My daughter and I took a day trip this past fall and headed to St. Joseph in Missouri. 

Not far from Kansas City (about an hour’s drive), St. Joseph has quite a few wonderful attractions that families will really enjoy!  During our day-long trip, we were able to visit three of the city’s museums.

We are joining our book loving friends today as the Poppins Book Nook heads to Ancient Greece!

There’s something so intriguing about traveling into the past.  We’ve loved exploring the some of the ancient cultures and customs of past societies but especially Ancient Greece.  My daughter is a huge fan of Percy Jackson and knows all the myths by heart (I am schooled weekly on some of the details).

So to honor all the Gods & Goddesses, we’ve rounded up some great books & fun activities so you too can introduce your kids to the stories and secrets of Ancient Greece!

You don’t need a lot of fancy instruments to create beautiful music. 

In fact, kids can make so many types of instruments on their own AND using items you would either recycle or throw away.

We had some absolutely gorgeous and wonderfully creative ideas shared at this week’s Discover & Explore Music linky.  So grab that recycle bin and get started!

Not long ago, I walked into our playroom to find my daughter surrounded by all her cooking items and talking aloud to no one.  I just smiled and she smiled back.

“What’s up?”, I asked.

“I’m doing a cooking show!”

I guess I had been mentioning Rachel Ray quite a bit (I mean, it was the holiday season and I’m more likely to search for new recipes and tape some of the food shows).

I’m a list-making kind of girl.  Pen and paper for me (my tech-saavy teen thinks I’m so old school!) 

And every January, I have a penchant for making booklists!

We love reading at our house and are always visiting the library, looking for new books to devour.  So I’ve found that having a list really helps.  I have a list for myself and also encourage the kids to add to it so I know what books they’re dying to read.

Hello, Hello!  And most of all — Happy New Year!

I hope you had a wonderful time ringing in the New Year.  We all slept in today (which is a real treat in our house) and are getting a slow start to the new year.  Slow is good, right.

And we are also kicking off the new themes for the winter/spring Discover & Explore Linky today (yea!!).  We have four amazing blogs hosting the linky each week and we all love to see all the great ideas and fun activities that are shared.

We’ve already had our first taste of winter and the temperatures were brutally cold!  So I am ready to find a few new ideas before the next snowy day blows in from the west. Now, I’ll admit that no matter how snowy or cold the day, I do like the get the kids outside for …

I learned a long time ago that the memories our kids have of the holidays are not those picture perfect ideals that you see in magazines and movies. 

In fact, some of their fondest memories of Christmases past are ones that I may not want them to remember – but for them, it’s what made the holiday special or different or just plain enjoyable. 

We must have a BAZILLION old crayons in the house! 

I kid you not — old crayons from previous school years, the small packs the kids get when we eat out somewhere, crayons that we’ve received in treat bags at birthday parties — a bazillion crayons.

This is the final post in our 5-part series of The ABC’s of Family Field Trips. 

If you missed the first posts in our series, you can review the tips, resources and ideas that were shared for family outings:

{Part 1}  Getting Ready, Using Books & Exploring

{Part 2}  Fun, Inspiriation & Hands-on Ideas

{Part 3}  Learning, New Places & Outdoor Fun

{Part 4}  Pretend Play, Reading, Science & Tours

Since we’re covering topics from A to Z, our final post will highlight tips for U – Z.