It's that time!!!!

It's that time of the year again (one of my favorites)!! Time for back to school, or back to school shopping in my world. All of the fall consignment sales are about to kick into high gear. I've been listing on eBay like a maniac (I shipped out 150 of Lillian's last year outfits last week alone), and still have about 4 bins of clothing to bring to my sale, not to mention all of the toys and baby gear I'm letting go of to make room for the little Mister.
The Spoiled Little Rascals sale is Friday - Sunday August 20th to the 23rd at the Eagan Community Center. It's going to be ALL THREE GYMS stuffed with stuff - and there's even still time for you to register as a consignor and get rid of YOUR outgrown kid stuff!! I made about $900 at the last sale, so if you have a lot of stuff, it IS worth your time rather than just donating it and getting nothing. SOMETHING has to pay my Gap Kids bill after all.... might as well recycle! Volunteer, and get an extra 10% of your sales (up to 80%!!!). Visit the Spoiled Little Rascals website to sign up and get started!

I'm offering two lucky followers (and a friend) PRESALE passes for the SLR sale!! Join my page on Facebook and invite your mommy friends to join to be entered in the first drawing which will take place on Saturday the 14th. The second chance to win will be follower participation the following week.

Presale takes place Thursday August 19th from 7:30-9pm. You can NOT beat this. You get to shop before the public with NO crowds and NO lines. Whether you're looking for clothes (maternity, newborn to size 14 kids), toys, gear (strollers, high chairs, swings, bikes), books, you name it, if it's for kids, it will be there.

Winning the War Against the Van

So I've been having this horrible internal struggle ever since I got pregnant and realized that my beloved Volvo doesn't have LATCH all the way across the second row of seats. IT'S TIME FOR A MINIVAN. I realize that most of us just shrug and enjoy the luxury features now standard in the top models of minivans today, but every time I've driven past one over the last seven months, I have seriously started misting up.

I LOVE my car. I have loved it since the moment I found it on CarSoup when I was just about this pregnant with Lillian. It was my favorite shade of my favorite color. It had a dvd player for my future brats to watch 101 Dalmatians on and leather seats for them to spill McDonald's french fries and goldfish everywhere. It had the flip up 3rd row so I could conceivably have two of them, and still get my step daughter, and my much younger siblings all in at once to go do family things. It was my dream car, and I have loved it every moment.

Luckily for me, my dad owns a car repair shop. So every time my 'little things' have gone wrong, I can literally go crying to dad to fix my car, and it gets done. On the upside, it's allowed Lillian to spend lots of time with grampa over the past four years while we're waiting for the car to be ready. On the down side, as my dad likes to say to me 'If you had a Ford, this would have cost you $30. Since it's a Volvo...." You kind of get tired of hearing that, family discount or not.

So I have resigned myself to the fact that I'm getting a van (even though secretly I'm hoping Bob's Highlander - which is creeping up towards 200k miles -blows up and he gets stuck with it) and pretty much decided that since said Toyota has had virtually nothing but maintenance over the past eight years, I'm getting a Sienna. Yes, automatic doors, leather, wood grain, mp3, blah, blah. VAN.

Then we went to Boston on vacation a couple of weeks ago, and everything changed.

Bob booked us a standard SUV at Hertz just like he always does. Nothing fancy, just enough to get two adults, a 3 year old, a 12 year old, our luggage and a big stroller (yes I take my BOB there because that's about the only one that can handle the cobbles downtown to the sand on the beach). The website said a Nissan Xterra or the equivalent. We showed up, and what we got was a 7 passenger Chevy Traverse. Never heard of it, but it may have changed my life.

It had a walk-through second row, so you could climb in front of the seats and walk to the back row (like a minivan, huh?) without having to flip down one of the side seats. This would allow me to put both kids in their car seats using LATCH, and my step daughter could still get into the car, around the front of the seats, and into the 3rd row easily. Dare I dream this could be my answer??

So you know the minute we got to the hotel, I got on the computer and started hunting. If this car has this feature, what are the odds there are others out there? I hate to say I wasn't satisfied with settling for the American version of the answer to my prayers, but though my dad says 'if this were a Ford it would only cost $30...' well, that's because that $30 part breaks twice a year.

Lo and behold (thank you for existing, Google) I discovered that none other than the Toyota Highlander boasts a similar feature and for even less money with all the bells and whistles. So we got home, ran over to Bob's buddy at Toyota, gave one a spin, stuck the car seats in, walked around in it (I seriously can't believe I did that, but I did) and signed the papers on a vehicle that is NOT a minivan.... at least for now. If all works out well with this new vehicle when it arrives in a couple of weeks, maybe Bob can take it over when his bites the dust, and I can get my 1967 Jaguar XKE 2+2.... or maybe not.

Boys Can Have it Cute, Too

So as I welcome myself to the world of boy shopping, I am quite relieved to find that solid colored turtlenecks, cuffed sweatpants and velcro sneakers are OPTIONAL. Chosen by many parents for some reason, but they're not ALL that's out there to be had.

When I worked at Oh Baby! the brand Morfs was up and coming but mainly for girls overalls with sweet vintage patchwork and embroidery embellishing it. Today, she has 'morfed' it into a super cute line (still using vintage and recycled fabrics) also fun for boys! I am just LOVING the tees with the sesame street characters (yes, I'm typically anti character-wearing but these work) with printed sock sleeves, and I just had to get the bb the Oscar the Grouch tee.

Stay tuned for more cute boy stuff. I know I'm not the only one out there who cares!!!

