What Was in the Basket: For Charger

Charger's basket really made me want to be a kid again, a little boy at that! I picked up a basket at the Dollar Tree that was printed like a soccer ball, which he loved.



In the basket, the bunny {me} left the book Digger Man. I picked this up for 1.00 during the Scholastic sale. He LOVED it. Backhoe he said as soon as he saw the book. Grandpa has a backhoe.



The second part of his gift was this 15 piece Viking Toys Chubbies Bucket. I found these at the thrift for 5.00 a couple weeks ago and it took everything I had to keep from giving these to Charger right away, they are so cool! He played with these things all day long, and even Mini Cooper enjoys them. I am sure we will be figuring out how to use them in Tot School.





Total cost of the basket was 7.00! I dont count the cost of candy as we put it in a community bucket at it often gets eaten by yours truly :). When I first had my daughter, I would never have thought of giving used items to my kids. But, as the budget grew a little tighter and I grew wiser to the fact that toys either get played with for about 5 minutes, or until they are broken {hardly in the middle around here}, used toys are now the preference. If you havent taken the plunge of Birthday, Christmas, Easter, etc shopping at the thrift, I highly recommend it!

Check back tomorrow for Mustang's basket. God Bless!

Fill a Bag Book Sale!

I went to my first ever bag sale at our local library today. I have been missing out! It wasnt a skimply little plastic sack. It was a huge department store bag with handles, and if it was over flowing that was okay too. $3.00 a bag. All this fit into one bag:




65 books plus a Bob the Builder video. About 10 of the books were cheap board books that I could have done without, but it entertained Mustang to be able to find books and put whatever she wanted in the bad without me saying no ;). Yes, a few of them might end up in our next donate/yard sale pile, but that's okay!

Some of my favorites include a text book from our local Catholic School (many of the books were donations). It is called This Is Our Heritage copywrite date is 1967. It is a Faith and Freedom Basic Reader. A quick skim looks very interesting. We also picked up an Usborne sticker book that had only a few of the stickers used (albeight in the wrong places).

I skimmed through the piles and picked up books I remembered from my childhood. Anne of Green Gables, The Best Christmas Pagent Ever, A Summer to Die, Lisa's War, Sing Down the Moon, The Family Under the Bridge, and a ton more.

I was thrilled with our purchases. I will be looking for these kind of sales in our new area as we wont have a local library and the 'big city' library charges over 100 a year for a library card. At that rate I could probably open my own :).

I have Tot Trays!

If you have read the Tot School blog at all, you know that Carissa suggests having Tot Trays for Tot School. The concept is similar to Montessori classrooms. The teacher puts out multiple trays with different activities on each one. The student then takes a tray, completes the activity, and then returns the tray for another one.

Well, yesterday I was at the Goodwill and came across these:




I found four oval divided 'trays' that I think will work well for our learning. I also found this cool plate with 6 divided spots. Not sure what it was for originally. The trays were 30 cents a piece and the round divided piece was 50 cents. So, a total of 1.70 :) Keeping Tot School affordable.

Weekly thrifty finds

I love thrifting and yard sailing. I also love sharing my finds with others, so here are my finds for last week. Not as great as some weeks, but still a bit fun.

Thrift #1

Old Navy dress for Mini, 50 cents.


Gymboree Giraffe Club Coat for Mustang, 4.00.

Thrift #2

Gymboree vintage Flower Power romper for Mini, 1.00


Embelished jeans for Mini, 1.00.


Christmas top and dress for Mini, 2.00.

Yard Sale haul...


Gymboree Sweet Cherries Set for Mini, 5.00


Gymboree Sweet Tooth Set for Mini, 5.00


Top for Charger 25 cents


Old Navy jeans for Mini 25 cents


Dress for Mustang 1.50


Water wings-you can never have too many of these! 25 cents


Bob the Builder hat for Charger, but Mustang fights with him for it. 50 cents.


Cute top for Mini 1.00

Total for the haul...

22.25. Buy used save the difference :) (I'm stealing your motto, Duggars)

My best day ever at the Goodwill

I love the Goodwill. As most of you know I get my kids' clothes from 1)the blessing of hand-me downs, 2) yard sales, 3) Gymboree clearance rack, 4) gifts, and 5)the thrift store. As you can see, its not a high dollar operation. So when I can find something awesome at the Goodwill it is a VERY good day.

I headed over there to drop off 6 large bags and a few boxes left over from the successful yardsale we had a few weeks ago. Of course you cant just drop off the stuff and leave, you have to go in and spend some of the money you made at the yardsale. So in I went.

I found a decent amount of cute name brand stuff for Mini, including a little dress from the Tea collection which I love but generally cant afford. I had my little cart loaded up and I was in line to pay when I turned around and saw them bringing out the new racks. If you go to the Goodwill always check out the new rolling racks, you will get the best stuff there. At the end of it I saw a sea of little pink clothes so I got out of line and ran over to have the first dibs :)

I was pleased to find a few cute sleepers, but I was THRILLED to find what was hanging after. 2 entire 3 piece Gymboree outfits perfect for Charger!! It was all from a yardsale-some still had the tags-that apparently wasnt well attended. I felt a little bad for whomever had the sale (and really wished I had known about it and whatever items I missed), but was very thankful to find my new outfits for Charger.

Everything in the following 2 pictures cost a grand total of 24.94.

A Thrifting We Go

What girl doesnt love to share when she finds a good deal? Maybe not you but I certainly do :). I will generally always post my good finds here.

Today we went to the Goodwill. I have been having withdrawals. I dont really like Goodwill that much, but they closed down our Salvation Army nearly a year ago and I havent tried to take the kids to the one in the next town. So, this is where I go. I always find a few things worth buying though!



For Mustang I got a white crochet flower tank by Amy Byer-I think this will look really nice with jeans I'm jealous :). I also found a pink butterfly skirt and a new green velour skirt from American Girl. These were all 2.00 each.



For Charger I got a grey and red sweater vest from Gymboree, a pair of navy windpants from Children's Place, and a one piece shorts outfit from Gymboree. They were 1.00 each.



For Mini I got (still hoping for a girl lol). A brand new polka dot velour dress. 1.00.



And last but not least-arent these adorable? 4.99 brand-new in the package. I took them out to take this picture. I havent decided if I am keeping them or selling them yet. The baby will be in our room and I may hang these above their bed. Will see, but it was a fantastic deal IMO!

Hope you all have a great Friday!!