Flying Monsters & Magic School Bus

Dad left at 5:30 this morning for an all day disc golf tourney and so this morning I was scrambling trying to figure out how I was going to entertain the crew for the day.  My initial plan was nixed by my 7 year old, which included a visit to the Museum of Nature and Science in dallas to see an IMAX movie and go to a temporary exhibit there called the Magic School Bus.  His request was to stay home all day and be lazy.  I was pretty certain that was going to result in a lot of fighting and yelling, and so I asked him to figure out a plan with his brother (who liked my proposed plan) and my only request was that the plan included getting out of the house.  They decided they wanted to go to the museum and see the movie, but not go to the exhibit.  That's a long drive for a 40 minute movie, but I accepted this plan for 2 reasons:  1.  when the kids are in the car they are quiet.  That's 80 minutes of silence and happiness for all.  Yes, please.  2.  I kinda wanted to see flying monsters too, so off we went.  We brought a lunch to eat afterward outside.  The movie was great, and was primarily about the Terasaurus (spelling?), and a proposed explanation for how they became extinct.  They are basically flying lizards of sorts.  The boys of course loved it.  Clara wasn't too certain whether she was going to like it so I got snuggles from her the whole time.  Turns out there was live music outside, so we got to eat our picnic lunch in the shade and listen to great music.  Great outing and highly recommend it.  Later this summer we will be heading back to check out the magic school bus exhibit and I will keep you posted about it!

One last sidenote - there is another IMAX movie about Whales, and if you go to the Museum website and click on the exhibit, there is curriculum and activities that you can do with the kids after they see the movie.  I checked it out and I think the kids would have loved it, but they wanted to see Flying Dinosaurs instead. 

Free Splash Park Alert!

I LOVE finding new places to explore and it's even better when it's free.  A friend of mine visited WJ Thomas Splash Park in Carrollton this morning and said it was great, so you can bet we will be visiting there very soon!  Great for the little ones.  Here is the link!

http://www.cityofcarrollton.com/index.aspx?page=1462

Here is a pic! (from the link)












This morning we paid a visit to Chick Fil A to hang out with friends (mom and kids both), and this afternoon we are going geocaching.  Should be fun! 

Summer Outings

What would summer be without a few fun outings?  Here is a summary of where we plan on venturing out to . . . we would love for you to join us!  Let me know if you're interested and we can coordinate dates!

1.  Grapevine Friday Fun Train.  I had my kids make goals for 2012 and one of theirs was to ride a train.  So . .  off we go!  I don't think the Friday fun train actually goes anywhere.  It's just for the experience of riding the train.  I'll keep you posted on how it goes!

2.  Dallas Museum of Nature and Science.  We have season passes, so it goes without saying that we will be finding air conditioning at the free places.  \

3.  Bob Jones Nature Center - we recently discovered geocaching, and this place in Southlake says they have lots of geocaching so it should be fun!

4.  Adventure Landing in Dallas - looked fun and it's something we wouldn't normally do - will keep us in the air conditioning so I'm all for trying it once!  My kids love play places so it seems it like it would be hard to go wrong here.

5.  Scitek Discovery Center in Frisco - someone told me it was great so we plan on trying it out!  My kids are way in to science so seemed like a good idea!

6.  Bowling - In Lewisville AMF kids 15 and under gets 2 free games a week.  Um - yes?  Can you say air conditioning?

7.  Dollar Movies - this is a winner all around.  Yes.

8.  Western Currency Facility in Fort Worth.  They make money here and I'm certain my kids would be fascinated.  Maybe we will try and wrap in a money lesson the week before. 

Of course these are the PLANS - what actually happens is a totally different ballgame.  If the 2 year old is screaming all morning all plans are a no go.  Momma can't deal with the noise when I can't contain it!  (i.e. naptime).  If any of these sound interesting to you let me know!

