If you’re a super bargain shopper, like me, and can’t stand to pay full price for anything your kids wear, then you have come to the right place.

I shop at Walmart once a month. I try to pick up as many pantry items to “fill in the blanks” for most of our meals. I can get exactly what I want for the best price in town. How do I know this? Cause I’ve looked everywhere.

I always take a gander through the baby section, specifically the clothes. I am a Carter’s lover at heart, but can stand to pay the price tag. I have even gone to the Carter’s outlet on occasion to find what I am looking for, but the outlet isn’t down the street, but Walmart is. (we now have a Carter’s store nearby, but you have to hit the sales to get a good deal.)

Walmart carries a line of Carter’s clothing called “Child ‘o Mine.” (sizes up to 5t) Most every item I have seen is darling and carries that same quality Carter’s is known for.

I think their pajamas selection is quite cute, (which can be hard to do for boys clothing) but their pricing truly takes the cake. Each Carter’s top and bottom pajama set is only $6.82.

I have looked everywhere for cute pajamas for my boys and these fit the bill and lower my cost on spending each month.

Any good deals out there worth sharing?

e

Ok, so just so you know this was my first attempt at baking banana bread. (I know, where have I been?) This was not my first attempt at using my oven. However, as of late, the toddler, who will be 16 months tomorrow, likes to try and open the oven while things are inside of it. You know, COOKING. So, I thought I would be so smart and “close” the oven with the “lock latch” feature. Little did I know this is meant for CLEANING the oven and actually TURNS IT OFF every time it’s enabled. So, at some point in time during the HOUR long bake fest of my banana bread, I accidentally turned my oven off. I realized this at the 60 minute mark and tried to fix my undercooked issue the best I could. Here are my results.

The freaking thing TASTES like heaven, it just looks rather pathetic in the middle. I have had to cut out the very middle of the loaf, since it still has an overly goopy texture that tastes more like BATTER. Goobed banana batter. Other than that, the edges are SO moist (Terrible word), but it’s true. If I could get the inside to bake all the way through AND have the outside just as perfectly MOIST (creepy), I would win the banana bread lottery.

I think making banana bread trumps any bread I have ever purchased at Peet’s Coffee. So, from now on, I will make my own. I think you should too. Here goes.

Banana Bread

Ingredients:

3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed
1/3 cup melted butter
1 cup sugar (can easily reduce to 3/4 cup)
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
1/4 cup of pecans or any another preferable nuts (of course, optional)

No need for a mixer for this recipe. (Score!)

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, mix. Pour mixture into a buttered (or “cooking sprayed”) 4×8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

(recipe courtesy of a gal friend of mine, Sharleen.)

Oh, and make sure you do not turn your oven off while cooking.

And just so you know, this is who I am up against while I am slaving away with an easy recipe in the kitchen. Clearly, mistakes can be made with this darling hunk of mini-beef.

A few posts back, which was probably a month ago due to my current slow snailed rate of posting, I asked if anyone had any ideas for another nickname for my oldest kidlet. You see, his current name is Rt. If anyone has been on Twitter in the past 6 months or so, you’ll notice people using the initials Rt to inform their readers they are RE-TWEETING another person’s tweet. (It does get somewhat complicated, doesn’t it?)

This is not a major problem, but it bugs me.

Enough to do something about it.

So, I muddled my way through ALL of the responses to find that perfect name that really, truly masters the heart of my little Rt. Well, only one of you replied (THANK YOU 180/360 for appeasing me on my quest) and your suggestion was spot-on HILARIOUS. Therefore, I am running with it.

I now, introduce to you, ADIOS.

So, now when I refer to my two children, I will be using the words Adios and Hola. This should be interesting….

I CAN say, that prior to the birth of my second, we christened him with his name, Hola. And what would you know that besides saying mama, HI, HI HIIIIYEEEEEEE is all this child says all day, everyday.

And I love it.

e

These days, we head to the gym 3-4 times a week. While this works well on my body, this also does wonders on my mind. An hour break once a day, getting some alone time without the kids makes for a better mom. The kids, who get to play in a place that does not resemble their house OR their toys makes for a better kid, and a MUCH better kid who happens to be a boy. Times TWO.

Recently, Rt began playing video games during his “gym” time in the child care. While I don’t mind a game or two, on several recent occasions, he did not leave his gaming perch the ENTIRE HOUR. (yes, part of the time he could have been watching another kid play the game, but STILL.) After ignoring my last warning to play only ONE game, he was put on probation for the month of July. No games until August. Period.

Then, cue in our summer vacation to Aptos.

I wanted Rt to have something constructive to do while riding in the car, that didn’t involve me having to turn around, figure out how to install another dvd into the player, push play, skip, volume, headset adjusting, etc. Doing anything backwards in the car for too long puts my stomach in a foul mood.

So, I went looking for a Leapster. (Yes, I am aware. It’s a video game console. Doh! But he can LEAAAARN while he plays. He’ll be able to multiply by Tuesday!)

I was planning on buying the original one. Only because that is the one I saw on Amazon. It had the most positive ratings. It definitely helped that the thing has been around since the beginning of time and clearly has acquired a lot of feedback, but even the feedback the Leapster 2 received in its shorter time frame wasn’t as hot.

So, I went to the one place where you can buy everything cheaper. Walmart. But, Walmart didn’t have the original Leapter. They only had #2. And by only having #2, I got confused whether or not the original even existed anymore. With much hesitation, but a dying need to have something for Rt before our car drove West, I bought the damn thing. The #2.

I didn’t even buy any extra games. The freakin thing already cost me $60 along with some insurance I thought I should purchase, cause when I don’t, my ass is always grassed.

Rt thought he had struck major gold with my “surprise” for the car ride. He played it all the way down. (mind you, these were just the two stock games the player comes with. Can we talk about how “sorta scary” one of these games really is? A dragon fighting creepy storm clouds? Just wasn’t as thrilled with their choices as I had hoped.)

Little did I know, it wasn’t the stock games I should have been concerned about.

It was the battery life.

4 AA batteries went down in a blaze of glory in less than TWO DAYS. HELLO! I’ll never keep up. I refuse!!

So, while hubs went to play golf the Monday after we got there, I did some google searching for the nearest Target. Within 1o minutes, we were on our way South to Watsonville, just to see what they had available.

I really was just looking for a game to go with his current system, but when I got to the Leap Frog aisle, I almost keeled over. There was THE Leapster. The original. ON SAAAAAAALE.

For $35. (instead of $49.99)

And the games? On sale for $19.99 each. (instead of $28)

Ok, PROBLEM HERE. We already have a console. BUT THIS ONE IS ON SALE. What to do, what to do?

I bought the freaking thing.

Along with two games.

I was satisfied. Happily. If only……if only I could return the first purchase, the #2, AFTER it’s been played for two days. I had kept all the packaging. I was careful when I opened it the first time around. I was prepared for something like this. It was fate.

But, would the kid like it? Would the battery life last?

Big ‘ol thumbs up on both counts. The stock games are way cooler. And I don’t mind that it doesn’t have some updated features #2 has. He’s only 4. Taking stock on what he excels on and what needs improving will come with time. (#2 can keep track of what areas your kids answer well and not so well.)

Bottom line. I returned my first purchase without a blink of an eye and am quite happy with our second, BARGAIN SHOPPER, purchase. And, as if we couldn’t have seen this coming, his love for the Leapster is, how shall we say, less intense, that it originally was, but that can be expected since he caught his daddy playing Ms. Pacman on his IPhone.

“Daddy, I want to play the ghost game again.”

It’s truly never ending, isn’t it?

e