Today's Special

Does anyone remember that show on Nickelodeon? It had something to do with a mannequin who came to life in a department store after hours. I think there were some sort of Muppets involved as well. And this whole rant is really off-topic anyway because what I was aiming to do was show you a list of things that are special to me today ... get it? Lame attempt, I know. Here are some things that I (and the fam) are loving right now.

I still cannot believe we scored a bottle of 360 allergy pills from COSTCO for only $15!!! I am serious, y'all. My allergy-stricken nose does not lie. After wasting years of cutting Zyrtec coupons for the upcoming allergy season, I have found an alternate solution! One bottle of Zyrtec (48 tablets) costs over $20 alone, so this was a steal. I have never had a problem with generic medicines ... if you read the labels, the generics and the real deal have all the same things in them. So, I basically just saved myself some paper cuts (from all the coupon cutting) and some moolah (360 tablets of Zyrtec would have cost almost $150)!

We've had this cool art display rod for a while, I've just been lazy about sharing. We have been looking for a good way to display the cartloads of art that our kids crank out on a daily basis. The fridge just doesn't provide enough room and occasionally I have trouble finding the fridge door handle amid all the art. Enter the Dignitet curtain wire. We actually scored this at Ikea. It is supposed to be a wire curtain rod, but we use it to display art. The rod came with clips to hold the supposed curtains, but we use it to hold the pictures instead. Now we have a great place to display all kinds of art in our playroom!

PS - I am not that original that I came up with this idea myself. The nice Swedish people at Ikea already had it on display at their store when we visited a few months ago.

Talking about Today's Special has now gotten me all nostalgic. Does anyone remember reading Highlights magazine? I have many fond memories of sitting at the hair salon as a kid and flipping through this kids' magazine and laughing at Goofus and Gallant or trying super hard to find the six difference between the two similar pictures. I really wanted I wanted my kids to read Highlights too, but they're still a little young. Enter High Five!! It's Highlights' version of their magazine for kids age 2-6! We've already received our first issue and they love it!

Matt recently returned from a trip to Philadelphia and he brought the kiddos back this Alphabet Magenetab. It's awesome because we have recently started to work on trying to draw the letters. It comes with a magnetized pen and as you draw along the lines, the pen makes the magnets pop up. I'm bad at explaining it, but you get the idea. The kids have really enjoyed it so far and it's an easy way to practice letters without having to pull out all the paper and crayons.

Ok, the kids don't appreciate this (yet), but I do! It's the March Madness app on my iPhone. It's great because it lets you watch any game, has real time scores, and let's you look at the entire and/or partial brackets. As a basketball fan, I'm in heaven this time of year anyway ... but this app just puts me over the top!

This last thing is amazing, so I have to prepare you. Now, I must warn you that if you don't have young, just potty-trained children, this may seem a bit anti-climactic. But this is one of the best things to have entered our house. Please welcome ... the Bemis Mayfair NextStep Toilet Seat with (WITH!) Built-In Potty Seat.

I'll pause until the applause dies down.

Finished? Ok.

This is the single greatest thing to ever come into our bathroom. We do not have a half bath, so the kids and any guests (and me during the day if I don't want to hoof it upstairs) all have to use the same potty during the day. We have transitioned away from little kiddie potties and only use the big potty now. We were using a removable potty seat, but we were endlessly taking it off and on and off and on depending on if a child or adult was using the potty. Plus, we didn't have anywhere to store the kids' potty seat. It seemed kind of gross (not to mention unsanitary) to see a potty seat hanging on a doorknob or on a towel rack, so I was elated to find this all-in-one seat.

Here's how it works (I know you are shaking in your boots with excitement) ...

When you open the potty seat, you see this:

The adult potty seat is ready to go and you can see the kids' potty seat that is magnetized to the toilet seat cover above. So if you were an adult using the potty, you'd be ready to go (literally and figuratively) at this point.

But say you were a three year old with a booty too little for the adult potty seat. Well, you'd just do this ...

And you'd be left with this ...

A little potty! What a great invention! And when you close the lid of the potty the kids' potty seat re-magnetizes to the lid so that when it's reopened, you have the adult seat again ... genius! I know, I know, it doesn't take much to amaze me these days. But anything that can prevent hanging toilet seats on doorknobs is a winner in my book.

Does anyone else have any items they are loving right now? Any cool apps or kid-friendly things that make your life run more smoothly? I think my love for our potty seat may last me quite a while!