Consign is the Word

So if you're a kid shopaholic like me, you currently have 5 bins of your kid's outgrown last season clothing sitting in your garage. Ok.... maybe you don't. I do, and the funny part, is I actually feel like I'm LOW on stuff in that department. Maybe because it's bigger sizes now, it's less stuff taking up more space? Let's go with that.
Anyway, I discovered quite accidentally two summers ago when I was garage saling for some more great deals on more kid clothes that I didn't need my friend Kelly and her fledgling business Spoiled Little Rascals consignment. She had been selling out of her garage for about a year, and was just about to have her first big public sale. At the time, I was attempting to sell everything on eBay, and was really more interested in shopping for MORE. Also, it was the first retail outlet opportunity for my hair clips.
Two years later, I've gotten some totally killer deals, sold hundreds of hair accessories, and made Thousands (literally) back out of the clothing I have purchased for my kid over the past 3.5 years, with SO much less work than listing on eBay and shipping.
Kelly's business has grown from 20 moms selling stuff out of her garage to 150+ moms selling stuff out of 3 packed gymnasiums at the Eagan Community center over a weekend three times a year. What I love about her sale that sets it apart from some of the others I've since gotten to know, is she's PICKY about what she lets in. Through my many hours of volunteering these sales, I've seen a few cranky consignors over that fact, but the appreciation from the shoppers speaks for itself. They keep coming back, sale after sale, and bringing more and more friends with them to get great deals on great stuff in great shape.
Clothing, shoes, strollers, swings, toys, movies, books..... pretty much everything kid related except car seats (for safety reasons) that are current styles and in excellent condition. No recalled or 10 year old baby gear. No barfed on onesies. No Gymboree outfits from 1995 for $10.

As a shopper, you get thousands of great values for all of your kids, newborn to teen. As a consignor, you get 70-80% of your sales which YOU price to your liking.

Her next sale has been announced for August 20-23rd at the Eagan Community Center. Go register now to sell your outgrown stuff. Volunteer, and get first dibs on all of the amazing deals to be had!!

Oh, my Flash Sales!!

My new addiction has become flash sales. I've been on Gilt Kids for a long time now and have gotten some great deals there, but I have also discovered that there's SO many more out there... OMG my husband would just DIE if he knew... but a deal is a deal, right??



Here's some of my favorites.... I would love to hear about yours.



greenbabybargains 1 eco-friendly bargain a day 50% off or more. They also have a points system where you earn points with all of your orders, that eventually turn into gift certificates towards more orders.



ecobabybuys 1 eco-friendly bargain a day, typically 40-60% off. Choices are usually pretty limited.



Totsy this one is one of my favorites. It has 4-8 sales going on at once, everything from toys to clothes to accessories, strollers.... up to 70% off retail prices. Eco-friendly, lots of super high end boutique brands.



BabySteals is another good one. Their sale is typicall 40-70% off retail, on items that are HIGH DEMAND brands. Not just random cute stuff you've never heard of. I scored a new style organic ergobaby carrier for less than I could get an old style used one for on Craig's List.



KidSteals is the big brother/sister to baby steals. Features products for your older kids.

MiniSocial is a fun site for more mod, unique and handmade clothing for infants and kids. Several sales at a time.

Zulily is another favorite of mine. Several sales at once, diverse selection of goods from diaper bags to exercise equipment for moms, to boutique clothing to bottles, maternity, toys.... always a bunch of good stuff.

What are your favorites? Now that I'm addicted, might as well add some more...

One Stop Baby Stuff Shop

Now that I'm again on the prowl for everything baby (having kept NOTHING from when L was little) I stumbled across my new favorite, FAVORITE website diapers.com which has so much more than diapers.
I had a revelation that I would like to attempt to cloth diaper this time around even though hubby is adamantly refusing to do so... Since he changed about 3% of L's diapers, I'm not too deterred by his threat but I decided to try and meet him in the middle, and I'm going to go with the gdiapers that have the option of doing cloth OR flushable/disposable inserts. I figure that will be good for him, or just for us being on the go. Anyway, I found diapers.com as I was hunting for discounted (yet not used) gpants which is insanely hard to do - they're practically still full price with someone else's poop stains in them! YIKES!! But they were having a decent sale on the starter pack here, so I bought them!
While there, I surfed around and discovered that while they sell all types of diapers (and accept mfg coupons too!!!) at competitive prices, they sell pretty much everything else baby related from strollers and car seats to formula, baby food, shampoos, clothing, even nursery furniture - not to mention a healthy stock of organics from foods to clothing and bedding. And all orders of $50 or more ship FREE and you get it within 2 business days.
Customer service just seem to be such a rarity these days, and everything this company has shown me so far has been awesome. Good deals, discounts on purchases, the customer comes first. Five stars from this momma.
Here's a nice deal for you - enter code NUFRIEND15 and enjoy $10 off your first order of $49 or more including disposable diapers (or disposable inserts). This is in addition to any sale prices or mfg coupons you send in. Of course this also gets you FREE SHIPPING, AND $5 off your second order. Good through 2010. Give them a try!
Wish I'd found them when L was little....

Nursing Moms, Grab one quick!!

I don't know how long this deal is good for, but it's too good to pass up if you're nursing, or soon to become nursing. Udder Covers nursing covers are available for basically the cost of shipping. Any available print. Regularly $32 for a cover and $37 for a gift set of a cover, nursing bracelet and nursing pads, get a $32 discount at checkout and pay just $9.95 for shipping.

Great gift for someone who is expecting, too. You may purchase multiple covers at this price, but you must do each in a separate transaction. Enter code BABIES in the checkout.