Archives for April 2016

Lots of free things to do in Tacoma this weekend and all over the rest of the South Sound, too! Read on for the whole list!

Friday

Indoor Park at Pen-Met Indoor Soccer Center in Gig Harbor  Every Friday from 11:15-12:30; toys usually left up longer  2.00/child They also have a time on Tuesday mornings-9:45, I believe. For ages 2-5

Bounce Play in Gig Harbor  Free inflatable time for preschoolers and social time for parents hosted by Harbor Christian Church Missed it this week? You can reserve for next time-details on their fb page.

Big Just Between Friends kids’ consignment event in Burien

Ongoing

Narnia at Messiah Lutheran Church in Auburn  Ongoing times Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays through May 8th

Saturday

All Over

Healthy Kids Day at area YMCAs Every area YMCA is offering a special day of free fun and activities (You don’t need a membership).

 Story Time at most Barnes and Noble stores. 11AM   We do suggest calling your location to confirm, as we have found participation to be inconsistent. We have heard the Federal Way store does a good job. It’s, “Night At The Stadium,” today.

Kids’ Club at Michael’s Stores  2.00/child for 30 minute sessions It’s a tie-dye banner today.

South King County

Big Just Between Friends kids’ consignment event in Burien  Score a bargain on gently used kids’ clothing and gear! Jenny says to tell you it’s bigger and better than ever!

Narnia at Messiah Lutheran Church in Auburn  Ongoing times Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays through May 8th

Federal Way Library Dia Day Mexican music, dance, and more

Visit the HCC Mast Center  at Redondo   The center and its touch tanks of sea critters are free and open to the public every Saturday from 10-2

Puyallup/South Hill/Sumner/Greater Pierce

Camp Code at the Sumner Library 9-4 For parents with kids ages 11-15; pre-registration required  Play and build as a family-you’ll create your own video game by the end!

Lego My Library at the Puyallup Public Library  Stories and Lego building time 11AM

Dia Festival at the Puyallup Public Library  celebration of language, culture, books, and more! Activities, special guests, and a character appearance-“StellaLuna”  2-4PM

Keep reading for Tacoma listings and MORE! [Read more…]

Looking for something to do for Mother’s Day around the South Sound?

This list includes events geared specifically towards Mom. There is more fun under, “Sunday,” in the weekend list  on the homepage just one below this one! If you’re here on Mother’s Day, start by scrolling down on this post to he listings for mom for Sunday, Mother’s Day!

Friday, May 6, 2016 

Photo Credit: Pierce County Parks & Rec

Mom and Son Dance, Puyallup – Mothers and sons enjoy an evening just for you at Meridian Habitat Park.  There will be dancing, games and crafts to enjoy together!  The music will be fun tunes that are appropriate for all ages and tastes.  $15/couple, $6/additional son; 7:00pm-9:00pm.

Saturday, May 7, 2016

Museum of Glass Paper Flower Making  – From 10:00am-12:00pm, enjoy a  morning of paper flower making! Learn how to create several styles of crepe paper flowers and foliage. All the materials will be provided for the session. Participants must be 14 years old.

Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium – Half price Mom’s Day at the zoo! All moms will receive half-off general admission. You won’t want to miss the clouded leopard cub triplets!

Sunday, May 8, 2016

The first 50 moms to bring their littles to play at WiggleWorks at South Hill Mall will score a Seriously awesome swag bag-for real. Tell ’em we sent you!

Washington State Parks – It’s a Fee Free Day at all Washington State Parks on Mother’s Day! No Discover Pass needed to enjoy the outdoors in our beautiful state.

The nature trail at Dash Point State Park

Museum of Glass, Tacoma – FREE admission for Moms on Mother’s Day from 12:00pm-5:00pm. There will also be a Mom and Me Fusing Workshop priced at buy one, get one half off! Participants will be able to design a piece of glass and it will be fired at the museum! Don’t forget, you can get into the museum for free on ANY day with your Tacoma Public Library pass or your Pierce County Library Pass. Read all about how to go to museums around the South Sound for free!

Second Sunday Concerts in Tacoma -From 1:00pm-2:30pm, you can enjoy a live acoustic performance amiss the lush tropical flowers inside the Seymour Wright Conservatory. This month’s artist is folk singer/songwriter, Gina Belliveau. The cost is a suggested donation of $3.

