board books – BabyCostsMoney

Hoppy Easter!!

Published on April 1, 2018April 2, 2018 by Darlene DeeLeave a comment

How does your family celebrate?

We tell the kids that the Easter Chicken will only lay pretty eggs if the children clean the house the night before.

APRIL FOOLS! (Although we totally should have went with that version and you can feel free to steal it.)

In our house, the Easter Bunny hides the easter baskets. And he (she? it?) always includes a book, some chocolate, and a surprise.

E.B. hid three baskets last night.

Babystar is only two years old so hers was kind of easy to find: under the train table.

Princess Buttercup and Magic Boy (he’s a magician) are legal adults so E.B. could try a bit harder.

Princess Buttercup (age 18) insisted on having a giant stuffed chick so her basket and chickie were hidden in the only place it would fit: the corner cupboard.

E.B. tried hard to trick College Boy but he found it anyway.

Babystar found her basket first. AND she found it all by herself! E.B. is gonna step up her hiding game next year. Tbh I should have known. Babystar LOVES hide and seek.

And now it’s time for the break down.

Disclosure: Some of the links above are affiliate links. This means that if you click through and purchase anything, I may earn a small commission. You will earn my eternal gratitude.

Book: Frida Kahlo by Isabel Sanchez Vegara $8.09 (The Easter Bunny shops at Barnes & Nobles but it’s available on Amazon, along with tons of other great titles in the Little People, Big Dreams series.
Tiny chocolate bunny $0.59
pastel Goldfish crackers $0.99
Skittles with bunny ears $0.80
egg full of M&M’s $0.80
Cheez-it crackers $1
Trolls bubble wands $1
three easter-themed coloring books $3
easter sticker book $1
twenty mystery Trolls (though we have already opened a few and one is COOPER!!) that were on clearance last month $17.80

Easter basket total: $35.07

RAISING BABYSTAR: $26,854.80

Board but Not Boring.

Published on December 7, 2017December 4, 2017 by Darlene Dee7 Comments

When does the board book to paper book crossover usually take place?

Babystar is two and a half and we are still buying both.

We love our hardback paper-page picture books for reading together while sprawled on our bellies on the bed. But the board books are still best when Babystar wants to read to her stuffed friends. Or when Babystar wants to read in the car. Or when Babystar needs to read in the shopping cart. Or when Babystar wants to snack on a book. It’s rare these days but it still happens. Apparently they are SOUPY delicious!

(Babystar pronounces super as soupy and I will MURDER anyone who corrects her because it is the cutest thing ever. Ok, I won’t actually kill anyone. I’ll scold them, though. LOUDLY. Or? What’s something in between scolding and murder??)

Board books are durable. And usually pretty compact.

I have a running list of things purchased for the baby on a very unorganized Note on my phone/computer. It seems I have purchased quite a few board books in the past few months.

I already told you. I’m a sucker for books.

Barnes and Noble had a ‘buy 2 get 1 free’ table of board books a few months ago so OBVIOUSLY I let her choose three books ($15.98). She chose Max the Brave, Click Clack Moo, and This Little Trailblazer: A Girl Power Primer. I swear I DID NOT force her to choose that last one. But I was so totally proud.

And she LOVES that book. She likes to ask “what about this little trailblazer?”

Her favorite (this week) is Maria Tallchief.

Her dad brought her back Good Night Seattle ($9.95) from a business trip recently and we had to read it before bed for WEEKS. Only slightly annoying. Good night, joggers on the Burke-Gilman trail. It just rolls off the tongue.

We bought three board books by Chris Haughton: Oh No George!, Little Owl Lost, and Shh! We Have a Plan. Highly recommend all three ($19.59). Oh No George! is about a dog that wants to behave. Tries to behave. But doesn’t always behave. I before never realized the similarities between toddlers and dogs. I’m lying. I figured it out when Babystar started licking the floor.

We bought Sheila Rae’s Peppermint Stick for fifty cents at the library sale yesterday.

And do you see those two shiny new board books sort of on the left-middle there? Good Night Denver and Good Night Colorado ($18.08)?

OH YEAH I FORGOT TO TELL YOU. We are moving to Colorado.

I’ve never even been to Colorado. All I know is everything I learned from Becca. Plus pot is legal there, so I expect to have a lot of the same conversations over and over. Which is great, because I hate thinking of new things to say.

This is all rather sudden. BUT. I hear Boulder is the happiest city in the country. So that’s something.

RAISING BABYSTAR: $24,370.73

Llama llama, MORE BOOKS MAMA!

Published on July 24, 2017July 23, 2017 by Darlene Dee3 Comments

Dude. I can tell myself over and over that Babystar has ENOUGH STUFF, and I am totally right. But I keep buying her books.

She loves books. She ‘reads’ her books to herself and her friends. (Her friends are stuffed animals.) She reads her books to Tillie the Kitten, who seems oddly into it. She brings her books everywhere and will ask anyone to read to her. Her books ward away toddler meltdowns. Her books are fucking magic.

(Yes, I know about libraries. I love the library. I also know that if my kid likes to lick her books, other kids probably do also. I mean, duh, licking books is SO LIT. So we don’t check out board books or ‘beginning reader’ books from the library. We do check out story books from the library, but those are read TO her by an adult under highly supervised situations.)

