Thursday, July 26, 2007

The Grocery List Game

Here is an article taken from an email list I am on. It's from Family Fun Magazine and it's the daily email from The Dream Team Daily. I love their short little articles that are full of great ideas, realistic kid challenges and humor. I thought this was a great idea and a good experiment to try out on children and husbands alike!


July 26, 2007

The Grocery List Game by Kim B.

Once again, I found myself returning a sugary snack back to the grocery store shelf.

"Trevor, you know we have enough sweets. That's not on our shopping list," I reminded my 6-year-old son for the third or fourth time. I was losing count, and losing my patience.

"But Mom," he whined. "This is sooo boring. If I have to come, why can't we get stuff I like?"

Trevor enjoyed our weekly trip to the grocery store about as much I did — which means he dreaded it. But how else could our family get the food we needed to survive?

Obviously, we had to make our weekly grocery trek, but there was no reason it couldn't be more fun — and possibly less expensive — if I could curb his urges to add things we didn't need to the cart.

The following week, I gave Trevor a copy of the grocery store sales paper and his scissors, asking him to cut out pictures of the things we needed. He spent half an hour happily cutting out apples, lettuce, cereal, and ice cream as I made out our list.

"Can we get some fruit roll-ups too, Mom?" he asked. I said no, expecting some extra begging, but Trevor just turned the page, intently scouring the ads. Maybe hearing "no" was easier for him in the privacy of his own home, I thought.

"Do we need paper towels?" he asked next.

Paper towels? When did he start caring about such essentials?

After Trevor pasted his pictures on a sheet of paper, we headed to the store. Much like on a scavenger hunt, Trevor carefully shopped off his list, getting excited every time he could cross off an item as he added it to the cart.

"Here's the green apples," he shouted. "Next I have to find the bagels."

Soon we were done in record time, with no extras in sight.

Getting ready for the grocery store now takes a little longer, but his new-found eagerness to actually go is priceless.

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Expanding my horizons....

OK. I have posted before about how I haven't tried much fruit. Well, now you can add two more to my list. :) YAY! I had a plum and a mango and I liked them both.

Here is a list of all of the fruit I have in my house at the moment:
  • bananas
  • strawberries
  • apples
  • plums
  • cherries
  • plums
  • oranges
  • watermelon
  • grapefruit
  • mango
....and I have been eating all of it! For those of you who know my eating habits you know that this is a big feat. I also have two bags of mixed berries and fruit. Angela, I wish I lived by you and I would be taking some of your berries too :)

OK. What is the next fruit I should try?

Monday, July 16, 2007

Safety First

My sister just sent me over a website where you can search to see how many sex offenders live in your area. It is sad to see how many people are registered on these things. It's sick actually. I did a search in my area and there are 45 sex offenders in my tiny little zip code and two or three of them are just one street over!!! In my zip code for work there are 24.

As creepy as it is, I think it is equally important to look at their pictures (especially the ones that are so close by) so that you may be reminded of their photo if you are ever approached by them. Let's pray that we will NEVER have to deal with that in our lives, but if we do I hope that we can possibly even avoid a tragedy by being as knowledgeable as we can about who is in our neighborhoods.

I know there are several more people that aren't even registered as they should be, but this is a start and we should use the knowledge from this resource to protect our families. Check every so often in your same zip code, especially when you move, where you work etc. so that we can all be a little bit more prepared.

http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/cac/states.htm#anchor198549

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

HP5 Baby!!!

So.....Dusty and I went to the midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I LOVED IT!!!! I think it was the best movie so far. I like it because they are growing up and there is a lot more action and complex issues.

There is so much stinking detail in the books that you don't get in the movies so if you haven't read the books you are missing out. I think this movie captured the essence of the book despite a lot of missing details. I liked the 4th movie but I don't think it got the points of the book across too well. I think that in this series you can't explain everything or else the movies would be like 5 movies per book (I would like that of course but...whatever) After this movie (Order of the Phoenix) I was ready to see the 6th movie and felt like there was lots of action, a little humor, some dark and twisted stuff, a good climax and left me wanting to stay in the theater for another 2.5 hours and watch the next one.

Does anyone else plan on seeing it?


** Melissa, I think you will LOVE this movie. **