Why pay retail?

As you probably already know, I'm a huge fan of consignment and Craig's list when hunting for things for the Bean. The Bean and I have recently found a fun new place to shop, the Goodwill. I had no idea till we stopped in a while ago how clean and well organized it is. When toy shopping, unlike at consignment stores though, there's no cleaning done before, it may or may not work, and may or may not have all the pieces. Often things that don't work in the store ( they don't replace batteries) are marked way down. Things come with a 7 day return policy happily. He can easily spend an hour plus playing in the toy aisle and doesn't care if we buy anything when we leave. So it's awesome cheap rainy day entertainment about a 5 min drive from our house. 

This was a fun find from this week. Retail, approx $30. I paid $2. Plus the new batteries it needed. For my little bubble addict, it's the perfect toy. Hard to tell from the pic, but it blows bubbles! And plays music on it's own plus you can push the keys to make it say other things. 

From The Bean

The Bean found my Chromebook and needed to express himself

o0lpl;x  ,.o.i.u yx dfcud

ysoUji8ij i8 u

Quite the story, huh? :)

Gymnastics

The Bean loves to climb, jump, roll, and basically just be active. He and I started parent and tot gymnastic classes a few weeks ago. We are taking them at Seattle Gymnastics Academy, which is a real gym, as opposed to one of the many options geared toward toddlers. The plus is, if he likes it, he can continue in classes alone after he gets to old for the parent tot classes (around 3 years old). The downside is that its a huge gym with all kinds of equipment and multiple classes at the same time. The kids all cycle through different stations, so they never interact with the others classes, but its a big area with lots of exciting looking stuff.

Its taken the Bean a little bit to get comfortable. We start our classes at a huge pit filled with big foam blocks. They can play in it, go down a slide into it, swing on a ring into it, or in his case, watch the other kids do all these things. Finally last week (our third class), he decided the pit looked fun and climbed in!

Overall he loves the class. His favorite thing is a long trampoline called a tumble track that they get to run down. We don't do that station every time, but he loves it. No class this week since its the Seattle School District's Spring Break, so we will have to see next week how much he can do. Jeff hasn't been able to go with us yet, but maybe next time. Then I can get more pics :)

Spring Picture

Last year we had super cute bunny pictures taken at a local photo studio. As much I wanted to do them again this year, we just didn't think they'd work out. He is still animal obsessed and is way more aware, so it would be harder to sneak the bunny into the picture like we did last year.

We went to one of our favorite consignment sales though, and a photographer had a little Spring set. It took about 20 min to get this picture and he was not posing for it. He was much to busy! I like it better than a posed pic though, as his personality really shows.

Floor picnic gone wrong

The Bean is at the age where sometimes he will sit and eat and sometimes he likes to graze. I don't understand the underlying drive that all toddlers have to graze, but there must have been some survival reason for it. Usually a grazing floor picnic works out ok for lunch, but this time not so much. After he laid waste to the kitchen, at least he had his train to make a get away on!!