Last week, I bought a six-pack of ‘Learn-to-Read’ Little Critter books at Costco for $9.99. We already love Little Critter, and the kid needs practice on NOT RIPPING PAGES of non-board books. At less than two dollars per book, this seems like a nice price point for practice. And — bonus! — maybe she will in fact learn to read.

Then on Saturday, we bought two new board books from the last of the big box brick and mortar bookstores, Barnes & Noble, for $16.98. We also joined their Kid’s Club, which is totally free! (Their adult version is $25 so free is awesome.) You get $5 off for each cool hundred that you drop in their store (books totally add up quickly tho) and the kids get a free cupcake on their birthday from the cafe. And they probably email you some coupons and stuff, I’m assuming. Since they asked for my email address. Or maybe they just want to sell it to make some money to pay the rent since everyone buys books on Amazon these days. (Which I totally get because I could have saved $3.08 buying them on Amazon. But I like to touch books and I miss bookstores.) Either way, I’m kind of cool with it.

MAMAS AND PAPAS AND ANYONE WHO HANGS OUT WITH THE LITTLES: How old was your kids when you started checking out library books? And do you prefer Amazon’s prices and convenience or the magical experience of actual bookstores? (I like a good combo platter myself.)

RAISING BABYSTAR: $19,577.70

Hop to It.

Published on April 17, 2017April 17, 2017 by Darlene Dee3 Comments

The Easter Bunny gets all the credit for hiding baskets on Easter morning, yet he (or she) always takes the money out of my bank account. So rude. Who keeps giving that rabbit my pin number?

There was BARELY any chocolate in that basket. Well, maybe a little more than that. Babystar ate all of it (except the bigger chocolate bunny which I hid and I hope she forgot about but she’s very smart about her chocolate so maybe not). She was like Cookie Monster, but with chocolate. Like Winnie the Pooh with his honey, but chocolate. Like Voldemort likes killing muggles, but with chocolate.

chocolate, about $4 worth, including a few small individually wrapped bunnies and kisses and a $1 Russel Stover bunny and a “carrot” full of m&m’s
Crayola egg crayons $10.59
Crayola 64 box of crayons $2.99
Crayola paint pens (BOGO but I put one directly into the craft closet) $4.99
stuffed yellow crayon $10.55
Re-play ‘big girl cups’ (7) $17.50
three pairs of sunglasses (two are hearts because I lost her faves which were $5.99 but I never listed them here whoops I’m doing it now) $16.97
flowers for planting in a cute egg carton $3
fairy doll $14.99
light up wand and ball (I bought these long ago and gave her one already) $3
Dr. Suess ABC board book $3.34
Oliver Jeffers ABC board book $6.85
easter socks $2.50
Goodnight Moon board book $4.99
cloth basket $3
fake grass $1

I also was going to add the Re-play forks and spoons to her basket but they wouldn’t fit. So they are just in the kitchen drawer. $12.

We bought $3 worth of plastic eggs for an egg hunt. And then bought stickers and small rubber stamps to fill them for $38.12. This baby is expensive. I should have just bought more chocolate.

And of course there was the requisite easter balloon ($3.50) which popped in the parking lot so we had to go in and get another ($3.50).

Oh, and she fell in love with a stuffed bunny while we were at the bookstore. It didn’t go in her easter basket but I’ll talk about it here. She was obsessed. Still is, in fact. She slept with the bunny last night and she NEVER sleeps with stuffed animals. ($12.99)

And we are dying eggs tonight, with my 3.5 yo niece, to spread out the Easter celebrations. I bought four dozen eggs on sale for $2. (Please don’t make me think about the living conditions of those poor chickens with eggs that ~~cheep~~ cheap. I had to make an easter pun to stop thinking about it. Poor, poor chickens.) We also bought giant marshmallows to color. ($3.29 x2) I also bought a $2 Paas tie-dye egg coloring kit. And some canned whipped topping ($5) and neon food coloring ($5.49 RIP-OFF) to try a method that the teens and I did successfully with shaving cream when I was pregnant but we are concerned the Littles might lick their fingers. I already have a large amount of vinegar. We are ready! BRB gonna go dye some eggs, y’all.

RAISING BABYSTAR: $16,211.37

College Applications.

Published on February 21, 2017April 9, 2017 by Darlene Dee6 Comments

Just kidding. Babystar is a long way from college. The Teenager has spent the winter meeting application deadlines for school in the fall. Not the baby. That would be ridiculous.

RIGHT?

Apparently not.

We just spent $100 on preschool applications for the fall. One application was $75 and I already know that Babystar is waitlisted. One was $25 but we have not heard back yet.

All the local mamas told me to try for at least three preschools, hoping to get into one. I didn’t listen; I only submitted two applications. But dude. She’s not even two (well, she will be two in the fall). I sort of figure that my ‘Option Three’ will be to not send her to preschool in the fall. Two-year-old classes are only two days a week for like three hours. It’s a big step, but also, it’s totally fine if she doesn’t go. Right?

Did I just BREAK THE BABY OH NO?!

(Just kidding. Probably. Hopefully.)

Btw, that video was taken at the library, which is FREE, although we did buy a Little Critter Numbers board book for fifty cents from the library sale.

RAISING BABYSTAR: $14,838.88