Free Pancakes For Kids At IHOP Today

I just got wind of this deal, but since there are still plenty of hours left today to get in on it, I wanted to pass it on.  Today, Friday October 28th, IHOP restaurants are giving away free kids pancakes until 10 P.M.  You can go to the IHOP website for more details.  The offer is good for children 12 and under, and no other purchase is necessary.  It sounds like a fun treat for kids!

Picture from ihop.com.

Fun Activity - Water Bombs!!!

My kids and I embarked upon a journey of great fun this afternoon. I came across a website that had a neat craft idea for some fun outdoor water toys. You can find the directions here. My girls and I descended upon the dollar store to gather supplies for our endeavor. I was amazed, all of the supplies were in one place, and cheap too! The supplies needed to make these consist of sponges, drawer liner, a couple of Sham-Wows (yes, these amazing absorbant cloths are now at the dollar store, LOL), and some zip ties. It was a relatively easy craft to do with my kids. They helped me cut the pieces and arrange them, and then I tightened and fastened the zip ties for them.

As we finished this little project, neighbor children had gotten word about what we were making (my children may or may not have occasionally poked their head out the door waving a finished water bomb to show their friends). By the time we finished making them, the neighborhood children had gathered in our front yard to play with our new toys. I got out a few buckets filled with water, and the fun began. You all are lucky, I barely got a picture of a few of these babies before the children started their water wars! They all kept saying how neat they were, and they were eventually transported to the neighbor's pool as the water play shifted to another yard. Yeah, I would say that this little project today was a winner :-)

Diapers.com Coupon Code

I recently had a baby, and after sorting through all of the promotional materials they sent home with me from the hospital, I came across a pretty good coupon code for diapers.com. This code is good for $10 off, plus free two day shipping, any order order over $49. The catch is that the order must include diapers or formula. This offer expires 9/30/2011. The code is SIMJUN10.

Homeschool and Teacher Discount at Border's Bookstore

Border's, the bookstore, has a 25% discount available for both teachers and homeschoolers. To receive the discount, you will need to provide proof to them that you are a homeschooler or a teacher (they can take care of getting the discount card at the registers). They will then give you a card that you will need to present when you make a purchase. The discount is good for any materials you will use for school or homeschooling. The discount is available even on sale and clearance merchandise, so if you do your shopping right, you can get some really good deals!

Free Math Website - Preschool through 8th Grade

Just thought I would share a cool math website. It is free, and has interactive games and practice exercises for mathematical concepts ranging from preschool age through 8th grade. We will be utilizing this resource with our children, it looks to be promising as a supplement for strengthening their math skills! Membership is also available via this site for a fee.

http://www.ixl.com/

Salt Dough Christmas Ornaments Craft Project

Yesterday, the kids and I started the process of making some Christmas ornaments out of a homemade salt dough. It was really simple, I mixed up the dough, then we rolled the dough out with a rolling pin and used cookie cutters to cut out different shapes. You do have to bake these ornaments, but before I put them in the oven, I used a skewer to poke a hole in the top of each ornament, so that we can use some ribbon, yarn, or string to be able to hang them. We will be keeping some of these for our own Christmas tree, but will also give a few for gifts. I got the recipe for the salt dough from http://www.divinedinnerparty.com/christmas-ornament-dough.html .

Salt Dough Recipe

4 cups flour

1 cup salt

1 1/2 cups water

Mix ingredients together well and knead dough until well blended. If too sticky, add additional flour a little bit at a time until the right consistency is met. If too dry, add additional water in small amounts until desired consistency is achieved. Roll out dough and cut with cookie cutters, place shaped dough on a foil lined cookie sheet. Bake at 300 degrees for 30 minutes. Let cool, then paint.

I was going to buy some special paint to decorate the ornaments with, but the article at the above posted link suggested nail polish as a nice, decorative paint. Since I had plenty of nail polish around, we decided to try that out. I must say that it adds a nice touch to the ornaments, and the shine is lovely!

Overall, this was a great activity to do with the kids, and they loved it!

Oatmeal Playdough Recipe

Today, my kids and I tried a new playdough recipe. They are busy creating with their little hands as we speak! This oatmeal playdough recipe has a different texture than regular playdough, so it offers the children a different sensory and creative experience. I found the recipe at http://www.playdoughrecipe.com/oatmeal-playdough-recipe/ , and I made a few minor adjustments to it to ease some of the stickiness. It is rather sticky as the original recipe is written, so I added some cornmeal and some extra flour until the dough was the perfect consistency. The above posted website also has many other kinds of playdough recipes to try out, if you are interested.

Oatmeal Playdough

1 cup of flour

2 cups of oats

Food coloring

1 cup of water

Cornmeal

Extra flour

In a large bowl, mix dry ingredients together. Mix desired food coloring with the cup of water. Slowly add the water/food coloring mixture to the dry ingredients, mix together well. Knead the dough by hand to continue to mix (will be sticky), then add cornmeal and extra flour a little bit at a time. Continue to knead and add cornmeal and flour until dough is a good consistency for play.

P.S. The picture is a birthday cake, made with the oatmeal playdough, by my 5 year old.

Bargain Shopping at Department Stores

I am a bargain shopper. By bargain shopper, I mean that I frequently buy new things at the same price a thrift store would charge. Basically, I can get new items for the cost of used ones. Awesome! For example, today I took my kids to JCPenney's and ended up buying 10 items of clothing (cute t-shirts, capri leggings, etc.) for around $30 total. My receipt at the end said that I had saved $118.18! Woohoo!!!

I often prefer to shop at places like JCPenney's and Kohl's for my kids, rather than Wal-Mart, K-Mart, etc. My reasoning for this is that often times, the clearance at the nicer department stores are priced better than what I could even get at the other places, plus I end up with higher quality clothing for my kids. And lots of times, Kohl's and Penney's have extra coupons that I can use on top of the clearance discount. I have also found plenty of nice, quality clothing for myself and my husband at steep discount prices at these stores.

I have a method to how I shop the department stores. Most importantly, the only things I ever really look at are on the clearance racks. If I have a specific item I need, I always check the clearance items first. Most of the time, the stores will have the clearance sorted by percentage off. I usually stick with the racks that say 80-90% off, or "final clearance". By doing this, I have been able to keep my kids clothed in fashionable items for rock bottom prices (OK, some of the stuff on the clearance racks I question whether anyone would actually wear, but I also find *plenty* of very cute clothes).

One of the biggest drawbacks to shopping this way is that sometimes you have to shop for your kids out of season and estimate what size they will be in when, say winter, rolls around again. Amazingly, this has always worked out for me. If it doesn't end up fitting, you can always donate the item/s or try to sell them on Ebay. Today I purchased summer clothing for my kids, but since we will still have several more months of warm weather, my kids can start wearing them now. My kids have nice things to wear, and I really haven't spent a whole lot of money.