• family travel - Giveaways

    Giveaway Roundup and Blogaversary

    June 14, 2010 - By 

    Well here it is the one year Blogaversary of thriftymommastips, now thriftymommedia with thriftymommasbrainfood and thriftymommagogo, and I am ready to celebrate my biggest giveaway yet. I am going to draw for this one on June 28th, so hurry up and enter. The prize is a family day pass for four at the excellent Fort Rapids Waterpark in Columbus, Ohio. It’s about a five hour drive from London, in case you were wondering. But for those of you who are stateside this one will be even easier to get to. We travelled to Fort Rapids last year and loved it.…

  • family

    Curbside Food Drive

    June 10, 2010 - By 

    So what does a picture of my darling daughter in a Brownie uniform have to do with London’s Curbside Food Drive? I thought you’d never ask. Recently, I had a chance to volunteer with my daughter’s Brownie troupe at the London area food bank off Adelaide Street and I learned a few things. The first thing I learned was that eight-year-old girls are stunningly competitive. Yes, the Brownie troupes, when split into smaller units, were racing each other to bag the most food hampers. Mommy comically reminded them to slow down and “it’s not a race” a few times. I also learned that…

  • family travel

    Niagara Falls for Family

    June 9, 2010 - By 

    There are so many awesome ways to fill the days in the summer when the kids are home from school. But this year, for sure one of our adventures will lead us back to Niagara Falls. The Falls are remarkable entirely on their own and I still have vivid memories of visiting this well known tourist attraction and natural wonder from when I was a school-aged child. Many years in a row we would drive to the falls from Guelph and stay over at a family-friendly cheap motel then on to Marineland – one of the other best things about this…

  • grief_in_adoption
    Parenting

    The End of School Blues: Triggers for Grief in Adoption

    June 7, 2010 - By 

    Let’s take a minute to talk about triggers. We all have them, triggers that sometimes seize us by the heart and drag us back to a memory – good, bad or otherwise. Triggers can be like strange little portals to the past. Sometimes brought on by a smell, a time of year, a feeling, a picture. Triggers for Grief in Adoption are many and they sometimes arrive out of the blue for parents. But for kids in care and adoptees they can be hard to cope with and even harder to communicate clearly to adults. They are visceral and emotional.…

  • Health

    Making Safety Fun – Cute Helmet Covers

    June 2, 2010 - By 

    A cute Canadian company is making safety fun for kids of all ages. A couple of weeks ago this adorable beaver helmet cover arrived in the mail…from Tail-Wags Helmet Covers. (see bottom for exclusive discount for thriftymommastips readers – Thrifty is coupon code) How cute and Canadian is this? My daughter got to try out the child-sized Patriotic Beaver, which she loves. At six, it’s not uncommon for my child to argue about wearing her helmet, which is part of the reason I love having this product available. It’s a fun way to promote safety and she doesn’t argue about wearing this…

  • family

    How To Drive Traffic to Your Website

    May 26, 2010 - By 

    Need Traffic? Get in the Driver’s Seat to bring Traffic to Your Website or Blog. Website traffic is often key to carving out a niche for your on line business, web site or blog. For business, the more traffic you have, the bigger your bottom line. Whether you’re launching a new product or a new blog sometimes you want traffic or followers. Here are 5 solutions to generating traffic and followers. But Mommybloggers and web site owners beware – there are no overnight solutions here. Social media is about establishing a conversation built on trust. While there are many advertised ways to…

  • family

    Crayola Sidewalk Chalk Maker – review

    May 24, 2010 - By 

    I am a huge fan of Crayola products. Their sidewalk chalk is forever being used around here to create great murals on the back patio. Their crayons are the best, the strongest, most colourful. My daughter, diagnosed with sensory processing disorder, often overexerts pressure on things and misjudges the amount of force required to do a task, and as a result, in her hands crayons snap into tiny bits causing frustration. But over the years I have proven Crayola crayons much stronger than other brands and less likely to cause meltdowns around here. So for those reasons I adore Crayola…

  • family

    Social Media: How to Maximize Use of Linked In

    May 18, 2010 - By 

    Linked In was my first big foray into the adventure that is social media and that was a trip I took thanks to a PWAC (Periodical Writer’s Association of Canada) workshop. One year ago social media expert and writer Dawn Boschcoff came to London and gave a great presentation about the evolution of media. Me, being an old media gal, well let’s just say I had a lot to learn and the best way to do that, with respect to social media, is generally just to wade into the waters. That’s what I did as soon as Dawn’s words settled. For…

  • family

    Chip Trips

    May 18, 2010 - By 

    Looking for amazing and affordable family travel ideas this summer? Eat more chips. Thriftymomma is on a blog tour with Lay’s Chip Trips this summer and I can hardly wait. The excellent Frito-Lay’s promotion means that every time you buy a bag of Lay’s chips you get a code on the side of the bag. On the top of the bag there are points. Some say 5 and some say 10. Visit http://tiny.cc/7hud0and sign up for the Lay’s Chip Trips promotion and, no matter where you are in Canada, you can redeem the points for a trip or a voucher…

  • family

    A Unique Summer Job Project

    May 12, 2010 - By 

    Graduating from high school but not yet sure where you want to go with your life? Or college perhaps? Nobody knows that topic quite like Sean Aiken, author of the One-Week Job Project. Aiken, a British Columbia native, became a media celebrity when his very cool 52 jobs in one year tour of North America caught on with legions of people caught in career limbo. Hot on the heels of the book’s success, Aiken who blogged consistently about his jobs over the year, has launched a one-week job summer job project modelled on the very premise of his book. Over…