Gift Cards

I have so much to catch up on that I'm trying to break it down into smaller posts. This one is totally materialistic about our recent purchases with all our holiday gift cards!  We had a lot of gift cards once Christmas was over, including $200 back from our cell phones we got a few months ago.  Here's what we got:

I had $35 to Walmart which I used on new jeans, a shirt, and a new wallet.  I had planned the new jeans to be a second pair so I wasn't always wearing the same jeans everyday.  But then I discovered the start of a whole in my old pair.  The wallet was needed to replace my old one, too.  The shirt was just because I liked it.

William got a $50 gift card from Mike's aunt.  Most of that went towards pjs since he is so long he has outgrown all the 0-9 month Carter's sleep sacks we have.  (I have have now lent those out to a friend with a newborn).  I also bought him a light blocking curtain for his window, two shirts, and a pair of jeans.  The jeans barely fit him even though they are 3-6 month size.  I would love to exchange them, but, even though its January, Walmart has almost exclusively shorts out for infant clothes!

Our biggest purchase using our cellphone gift cards was a Kindle.  We've been thinking about this purchase for a year now.  We decided to not get the color one and to get the ads and just WiFi, making it much cheaper than the best model out there.  We figure with our new smart phones we don't need all that other stuff right now.  We did get a nice case for it with a built in book light.  We went with the Kindle because reading in sunlight was more important to us than having to use a book light in the dark.  It is very cool how the screen really does look like paper.  We tried to borrow an ebook from the library right away, but anything I wanted either wasn't available as an ebook or was already wait listed.  So, we bought Under the Dome since it is such a huge book it is easier to read it on a small device.  I've been enjoying reading it to break our new toy in.  (Even though I have at least two other library books handing around the house).

At Walmart we spent some more gift card money.  Mike got a new griddle to use for Sunday morning pancakes, grilled cheese and such.  We had been using an old Forman grill, which was much smaller and had a crappy grill side that never worked properly.  We got a new trash can for the kitchen.  A trash can might not seem worthy of gift card money, but we hated our old one.  The lid always came off and you could overfill it.  We got a new red one with a flat lid and a button that releases the lid.  Its awesome!  It makes our daily lives just a little bit better.  Lastly, we bought wireless printer. Where the grill was really for Mike, the printer was more for me.  Before, the printer was downstairs hooked up to Mike's computer.  So, if I wanted to print anything, I had to go turn on his computer downstairs, turn on the printer, wait for his computer to boot, make sure his computer didn't go back into hibernate from inactivity, print, and then go back downstairs to make sure it printed and pick it up.  A real pain in the butt, especially with two kids upstairs to be watching.  This new printer is in the living room.  I've used it several times already.  Most noteably I've used it for copying coloring sheets.  Before Natalie colors, I make a copy, that way we always have the same design.  I've also printed out photos on regular paper and soon I need to print our master weekly shopping list and it won't be a hassle. 

When Mike's credit card rewards come through, we will be buying a breathable crib bumper for William because he is getting his limbs caught in the slats almost every night.  Additionally, we have two gift cards for the movies and one for Fridays.  Now we just need to decide when we want to go to a movie and get a baby sitter.