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Exclusive Launch of Gifts With Heart
This year I am tackling Christmas with a purpose. So, while this is an open invitation to brands to send me your pitches to be considered for inclusion in my gift guide, please understand that I am only accepting a select few gifts for this exclusive Gift Guide this year. The Thrifty Momma’s Tips 2014 Gift Guide will be focussing on Gifts With Heart. We celebrate Christmas here in my home and we enjoy the time together and the moments spent creating memories, even the moments just cuddling up and watching a special movie. I love this season. But with a tween and a teenager, and my recent trip to…
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My Favourite Shopping App and a #Flippsgiving Twitter Party
Talking turkey, but no idea where to get the best deal on your bird this year? Flipp has the answer. Thanksgiving can be a beautiful opportunity to share a meal with your family, decorate your house and start celebrating all that you are grateful for. But let’s face it. First there’s the shopping, the cleaning, the cooking and decorating. All of that can be hard on the budget. Sticker shock from the turkey alone can leave you in despair. This year I am using Flipp shopping app because it rocks. Honestly, not sure why this wasn’t around months ago. It’s a treat to use. The app is fun, interactive and…
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Summer Days with Cousins
Summer days are my favourite. I mean what’s not to love? Summer days with cousins are even better than average seasonal sunny days we already love. Always have been and always will be, simply because of moments like this. I shot this random picture of Ainsley when her cousins were visiting this summer. Cousin fun is always special and it was a gorgeous sunny day, as you can see. Summer days are hanging out and leisurely swimming in the pool and sometimes doing day camps and being outside more often than any other time of year. Being out of doors makes me happiest as well. My Mom used to say…
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Two Hands are Enough – My Experience Travelling with World Vision Canada
People told me I’d be changed after travelling with World Vision Canada. That’s fair, of course and true and yet also trite. Inadequate. Changed Words sometimes are so thin, evasive and even limiting. Changed doesn’t begin to capture the depth or range of emotions that I felt when walking through Asimiflor, a brand new area development program in Bucaramanga. the saddest place I have ever seen children living. My week in Colombia with World Vision Canada was jam packed with big adventures and interviews and so many stories shared that I will be recounting them for a decade or more. Eye opening? Yes. Exciting? Yes. Exhausting and heartbreaking and…
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Learning Resources For Kids with Special Needs
It’s the time of year when updating Individualized Education Plans and getting all the specialists lined up again takes a front seat here at my house. This past week I spent a few hours juggling the numerous doctors and people I want sitting at the table when my daughter’s new IEP is revised. She has been identified now with a learning disability in one area of math. It took me four years of pushing the school to believe that and it also took a private educational assessment that cost us a lot of money this summer. But it’s all good because I am certain we will each have the proper…
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Three Things You Can Do to Help Advocate for Public Funding for IVF in Alberta #abhc4ivf #abpoli
1 in 6 people struggle with infertility. I talk about that often here in this space. Why? Because I believe in a Canadian health care system that is accessible and great. And because infertility is a hard emotional and financial journey. It is devastating to far too many. That’s part of the reason why I help advocate for public funding for IVF. Couples, and singles, who are diagnosed with infertility, are sometimes prescribed In vitro fertilization as the best course of action. In Vitro Fertilization is a process by which sperm and egg are introduced in a lab and left to do their magic. The resulting embryo is then placed…
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Levana Sophia Digital Video Baby Monitor #Giveaway ARV $100
Every new parent is nervous, I think. But new adoptive parents are a whole different level of nervous and anxious. We are crazy from the waiting sometimes and so grateful for our precious gift of parenthood that we can be hyper vigilant about our new roles and responsibilities. I can easily recall how we (mostly I) spent many nights hovering outside the door of Payton’s nursery. I remember how I didn’t trust that Payton would keep breathing all night long on her own. I read a lot about SIDS and I worried about the things that could go wrong. I would tippy toe into her room, which was right beside…
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When I Sponsor a Child With World Vision Canada Does My Money Really Go To Them? Child Poverty #TMMWVC
When I sponsor a child with World Vision Canada does my money really go to them? This is the number one question I am asked most in the days leading up to my trip to Colombia. I spent a week finding the answer to this question inside many impoverished Colombian cities where violence and drugs are a threat to childhood and family health. I witnessed extreme child poverty and the work World Vision is doing to try to help. I hope these posts help answer that question and many others too. Meet Miguel and Juan. I introduced you to them briefly yesterday in a post about soccer balls and World…
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Madame Picasso Paris 3 DVD Prize Pack Worth $75
(When this book arrived here late in August you can imagine the kid’s comments.) Madame Picasso is a pageturner and a well written tale that is thoroughly enjoyable. I haven’t had a lot of time lately to read or review books here. Time has been at a premium, but the moment I picked this one up and read the first line, well that was it. Anne Girard is a skillful storyteller and she weaves a truly captivating story here. It is rare that I am drawn in by a character instantly. Eva Gouel is memorable and charming and a character you empathize with immediately. That’s exactly what I want from…
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How Soccer Balls Make an Impact in Taminango Colombia
I never thought a soccer ball in Taminango Colombia could make me cry. Let me explain… How Does the Gift of Sports Change Lives? This is what the gift of a soccer ball looks like in Colombia. A team in the middle of a dirt field practising every night. Two young men, sponsored as children, now coaches, committed and clear-headed. Mentors in every way. This is the living breathing outcome of presents from a World Vision gift catalogue. A vulnerable space made into a soccer field in a community where drugs, gangs and crime are extremely big threats to a child’s safety. Poverty lives here every day. It can easily…