Free Activities for Kids

I am always looking for free things for my daughter to do. The most obvious for me was Story Time at nearby libraries. We are lucky enough to have two libraries within a decent distance. So every Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, my daughter has something free to do.

Another free activity my daughter absolutely loved was Gymboree. You can try out one free class of Gymboree; if you enroll the same day as your free trial, then you get a reduced monthly rate. I thought $72 a month was a bit much for an hour a week gym class. Instead, I have opted to become a lifetime member for $35, then go to Open Gym for $8 each time. **Although this is not totally free, you still get one free class out of it.

Another way to find free kids activities is to do a simple search. In the search bar enter: free kids activities in (enter your town here). I am fortunate enough to live in a large enough city to have lots of options.

Get together with other parents as well and pool your information. If all else fails, go to your local park and take a soccer ball or kickball with you.

Kids Eat Free or Reduced

Like most families, ours has been hit with financial difficulty. I have been scouring the Internet to find great deals whenever possible. I have come up with things to do and places to go where kids can eat free or reduced or try a free activity. Today I will let you all know some places where kids can eat free or reduced.

MONDAY
TGI Friday's - kids eat free
Joe's Crab Shack - kids meal $.99

TUESDAY
Spaghetti Warehouse - kids eat free for dinner
Fazoli's - kids eat $.99 from 5-8 pm
Denny's - kids eat free from 4-10 pm
Chick-fil-a - kids eat free 5-8 pm
Central Market - kids eat free w/ purchase of adult entree 5-9 pm
McAlister's Deli - kids eat free
Joe's Crab Shack - kids meal $.99

WEDNESDAY
Luby's - kids eat free after 4 pm
Central Market - kids eat free after 5 pm
Joe's Crab Shack - kids meal $.99

THURSDAY
Joe's Crab Shack - kids meal $.99

SATURDAY
Luby's - kids eat free

SUNDAY
Souper Salad - kids aged 3-5 eat for $.50; kids aged 6-12 eat for $.99

ALL WEEK
IHOP - kids eat free from 4-10 pm
Cici's Pizza - kids under 3 eat free
Souper Salad - kids eat free

Also, never hesitate to ask your local restaurants if they have days when kids eat free or reduced. I have made it a habit to always ask this question. FYI: Taco Cabana does not, as of this time, have any kids deals. Another helpful tip, go to restaurant websites and sign up for their e-mail lists. Sometimes you will get a coupon for a free appetizer or dessert.

How to Check Young Children for Colorblindness

I was recently concerned that my daughter was colorblind. She could quickly name off some colors, such as orange, purple, brown, blue, and white, but was frequently mixing up red and green. I was searching online for ways to check to see if she was colorblind. I found the most common test which is a group of dots, some of which are colored certain ways to reveal a pattern of numbers. Since my daughter cannot yet recognized her numbers yet, I continued searching. I found the same test over and over again, then I found it once more except some wise parent had used shapes instead of numbers. I thought this was great because my daughter can easily name circles, squares, and stars. I showed her the test and I happily found out that she is not colorblind.

Please go to www.CoolMommyBlog.com to view the test you can use for young children.

Dollar Menu's a Waste of Money

Although most moms wish they could be super moms 24/7, the reality is, we can’t. We are stressed, low on time, and the kids are hungry. Sometimes we slip and run through a fast food restaurant. We think we are saving money with dollar menus. The truth is… we really aren’t.

In most fast food restaurants, a large size is equivalent to two or even three small sizes. For example, a small fries for a dollar sounds good, right? Wrong! At McDonald’s (inventor of the dollar menu), a large fries costs about $1.69. If you buy two small fries, which would be about the size of a large, that would cost you $2.00 plus tax! This may not seem like much but it adds up.

It may be convenient to you to buy separate fries for each kid, but not to me. Just keep a few zip bags in your car and next time you settle for fast food, divide up one large portion into smaller portions. So next time you think about the dollar menu versus the regular menu, take a minute to add up the difference you could save if you split large sizes. Even if kids aren’t in tow, this is a good way to save money on a quick lunch, especially since a lot of fast food restaurants are now incorporating healthy options onto their dollar menus.

Along with McDonald’s, Sonic has also introduced a dollar menu with good sized portions. Chick-fil-A also offers a free kid’s meal on Tuesday’s with the purchase of an adult meal.

Sesame Street Live

Last night we attended Sesame Street Live. It was so much fun watching Abbie have fun and sing and dance along with the characters. My favorite part was when Big Bird was talking and Abbie would say, "Hi Big Bird, Hi Bird Bird!!!" It was ridiculously cute! We also noticed a family in front of us that I though had a really great idea. Their child was maybe 12-14 months and they had brought their portable booster seat. They set it up in the chair and the child had a boost to see the show; and they used the tray to give him snacks. When I saw this, I thought to myself, they have done this before. Intermission came after about forty-five minutes. Since Abbie did have a bit of a cold and didn't feel very well, she was started to give out, so we decided it was time to go home. This was the most fun I have had in a long time!!

