A Story of Toys

This morning Robert woke up bright and early as soon as the sun was uppish at 6am, lucky us. M and I took turns as we often do, one of us sitting up with him with the other one catches an extra hour of sleep. That's the nice part of M's spring break, the historical archive doesn't open till noon, so he's been around some mornings. We went out to New Hope, the pregnancy center where we took classes and I went to clinic when I was pregnant, to say hello to our counselor and to drop off my maternity clothes. I don't need them anymore, and plus sized maternity clothes are expensive and hard to find. In the past year, we have had to rely so much on the kindness of friends and strangers and on government programs, it feels good to be able to give something back. Even if it's just giving things from my coupon stash to people who need them, or donating extra baby clothes or my maternity stuff to a mom who wasn't as lucky as I in having family and friends to help. Robert is always a big hit when we go there, they knew him when he was just a well-concealed bulge in Mom's tummy. =)

After the visit there, we dropped M off at the archive and headed home for a bit. Chatted with the next door neighbor, Robert ate and had a little nap, and I planned my coupon excursion. When he woke, we took off! We headed to Toys 'R Us first, looking for Toy Story 1 and 2, which were rereleased today and which I had excellent coupons for, but they were out. I was bummed, but as it turned out, it worked to our benefit in the end. I'm about ready to give up on Toys 'R Us, in all the times I've visited there, they never had what I was looking for. Bummer.

Our next stop was Target, and I did very, very well there. Robert was in a good mood, sleeping for awhile, then looking around, which is the best way to shop with him. I love to talk to him as we walk around the store, explaining what we're doing and how I'm using the coupons. He's an excellent audience. Target did have the Toy Story Blu-Ray/DVD Special Edition combo pack in stock, and they were running an even better sale than Toys 'R Us! Between the ten dollar discount I got from buying both together and the individual ten dollar coupons I had for each movie, I got the pair of them for 14 dollars. Not only that, but each one came with a coupon for a movie ticket to see Toy Story 3, and 135 Disney Rewards points. So for my 14 dollars, I got two DVDs, two Blu-Rays, two movie tickets, and redeemed the points to donate four plush toys to Gifts in Kind. I was quite pleased! Robert is going to love these so much when he gets older.

That wasn't the only deal we got at Target. I got the two DVD Combo Packs, two jumbo packs of Huggies (a moment of weakness, I swear!), ten bottles of Sobe Lifewater, a bottle of Vitaminwater, and a child-sized beach towel. That was 101 dollars worth of stuff, but with my two five dollar gift cards from last time, I got the whole thing for 22.87. I used the last of the gift card we got in the mail for it, and got another five dollar gift card back! That fifty dollar gift card got us 160 dollars of wonderful things. After that, we ran to the deli and picked up turkey and cheese so we can make sandwiches for the trip on Thursday and we won't need to buy fast food. I made fried rice for supper with the liquid from the pulled pork last week, which was kind of like pork-flavored Jello Jigglers till I warmed it in the microwave, but gives plain brown rice an excellent flavor. I love fried rice, you take whatever leftover meat you have, add rice, egg, half a bag of veggies, and a packet of seasoning, and it's wonderful.