Christmas for Free

Last Saturday I completed my Christmas shopping for my girls- and it was all FREE!!! 

Wanna see what I got?

Little Touch Leap Pad - Amazon price: $109.95

It also came with 3 books and their cartridges. 

Imagibricks- Amazon price: $44.94

Pop Up Tent and Tunnels (similar to the one above) Amazon price: $34.99

Pop Beads- Amazon price: $11.95

Mega Bloks School Bus (similar to the one above)- Amazon Price: $11.27

And the blocks to go with it too!

Fischer Price Train- Amazon Price: $24.17

Although the set I got did not have the extra blocks with it. Evelyn is in LOVE with this! 

Step 2 Wagon- Amazon Price: $39.59

But again, the blocks did not come with it. 

There are some other little books and a brand new dress for Anberlynn that I snagged as well.

So wanna know how I got all of it for free? 

I hosted a toy exchange last week!

This was the perfect time to host an exchange. It was before Black Friday and hopefully it will cut down the $ other participants are spending on their kids this year too.  I invited pretty much everyone I knew that had kids. 

Some people just brought things others brought stuff to exchange.

What a big relief to not only have the shopping done but to know that there's not going to be this huge budget squeeze coming up- especially since our budget is plumb dry! 

The Littles

Our little fish are pretty much mini adults now! It has been exciting to watch them grow. What I'm going to do with 80+ pleco fish I don't know but here's an up date.

Remember them from before?

This was from when they had first hatched and still has so much egg sack attached that they couldn't even swim!

And now:

Ha ha! You thought they'd be easier to see didn't you? 

These little buggers are great at camouflage!

There are about 10 of the little guys in each of the pictures above. Can you believe that? 

Here's a couple close ups:

Keep in mind that these guys are about the size of my fingernail! 

Who's the Mystery Mama?

Well, according to research, here's Dad (we call him Ike) :

Which means Mom could either be:

Rubber Nose Pleco (whom we have always called Mike but....)
*Update* 1/6/2012 Thanks to some very helpful and PATIENT people in fish forums the pleco below is actually a Bristle Nose as well!  When I bought them at the pet store they were labeled Rubber Nose and neither of them had any spikes. Yeah! MORE surprises! But it does explain a lot. 

or:

Clown Pleco (we haven't ever named this one! Any suggestions?) 

Right now the little guys with regular coloring look like they have stripes vs. spots the general consensus is that  Clown Pleco is the Mamma! Congratulations Mamma fish! 

To be honest I didn't even think that she was old enough to breed! We got her with a few other fish and she is much smaller than my other two but, well, SURPRISE! 

And that is what is going on in the Petros Pet Diaries. To be continued.....

What's On MY Wishlist? A FREE Cameo!!!

I {heart} Nap Time is hosting a give away for the new Silhouette and I entered. Yes I did! 

And I will enter every giveaway for one from here to the moon to get one too! 

This is one thing on my wishlist I couldn't / wouldn't buy myself, especially since I have my little Cricut but if I won it for free- no guilt and we'd still be able to eat! Win-win! 

Here's a few other sites that are hosting the same giveaway:

Eighteen25

Skip to My Lou

Kara's Party Ideas

Craftaholics Anonymous 

Little Miss Momma

Ucreate

Crap I've Made

Makeit-Loveit

I think all of them close on the 19th so get your entries in!