Well, I saw an add that said the Christian bookstore in Binghamton was playing the just released “Boz” kids videos for several hours in their conference room on a theater sized screen. We had gotten the free sneak peek video (you can order your own) through MOPs (a christian based mothering group-Mothers of Preschoolers) a few months ago and Buddy just loves watching it. He watches it over, and over, and over. I was getting a little tired of seeing that 15 min episode 🙂
Since DH is out of town (he’s been gone 4 days and the kids were sick enough to stay out of nursery school for the first 2) I felt I needed a break and to get out of the house. So we packed up and went. The kids really liked the videos-there are two full legnth videos of 3 episodes each. They had a great time watching and dancing to them, and playing with the other kids watching.
I of course had to look around the store. I wound up buying both of the Boz videos, the new Veggie Tales video (Sheerluck Holmes) and a kids bible that is much more complete than the one we own. Total-$57.
Well, I knew I was going to buy the videos, but I only let the kids know I bought one (which of course we had to watch immediately upon returning home). The other one will be saved for some future point when I really need to distract them, if I don’t need it before then it might even become a birthday present for Buddy in July. The Veggie Tales is a present for Princess’s birthday next month.
The preschoolers bible is something that I’ve been thinking about for a while-Princess comes home from church or from watching Veggie Tales asking some interesting questions sometimes. Like the other day when she looked at me and asked “why were all the Isrealites taking all the boy babies? (She had been watching a Duke and the Great Pie War from Veggie Tales that has a short-“Baby Sitter in DeNile” that talked in part of it about Moses and how the Egyptians were taking all the male babies-she was a bit confused).
I don’t feel bad about my purchases. Are they necessities? No. On the other hand they are not impulse buys, but rather things that after due consideration and waiting I still wanted. Since we can afford them, I made a conscious decision to buy them. That is one of the reasons I practice frugality, so I can buy things like these when I really want to.
A frugal point-if I had not had the money to purchase anything, or simply had not wanted to, the kids still would have been thrilled at spending a couple of hours there watching the video on the theater screen for free.
If you keep your eyes open you can find lots of fun free things for kids and adults. For example this weekend they had “Farm Days” at the Mall. I took the kids on Friday even though they were still a little bit under the weather. There were all sorts of crafts and fun activities for kids, free crayons, live animals, and cool tractors to look at. The kids had a blast and I got lots of information from the booths on gardening and composting, as well as picked up fliers about different festivals and events in our area this summer and fall.
I even took business cards from the Alpaca farms and horse stables that said they welcome visitors. We’ll try to visit this summer! (BTW-I put all this info in a folder so I can find it later. I’m thinking about penciling events in on the calendar, but that might take up too much room.) Keep an eye on the posters that go up in your town, and on the inserts in your local papers (if you get it). You should be able to find lots of inexpensive or downright free events to take the kids to.
You should have your kids help you make a BIG calendar and then you could put all of their activities and things that you are planning on doing with them on it.
Heck, maybe I will do that.
hmmm, that is a good idea. . ..but then I have to remember to look at that as well as the general calendar in the kitchen. . .