Sharing Discovery...

I know I've mentioned a couple of times before that I am an Independent Educational Consultant with Discovery Toys. With Christmas being less than 80 days away, I wanted to blog today and offer all of you out there, who live anywhere in Canada, my expertise. My expertise that I am offering you is the opportunity to get some Christmas shopping done, particularily if you have children on your list. Leave me a comment on this blog with your email to book your personal Christmas shopping appointment (via catalogue) with me now or get a couple of friends together and earn free toys off your Christmas Wish List with a catalogue party. With 64% of our new fall line products $20 or less and our unconditional satisfaction guarantee*, you just can't afford to shop anywhere else for toys this holiday season!

*30 day guarantee on Books, CDs and DVDs

If you live in the US, you can leave me a comment as well and I can help you find a consultant in your area.

I also want to offer to any of you Canadians out there as well, if you are the age of majority and want to earn a little extra spending cash this holiday season, I am looking to expand my team and until October 17th, Discovery Toys is offering a recruiting bonus! Here is the usual rocket start kit for Discovery Toys in Canada:



Until October 17th, if you join Discovery Toys, they will add Jungle Tower (a new fall toy) FREE of CHARGE to your kit:

Baby Sale Scores

I remember back in the day, before I had children of my own, when I had never even heard of the babysale. Then a friend of mine had a baby. The following year, on her daughter's first birthday and right around the time they moved out of their PMQ and into a house, I remembered she had mentioned she was so busy with the baby sale. She told me about this great event where she could get second hand clothes, toys and such for her daughter at very reasonable prices. And because she volunteered her time on the Friday night and part of Saturday, she was able to get "first dibs" on items as they were unpacking them and putting them out on the tables Friday night while setting up for the sale Saturday. When she moved away, I forgot all about this sale until I was pregnant with Ryan. My pre-natal instructor mentioned it in one of our classes and although we didn't know the sex of our then unborn baby, I went. By the next sale, I was a member of the breastfeeding support group that puts on the sale, and I've never looked back. I'v blogged about the sale before. Two times a year, the sale is part of my life. Last spring's sale was the day after what my doctor wanted to be my elective repeat c-section (and as it turns out, I worked the sale all day and still didn't go into labour until late the next week!)

It is true that the best way to score the good "big" items is to watch diligently as they come in. But I often find I don't have the time for that and am usually off doing other things. My best deals on clothes are found while unpacking and even the next day, late in the sale, as I am tryig to get a jump start on reorganzing. This sale I scored some great deals and as I want to be a more fugal mom, I thought, hey some of these will make great Christmas gifts for my boys! (After all it is new to them!)

First of all, there are the two tubs of large duplo lego that I got. A volunteer had put it aside Friday night and didn't claim it before the end of the sale. We really don't like it when that happens because our consignors deserve the chance to have as much of their items as possible sell. Anyhow, I thought, wow! Ryan would love this and so I added it to my stuff which was being added up at a nearby table. I didn't even take off the tape and lift the lid to make sure it was infact lego. It could have been just about anything. Fortunately when I got home I was pleasantly surprised that it was in fact lego, lots of it, with more character pieces than I was expecting. It is currently hiding in a spare room closet, waiting for Christmas.





Brad also found two Disney DVDs (one of Mickey Mouse cartoons and one of Donald Duck cartoons) that I have yet to check out on our DVD player but the one doesn't looked scratched at all, but one does show a little wear. If they work well, they will also go aside for Christmas. As will the Winnie the Pooh and Tigger rainboots for Ryan.


Both boys need new snowsuits. I consigned the yellow fleece one with the car seat bunting bag that I had with Ryan and the navy and blue down filled one is only the perfect length for Adam now. If he grows at all this winter, it will be too short. So I bought this Winnie the Pooh fleece one. It has attachable booties, a hood but it is missing it's attachable mittens. But mittens I can get. And for $5 I couldn't let it sit there. For Ryan I go a blue one piece that has attachable mittens and booties plus a hood. It also has a fleece scarf and hat, plus the scarf has a pocket for a little teddy bear. This suit still had the tags on it and the person consigning it was asking half of the original price. So I got it.



Adam needs jeans. Before the sale he only had one pair of baby gap and one pair of demin overalls that fit him. Other demin I have are in the 6m+ sizes and too big for him yet. But I was able to find him some jeans and a couple of cute outfits.
These outfits are for now...





These outfits are going away as Christmas gifts for Adam...





Ryan grew so tall this summer that he needs new pants as well. But his waist is still so tiny that I was looking mostly for those adjustable waist pants for him. I also found him a couple of new sweaters that are long enough in the arms, 2 pairs of used robeez for wearing in the house and at playgroup as slippers plus an awesome wetsuit with built in floaties for the pool! I also found some hiking boots that I will use as Winter boots and two new books, one that will be great for taking along to restaurants.







I also found some bigger adjustable waist pants and some other assorted clothes that I am going to put away for Ryan for Christmas as well.




With the deals I was able to score at the baby sale, some items I've already gotten (like from the Anniversary Sale at Walmart and the Olympic Sale with Discovery Toys) I am almost finished my Christmas shopping for the boys! It feels great!

October already?!

The time is just flying. My littlest man is already 5 months old, a tooth is desparate to make it's escape from his gums, he babbles almost non-stop, rolls front to back and back to front plus he is now trying to push up onto his hands and feet (not knees for the crawling position). Only a handful of days into this month and they sure have been busy.

On the first, the local breastfeeding support group I belong to, Babies First, went to the "Let's Talk Baby" session at the local health unit. Let's talk baby is a session for moms (and babies) who have a baby under one years old. They cover a new topic each week and Babies First went because it was World Breastfeeding week here in Canada. I wanted to blog about World Breastfeeding Week as well since the theme this year is "mother to mother support" and that is exactly what the Babies First group I belong to is all about. Also, I know from first hand experience that mother to mother support can help you have a more successful breastfeeding experience.

The 2nd of the month was a Thursday and so it was our monthly Babies First meeting. Since we had some new moms come out (we had a couple of under 6 wk old babies join us...how exciting!) Tina asked me to speak about World Breastfeeding week again. We also talked briefly about our playgroup, the upcoming consignment sale and Dr. Jack Newman's visit in November. The 3rd was Friday and that means playgroup morning, but this was also the Friday night set up for the Baby Sale on Saturday. Ryan and I were very lucky that "gran-gran" Melanchuk was able to take a couple of days and come babysit him since babysale days are very long and busy.

I'll blog more about the baby sale in a later post, but over all I think it was pretty successful again. I was worried because there is so much construction going on around the venue, but it didn't seem to deter too many people away. Also while making our phonecalls and emails to consignors, it seemed like perhaps we had lost quite a few to postings and moves this summer but we picked up some new ones and there was still much to be had.

A couple of days to sit back and relax and tackle some household chores that fell to the wayside while we were busy gearing up for the sale. Which brings us to today. It is one of those wet, damp and dreary fall days. It is a perfect day to catch up on some blogging, change over the clothes in the closet from spring/summer to fall/winter (oh I forgot to mention that last week Mother Nature had a memory lapse and sent us some delightful Indian Summer weather with temps around 20 C all week!). I'm also going to make some chocolate chip cookies with Ryan later this afternoon and then we can curl up on the couch with some warm blankets and eat fresh warm cookies and watch some cartoons or build with some blocks.