Tag Archive | Dollarama

Shop Until We Almost Drop!

January 14-15

How to spend a Monday with a friend with a license and absolutely no familiarity with Minnesota??? Why go shopping of course, and NOT at a single place… we had to meander and travel and risk getting lost (though we didn’t). We started at one of the smaller malls and the Macs counter – too cool! And then really explored the mall… after lunch… INDIAN FOOD!

Yum

We tried out Torrid for Karyn and hit the jackpot…

Sorry this one is not the best quality… took with my sad little phone

In fact, we visited as many stores as we could, including Toys R Us (an independent store) and another clothing store Karyn was interested in.

We had Noodles & Company for supper when we realized that leaving when we were going to would have meant sitting in rush hour traffic…

NOODLES

And then we were off across the road to another mall and MORE shopping. We figured out that we were out over 7 hours!! Not bad!!!

PURCHASES!

Tuesday marked the beginning of Ken’s training for his job… which meant he was gone for his 12:30- 6 ish day leaving us home. With 7 hours of shopping behind us we just settled in and taught the children… well sort of, I woke up with ZERO voice after a week of sore throats so that did take out some of what I could do easily. Abbreviated day or not, I think we had fun! 

Dressed up and on his way

Emanuel and Echo spent their time together making Emanuel’s dinosaur bone poster to go over his bed! The stickers are supposed to glow in the dark and do slightly. I got to place some stickers too! It was so much fun! 

Ready for posting on the wall

The boys took turn reading to their new victim… I mean Aunty Karyn. She was thoroughly impressed by their improvement in the last six months (talk about a pat on the back for Mommy!).

Zander reading

We had to break for lunch… and some outside time. It was actually a rather nice day. All FOUR of the bigger kids went out in the sun, and drug Karyn out with them for a bit!

Out in the sun

Gavin has been taking advantage of his new portable easel and the cd that came with it and already created a rather… interesting… art piece! I think his tastes are MUCH more violent than mine!

Art by Gavin

Karyn brought the kids some Dollarama craft supplies so I let the little ones loose on them for the rest of their time to glue and play and generally make a relatively contained mess.

Crafting round table

I also finished the slippers Trinity DEMANDED Karyn have in the colour Trinity said they needed to be! This also triggered interest in ALL 3 boys… so more work for me!

ORANGE

Yup, we had our Karyn and a ton of fun too!

I think we wore her out!

Parades, Puppies and Playing Together

September 9

So, parades… REALLY not Ken and my cup of tea but one of those memories we all have of growing up, so when Steven mentioned that the town he lives in was having a parade and that as usual Saturday was his Quinn day… well we had to head out and join in. We dressed up and headed out relatively early and met up with the boys at their house.

From there we drove to a parking lot to park and walk to the street the parade was on. We chose the end of the parade so had a bit of a wait.  I am so glad that we purchased that blanket at the Tyrell Museum. It comes in handy and is so easy to take along!

Hanging out

The kids DID get bored as we had to wait well over 30 min for the parade to get to us but it was worth the wait.  The kids were much more interested in candy collection, once we explained to them what was  going on that is. They were very sure candy was only available during Halloween so this was all new to them.

Waiting on candy

Post parade and candy and even watching someone launch a t-shirt into the crowd (that REALLY can’t be safe!) we slipped off before the parade ended and got out of the parking lot with minimal issues.

A float

Then it was time for LUNCH! The daddies were in charge as yours truly is STILL trying to finish the dolly blanket and kept and eye on the baby while she trundled around in the garage. Steven’t parents have put up a large mosquito screen across  the one side of their garage and made a baseball themed seating area that is absolutely amazing! I could totally see homeschooling in there through out the warm months. They had a wall between the double garage section and a single car area so you could close doors and all that but it was a great idea! 

Hello puppy!

Steven’s backyard is a great place to be. They managed to get their hands on a rather amazing play set that is big enough for Quinn and our entire brood to enjoy! Add to that a lovely hill that the boys asked to come back and visit in the winter to sled down and some random toys and we had some VERY happy kids.

Fun in the sun

Lunch was hotdog and hamburgers with chips and grapes and juice pouches. I think everyone was full up when we were done!

Lunch!

Add to that a break in the basement with Thomas the trains and the Netflix version as well!