Andy Brown Park East - Kid Country

Yesterday we visited Andy Brown Park Easy in Coppell - the actual playground is called Kid Country.  This is a fantastic playground similar to Kids Castle in Highland Village, but there are 2 additional benefits.  There is a pond there with very hungry ducks, and I learned that there is a Mrs. Bairds outlet in Lewisville on Main where you can buy a huge bag of loaves of bread for just 2 bucks.  That's right!  That's crazy talk.  So . . . bring a group and feed the duckies.  The kids really enjoyed watching the ducks battle over each piece of bread we threw to them.  There are also hidden hiking trails behind the pond.  Look for the trail in the brush/bushes.  You'll find it!  It was a blast for the boys (5 & 7) and the 2 year old enjoyed it as well.  These are great activities especially with the fantastic weather we have been having!

Geocaching, Trails and Bicentennial Park (Adventure Alley)!

This week of spring break has been a blast so far.  We went to Southlake to have lunch with my husband today, and after looking for a park through a link my husband sent me and not finding it, we improvised and discovered a new feature on my Honda Odyssey nav.  You can search by places, and then parks, and we found a FANTASTIC park just a couple of miles from his office.  If you've been to Kids Kastle or Andy Brown park, Bicentennial Park in Southlake will look similar!  Here are some pics:

Sorry these pics aren't a bit better, but it should give you the idea!  I really love exploring and finding new parks, so this was great.  While we were there, we got a text from a friend asking if we wanted to go geocaching that afternoon, and I was like - what???  No idea what she was talking about.  My husband looked it up while we were having lunch, and discovered it to be a scavenger hunt of sorts that anyone can participate in at any time.  Is this something that everyone already knows about but me?  Why have I never heard of this?  It is such a great activity for the family!  Here is the skinny:  if you go to http://www.geocaching.com/ and open an account (it's all free), search by zipcode and you will find all kinds of locations you can search where people have hidden treasures for you to find.  Choose a geocache location and you will be given coordinates of where to find it.  That didn't prove very helpful for me because I had no idea how to get to the coordinates.  So . . . I searched for a geocache app and found a free one called Geocache Intro.  This app was fantastic.  It knows where you are, offers 3 geocache options which are close to you, you choose the one you want, and then it shows you where the cache is in relation to where you are.  There is a tab called compass, and when you go to that tab, the red arrow shows you the direction of where the geocache is.  It also tells you how far in miles or feet you are from the treasure.  So, you keep going in the direction of the arrow.  We did one by Central Park in Lewisville today, and the geocache was called Timbercreek Trail Bridge.  There was paved sidewalk the whole way to it, so the boys got on their bikes and had a great time tracking it down.  Once you find the hidden treasure which is usually hidden in a small tube of some sort, you take the treasure that was left there, and leave a different one for the next person.  It needs to be the size of a small rock.  The one we found today was an orange crystal looking thing.  We didn't have an item small enough to trade out so we had to leave the orange crystal there.  7 year old was not happy about that at all since he was the one who made the discovery. 

Behind Central Park are so many trails, some paved and some not paved.  The boys just love getting out there on trails so that was fun as well!  Yesterday we went to Andy Brown park, and behind the pond there are some hidden trails that you can get on.  Perfect for the young ones!

Spring Break Plan

Spring Break is upon us!  For our family it is next week, and we aren't going out of town, and I don't want to spend a bunch of  money.  So . . . I thought I would share our plan for next week and encourage you to make a plan as well!  They don't stay little for long and if you are anything like me it is much more fun to spend time together when you have a plan (even if you need to change the plan!).  It's also going to be raining next week, so my original plan of visiting a different park every day is a no go!  So . . .

Yesterday I visited Teacher's Tools (or teaching tools?) for the first time which is Lewisville off of Business 121.  I've been meaning to go there for quite some time and was expecting a small store.  This store was HUGE and there was so much fun stuff for the kids.  I of course hit up the 75% off section first which is way back in the right corner of the store.  There I found some great finds!  Ever heard of the Mailbox magazines?  They are for teachers and are full of activities, worksheets, and craft projects.  In this section they had one for each month of the year and so I bought April and May.  Now I am thinking I want to go back and get the rest because they were about $4 each (regularly 15), and I got so many ideas from it.  I also got a couple of workbooks for .73 each - GREAT deal.  I also got a few things that weren't on sale, including those dot painting thingies that you see your child using in preschool, and a few workbooks that were $3 each.  So . . . here is our plan!

