4 hour tour...at the Mall

I had a ton of Christmas returns to do at the mall, and I was sick of them taking up my entire trunk.  So even though it was a little snowy out, the kids and I headed to Stratford.  Normally when we go to the mall, they spend the entire time whining about going to the play area or getting a treat.  I always promise them one or the other, or sometimes even both, if they behave while I do what I have to do.  This works about fifty percent of the time.  Well, today I had exactly eight different stores I needed to return items to, so I knew I needed to come up with a plan to keep them happy. Dianna introduced me to a site called Go West Young Mom.  It is a great resource for moms in the area to find free or inexpensive play areas, activities, or restaurants.  I was browsing the website a few days ago and saw a reader post that her favorite winter time activity to do with her kids is to take them to the mall for a scavenger hunt.  She said that they spend half a day there looking for specific things around the mall. My kids are obsessed with I Spy and hide and seek, so I was pretty sure that this idea could work for them.  I made each of them a separate list of things to find and brought along two markers for them to use to mark items off as they found them.  I told them that once they completed their list they could turn it in to me for a special treat. 

We did not run around looking for these items. We just went to the stores that I needed to go to, and I told them to keep their eyes open for the items on their lists.  Peyton found Dusty(airplane) on a pair of pajamas at Carson's; Austin found a heart at Gymboree on a sign for Valentine's Day; Peyton saw balloons in the dollar store. Austin was getting frustrated that he couldn't find a clock, so after returning items in the pajama department at Macy's we took the long way to get to the elevators and walked through the crystal department.  I told him that I thought there may be a clock nearby.  He looked around for a few minutes and them asked a sales associate if they had any clocks.  She showed him where it was, but told me that it was $225. We did make a specific trip to the food court which is where they both told me they could find their final items. Austin needed to find pizza, and Peyton needed to find someone eating ice cream.  After three hours, we had yet to see anyone eating ice cream so I changed it to someone eating pizza. Peyton walked right up to a little boy eating pizza in the food court and yelled, "He is eating pizza, Mommy.  I found it!" 

Mission accomplished; I returned everything I needed to, and the kids never complained once.  In total, after returns, a little shopping, going on the scavenger hunt, having a treat and playing in the play area, we were at the mall for four hours and fifteen minutes today!  Crazy!  We were all exhausted when we got home, but it was worth it.  We had a blast and got a ton of exercise!  And it only cost me $5.78 which was the cost of the two pretzels and a small lemonade. We may do this once a week. In fact, maybe I'll organize a scavenger hunt play date for some of our friends!!  The reader on Go West Young Mom said that she took her kids' pictures with every item they found. I didn't do that, but I did take a few pictures along the way.

I decided to do this five minutes before leaving to pick Austin up from school, so I made the lists in the car. Peyton was green, and Austin was blue.

Austin stopped in the middle of the mall to mark off the straw he saw on the Cold Stone counter.  He had been looking for a straw forever and was so excited when he finally found one.

We passed a million green shirts before getting to this one, but this is the one Peyton found.

I had a coupon for B1G1 Auntie Annie's pretzels.They usually have to share one, so they were very excited to have their own ginormous cinnamon sugar pretzel. 

 

Believe it or not, the scavenger hunt was not the only exciting part of today. Lunch also made me very happy today.

Breakfast: A banana, a pear and coffee

Lunch:  I bought a Sonic groupon($5 for $10 worth of food) over the summer thinking we would use it for shakes or slushies, but we never did.  I got an email that it was going to expire tomorrow, and I do NOT let a coupon go to waste. Therefore, we headed there today straight from school to grab some lunch to eat in the car on the way to the mall. We got there at 10:38am; the sign said "Medium Combo Meals $4 and Large Combo Meals $5 before 11am." Score.  I thought that was great, but then I saw "Wacky Kids Meals $1.99 on Wednesdays." DOUBLE score.  I actually had a hard time spending $10. The woman suggested I try the mozzarella sticks for $2.99.  Austin loves anything with cheese, so I said sure. I owed $1.01.

So to recap, for $11.01(really $6.01) I got:
Cheeseburger Kid's Meal with apples and a chocolate milk
Corn Dog Kid's meal with apples and a chocolate milk
Double Cheeseburger Combo Meal with a Medium Natural Cut Fry and a drink
Mozzarella sticks(5)

I ate 1 and 1/2 burgers without the bun and a few(like 5) fries. I took one sip of Dr.Pepper.  Clearly, fast food is NEVER a good idea, but sometimes you find yourself in the drive thru anyway.  Sonic's burgers are all beef and made fresh, so I feel a little better about eating it.  I did feel a little sick after but my guess is that that is from the one slice of cheese that was on the burger because I have not had real dairy in forever.  In hindsight, I should have passed on Sonic and just gotten five kid's meals.  I could have dropped the extra meals off at home before going to the mall and then reheated them for the kids for dinner, but then they would have been eating fast food twice in one day. 

Dinner: I had the citrus salad again but without the avocado and cashews.  I just forgot about them. I also had one ham and pickle roll up.  The kids had leftover Mexican beef skewers and some veggies.

Snacks: Chocolate covered blueberries

Tomorrow Pauls' snowboard outing got canceled due to frigid temperatures. I am excited to have him home, but I wasn't planning on him being here so I was not going to cook.  I think we will just have Mariano's marinated chicken breasts and a baked potato. Boring, but oh well. I'll be back to cooking on Saturday.  Friday night I have a party to go to, so Paul and the kids are on their own for dinner! 

XOXO