We have to go fight tomorrow.

Well, we get to go fight with the furniture company tomorrow. Yippee.

When we bought the mattress we specifically said “So, with this guarantee, if we don’t like the bed for any reason, we can return it?”

Yes, of course, you have 120 days.

Great. Take our money.

Fast forward about 40 days and neither of us like it. We call to say we want to return it and we get a little grief but our sales guy says sure, he’ll start the paperwork. He asks if there’s another bed we want and we say yes, another Serta, but you don’t sell it—can you maybe order it? He says no. Not “Let me ask my manager and get back to you” but a direct no. Okay, so we order it online ASAP since it takes 4-6 weeks.

So our sales guy calls tonight to ask if he can’t get us the bed we wanted—he talked to his manager and he was pretty sure they could order it. I say it’s too late—we already ordered it and all sales are final. So then he was half arguing with me about trying to return it/cancel it and buy from them instead. Um, we tried and you said it wasn’t possible. So he says okay, he’ll call back with our return amount—reminding us that the two free pillows can’t be returned and we’ll be charged for them. Wait. What? Ugh…but I guess in the long run, not a life or death deal.

So two hours go by and he calls from his cell to say he just got done talking to his manager and we can’t return the bed for a refund—the return is with Serta because it’s their guarantee and the “comfort guarantee” is only for exchanges. I immediately say that isn’t going to work, we specifically asked about returning it—not exchanging it—and we were told we could…HE told us we could. He says “Oh no, I just read off the poster.” Yeah, right. You wanted the $$$ sale so you told us what we wanted to hear. Besides, I didn’t pay Serta, I paid your store. Your store can REFUND us.

Now, we’ve been doing business with this guy for TEN YEARS and I honestly just want to say “Really, John? You’re going to try and pull that? I’m pretty sure your manager saw the return claim for $2800 and freaked out so now you’re trying to claim ignorance.” But I didn’t.

I just reiterated that an exchange was NOT going to work and he said we could come in and sit down with his manager and we could see what we could work out. Lovely. He said we’re the first people that have wanted a return—everyone else just gets a firmer or softer mattress. Sorry, not my problem.

WE ARE LIVID. There is no $&@?#% way we would have bought the bed without that RETURN policy. That’s the ONLY reason we bought it. And the Serta website says the return and exchange policy is “up to the individual store”—so the store can do whatever they want…but I’m guessing they are blaming Serta because they don’t want to give us our money back.

Tomorrow is going to be fun. :/

TiVo friend + Etsy + Fate

A TiVo friend of mine throws pottery and has an Etsy store. I’ve been looking at this large vase for over a year but couldn’t bring myself to buy it because I just didn’t need a vase. But I happened to be on Etsy recently looking at something else and thought if it was still there, it was meant to be mine. Amazingly it was, so I ordered it! 🙂 He threw in the small vase as an unexpected bonus! (As a side note, he’s the same guy I did the smoothie in a bread bowl for and the same one Tom and I got our gnomes from. Which reminds me I haven’t told you about the gnomes yet. That will be another day.)

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No loafers for Owen.

I really would like Owen to have a pair of nice shoes. I’m not talking uncomfortable dress shoes here—just a pair of loafers for outfits that don’t really look good with Crocs or tennis shoes. So today at Marshalls I found a totally cute pair of Cole Hahn (!) brown loafers for $16 (!). So tonight I had him try them on—and of course you have to exert just a bit of effort (moreso than tennis shoes or Crocs) to get them on your foot, so he wasn’t used to that (being he really only wears tennis shoes or Crocs!) and OH MY HEAVENS the whining was amazing. And of course his final (final? ha! immediate) verdict was they were too tight. And of course I have no idea if he just doesn’t like them or they really were too tight. I have a feeling he’ll never have loafers—he hasn’t yet, why start now? 😐

Daddy wanted to go on errands with us.

Tom texted me on Facebook to say good morning and I told him we were headed out on errands. He said he’d like to go with us, so I kept sending pictures. And FYI it’s harder than you’d think to take pictures while you’re shopping…while trying to keep an eye on one and keeping the phone away from the other who wants “Alno.” 🙂

Waiting for the hair place to open:

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Getting ready to get his hairs cut:

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Waiting for brother:

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At Walmart:

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A tempting display:

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“I want to push her!”

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Done!