TV break

It was a great visit and a welcome break to being here at our house. After our visit we stopped in at a few stores… Jo-Ann’s of course finally! I am going to have to watch on sales and coupons as they do have some interesting bits and pieces… we picked up beads and plastic string this time. OH and Ken’s yarn for the scarf HE wants. I ran into the Dollar Tree at that location and was a little disappointed. I DID get my poster paper to create our Pen Pal display. We are going to make pockets for each of our correspondents. I also picked up google eyes and pom poms. What a difference from my usual Dollarama hauls, I am holding out hope that that was just a smaller store and that a bigger one (say like the one near Darcy) may hold more hope. Otherwise I am going to have to keep hunting sales and coupons. 

Totally enjoying the chance to keep my hands busy

I have started our craft bucket though, we are already saving our toilet rolls, collecting the crafty bits I DID bring down here and sourcing out options. I found some bags of bits and bobs a sweet friend and fellow homeschooling mom had sent to me when I was still in Alberta and had forgotten I saved (thank you BJ!!) so we have some sequins, glitter and random fun things to use… I am going to save my yarn bits as well as I remember using those for crafting as a child.  Now our end of the week was more of a play but there is so much merit in learning through play so I feel forgiven if not vindicated! We will just keep on going and trying over the next week and tweak what we are doing… oh and watch the mail, I have a few things of great importance coming in the post! So check back as I share how we get along!

Basically Birthday Buddies

Ending July

July 30-31

Now coming from Alberta and the world of Dollarama and Canadian Dollar store and and and we of course assumed finding dollar stores down here would be simple (they are an amazing resource for homeschooling, general crafts and the occasional toy gifting)… well apparently they are much more rare down here than up there. We went to a place called Family Dollar ASSUMING that it was a true dollar store… oops! The kids were less than impressed. Well we all were. Our trip to the Thrift store was another fail too. Just not our Monday for shopping. Of course there is still the coming weekend’s garage sales to hunt down and a dollar store near Darcy that I am determined to make my way to. A TRUE dollar store, where everything is a dollar… oh the adjustments!!!

We did manage to find some gems though, an itty bitty tea set that all fits into the tea pot for Trinity, a Cars brand specialty eraser, pencil crayons at a somewhat ok cost… and envelopes. We have worked on pictures and short letters for some friends back home and now are collecting any and all addresses of people interested in corresponding. I don’t know how many letters we will send out at a time but I am sure there will be some wonderful mail coming and going from Minnesota! If anyone is interested in corresponding please message me and I am sure we can exchange addresses. 

Tiny Tea Set

In fact, I am in process on the planning right now. I have found a monthly mailing that I am interested in purchasing for Emanuel and we have started our work on a Minnesota binder… illustrations, write ups and more about this state, the places we see and where we are living. Learning about our surroundings is always fun and highly educational. 

Around the table

Even the littlest

I am making some decent progress on my cross stitch already. It is so soothing to be back stitching, and as it is a kit I don’t feel the frustrations of missing supplies. 

To date!

Our Tuesday was much more exciting… after we had our morning of homeschooling of course… We continued our rehashing of what we have seen and learned about our new home. 

Working hard

And then it was time to head out to the Novak’s for a visit. They had a slip and slide on the lawn, a kitty to hang out with and of course… the 4 boys! Trinity found this visit much more fun and Echo decided her best place to be was with Anthony. She ended the afternoon with a bit of a fever so cuddling was high on her priority list. 

Her Anthony

Again

Darcy and I snuck out and did some kid free shopping ourselves. She lives rather near a Target, dollar store (a REAL one) and a kids’ clothing thrift store. Successful trip and then some. Trinity now has her much asked for sunglasses… I have MANY boxes of crayons (50 cents a box of Crayola 24’s) and then a pretty dress (5.50 thank you). I found tutus and hair clips I would like to take a second look at later as well! So definitely a success. 

Slip and slide

I am loving this saying good bye to people and knowing that we have YEARS to visit. Not that we are letting the grass grow under our feet… the next day is a free movie in the am with the Novaks and a baseball game (Andrew plays) on Friday… add to that trying to plan something with Bree (whose schedule is much more up in the air) and the hope for some visiting with family and we are definitely living in a way that gets us out and with friends.

We wore Andrew out