• family

    iPoll – An App that Makes you Money

    August 16, 2013 - By 

    An App that makes you money? Tailored to your very shopping haunts? Um, yes please. iPoll is an app that makes sense for you if you like making money. iPoll is free to download and it takes only a few moments to register and set up your profile. Then, every so often log in and check your missions. Missions can be surveys, or shopping-related tasks. Each task that you complete earns you money. Every time you log in, there is something new waiting. I got $5.19 already! Everyone gets $5 when they sign up. Click here to head directly to…

  • family

    How To Make A Do It Yourself Container Fairy Garden – Ten Easy Steps #DIY

    August 14, 2013 - By 

    My girls are crafty and their imaginations are always on the go especially in the summer months. One summer we spent our days blowing things up and doing science experiments in the yard. That was a lot of fun, but mostly it was hands on learning, structured to keep my kids out of trouble. (My girls are going to blow stuff up anyways, so we might as well do it right.) At the end of the school year my oldest daughter started digging up the lawn grabbing grassy clumps of clod and flowers. She told me she intended to build…

  • Travel

    Old School, Meet Digital #WordlessWednesday #travel

    August 14, 2013 - By 

    This was an epic moment for me. Chicago and Blogher13.  I just had to see The Chicago Tribune. A long way from the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, and Ryerson Journalism school and London Free Press. I’ve had bylines a lot of places over the years: from The Kamloops News to the Free Press, the Record, the Toronto Sun, Today’s Parent and Canadian Family, and dozens of small dailies, plus my favourite moment, a few published essays in the Globe and Mail. But standing inside the lobby of this grand lady, I remembered why I got into this business of writing. 

  • FASD - Health - special needs - Travel

    A Word Called Inclusion: #Specialneeds at Camp

    August 13, 2013 - By 

    Remember this? Two weeks ago, when I was heading off to Chicago, I was still agonizing over whether Ainsley, my busy, sporty girl with special needs, could handle sleep away camp. I wrote a whole post about children with special needs at camp. Parents of special needs children are used to worrying. We worry about finances, and school, and life when we are gone. We worry our kids may never be able to cope fully, and enjoy, and be supported in the world without us. We worry with good reason, because frankly I have seen systems and systemic failures for children…

  • Giveaways

    Flatten Me Personalized Products #BTS #Giveaway

    August 11, 2013 - By 

    I wish you could have seen the smile this Flatten.me water bottle put on my daughter’s face this week. Oh, I know, I know, everyone on the planet has ten water bottles already, right? Maybe so, but do you have one with your face on a superhero body? Or do you have one where your child is posed as a princess? I didn’t think so. Who doesn’t like personalized items? Most of the kids I know adore finding things with their name on them, or seeing it on a T-shirt. Well, Flatten.me has a host of items from books, to…

  • Health - infertility

    Weekends and Weddings: Petition Challenge #ABHC4IVF #ABPoli

    August 9, 2013 - By 

    When you are struggling with infertility, or trying to conceive, time is quite simply not your friend. It is the days between doctor’s appointments, and the calendar you watch every month wondering and hoping with crossed fingers. It is every season ticking by faster, carrying holidays by in a blur of tears. Years can unfold while trying. Treatments also take time. But what if the waiting then becomes complicated by fund raising as you juggle how to pay for in vitro fertilization? Weeks, become months and years pass quickly, then all of a sudden the fertility window, even with such…

  • lunch time-saving tips kids eating lunch at school
    Food - Health

    Five Easy Lunch Time-Saving Tips to Use Now!

    August 8, 2013 - By 

    Listen up. I am about to share all of my lunch time-saving tips with you. So make note and commit a few of these to memory. Trust me. You will need them. Over the course of this coming school year, it is likely you will need about 200 packed lunches, that is if your adorable children are lifers (I mean full time and full day students like mine). That’s just for one child. So lunch time-saving tips are not negotiable. You can obviously make that a wee bit less onerous by opting in for the pizza days and the hot…

  • Food - Health

    Five Fast Wake Up Ideas for Tweens #YOP #BTS and a Coupon

    August 7, 2013 - By 

    They sure are sweet when they are sleeping. But try to get them to wake up and watch the fun! I am taking tweens and teens of course. And they rarely jump for joy when the alarm goes off. But here are a few ways I help wake up my tween and teen. Oh, we all joke that when they are sleeping they are angels, right? But, wake up time? Well, that’s a whole other ball game. My youngest daughter has always been the kind that springs out of bed bouncing with so much energy I wish I could market…

  • family

    #LinkedMoms Hard At Work #Blogher13 #WordlessWednesday

    August 7, 2013 - By 

    This conference circuit is hard work. Just sayin’. Actually, this is me with my good friend Margarita Ibbott, also my business partner at Linked Moms. Who are Linked Moms? We’re the gals chatting every Wednesday night at 8 p.m. EST. Join us weekly. Sometimes we talk about pressing parenting issues, health, special needs, travel or what tickles our fancy. Sometimes, we have guests and sometimes our chats are full scale twitter parties.

  • beauty products - Health

    Beauty Products for Women: Aveeno BB Cream Review

    August 6, 2013 - By 

    Beauty products for women were represented well at #Blogher13 this year. Skin care products for women were a highlight of the brand expo hall for me, because at least 8 out of ten posts here at thriftymommastips.com are health and wellness related. I left Chicago stoked about several new beauty products. And happily I have several items to try out and review over the coming months. This Aveeno Clear Complexion BB Cream tops my list already. I have been a fan of Aveeno products for a few years now. Their Positively Radiant Daily Moisturizing Cream is a staple of my…