retail therapy

well, sort of. it was actually more of a bean-exchange-apalooza. some of the lovely gifts she'd received at the big birthday bash were, unfortunately, too small for her and/or duplicates of stuff she already had, so i'd gathered it all up and put it in the car.

first, we made a target run - i needed to replenish some household supplies and stopped to peruse the $1 bins at the front of the store first. hey, there's some good shit in there.

i giggled at this - amber will know why.

as we pushed a giggling bean in the shopping cart through the store, i let out a loud gasp and snatched this off of an endcap in the electronics department:

as i'd posted on my facebook account, mama needed a new iPhone case. heh. well, maybe it wasn't really a "need," but the white one i was currently rocking was pretty grungy and icky. that's what i get for going with a white freaking case, but hey, it'd been on clearance. while i love my new case, i'm slightly bummed that cutouts are missing for the power and volume buttons, but it's so damn cute, i make do.

while the hub thinks that everyone that has to do with "yo gabba gabba" is probably high as a kite during tapings, the rest of us in the wan house think it's a pretty darn fun show. i love the cute merchandise, too:

we stopped at burger king for some refreshments, where the teen decided to indulge in their vanilla cupcake shake, topped with whipped cream and rainbow sprinkles. i thought it went quite nicely with the crazy shorts she was sporting that day.

we giggled at the ginormous straw that came with it, dubbed the "BK pipe." you can imagine all the lame ass jokes i cracked about that thing. their website says "so thick, you might want to ask for a BK PIPE® straw to avoid straw-cloggage." heh.

i got a kids' meal and this was the toy in the bag:

what can i say, i'm pretty easily amused.

our next stop was even more fun - toys r us. the teen ran right over to the guitar/DJ/your mama hero display and tried her hand at the turntable.

the bean had her first lollipop a couple of weekends ago and, predictably, loved it. of course - it's freaking flavored sugar on a stick! everything's better on a stick. i managed to find a package of organic lollipops, tore it open, and handed her one in the hopes that she'd stay put in the cart for a while.

alas, it was not to be. as soon as we got to the aisle with the riding toys, i lost both of 'em.

in between rides, she found this cute little futon thingy. she climbed right in, laid back, and pretended to go to sleep. and whenever she does this, i say "oh, shhhhh, she's sleeping!" and a nanosecond later, those eyes pop open, she grins, and says "aaaah-tup!" which is, obviously, bean-speak for "i waked up!"

riding toys have come a hell of a long way since the shitty plastic big wheels and green machines of my time. dudes, check out this purple corvette - complete with boombastic speakers built in behind the headrests!

the girls didn't let a little thing like barriers hold them back - they climbed right over 'em and hopped in the different vehicles.

mini-cadillac escalades. good god. for the price of these, you could probably find a real used car somewhere.

we had a ball, though, and that's all that counts, right?

yesterday, we met up with my cute cousin seven for a quickie visit. she was in town for a work meeting and managed to squeeze in some time for us, which was fantastic. we met up at the mall, where we proceeded to drag her through several different stores on our continued quest to exchange bean birthday gifts. poor thing. but we had a great time chatting and catching up, and i'm excited that we'll be seeing her at my brother's wedding next month too.

so i've decided that havaianas are NOT necessarily the "world's best rubber flip-flops" after the issues i've had with them. i'd also bought a pair for the bean last summer, although she grew out of them faster than she could wear them. then i'd gotten a letter from nordstrom that told me they were being recalled for excessive levels of lead in the decorative paint. yikes. of course, by then we'd moved and i thought the sandals were either lost in a box in storage somewhere or that i'd given them away or something.

well, lucky me - i was digging through a box in the closet last week and managed to find them. of course, since the recall was months ago, they no longer carried them and had to hunt around to find another pair to scan the tag - but yay for me, they simply credited my account for the full price! bonus.

as we strolled through the BP area, the teen and i both squealed at the sight of their extensive line of exclusive "new moon"-themed tees and accessories. while seven looked on in amusement, we ooh'ed and aah'ed over the cute tops and necklaces. they even had life-size cutouts of rob pattinson and taylor lautner, "edward" and "jacob" respectively.

despite being well aware of the futility, i am TEAM JACOB all the way.

you, too, can have your very own jacob cut-out for a mere $33. plus tax.

no, i didn't get one. nor did the teen.

that doesn't mean we didn't think about it, though.