Stay at Home Mom

Thanksgiving weekend is a great time to go to the movies with the kiddos. We always love going to the matinee and taking advantage of the matinee prices.

The Fantastic Mr. Fox opened today and is getting great reviews. The voice talent is spectacular and the story is based off a book by Roald Dahl ( also wrote James and the Giant Peach and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ). The stop action filming of the movies sounds really cool and I’m looking forward to getting out there and seeing this one. I love movies that are based on books. Last year the movie the Tale of Despereaux inspired my son to get into reading ( he read that book 3 times ).

The movie website has some fun games along with movie info.
CHECK IT OUT

READ Fantastic Mr. Fox CLICK HERE

What was your favorite book / movie tie-in?

Here is a fun idea for Halloween Night. We used to have a Mystery Dinner every year at our church for all of the kids who volunteered over the year. We would be treated to a formal sit down dinner and the parents would serve us. The only thing was that we had to choose 5 menu items for each course and each menu item was in “code”.

On the menu you might order a SPEAR and you would end up with a fork. It was always funny when someone got spaghetti, pudding, soup, a cracker, and their drink for their first course (and no silverware).

My daughter is having a party this weekend and we were trying to think of something fun and different to do and I remembered the mystery dinner. So after several online searches we decided to customize our list to a Halloween theme. We started out with the menu items and then tried to give them Scary Code Names.

Here is what we came up with:

printable STAYATHOMEMOM’S HALLOWEEN MYSTERY DINNER (PDF) click here

Have you guessed what each item is?

Here is the PDF with the menu items and their corresponding true menu item

Have fun with this. Start with your menu then create your own “mystery dinner”. Let us know how it turns out. Send pics!

Happy Halloween!

October 23, 2009

Stayathomemom.com officially announces Mom’s night out.

One of the things that keep us sane – especially during those years when the kids are little – are those connections we have with our friends.

When my kids were very little I actually took a girls retreat for an entire weekend. It was only once a year but it carried me through the rest of the year and restored my necessary patience load that had somehow depleted throughout the previous year.

This October 23 is the PERFECT night to get together with your girl friends and treat yourself to a night out for several reasons.

1. If you haven’t already lined up the halloween costume by then you know you will be tying plastic snakes in her hair and calling her Medusa or slapping together some other uber easy costume.
2. Once you hit October 31 you enter full on holiday season and getting together for a leisurely night out will be a challenge

and

3. ( Most importantly ) October 23 is the premier of “Motherhood” the film – starring Uma Therman.

Face it – on Mom’s night out you are probably going to end up talking about the kids anyway. This movie is sure to bring us all together in our motherhood humanity and the challenges that we all face – even when those challenges all happen in one single day.

Remember: It’s not babysitting when the dad is watching the kids – it’s a special night at home with daddy and kids to watch movies together, pop popcorn, play games, and maybe even stay up late.
But if you need to then pool a babysitter and meet over at one friends house with a couple of babysitters and let them watch a few kids. It can be a great night for everyone. ( more on night out solutions later ). Don’t let the lack of a babysitter keep you from Moms night out October 23.

Every June we look optimistically forward to the upcoming lazy days of summer and, in what seems to be a blink of any eye, then rolls on into September and comes to an end.

Near the end of July it starts – hints of back to school specials and back to school shopping. It can be a little ugly and we try to ignore it as long as possible. But then it happens: Back to School.

Tomorrow we have to go in to register kids for school again and that means we are on the homestretch. Just a couple of weekends before we are back into the full swing of Fall / Winter activities.

But for today I am going to enjoy the sunshine and the teenagers outside helping our boys with their landscaping tasks. I’ll run to the store for Pizza and feed the crew in a few hours. Later tonight we may have a little campfire and sit out and watch the stars with the kids. And I’ll make a wish on a star that days like this will be preserved in my memory bank forever.

Bundle up and take the kiddos outside tonight for an awesome show – and it’s all free.

METEOR SHOWER

We love watching meteor showers. We pull out the sleeping bags and bundle up and head out to a spot where the lights are dim ( for best viewing ).

Tonight the moon is going to be pretty bright so you may have to deal with that but it is supposed to be a great show.

Kids love spending time with Mom and Dad hanging out in the back yard just talking and searching for the stars.

Ugh – I am just getting into the groove of summer break and saw the first back to school story in USA Today this morning.  According to the article, we are planning on spending less money this year on “back to school” shopping.

This is nothing new around our house.  We have a set budget for our back to school shopping and each year more and more of that budget is taken up by the supply list that the school posts in advance of the first day.  Each year it seems like the required supplies for each classroom expands.  I don’t mind pitching in to the pool of crayons and markers but that just means we get a little more creative with the kids “back to school” new clothes.

Here are some of the ways our kids make their back to school wardrobe new and updated without spending alot of money.

1. Clothes Swaps ( or as we used to call it Hand-me-downs )

This is a little bit of a new twist on an old tradition.  Our kids not only check out cousins and older siblings for hand-me-downs but they also negotiate swaps.

Sometimes the swaps involve toys or games or other clothes but sometimes they also trade clothes for chores.

2. Clear out old clothes

During the summer the kids go through their closets and clear out the old clothes that don’t fit anymore or are a little shabby and they often find that they have overlooked a cool shirt or a pair of jeans that had been pushed to the back of the closet or the bottom of the dresser drawer.

Taking care of the clothes they do like is one way to make the most of a smaller clothes budget.

3. Unique One of a Kind Designer wardrobes

Finally, we do add one t-shirt and hoody to their outfit each year.  The kids pick out their favorite color and we buy a very inexpensive plain t-shirt and plain hoody.  Typically, we find the t-shirts for a few dollars and the hoody can get up to $15 each but that is still not too bad.

Then, each kid creates a one of a kind shirt with fabric paint or other materials.  One kid splattered a variety of primary colors on a green hoody and it looked great.  Another shirt was covered with handprints.  Another t-shirt was covered with favorite lines from a favorite book ( that was my kids choice not mine and she loved it )

So, with a little creativity and house cleaning you can stretch your back to school dollars and have a little fun too.

How do we raise respectful, responsible children who know how to practice civility?  One dad’s solution was to turn off the TV.

READ HIS FULL ARTICLE HERE