Monday:  it is going to be sunny, so we are hitting up Andy Brown park in Coppell, playing, feeding the ducks, and having a picnic lunch.  In the afternoon while the 2 year old is napping away, the boys will be having fun with a couple of art projects and other educational fun from my mailbox magazine.  After she is done napping, off to the cul-de-sac we go to ride bikes and enjoy the sunshine.

Tuesday:  no rain on Tuesday, so it is off to Cortadera park we go where we will play, practice some baseball, have a picnic lunch, and go to our favorite yogurt place for dessert.  More art fun during naptime, and then it is time for a walk/bike ride around the neighborhood.

Wednesday:  Rain!  We have a membership to the Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas so we will be headed there.  The kids LOVE it.   If you are reading this and want to come with us, I have a couple of free passes!  (KARLIE/KIM?).  :)  When we return from the museum, there were some fun rain art projects from the book so it only seemed right that we do these on a rainy day!  After naptime, I have some fun stampers that I got for the 2 year old, so she will be having fun with that while the boys work in some of their new workbooks.

Thursday:  Rain!  Starting out the morning with a craft/game from Mailbox magazine, and then heading out to either Chick fil a or McDonalds to play and then have lunch.  Join us!  :)  During naptime, the boys and I will be having Sorry, War, and Farkle tournaments, and I have a prize basket for the winners!  (The prize basket is always present in our house and is where the toys from kids meals go and other random things they get from parties, etc.)  After naptime they are making some fun bunny baskets (not too early for Easter stuff right?)

Friday:  Cloudy, but no rain.  Off to Austin Kent Ellis Park we go to play and have a picnic lunch.  Frog craft during naptime, and winkids free time from 3:30 - 5.  My kids go crazy over WinKids so they will be very excited.

If you are following this blog, in a couple of months I will be sharing my summer plan with you!  Last summer I had a plan for every day of summer before it started, and it made all of us so much more excited about our precious time together.  Anticipating is half the fun!

Shark Exhibit

So we did go to the Museum of Nature and Science last week on Friday, and it was fascinating. I have included some pictures below. It cost $18 for adults to get in and $12 I think for kids 2 and up. We ended up getting a family membership for $90, which included 4 free guest passes for the museum, 4 free Imax passes and a bunch of other stuff. Since we had my in laws with us, we were able to use the guest passes and didn't pay too much more to get the membership instead of the tickets. So . . . it is a bit pricey, but if you have kids who are into science, sharks, etc., it is worth it. Both my 4 year old and my 6 year old really enjoyed it. Here are some pictures:

Sharks lose 26,000 teeth in a lifetime!  That's how many shark teeth are in this pile . . . crazy!

This is a frozen shark, in a display case that is -4 degrees!



They had interactive monitors throughout the exhibit where you

could learn a ton about sharks.  They were very cool!

I highly recommend this exhibit if you think your kids would be

interested!  It is going on until next October I think!





Something to do over Thanksgiving

The kids are out of school for a week starting Monday - which can make everyone stir crazy. If you are in the Dallas/Fort Worth area - here is an idea . . . take your kids to the shark exhibit at the Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas. There is a link to the info on the November activity calendar (on the right of the blog). The link is on Wednesday, November 23. My son loves learning about sharks right now, so it should be a treat. I'll include a post after we go to let you know what we think!

Memorial Park (Lewisville)

Yesterday we went to Memorial Park for the first time and it was fantastic.  There are 3 different playgrounds for the kids to play around on.  1 was definitely suited for smaller children, 1 could have gone either way, and 1 was geared toward bigger kids.  With that said, the one for bigger kids was of course the one my 1 year old was most fascinated with.  There were walking paths all around, and it was just a gorgeous day.  If you take 3040 to 2499 and turn left, and then take your first right on Forest Vista, and take that all the way to Valley Creek, you are there.  It took us about 10 minutes.  I didn't manage to get any pix in, but I highly recomend this park.

