Double stroller awesomness

Sunday, I bought a double stroller off Craigslist. Previously, I had only wanted a specific double stroller that went with our infant car seats. But then it occurred to me that it never, not once, was a problem to move a sleeping baby from the stroller to the car or the car to the stroller when Quint was a baby. (Did I really just type "when Quint was a baby?!") So don't need that one specific stroller.

So, of course, to Craigslist I went. And I was willing to be patient instead of drive 30 miles for a stroller. But within 2 days, I saw a good deal. A very good deal, it turned out. Sixty dollars!!

Here's the whole stretch limo thing. (Hey, my entryway looks clean! Wow!)

Both food & drink trays pop off. Both seats can recline to laying flat. Quint can crawl into the front seat by himself. Both canopies pop off. Storage can be accessed from the back or from between the seats. Closing it up is incredibly easy. While technically it's a one hand close, the reality is that it's huge and weighs a lot and you're gonna need two hands or maybe a friend to get it into your trunk - where there will no longer be room for more than 3 bags of groceries.

I've even got my OWN cup holder and junk catcher! It hardly looks used, and the previous owner was a little nuts about germs and had recently taken off all the cloth, washed it, washed the frame, and put it all back together.

So I talked myself out of the $170 stroller I thought I had to have, and spent $60 instead. Am I good or what!!

In other news, I'm gathering crap for a yard sale on April 2nd. We sold the tiny blue love seat for $40 this weekend. My unemployment claim has officially been denied so I'm going to have to give up Priscilla soon. Hopefully just for a while. She has two spots opening up in August when two kids start regular school. So maybe I can put my boys with her in August if I find a job! Don't ask me to talk about having to give up Priscilla because, yes, I will immediately burst into tears.

Here they are again: Priscilla and Uncle Vester. The best daycare on the planet.

I must tout my own awesomness!

With the variety of consignment sales going on in my area right now, I thought I would probably be getting Quint's next round of clothes at these sales. The problem is that I'm continually surprised at what other people refer to as "great deals". Footed PJs for $2.50 is really only a dollar off a Target two pack. To me, spending $4 on a single shirt or pair of pants, even in the 3T size, is an OK deal, but it's still expensive compared to what I can usually find on Craigslist. And I'm one of those people who has (so far) refused to go into an Old Navy store looking for new toddler's clothing. Aside from the knees of pants, he's going to outgrow it before it's worn out.

My son is currently in 18 mo - 2T size shirts and pants and around 24 month PJs. There's still a large box with some larger 2T size things in the loft that still seem a little big. My point is that he's got plenty of clothes for right now. Except shorts. It was 83 degrees outside today, and while I really love my collection of cords and jeans for him, shorts might be a good idea soon.

So I've been scouting through the Craigslist pages for a couple weeks now, looking for that irresistible, huge lot of 3T boys clothes for nearly nothing. Oh, and they had to be local. Not the "local" that means a 30 mile drive. I realized I was being picky, but I also have time to be patient. Like all summer.

But this week: it happened. I saw this listing: Boys clothes sizes 24months - 3T. It is a whole trash bag full of stuff all in good condition. No holes or stains that I noticed. I would be willing to send you pictures of some of the items or everything if you are interested. Just send me an email on here!

List price $30!

I'm the second to respond but the first person is a no-show. Tonight I picked up a large black trash bag of toddler clothes. The lady had washed them all yesterday and when I arrived, was still pulling them out of the dryer because she wanted to give them to me unwrinkled. What a golden idea! I had to chuckle when she told me that. I gladly paid her $30 for a bag I had trouble lifting.

Once at home, I got them all out to look at them. And more importantly COUNT them. Sixty-eight pieces! Forty-four cents each! And out of this huge bag, there were only about 4 shirts that looked old or faded, and I suspect they were designed to look like that. Marvel comics with distressed images and whatnot. There were 8 or 10 pairs of long pants, about the same number of really cute shorts. Some of the pants were the fantastic adjustable waist kind. Three pairs of swim trunks. One puffy, warm winter vest thingy. One pair of overalls. The remaining 40+ shirts were about half long sleeve and half short sleeve. And over half the short sleeves were polo shirts which I really seem to like on him. They're all in wonderful shape. They're all freshly washed in what Hubby determined was "Lara's family's detergent". AND they're all wrinkle free and still warm from the dryer! I feel like I won the lottery! An entire wardrobe, no matter the season, for $30!

Now, whenever Quint outgrows half his clothes at once (that's how it always seems to happen) I can just go shopping in a plastic bin in the loft!


This is the huge pile from two different angles.


I don't think I could have done any better! Perhaps I need to keep her number handy and just call her every few months to see if she needs to sell some of her son's clothes!

Woohoo Craigslist!

After adding up how much all the ocean of new baby paraphernalia would cost, I began my mission of trying to buy as much of that stuff on Craigslist as possible. As soon as I buy a thing on craigslist, I remove it from my gift registry at Target to avoid duplicates. Yesterday, I bought a bouncer for $17 that looks brand new, and a toy organizer shelf thingy for $25. These retail at Target for $50 and $65 respectively. So I spent $42 and got $115 worth of stuff. Am I awesome or what! And the toy organizer thing was exactly what I had registered for!

The only thing I'm hesitant to buy used is a car seat. Both our cars are pre-2002 models and therefore don't have the super-duper LATCH system. When you buy a carseat new, it comes with some extra pieces that secure the carseat to our "old style" back seat seat-belts. Chances are, these new pieces just get discarded by folks who don't need them. But my bigger concern is that the carseat has either been in a bad car wreck, has sustained some damage, or both. Inside the car is where I'm most worried about the baby's safety. OK, well, that and I worry about if he manages to roll to his tummy while sleeping on our pillow top mattress in the middle of the night. One of these fears can be solved with money and that's a price I'm willing to pay.