I have been working on getting some house stuff done during my break from Kindermusik. I've been trying to stretch our dollar further by shopping even more at resales than I did before, and I think it has helped a lot. I took the kids this morning to get their hair cut. Korben was getting Really Shaggy, and even though I know that's totally hip right now, it was a bit much for me. So I had them clean it up to a more "Zac Efron/ 17 again" look, and Sophie just got a trim. Then we hit Walmart early in the day to get backpacks and the last few school clothes we needed. I wanted them each to have a new warm-weather outfit to wear to school on the first day, since a lot of the school clothes I bought are for winter. Sophie also got a new lunch box and some juice bottles. I haven't bought Korben's school supply list, because I think we paid the PTA to do it, but I can't remember for sure. Our Back-To-School night is on Thursday, so we'll find out then, if not before. School starts on TUESDAY! I need to take him up there to find out who his teacher is and what classroom he'll be in. Sophie has a whole week at home with me all day. Scary! ;) He also has a new bus stop this year.
After we went to walmart, we stopped for lunch and then went to the ICM thrift store down the street from us. We had gone to a bouncy-castle place in Pearland with friends on Thursday, and I didn't want to blow a huge chunk of change going somewhere I knew was going to be crazy crowded on the last friday before school starts, so we cleaned out the board games section of the resale store. I spent about $10 on games and got a brand new Upwords, along with Mouse Trap, Hungry Hungry Hippos, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego Jr. Detective Edition, and a battleship-like hangman game. Most were missing something - usually just the little avatars, which are easily replaced. Mousetrap was missing the mice, the diver, and the pool. We tried to make do but couldn't find a toy the right size and weight to replace the diver, and it also had NO CHEESE cards! We made some out of cardstock paper, though. Hangman had enough letters to play on both sides, and we had a good time with that one. Carmen Sandiego was missing Kazakhstan and most of the little 4-piece "wanted" posters that you hid under the country pieces, so I printed out a picture of her I found online on colored cardstock and cut them into the 4 squares. We had a set of hungry hippos that was missing parts, so for a buck, we now have a complete set. :) Korben did really well with a lot of these games that were very hard - most were rated age 8 and up and he did just fine. He was neck and neck with me all through upwords, and caught on super quick. That was always one of my favorite games.
We played games for several hours throughout the afternoon, and Ryan came home just in time to join us for the Carmen Sandiego game, which even Sophie could play, as it required no reading, just matching map pictures, and it really felt good to be spending time together doing something like that that cost so little. I want to make a collection of leftover game bits to keep on hand for this kind of thing, too. It was also an opportunity to show the kids how to "make do" by creating our own pieces to replace the ones that were missing. I even made some paper-doll people to use as game pieces. Those are the kinds of life lessons that I think people sometimes forget to show their kids, you know? Anyway, it was a great day.
