Thank You Museum Reciprocity!

Our entertainment budget is fairly small, but I try to make the most of it.  Our zoo membership is one of my best buys, and this year we also purchased a membership to the Detroit Science Center.  The membership can also be used at the Detroit Children's Museum and for partial reciprocity at some other local museums.

When the weather turned a little chillier in Nashville (I swear, the cold follows us like Pigpen's cloud of dust!), we decided to spend some time at the Adventure Science Center.  Donnie and I, along with our cousins, used to visit the museum when we would visit Nan and Pap, although it was called the Cumberland Museum back then. 

I showed my trusty Detroit Science Center membership card to the museum volunteer, hoping to get some money off our visit.  To my surprise, my membership covered our admission in full, including my mom's admission (we saved $33!)

The museum has changed so much from what I remember from my own (very fond) childhood visits; there are some truly amazing exhibits, in particular the hands-on exhibits meant to teach kids about their bodies.  Abbey and Dyl are both a little young for the main museum, but Abbey loves wandering around, watching the older kids, and playing as much as she can.

Some of her favorite things were plucking the giant guitar, raising and dropping little parachutes via a pulley system, and going down the intestine slide (and yes, it said Poop! at the end of it).

Museum memberships can be a little expensive upfront, but this visit was just another reason that I believe they are definitely worth the cost.  I'd like to think that by exposing my kids to these things from a young age that I'm planting seeds of curiosity that will sprout into a lifetime love of learning.

A mom can hope, right?

checking out the preschool area 

Abbey loves school buses

she's pretty sure she's taking one to preschool in the fall

this is the closest she'll get to riding one for a while!  

driving a car

this was Dylan's favorite exhibit, but I didn't get a picture of him driving

Farewell to the Crib

I heard somewhere that colleges frown on cribs in dorm rooms, so we decided it was finally time to convert Abbey's crib to a "big girl bed".  Honestly?  I was a little hesitant to do it for a couple of reasons, mainly that she is an extremely light sleeper who still wakes up most nights "needing" something.  I had visions of her getting out of bed constantly.

I might have considered baby-gating her into her room, but it never came to that.  (Did I just jinx us?  I hope not.)

Painting the room pink was an option, but I decided to try to work pink into the decor without completely scratching the purple paint we painstakingly chose (not to mention the rug and lampshade have purple accents and are in perfectly good condition).  I scoured the interwebs trying to find the perfect combination of bedding and curtains and wall decorations to give the room a new feel without any major updates.  There are some adorable things out there, but my no-limit AmEx got lost in the mail somewhere!

Duh-duh-duh!  Target came to my rescue yet again.  While picking up some pillows for her room, I wandered over to look at their bedding, slightly discouraged by my budget constraints.  Happily, I discovered a quilt set, curtain, and wall decals that (in my humble opinion) combine bright shades of purple, pink, yellow, and green in a whimsical way.  I'm thrilled with how it looks. 

Abbey's thrilled with it as well, especially the repositionable decals.  The ones that she can reach are constantly moving around the room.  And that is 100% ok with me.

And people?  That big girl bed is pretty far off the ground.  Between the height reminiscent of "The Princess and the Pea" and the bed rail, she's stayed snugly in bed for over a week now. 

She's growing up.

::breathe in, breathe out::

Pardon My Dust

During this past year, I've discovered so many truly amazing blogs (see my sidebar if you're interested in some of the people I find to be so wonderful!)  One of the things that draws me into a blog is its visual impact.  With limited time in the day, the only thing that keeps me reading is excellent content, but I can't lie and pretend that the first impression doesn't matter.

What can I say? I like pretty things.

I've know for a while that my own first impression left a lot to be desired. 

Much like my wardrobe, my little corner of the blogosphere needs some overhauling.  Unfortunately, just like a personal stylist with a high credit limit isn't knocking at my door, a custom blog design isn't on our budget's radar right now. 

Other things hindering my renovation are my woefully poor HTML skills and lack of any sort of graphic design talent.  Again, like my wardrobe issues, I know what I like when I see it but don't know exactly how to go about getting there!

