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Kansas City: Kaleidscope and Crown Center Mall
While visiting my college friend in Missouri, we decided to take our boys to Kansas City which is only half an hour from her house. Wanted to be thrifty, we decided to visit Kaleidoscope and Crown Center Mall. Kaleidoscope Hallmark Kaleidoscope is a place where children can be creative with art. Children use materials from Hallmark manufacturing to create their art. As certain things run out, the materials are replaced them with other materials. The materials often to a season or holiday. During our visit, the center was celebrating Kaleidoscope 50th anniversary so children were able to make birthday hats among other things. The center is free and distribute tickets…
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Sunshine and Pink Lemonade
This past week I saw a pretty look featured by Karen from Lady in Violet and knew right away I wanted to replicate it with items from my closet. I have seen the pink and yellow combo before but never tried it. First of all, I love this blouse!!! I love how it flows and while thin it is not see through. The sleeves are fun and not in the way because of their 3/4 length. I love the shade of yellow and stripes, why, yes! Another reason I love if is for sentimental reasons since I bought it on our trip to France this summer. I found it for…
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How we do screen time in our family
This summer, I definitely took a more laid back attitude towards screen time. While I did not let my children play electronics all day long, they did play more on their tablets that they usually do during the school year and watched a little more tv as well. When I noticed that my 20 month old’s favorite word was tv, and my oldest was being anti social, I decided to make some changes. We have all read about how to much time on devices affects children’s behavior, concentration and attitude. Today, I want to share what I do not limit that time when there are so many temptations to play…
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St. Louis zoo and turtle playground
On our way to visit my friends in Missouri and Kansas City, we decided to stop for a sleepover in St. Louis. It is about an 8 hour drive from Atlanta and we wanted to explore what the city has to offer. A week or so before we left, my friend informed me that the zoo was free as well as the botanical gardens and a number of museums so we decided to visit the zoo this time. We enjoyed our time in St. Louis so much that we are planning our spring break there next year. I wasn’t sure what to expect in a free zoo but oh boy…
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Midwest Road trip Outfits
Last week, I took the boys on a roadtrip to visit a college friend and a church friend that live about an hour from each other in Missouri/Kansas. The trip takes about 12 hours so we made our first stop in St Louis where we visited the zoo. I will share our experience there on Wednesday’s post. After reading Grace’s post on Graceful Rags on how to pack a capsule wardrobe for a trip using a color theme, I decided to follow her example and chose a coral and navy theme for my wardrobe. Our trip included outdoors and indoors activities and it turned out that the weather was actually…
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Stockpiling do’s and don’ts
Have you ever watched one of those tv shows that were popular for a while like “Extreme Couponing”? I was always amazed with the deals people would come across and impressed with their stock pile. However, the question is how much toothpaste do you actually go through in a year? Many of those deals were for toiletry and household items that either took lots of space or would last for a long while. These couponers also spent a lot of hours daily or weekly couponing. The following way is the way that I stockpile and my stockpile lasts about 2 months at the most. I do not stockpile on household…
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Zoo Atlanta
What a nice way to spend time with friends! Last week, one of my friends invited the boys and I to join her and her daughters at the Atlanta Zoo. I have had a yearly membership off and on over the years. As the zoo has made improvements the family membership has increased in price from around $99 to now $139 (2 adults and 4 children ages 3-17). Distance and busy schedules does not make it worth our while anymore to be members but thankfully my friend had just renewed her membership so we were able to accompany her for free on this outing. The weather turned out perfect for…
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July outfits
These are my July looks that I documented. Several of the items are new purchases this month too. JCrew skirt I have eyed this striped JCrew skirt for a while and did not purchase it last time it was on sale so when Audrey from Putting me Together posted it was on sale again I jumped on it. It looks like it is now only available in red stripe in size XS and S. I wear it in size S. I have also worn it with a white Tee and may do a remix post with it at some point. I think it would be cute with a graphic tee…
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Budget friendly snacks
One of the easiest ways for me to trim my grocery budget is by making snacks instead of buying snacks. While I am stockpiling for the first couple months of school by buying store snacks (such as granola bars, fruit pouches, chips) as I come accross sales, I have turned to making snacks sereral times a week these past 2 months. The boys are home and the boys are hungry! When home in the summer, the boys have 2 snack times during the day, around 10 am and around 2 pm. These are the choices they typically have and I encourage them to limit themselves to two snacks: dairy: yogurt…
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Tallulah Gorge
Last week, we visited a friend of mine and combined our visit with a hike at Tallulah Gorge. The gorge is about an hour from her house (and would have been 3 hours from mine) so we spent the night there before going to the gorge. We first spent a few minutes in the visitor center where there were some displays with taxidermed animals that are local to the area. We received a map from one of the rangers with directions to the different overlooks to see the fall and decided to walk the loop from the North rim across the suspension bridge to the South rim then across the…