, Sweatshirts, Sweatpants, Hat and Mittens, Slippers and Pajamas. Thankfully my sister has sent my son shirts for this coming winter so we had some of those.

His closet unorganized and in need of a sort.

Since I always have to shop on a frugal budget it has to be a great deal to spend my money, after all being frugal means we have nice stuff we just get it at a great price. I found a great site that I know I will be shopping at often for clothing for my son, nephews and niece. CookiesKids.com is the site I shopped at for my son's new wardrobe.

The site has so many items to select from. The navigation of the site made it easy to find the sizes I was looking for easily in each category. I looked in the Clearance section first, of course right! I found many awesome deals for jeans, pajamas and socks. I browse the Boys Section for pants, sweats, slippers and hats. Its hard to believe my son can shop that section, to me hes still a tiny baby! I looked in the Infant section too since he can still wear 24 months. I found tons of items to favorite for my sister's kids. I will definitely be telling her and many other moms I know about Cookie's Kids.

I found some great bargains such as $6.99 for name brand Polo jeans, pajama sets by Just One You for $6.99, Nike Sweatsuit that is a zip up hoodie $29.99 (this was my one splurge item, it is usually much more expensive in stores) Thomas the Train slippers $6.99, Batman pajamas $5.99, Hat with Mittens $2.99, FILA socks $1.99 , a super cute 3 piece monkey outfit $9.99 and the cutest pink with black shoes tights for my sisters new baby. Plus more! I could have shopped that site all day. As I was shopping I found more and more items I wanted. I know for my sons birthday coming up and Christmas we will be back to the site soon.

The selection is great they had something for every price range. Top name brands that kids and parents will love. I am more of the type of mom that wants to keep my son a baby by dressing him in cute and animal character outfits while my husband wants him to look cool and wear name brands. Thankfully we found both types of clothing. Even cute name brand things that were still cool! We were both happy with the selection of clothing we picked for our son. I definitely recommended checking out CookiesKids.com next time you plan on purchasing kids clothing for your own kids or as a gift. I can't wait until our order arrives in the mail.

When you sign up to the Cookie's Kids newsletter like I did you will get great online coupon codes and be entered in a contest to win a gift card to the store. I also went to their Facebook and Twitter accounts to check for other coupon codes.

Since I LOVE to share a great deal when I find one I wanted to inform you that Living Social on Monday, October 24 in the Louisville area will be offering a promo code for purchasing $40 worth of clothing for $20 and will only be live in the Louisville area. But if Cookie's Kids gets a good response to this deal, they are considering doing the same in other cities across the country. I would love that! I find deals on Living Social and if this was in my area I would buy it! 


You can read my about my entire shopping experience at my Google+ Picture Story.

Google+ Picture Story

*This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias. #CBias All opinions in this shop post are my own and may vary from your experience.

Kohl's Clearance Shopping

As a frugal shopper sales and clearance are like bells to me! I follow them to great deals. We recently went to Kohl's to look for clothing for my son. He is getting so tall! They have a bunch of cute stuff on the clearance racks. We went to two of the stores and oddly one had a ton of stuff and the other not so much. He adores dogs so the two shirts were perfect.

For less then $10 my son got two shirts and two shorts. One of the shorts are Chaps that were originally $24.00.

Frugal Home

I love to buy stuff for my home. I really LOVE it when its such a great deal I smile when I see it in my house! Yesterday at Target I found a lamp for only $11.98 on clearance. I love to shop the back of the departments for great deals. I thought about buying it for my home office so I can see better and it would look nicer. But my son was getting restless so I eneded up leaving before deciding on if I really wanted it.

This morning I thought ok I really do need that lamp so I can see better in that room. We went back to Target today and I found the lamp I was looking at had been marked down to $4.24!! I was so giddy with joy that I waited a day and got an awesome deal. The toy clearance was marked down as well as the back to school supplies. I would definitely go check your local Target for early holiday gifts and for school supplies. I know when I was in school having new supplies after the holiday break made it fun to go back to class after so much time off.

Children's Hospital Thrift Stores

I have been on a roll lately with my thrifting (not a real word but it is to me now ha!) it seems like I am slightly addicted. Oh dear. Well this time when we came across the Children's Hospital of Seattle Thrift Store on Bainbridge Island I knew that we had buy stuff to help this great cause. When my now 25 year old little brother was born he was very premature and sick. They did not think he had much of a chance to live, it that was so hard on the whole family. The relief that my parents did find was at the Children's Hospital in Los Angeles, where we living at the time. Needless to say they helped my family and my little brother and he is a healthy 25 year old aspiring "rock star" and we have them to thank.


I have been wanting to get JJ Dr. Seuss books to add to his home library because every kid has them or knows about them. We had them as kids and I have fond memories of reading these classic books. Honestly though at $8 a pop I was having a hard time justifying buying a bunch of them at a time, I know I could buy one at a time but buying in bulk is so much easier. So when we found these for just $1 each at the thrift store I scooped them up! They are in great condition and were most of the ones I was searching for, The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, Are you my Mother? just to name a few. If you do the math if I had paid retail at $8 each x 6 I would have paid $48 and since I bought them second hand I only paid $6 for all. I saved $42 dollars, how frugal of me!!!




And while we were there we found this turtle for $3, the shell comes off to store hidden treasures. JJ is obsessed with turtles so we had to have him. Kind of cute huh?





Anyways, Happy Thirfting All!!!

FREE Shipping at Pretty Little Studio

Pretty Little Studio is one of my fav paper and scrap booking stores online. I love their flash cards and if I had  little girl I would buy all the paper dolls. The flash cards are really cute for framing and scrap booking. They have some items priced at only $1.99 and $2.99. This makes for a great deal!!

They are offering FREE SHIPPING on all orders from December 17-24.
Also on any purchase over $25 receive a free set of Merry Christmas Paper
Ribbons.

They take paypal payment, for me I love that since I can use ebay and survey money I have made over the year. This would be a great chance to try some of their products.




** I was not paid or given any item for this post. Just sharing info about a company I like.

bTrendie Free Membership Shopping site

I love shopping at this site they have great deals and cute stuff. They often have Melissa and Doug products which I love.

It is an exclusive shopping site where moms and moms-to-be can shop for fabulous products at amazing prices. And there's a no cost membership by invite only. Click here to sign up for free and get a $10 store credit for your first order.

I just ordered the cutest night lamp for my little guy for only 14.99! Its BPA free and never gets hot to the touch. It can fade off after 30 minutes or stay on all night. I can't wait until it arrives.