When we moved from Silicon Valley we managed to fit everything on one moving truck. Everything except our old Christmas Tree, the corner desk, and the Step 2 play house. That was both by design and a bit of luck. The old desk wouldn’t fit the new office (and one of the movers said he’d like if if we weren’t keeping it.) The Christmas Tree was a pre-lit tree, and the bottom section of lights worked only sporadically. The Step 2 house was assembled out on the patio and wouldn’t fit through the doorway without being disassembled first. As tends to be true of toddler toys, it was also missing a piece.

Of the three the one I sometimes regret is that Step 2 house. I convinced myself it wasn’t in the best of shape, wouldn’t have survived the disassemble/reassemble process, and wouldn’t have fit into the truck even if was disassembled. The last point is probably the most true of them all. Still, I felt bad that Nicole wouldn’t get to play with her house anymore, and that Alexis would never have the chance.

I was thinking about it last weekend and decided to do some poking around online. Wouldn’t you know it, Walmart was having a sale. It wasn’t as good as the Black Friday purchase we had previously gotten, but a decent deal. In the cart it went.

There are apparently at least two different cottages with the same basic coloring. The really ironic thing? The one we had previously from Amazon (without the grill) matched the image on the product page on Walmart. The one that just arrived from Walmart (with the grill) matched the product page of the one we previously bought on Amazon. If I had to pick, I think I like the current one (with the grill) better, if only because there were three screws to secure the sink instead of one and it seems more stable. Alexis loves to climb through the window and she does that by grabbing the sink and putting all her weight on it. Then again, the old one had two seats which also would have been nice given the two kids.

Both girls were super excited for their new house. Alexis rang that door bell for hours, and Nicole spent quite a while making strawberry salad on the grill.

Truth be told I am still a little frustrated with myself that I made the same purchase twice. Not very frugal. Than again, if it didn’t fit on the truck it would have cost us much more to have it moved than it was worth. I just need to keep reminding myself that. Hopefully we stay put now for a very long time. Moving is expensive in so many ways.