Valentine Frugal Find

Having a couple of days of sunshine last weekend has sure put me into a Spring cleaning and decorating mood.  This, however, is not so great for the pocketbook as I'm thinking of all sorts of things I'd like to do around the house and all of these, you guessed it, cost money.

Today Miss Em and I went on our first official Mommy & daughter shopping trip and our last stop was a thrift store that I have found some great deals at in the past.   Today was no exception and when we came home I quickly put my purchases in the clothes washer and tonight when Daddy came home from church he was greeted with this Valentine-festive new look for the bedroom:

Here's a little closer look...

His reaction?

Daddy (upon entering our bedroom):  What in the world???

Mommy:  What?

Daddy:  What happened???

Mommy:  What do you mean?

Daddy:  That's our bed???

Mommy:  Yes.

Daddy:  Pink???

Yes honey, I know I've spent the majority of my life being anti-pink, but these last couple of years being a mom to a little girl who happens to look ADORABLE in all things pink...well, I have to admit that pink has really grown on me.  Thanks for going with it my love, it's just in time for Valentine's Day!

So what do you think of my new Land's End bedskirt and duvet cover?  It's bright, it's bold, it's totally girly, it's like nothing I own...and I love it!  Can you believe this set us back only $6?  Yes, $6!  I couldn't have even bought a yard of this fabric for $6.  The dilemna:  what to do with those BLUE blinds (the window is huge so it's too $$$ to replace them with the shutters I would love) and I need to find some pillow shams to finish it off.

A Right of Passage

Since McGee has taken to waking us up 3-8 times per night most of this last week, we shipped him off to Grandma and Grandpa's.  Okay, actually they asked if they could take him to visit Auntie Michelle and Uncle Jim and give us the chance to get a little rest.  Thank you Grandma & Grandpa!

So this morning Miss Em and I had our inaugural girl's shopping day.  I'm hoping this will be something we can always enjoying doing together.  My mom and I have always found shopping together fun and have often been known to "shop 'til you'd think we'd drop".  Once when we lived in Orange County I remember my mom coming down for a visit and we left early one morning to go shopping in Palm Springs and didn't get home until after 10:30 that night!

Miss Em and I went to IKEA and enjoyed a $1.99 breakfast of eggs, potatoes (yummy!), bacon and french toast sticks and a $1 huge bowl of oatmeal.  It was fun sitting there enjoying the one-on-one time with Em.  After breakfast we went to the children's area where she enjoyed playing in their play kitchen and checking out all of their other fun toys and furniture.  I enjoyed watching her and scoping out any promising toy organization options that could work in our home (I'm always looking for better ways to organize our things) and also looking for a possible replacement for our duvet cover.

Still under the weather with a UTI (it was an ear infection a couple of weeks ago, poor girl), Miss Em hasn't really had much of an appetite, but she did eat her oatmeal and some french toast sticks.

We finished wandering around IKEA then stopped by Taco Bell and picked up lunch to take to Daddy at school.  He loves when we come to his school and I think he especially loves to show his children off to his co-workers.  Today he didn't want us to leave as he was enjoying time the extra bit of time he had with Em.

When the lunch bell rang, Daddy walked us to the car and we headed to my friend Alicia's to pick something up and then made a quick stop at a thrift store near her house.  Miss Em was an excellent shopping companion - telling me "yes" and "no" on certain purchases.  I have some stylish new black pointy-toe  slingback heels (enough adjectives already?) thanks to Miss Em's fabulous fashion sense!  It was a fun day and as is usually the case, we were pooped when we came home but excited about our finds and the time spent together.  Thanks my lovely daughter for a fun first day of shopping - just you and me.  I hope we'll enjoy many more days of shopping together in the future!