the smiths: September 2011

Warning: If you are convinced that a great deal is worth it NO MATTER WHAT then I caution, urge, and beg you to stop reading now.

It all started on a relaxing July afternoon. Sawyer was down for a nap, so I had a little time to kill. I jumped on Facebook and saw that someone had posted about a good deal going on for Melissa & Doug toys on the site 1SaleADay. I had never heard of that site, but thought I would check it out. When I found the deal I was surprised that it included 3 different wooden toys (a puzzle, tools, and shape blocks) for only $25 plus $5 for shipping. Not bad, I thought to myself, 3 nice toys for 10 bucks apiece. So I e-mailed Shane the link to see what he thought, 'This looks like a GREAT package deal. Do you think it is worth it??' and he agreed that we couldn't go wrong.

But wrong it could! I got all signed up on the site, then proceeded to the checkout with my GREAT deal. As I entered my information and clicked the purchase button, I received an error alert telling me that my billing address and zip code didn't match. Weird. So I thought maybe I had entered something in wrong. I went back and tried again. Same error message. Now I was starting to get a little frustrated. I gave it another shot, thinking that maybe my auto-fill information was throwing it off. I laboriously typed in all of my information again. ERROR. I believe I tried about 6 times before giving up. Maybe this deal wasn't worth it.

I was just about to give up when a little birdie whispered in my ear that I had now submitted my billing information 6 different times and that maybe, just maybe, my credit card had been charged. Yep, all 6 times. So now my GREAT deal had cost me $179.88. What the?!? Wonderful, now I had to contact this stupid company. E-mail to Support: Blah, blah, blah. I only want ONE of these orders. Please fix this and get back to me ASAP. While I was waiting for the response, I checked my credit card and the charges were pending removal, but not 5 like I requested, all 6.

Response: Dear Valued Customer, I need your order number to better assist you. Have a wonderful day!
To Support: I never received order numbers because it said the orders didn't process. All 6 charges are removed. Now what? I still want this item.
Response: Try using PayPal. (with a little more embellishment.)

Fine. Let's try this one more time. I didn't have a PayPal account, so I got on to set it all up. But when I got to the part about my credit card number, it told me that the credit card was already assigned to another account (Shane's.) So I tried logging in under Shane's name, but couldn't figure out the password. I called Shane and he gave me the right password. Back to try again. This time it actually went through, I got my order number, and wah-lah, all I had to do it wait for it to ship. Right?

That night, as we were waiting for the final Harry Potter movie to start, I pulled up my e-mail on my phone and saw the confirmation e-mail for my order. But the shipping address said it was headed to PROVO. That was our old address from when we first got married. When Shane set up his PayPal account, that was where we lived. He had never changed the address and I didn't know this! So I must contact Support yet again. To Support: Blah, blah, blah. The address it is heading to is my OLD address. Can you send it here instead?

Response: Dear Valued Customer, Your order has already been submitted and unfortunately the shipping address is unable to be changed as per fraud prevention requirements. I recommend that you notify the tenants at that address to receive or refuse the package for you. Once it is refused, we will reship it to the proper address. Have a wonderful day!

WHAT THE!?! How the heck was I supposed to contact the tenants at that address? This stupid order was SO not worth this! So I did what any rational person would do, I wrote a note. Dear current tenants, Blah, blah, blah. When you get this package will you please refuse it? Call me if you have any questions. ~Riley

I sent it off, hoping that it would beat the package. I received an e-mail telling me my order had shipped and giving me a tracking code. Thankfully, the package was slow. I thought this might all work out in my favor. If I could call it that at this point. But little did I know, when I opened my mailbox one day and saw some familiar handwriting on one of the envelopes, that I was in for more trouble! Stamped across my letter to the current tenants it said VACANT. Yes, no one lived there!!! CRAP, CRAP, CRAPPITY, CRAP! Now what?

I continued to track the package and decided that the best thing to do was wait and see what would happen to it. If it got delivered, I would go pick it up. If not, then it should be headed back to them and resent to me. Of course it just got delivered and left on the front porch. Being the great guy that he is, I asked my brother-in-law Jeff to swing by and pick it up on his way home from work one day. He told me it was a little beat up, but there! Phew!!

After all of this, I finally got my package. As I opened it up, I was sure there would be something wrong. It couldn't possibly be this easy to get such a GREAT deal, could it? But, it was all there, just as it should be. We gave Sawyer the shape blocks that night and he had a blast. I think we'll save the other two for gifts when he gets a little older.

Isn't that the GREATEST deal you've ever heard of?

Sawyer is now 16 months. Holy cow! He is just bursting with personality these days. He loves to growl at people and have them growl back. It is hilarious when he does this with strangers because they have no idea why this small child is growling at them! He is also completely food obsessed. He has been for quite a while, but now his latest word is cooking. Yes, his fifth word is cooking. Anything to do with food or the kitchen is now 'coogy' to Sawyer. If he is hungry, I hear this word about 50 times in a row. His favorite thing to do now is help cook, especially stirring. He loves to carry around a tupperware and spatula and stir to his little heart's content. He is still a little stinker because he doesn't care about learning any other new words. He only cares about saying words of things that he really likes. Stubborn. He can identify his ears, foot, and belly button, but only when he feels like it. He is walking/running all over the place now. It is getting hard to keep up with him sometimes. He is also not a very good listener yet. He thinks he gets to do whatever he wants now that he can walk. Let the (attempted) training begin! One of his favorite games is to be chased by Shane. He laughs so hard, turns on a dime, and takes off whenever Shane growls at him. He has gotten quite a few teeth in the last month, including some molars. But his teeth are only coming in on the left side. Not quite sure why, but it is definitely strange! At his doctor's appointment this month he weighed 21.5 pounds which is only the 12th percentile. But he measured 30.5 inches long which made him jump from the 18th to the 29th percentile in just 3 months! He is growing up so fast.

Here are his 16 month pictures. As you can see in one of them, he has the Smith top teeth gap. Poor boy!