Today I am going to try and take the kids to the Pumpkin Patch and they are going to be SO EXCITED!  The pumpkin patch in Flower Mound is one of their very favorite activities of the year and the best part about it is that it is free.

Stay posted this week for some pix of the Halloween food and games we will have at my 1 year old's celebration this weekend.  It should be fun!

Chocolate Walk in Carrollton

Last night I took my 4 year old to the Chocolate Walk in Carrollton.  He is an extreme lover of chocolate and I couldn't think of a better date with him!  I saw the signs when we were at Babes a few weekends ago and immediately added it to the calendar.  At this event all of the stores in downtown Carrollton have chocolate samples of some sort.  So we literally went into 10 - 15 stores and got free chocolate.  Guerin LOVED it.  I asked him if he was full  yet after about 7 stores and he said, "Nope!  I will never be full of chocolate!".  Carrollton does this event twice a year and if you have a child that loves chocolate you should take them.  So much fun and it's free!  :)

Have a child who is a chocolate lover?

Tonight after dinner at Babes Chicken Dinner house in Carrollton, we were walking down a little strip of shops and saw an advertisement for their chocolate festival on September 16 from 5 - 9.  This caught my eye because if you really want to tell my 4 year old that you love him, all you need to do is offer him chocolate.  Each of the little stores on this downtown strip right by Babes is offering a free chocolate treat on this date.  I am really not sure what else is involved, but I know enough to know that I am taking my 4 year old on a date that evening to Carrollton!  Want to join?  :)

A Non-Review on Sealife Aquarium

So yesterday after spending the afternoon with the kids running through the sprinklers in the backyard and coloring in giant coloring books in the backyard, we decided to venture out to the Sealife Aquarium at Grapevine Mills Mall.  It was around 3pm - and I know some of you moms reading this are like - OF COURSE THE LINE WAS AN HOUR AND A HALF!  It was a Sunday afternoon on Labor Day weekend!  I guess I had high hopes that people would be doing other things.  So, we decided to walk around the mall instead and let the kids ride the carousel and some of the other little rides there.  Of course we had to finish our adventure off with my favorite gelato ice cream - Paciugo.  For those non-dairy eaters out there, their soy ice cream is DELICIOUS!  I hope to get back to Sealife Aquarium one of these days, but it will have to be during the week.  I went ahead and wrote this entry anyway to advise you in case you weren't already aware, that I do not recommend going to the Aquarium on Sunday afternoon.  When we were leaving around 5 the line was only 10 minutes.  They closed at 7, so maybe we will try that time next time!

Legoland Review

Today we went to Legoland at Grapevine Mills Mall.  Before you go, ask a working friend if their company has discounted tickets by chance.  That's what I did and it was significantly cheaper.  If you haven't been to Legoland, there are a number of things to do there.  When you first arrive they will send you on a little ride that reminded me of some of those closed in rides at Disneyland.  It's indoors and it sends you around a little track where you try and shoot things as you go along.  It was cute.  After that you are free to roam around and we went to the movie theater first.  There are 3 different 4D movies showing with one theater so they just rotate through each of them.  We went to the Bob the Builder and the Superhero movie.  Water sprays out at you as well as wind during various parts of the movie (each movie is about 15 minutes) and I thought they were great.  It was probably my favorite part of legoland since I'm not really into building legos.  There is also an area where you can build cars and race them down a track to see whose car wins (we had a bit of a challenge finding wheels to put on the cars as there are only so many to go around).  There is an area where you can build legos and then simulate an earthquake to see if your concoctions will withstand the earthquake (that was ok but the boys weren't that into it).  There is a Princess area where you can build legos, while also singing karoke - FUN!  When my daughter gets a little older we will visit that part.  There is a ride that goes around in a circle so my husband took on that one because I don't do the spinning rides anymore!  Finally they have a play area that has those tubes/cages that you run around in like at Chick Fila but about 10 times the size.  Overall, the kids loved it and it was worth the money. 

We also made Sesame Pecan Chicken Strips for dinner last night and they were DELICIOUS.  Highly recommend it and you can find the recipe under the recipes tab at the top.