Hard times at the post office?

Call me a domestic dunce - but get me out of my house and yes, I am one savvy shopper. Take the post office for example - one wouldn't think you'd have to barter with a mailman for postage. But believe you me, apparently it's a new thing.

You see I brought my cute little birthday invites to the post office to mail yesterday, and decided to double check with the mail man that they were indeed worthy of just one stamp. Let me lay out the scene in the form of a play:

Mailman (hastely and rudely): Oooh, no. That's gonna be 60 cents.

(And here's the thing that caught him totally off guard)

Me: Why?

Cue the stuttering, the sweating, and fumbling of papers.

Mailman: Oh...w-well-well. It's the rigidity.

Me: What's that mean?

Mailman: Well (taking the envelope from my hands...finally), let's see. Measures the envelope, practices sliding it through a makeshift "slot". Yup. It's just one stamp.

So there. Hmph. Rigidity my ass. What does that even mean? He didn't know... obvi. Moral of the story: the post office is desperate. Don't try to distract me with compliments of how cute my baby is. I may be a domestic dunce, but I am a cheapskate, frugal, savvy shopper. And I know my damn envelope dimensions. I'd call that a birthday party planning success so far, wouldn't you?

This you are not, you crazy mail swindler.

Brrr...

Well, I just came home with Hew from his first visit to Chuck E. Cheese - not sure if I created a monster by bringing him there so early in life, but my school was having a fundraiser there, and he really did have a blast! I learned that my son is the reason why they have buckles on rides... he LOVED riding the coin-operated cars and horses while standing. He also had his first slide trip, and loved that too - even though he had a tough time taking turns with his girlfriend :)

Anyway, we walked into the house and Hew literally shivered. I didn't realize how cold it really was for a good 20 minutes. I scoped out the thermostat and all it said was "Lo Batt" - apparently it runs on a battery? Well, when I looked at our other indoor/outdoor thermometer, I realized why Hew had the chills! It was 59 degrees in our house!

I replaced the battery (thank you very much), and the heat instantly kicked on. But seriously? I wouldn't have had heat otherwise? Pretty crazy to think that 2 AA batteries control the heat in my entire house.

Hew and I are currently huddling over the heat vents right now, warming our hands! Ugh!

Stay warm!

Birthday Madness!

Maybe I'm just a nerdy teacher - but I decided that Houston's first birthday will be an Eric Carle theme (aka: the Very Hungry Caterpillar). I just LOVE his bright colors, and Houston really likes the few board books we have illustrated by Eric.

So I've been scouring the web for some party ideas and came across these SUPER CUTE cupcakes! Check them out and let me know what you think! I'm thinking of foregoing a traditional cake and using these instead. They seem do-able, right? Right?

And when I make the cupcakes, I'll make sure I don't have the oven mitt on backwards like the last time I cooked, thus burning my entire palm... ugh.