So, please pardon my dust while I attempt to make some visual changes around here.  I'll be trying on some different looks and tweaking and tailoring and trashing various things until I find something that is pretty and comfortable and a good fit for Tiaras and Trucks.

I hope you'll keep visiting during my remodeling!

they're learning and growing and finding their own way each day

what wonderful inspiration!

What is Value?

Sometimes I need to be reminded that my job doesn’t come with a paycheck. My impulse spending creeps up a little at a time, and suddenly we’re off budget. I try to make smart decisions about what I purchase, but that leads to the question, “what is a good deal?”

Wait, wasn’t I a math teacher? (strictly middle school, but still, I taught math!) I could convert into unit prices with the best of them (see, math nerd talk), but it can still be tough to figure out where to spend my limited spare pennies.

I’m bringing this up, because I’m confronted with a “bad deal” purchase every morning when I perform my miraculous transformation from tired mommy to super-hot-well-rested-mommy. Ok, so that transformation never actually occurs, but I do try to slap on some make-up and blow dry my hair daily, and that very make-up is causing me to regret one of my spending cuts.

For the most part, I’ve been using MAC cosmetics since college, when my friend Kathie introduced me to two little beauties (Vex eyeshadow & a tube of Viva Glam if you care about these things). When trying to cut corners a little this fall, I decided that MAC was an extravagance I wouldn’t miss too terribly.

Slap on the “shallow” badge now, because I was wrong.

I purchased some relatively inexpensive eye shadows, liner, and lip gloss in trendy colors and looked forward to a little change in my daily look. (I won’t mention the brand, because maybe I just don’t know what I’m doing, but it can be purchased at Target and not “department stores everywhere”.)

There’s no change in my daily look, in part because the make-up doesn’t stay on my eyes for very long, no matter what I do to prep my face. Also, despite my attempts to play around with the different colors available on my little palettes, everything looks exactly the same on my eyes. And I’m not talking subtle color differences – the green and purple eye shadows look exactly the same within minutes of application.

And that, in my oh-so-amateur financial opinion, is not a good deal.

Since I know many of my few readers (if that makes sense) come here for the eye candy (and not of the eye shadow type), here are some pictures of my best yearly deal - our zoo membership!  I could pay double and still consider it a value (but I'm glad I don't have to, because of that whole budgeting thing.)

Budget Crunch

Making the decision to stop working (outside of the home, at least) did come with the realization that we would have less money.  Thankfully, Ryan is great with a budget and a spreadsheet, and he has managed to keep things running pretty much at status quo around here.  Of course we try to be careful about what we buy and what we do with our money, but I wouldn't say we are generally too crunched for cash.

However, between some recent wardrobe updates (mostly for the kids and me) and our trip to East Lansing, we're basically at the end of our budget for the month at the beginning of the month.  For the first time, Ryan handed me some cash and said that it was what I had to work with until Thanksgiving.  And I'm not talking fat moneyroll kind of cash either.

I budgeted out our activities for the next couple of weeks, and we can still do some fun paid things and lots of free things, but it has meant that we stayed at home a little more than normal this past week.  That means finding some different things to do around the house, which isn't too challenging with Abbey's imagination!

"Mommy, it's time for your doctor's appointment," she told me one morning.

she proceded to "weigh" me by having me sit sideways on her little picnic table

she "measured" me by having me lie down on the floor

she looked in my eyes and my ears with Dylan's light up key chain

she then proceded to vaccinate me (or "give you a poke" as their nurse tells them)

several times

with a crayon

and band-aids each time

she's probably not the first person to have this idea

I should be vaccinated thoroughly by now

the very thrilled doctor/nurse/receptionist

our pediatrician uses one of those fancy little computers to keep track of information

she insisted on using one during our "appointment"

a final "little poke"

"don't worry Mommy; it's not too bad"

Dylan thinks we're a bit silly

maybe he's right, but we're silly together

and passing the time for free