Holiday How-To #2: Mr. Potato Head like you've never seen him before... *Edited with new info!*

***EDITED INFO...

Ok, so after posting this, I went to Wal-Mart - totally excited to score 2 Mr. Potato Heads for a buck, and the crankypants old lady at the checkout informs me they do NOT price match for Dollar General. Stupid radio ad says, "We will match any competitor's price." So, sorry if any of you tried this at Wal-Mart and it didn't work. But, if you've got a Dollar General - then hop to because the deal will still work there!

So, ever since Summer from Le Musings of Moi announced her Holiday How-To blogging carnival that's going on through the whole month of December, I've got ideas for holiday how-to posts just coming out my ears!

Coming up in the next few days you'll find these holiday how-to's on my blog...

*How to make a fun, inexpensive gift for your child or a child you know
*How to prioritize your week so you don't get overwhelmed with all the holiday hullabaloo
*How to let Healthy Choice take away some holiday stress (this one includes Healthy Choice coupons for one lucky reader)
*How to make some of my favorite holiday foods.
*How to put your Christmas ornaments up without putting up a tree to hang them on because your child will climb to the top of it, get tangled in the lights because they look like a "pitty neckick" (translation - "pretty necklace"), or choke herself with garland.

Today's idea is all about how you can get your child (or a child you know) a Mr. or Mrs. Potato Head doll for just 50 cents, and at the same time, you can get another Mr. or Mrs. Potato Head to donate to a child this Christmas.

This really takes care of two things for us this holiday season:

1. You're getting a fun, brand-new, not annoying or loud toy for your kiddo, or for some little munchkin on your Christmas list for a whopping 50 pennies. I don't even know if Goodwill would sell you Mr. Potato Head for that cheap. Even if they do sell them for 50 cents, this way you're guaranteed to get one that won't have snot from someone else's kid on it.

2. It allows you to give this holiday season without breaking your bank. So many of us are not in a place where we can just bust out the checkbook and give to charity right now, but what a great opportunity this would be to help out a little cutie pie in your town this Christmas.

I think most communities have toy drives going on this time of year, and they usually want new, unwrapped toys. If you're unaware of any, contact your local Salvation Army, shelters, children's hospitals, or your local Child Protective Services office - they're always in need of toys this time of year.

Ok, so how do you make this magic happen? It's easy.

First of all, go to www.coupons.com and print out 2 of the $2 off Mr. or Mrs. Potato Head coupons. The site allows you to print just two.

Next, head on over to your local Dollar General store where these toys are currently on sale for $2.50. So...$2.50 minus a $2.00 coupon = 50 cents.

Now, if your Dollar General store is out of them (like mine was), go to www.dollargeneral.com and print out the ad (or, pick up one of the actual ads if you're in the store) - the Mr. Potato head sale price is on page 7. Take the ad to Wal-Mart, where they match any competitor's prices from a print ad.

Now grab 4 quarters and a few pennies for tax and go get you some Mr. Potato Heads! I would also recommend getting yourself a chocolate bar while you wait in line. You deserve a tasty reward, you frugal woman, you!

The latest scoop on poop

Before I get into our latest story, you should probably go read about our first bathtub poop experience - click here to read "Fishin' for Turds - My Maiden Voyage." It'll help you understand why I'm so excited about a certain bath toy that functions as so much more than just a bath toy...

If you're new to my blog, then you may very well have missed out on a lot of my crappier posts. And by crappier I don't mean that they were bad posts. There were just a lot of posts about, well - about crap, quite literally. They are all still very near and dear to my heart.

There was "Can't a girl just poop in peace?" - a post about how I eventually learned the art of the "fake poop" just to get a few moments all to myself.

There was, "Well, that's just crap-tastic" - a post about my child's first piece of artwork fashioned out of nothing but straight up baby crap.

Then, we had the aforementioned post about my first experience delving into the murky waters of the bathtub poop.

In case you decide to rob yourself of a good laugh and you decide not to read that post, basically I just talked about the first time I barehanded a baby turd out of the tub. It was the tiniest little turd you ever did see, and I wished to high heaven that I would have had a little net to scoop it up with.

Well, not too long after that fun little escapade, my mom got Kaylee some bath toys that all had a fishing theme. There's a fishing pole, fish that squirt water, foam water creatures that stick to the side of the tub, and perhaps most importantly, a "fishing" net so your kiddo can scoop up the toys as if they are on a fun fishing trip. Here's the gorgeous net I speak of.














See, whoever designed this set of bath toys was undoubtedly a parent. They realized that kids would see this as a fun mechanism for collecting toys. But, they knew parents would take one look at this net and they'd instantly come to the realization that this handy dandy net doubles as a poop net.

It's hard to believe, but several months have come and gone, and all the toy has been used for is scooping up toys. But, all good things must come to an end.

Two nights ago as I was sitting on the couch, doing some stuff for work and watching the season premier of Army Wives, I suddenly hear the booming voice of my husband coming from the bathroom where he was giving Kaylee a bath.

"Sera?!?!? Guess who just took a crap in the tub!"

"SERA!!! Get in here!!!"

I start giggling to myself, put my papers down, and run for the bathroom. This time, we had just a bit more than the tiny pencil eraser sized turd. There were multiple sinkers and floaters, and we needed a plan.

I grabbed a towel and Dennis handed me the baby (I was still laughing to myself as I took her to her room to dry her off). I reminded him about the baby turd net, and he bravely fished the turds out of the tub.

So, we finally got to use the "fishing" net for what I believe it was truly designed for. And I'm not even upset that I wasn't the one who got to break it in. I know my time is coming...