Tacoma Art Museum Mother’s Day Brunch – Share the day over brunch at the museum! Tour the galleries, and enjoy a meal and a mimosa! Seating times offered at 10:00am, 11:30am, and 1:00pm. The cost is $30 and includes brunch and museum admission Children 5 and under are free.

Hands on Children’s Museum, Olympia – Free admission from 10:00am-5:00pm for mothers and grandmothers into this award winning museum!

All Weekend

If the ideas below and above don’t appeal, or you can’t get in, we think your best bet for finding a restaurant with space is via OpenTable.com. 

Northwest Railway Museum, Snoqualmie – Take a train ride with the family during the weekend’s special schedule for Mother’s Day. Mom’s ride free when accompanied by a paying child!

Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden, Federal Way – Enjoy music while you stroll through the rhody garden; food cart on site with treats. General admission is $8; free for children under 12.

Mother’s Day Weekend at Powell’s Wood, Federal Way – All weekend from 10:00am-5:00pm, enjoy garden tours, workshops, artists displays, tea, coffee, and scones, and live music. Admission is $7/adults, $5/youth, $3/children, and FREE/ages 5 and under.

Mother’s Day Tea Secret Garden, Sumner – Enjoy a 5 course tea with gluten free and child options. Each guest will recieve a special keepsake teacup as well. Call to make reservations for various tea times!

Meeker Mansion, Puyallup – Enjoy a Mother’s Day Tea for only $12/perso at 12:30 and 2:00pm all weekend. Reservations are required.

Lakewold Gardens, Lakewood – From Friday-Sunday explore 10 acres of gardens, including the Asian inspired and formal gardens. A variety of artists, musicians, and entertainers will be on hand throughout the weekend.

For other restaurant deals and freebies, as well as Seattle area sound, you can check out this round-up from our friends at ThriftyNorthwestMom

Ideas for fun from around the site:

If your kiddos are still little enough to ride in a stroller, you might enjoy a nice Sunday stroll on one of the many South Sound Stroller Friendly Trails.

Visit Discovery Playground, the brand new Kids’ Indoor Playground in Maple Valley, now open on Sundays!

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Nothing here that sounds just right for your mom?  You say you’re dad or grandma, and you’ve got the kiddos? Not to worry! Check my weekend list up Friday morning for even more ideas of what to do for Mother’s Day!

Our writer mom Julie has a review of Teatro ZinZanni’s family friendly show, Big Top Rock: Rock This Way

Teatro ZinZanni’s family friendly show is back in Seattle and showing on select weekends from now until May 22!  Have you been to one of their three-hour adult dinner shows?  They get rave reviews, but I’ve never see one.  So heading into the family show on their opening weekend, I had no idea what to expect beyond it combining kid friendly live rock music and circus acts.  Ha!  

The minute we stepped into the theatre, we knew we were in for something special.  Teatro ZinZanni is housed in two antique theatre tents, known as spiegeltents (mirror tents).  They are circular and crafted from dark wood, stained glass, red velvet, and gold brocade.  It makes for a magical and cozy setting where there truly are no bad seats!  

But the real magic is the show itself.  Kids were invited to dance and watch the show from the front and center mosh pit.  Our 6-year-old daughter loved it, but our 5-year-old son preferred to sit with us.  The show began with The Parkway Boys (the house band) lead by Jen Ayers belting out “I love Rock ‘n’ Roll” and proceeded to play well known hits from Aerosmith, Blondie, David Bowie, and others.   Some of the songs featured dancers Victoria Smith, Riley Marshall, Lily Jacobs from All That Dance.   There was some comedy sprinkled in between songs.  And of course, there were high-flying circus acts by Teatro Zinzanni regulars Duo Madrona, Ling Rui, Max Voronin.  It’s such a fun mix of music, dance, comedy, and circus, you really have to see it to believe it!

The show is one hour (no intermission) of high-energy entertainment that our entire family enjoyed (even my hard to please husband!).  

Here’s the details: Doors open at 10:00, show starts at 11:00.  Seating is general admission, so I suggest getting there early.  There’s a parking garage across the street, but if you’re lucky you might score street parking.  The show is 60 minutes long.  Tickets are $25 for chairs that are close to the action, and $20 for booth seating.  