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Showing daddy Owen’s big boy booster seat (he uses the regular seat belt now) and his new hair cut:

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Waving to daddy!

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NANNA!

We went to Sam’s Club this morning. Since we’re Business Members we can get in early and they have a table set up with coffee, OJ, fruit, and pastries. I usually get Katie a banana and she will eat the whole thing while we’re shopping. (As an aside, she takes full adult-sized bites. She has to put the whole banana in her mouth. Freaks me out just a little.)

So this morning I grab a banana like usual, she sees it, gets excited, and says “NANNA!”

Well, that’s a first!

New dress, new tights, new boots!

Stride Rite Tamara BootsThe good part about buying kids shoes ahead of time? You can get good sale prices. (It was still a crazy price for kids shoes, but they were $10 off and SOOOOO cute.)

The bad part about buying kids shoes ahead of time? You are only guessing at the sizes and by the time the season is right to wear them, they could already be outgrown.

At least these still fit, but they are a bit tighter than I’d hoped for (they are a 6.5 and I think she’s almost at the limit of her size 6s).

So, since she was wearing boots, that required tights—her FIRST tights, in fact! She didn’t think twice about them and didn’t try to remove them at all! And then it was picking a dress which she might not fit in when it gets to be warm again—a size 18m. But first, we tried shoes because I thought I might be able to exchange the boots for a bigger size (at Amazon) but they are out of stock.

When Owen saw her, he said “Katie! You are so adorable!” 🙂

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Fun shopping with mom

I was worried about keeping her busy while I looked at winter costs for Owen, but luckily the toys were right behind us. She had a ball!

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I didn’t find a coat so after we picked up Owen we went to Kohls. This is a blurry pic but Katie loved riding in the cart.

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And EVERYONE at Kohls loved her pig tails and commented how cute they were. And of course she was saying HI and BYE to everyone. 🙂

And once we got home…Owen in his new coat (a size 8)! He loves it and wanted to wear it out to play immediately. 🙂

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Look! A super cute ninja!

Yeah, I’ve gone a bit overboard this year as this is costume #3 (the others were Robo Knight and Superman) plus he has Thor leftover from last year that he didn’t wear (and still fits). But I couldn’t resist a ninja—and he plays in them as well.

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If he chooses this one (and I guess even if he doesn’t) it will need some altering—the red leg ties don’t stay in place so will need to be ironed on permanently.

Happy 40th birthday to me!

Tom gave me the okay to upgrade…and actually placed the order for me from Afghanistan since it was lunchtime there (when pre-ordering opened) instead of me having to be up at 3am here! (I know—what a guy!)

That it was scheduled to arrived ON my birthday was just…icing on the cake so-to-speak. 🙂

Oooh…it’s sooo pretty… I hate to put a cover on it but I don’t trust myself OR the kids. It’s also why I bought a warranty on it. 🙂

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Introducing Boppy the Bear

Owen has been through two dollar store punching bags, so this time I went premium with the Eco-Bonk Grizzly Bear. Since it cost 10x as much, I expect it to last 10x as long…and seeing as how the other ones lasted about a month, I think we’ll be good. 🙂

Technically the bear’s name is Jackson (he’s wearing a name tag) but Owen has named him Boppy, like the similar inflatable punching bag on Doc McStuffins.

And introducing him to Katie…

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He’s good at building cars!

I have had magnatiles on Owen’s wishlist for quite some time but have never bought them because A) he has so many toys already and B) they are damn EXPENSIVE. So when I saw these Magformers available on Amazon Vine (the program where I get to pick items for free and then I just have to write a review on it), I snatched them up!

Owen picked them as his weekly Chore reward this week. (Normally expensive toys aren’t options, but since they didn’t cost me anything—and mostly because he saw them before I could hide them!—I let him choose them.)

As it happened, Tom Skyped in right as Owen was wanting to open them, so Tom got to watch the fun for about 20 minutes! Even though the age said 3+ I wasn’t sure if he’d be able to follow the patterns to make the cars without getting frustrated—but he jumped right in and before I knew it, he had laid out all the pieces for the spaceship with no problem!

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Then he made two cars (with a little of my help since the pieces kept snapping together) and then he was making his own shapes and vehicles without the patterns.

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Of course, now I want at least one or two more sets so he can build bigger and better things…I’ll be adding some to his wishlist. 🙂 The other good thing about these is that the pieces are big enough AND the magnets are enclosed so they are fine for Katie to grab and play with (though it tends to make Owen melt down when she does that).