Edible Play-dough

I was browsing through the Internet and came across a recipe for edible play-dough that I wanted to share. This is actually Kate Gosselin's recipe (Jon & Kate + 8) but I thought the more mommy's that have this secret weapon, the better. Just mix equal parts honey, peanut butter, and powdered milk; you can also add a little bit of flour to thicken. This serves as an activity and then as a snack. But watch out for peanut allergies, and don't give it to children younger than one year old since babies shouldn't have honey until that age.

Entrepreneur Mommy

I have now added a new page to my site. It is called Entrepreneur Mommy. Take the initiative and start your own business!!! What better time than the start of a new year? You can go to www.CoolMommyBlog.com and click on the link 'Entrepreneur Mommy' at the top of the page to check it out and see what it's all about!!

Party Time

Today was my grandmother's 65th birthday. I made an entire cake, frosting included, from scratch. It was an excellent attempt at a red velvet cake with butter cream frosting. Then we had fantastic barbecue for dinner. I haven't had red meat in quite a long time, so the barbecue was exceptionally good to me.

My daughter is about fifteen months old right now and is currently loving the fact that she can drink out of straw. She is also mastering unscrewing the plastic cap off of a bottle. She has some of those giant foam puzzle piece mats that are currently built into a house for her to play in. She loves sitting in there. She has also done the sweetest thing... I was laying down on the floor and she brought me a pillow for my head.

I have been turning the house upside down searching for anything and everything I can list on eBay. (Search seller ID texas_cowpoke if you are interested) I have done really well selling my old college books on eBay. It has been a fast money maker.

I have also discovered Amazon Mechanical Turk. I have made quite a bit of cash with that as well. To sum it up, people list tasks for you to do; you pick from the lists of hundreds of tasks that pay anywhere from $0.01 all the way up to $20.00 per task; if the person who listed the task likes your work, the accept it and pay you. It is actually pretty simple and easy to do. I have made a pretty good chunk of money relatively quickly doing this. Five minutes here and there really add up.

If you know of any other quick money makers, please leave a comment and let me know about it. Anything to make the ends meet, ya know?

Sarah Palin for Vice President

I consider myself a conservative Democrat, or maybe a liberal Republican; they are about the same to me. Anyway, for me it has never really been about the political party, but for what the candidate is representing in themselves.

If Hillary Clinton had been nominated, I would have voted for her. She has the political experience, plus the inside information to the presidency because of her husband, Bill Clinton. I do not believe that Barack Obama has enough experience to run our great country. Maybe in another eight or twelve years.

I see the point of view about John McCain's age. But I also, with age comes great wisdom and experience. McCain has been through many trials and tribulations throughout his 72 year lifetime. While this may seem old, remember back when the American people elected Reagan as President. I was as fairly shocked as a great many people about John McCain's vice-presidential pick. The only way I have heard of Sarah Palin was because Craig Ferguson had fantasized over her on his national television show, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

Pretty much all that has been on the news and media channels today has been about Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska. After knowing more about her (nothing as of yesterday), I have begun to really like her. She has children of all ages, so she will represent the mother's perspective and she has run the state of Alaska as Governor so she has political experience. Plus, from her interviews, she just seems very genuine and un-corrupted by Washington D.C. politics. I mean how much farther away from D.C. can you get than Alaska? She is all-American and can stand up for the everyday American a whole lot better than the other possible vice-presidential candidates McCain could have chosen. Sarah Palin fights for what she believes in. She wants to tap into Alaska's gas and oil resources so the United States can be more independent. She is just a regular person, with five kids to boot, who knows the day in and day out struggles of the rest of us.

Needless to say, I will be voting for John McCain and Sarah Palin this November and I invite the rest of you to join me.

Baby's Got Her Blue Jeans On

My aunt gave us a lot of clothes that her girls had outgrown, including the cutest ever pair of blue jeans. Since Abbie has so many clothes now and she is growing so fast, she gets dressed up everyday!

In other news... pureed baby food was introduced today. Abbie has been on rice and oatmeal cereal for the past few weeks so we figured it was time for some real food! So far we have started out with squash and she absolutely loves it!! After the 3-5 day allergy test period, we will probably be moving on to carrots.

I printed off some suggested menu charts for "independent sitters" and one of the snacks it lists is saltine crackers. Am I just crazy or is it ridiculous to give saltine crackers to a six month old?!?

Oh and I bought a box of the "pocket bibsters" and I already know I won't be buying them again because Abbie has already figured out how to take them off because of the extremely light velcro fastener. But they did work really well before she started taking them off.