Owen’s new foods: Week 2

He only had six new foods this week since he was in the hospital for one of the days.

  1. chicken from my sandwich at Costco
  2. guacamole
  3. chicken fingers (samples at Sam’s Club)
  4. chicken nuggets (samples at Sam’s Club)
  5. watermelon
  6. provolone cheese

Funny story.

So we were obviously at Sam’s Club one night this week and they had the samples going. I immediately hoped there would be some stuff I could have Owen try because how perfect is a one-bite sample? Besides, he needed one extra food because he had skipped a day—and that was the only thing standing between him and his Reward toy for the week.

First up was fruit punch Vitamin Water and he flat out refused that. That floored me because it’s pretty much water. And he likes to sip daddy’s drinks…so I told him it was like that. NO. Not happening. Okay, moving on.

Next was fancy chicken fingers (meaning real breading that looked like fried chicken and not pulverized cracker coating). He said no. I explained how he needed TWO foods to catch up to earn his toy. He said no. I said “It’s JUST LIKE the popcorn chicken you like except it’s a different shape.” Okay, he’d try it. And he liked it—IMAGINE THAT. 🙄 I asked if he would eat those if I bought them and of course he said yes. Fine, whatever, we’ll get them and worst case Katie and I will eat them (unlike the Gogurt he HAD TO HAVE and PROMISED to eat and he ate one and now refuses to eat them). In the same aisle, he saw the dinosaur chicken nuggets and expressed interest so I asked if he’d eat those, too, and he said yes. Okay, in the cart they go.

So the next aisle’s sample was…chicken nuggets! Tyson brand vs. whatever generic brand the dinosaurs were. I asked Owen if he wanted to try that. No. SERIOUSLY, KID?! You just ate and liked chicken fingers but you don’t want to try chicken nuggets? He kills me. So I again explained about needing an extra food and this is JUST LIKE THE CHICKEN HE JUST ATE…and he agreed to try it. So he’s nibbling on it as we’re going down the next aisle (where Katie scarfed the full sample of red potato potato salad) and before I realize it, HE ASKED IF HE COULD HAVE ANOTHER ONE! 😯 So we made another pass and grabbed another one! Then we put back the dino nuggets and grabbed the Tyson nuggets! WOOHOO!

I didn’t want to push my luck any farther so that was it for him.

What’s in the box?

If you know me at all, you know we order a lot of stuff from Amazon (and online in general, really—I mean, with two kids, it’s really the convenience factor). And with the quantity we order PLUS my sketchy swiss-cheesed mommy-brain memory, I often have NO idea what’s in each box when it arrives. Tom and I sometimes play a game: Can he open the box before I remember what’s in it? 🙂 (If you’re curious, I think it’s about 60/40 to him.)

Well, in my internet travels, I recently saw a really delicious recipe that I saved to Evernote post haste (Chocolate Chip Cookie Peanut Butter S’mores Bars by Cookies & Cups if you’re interested ) but what got me was the beginning text…which sounds just about like our household:

A few weeks ago I opened up my front door to a package.
Now I am no stranger to the package on the front door.
I consider myself a bit of an online shopping expert.

But sometimes when you are such an expert internet shopper you forget about the things you buy…

That is until the box ends up on the front step.

ORRR the husband intercepts said box, which is basically the worst day of my life.

In these cases he generally stands over me while I open the box, all while I over-explain about how it was “on sale”, a “total bargain” or (my favorite) “for the children”.

Anyway, when you open the box it’s like a surprise! What did I order? I can’t even remember!

It’s basically like Christmas.

I mean, you all know how much I LOVE CHRISTMAS… 🙂

But now, all I can think about is those yummy-looking S’more bars. Mmmmmm. I wonder how they’d travel to Afghanistan?!?

“Maggie’s” new bed

So while we were out running a few last-minute errands, we bought Maggie a nice new fluffy bed. As soon as we set it down, someone else found it (I told you she’s just like a cat).

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Then Maggie found it.

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Then Katie decided SHE wanted to be in the bed…and Maggie wanted NO part of that. So it was round robin for a bit…Katie out, Maggie in…Katie back, Maggie out.

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Then Owen got involved and Maggie gave up and went back to her stack of blankets on the hearth.

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And BOY did the kids have fun in there.