Teatro ZinZanni is located at 222 Mercer Street (Mercer Street at 3rd Avenue) near the Seattle Center.
If you go, let us know what you think! More information and tickets here. Shows run through May 22nd. 

Disclosure: Our writer was provided with tickets to facilitate this review. Neither she nor the site were otherwise compensated by this production or venue.

Guys, I know I go on and on about how much I love our library system, but I just can’t help it! Every month I find out about another new and awesome service the library provides for my favorite price-FREE!

For example, did you know that you can use your library card to download high quality children’s magazines, for FREE?  I know-how great is that??

My kids love magazines, and I love seeing them reading! I especially love all the new things they can learn about science, geography, history, and other topics with specialty magazines just for them. The only problem is that a lot of these are quite expensive. Problem solved!

With your PCL library card you can check out current and back issues. There’s no limit, so download as many as you want. You never have to return a borrowed digital magazine. Woot!!

Choose from magazines such as Ladybug for pre-schoolers and early readers, Click for inquisitive first and second graders and Muse for curious kids in grades 5 through 9. And who can forget Highlights, the beloved magazine delighting children since 1946.  They also have America Girl magazine, and more than 16 children’s titles in total.  through the Zinio download service.

 Download the Zinio app through your phone’s app store or visit zinio.pcls.us.  One note-Zinio is not currently compatible with Windows Mobile, Blackberry or e-readers such as Kindle or Nook.

Don’t have a Pierce County Library card? Get one today. You’re eligible if you live pretty much anywhere around here, or have a card from pretty much any other area system!  I hope you’ll pass this on to your teacher and homeshooler friends.

The nationally acclaimed Pierce County Library System serves more than 575,000 people throughout the county with 20 branches and online services. The system is the fourth largest in the state and is funded primarily through property taxes. We are incredibly proud to have a sponsorship agreement with PCL. If you have a chance to mention Sounds Fun Mom when you attend a library event or use a library service, we would love it! 

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of The Motherhood and MiMedia –

 Be sure to check out the free trial and the giveaway! Woot! 

Where do your memories live?

If you’re like me, I’m guessing you spend a good amount of time getting darling pictures of your kiddos that then get forgotten on your phone or computer. A couple of years ago I actually lost years of precious memories when my laptop took an unexpected, “Bath.”

You’d think that experience would have motivated me to upload my pictures to someplace else, but honestly, I’ve never found a cloud sharing platform I liked. What I’ve always wanted was one place to organize all my media that is also fun and pretty (High tech terms, right)?

Enter MiMedia, a different kind of personal cloud that is a safe and secure home for all your media.

What makes MiMedia different?

One major difference is that organizing your files is much easier. Just one click can import your pics from Facebook, Dropbox, Google+, Picasa, Flickr, and more.

MiMedia also allows you to have photos, videos, music and documents all in one place, and MiMedia is device-agnostic-which means you can share your memories with your family and friends even if they’re not all on the same platform or phone. We also love that MiMedia is private and secure-it has great features for sharing with the family; a perfect solution if Grandma doesn’t want to learn Instagram!

Honestly, though, my favorite part has been how easy it is to use. I love how quickly I can see, find, and organize my photos. I can tag favorites and write comments to remember for future photo books, or you know-blog posts! The interface (now I sound high tech!) is much more user friendly that other sites and tools I’ve tried in the past.

If you’d like to give MiMedia a try, too, I have information on their plans below (You get a lot for FREE), plus a special code for you and a giveaway

MiMedia Plans

Free

10 GB

• 2,500 photos
• 125 videos
• 2,000 songs
• 10,000 documents

Basic

500 GB

$7.99/month or $85 annually

• 125,000 photos
• 6,250 videos
• 100,000 songs
• 500,000 documents

Use code THEMOTHERHOOD when you sign up, and you’ll also receive special promotions and invitations just for you.

And, we have a giveaway! One reader will win a full year long trial of a Basic 500GB MiMedia plan. That’s an 85.00 prize. Fun!

To enter just check out MiMedia at their site or on Facebook and then leave us a comment and tell us why you’d like to win! Or, just for fun-tell us what your challenges are with organizing your photos and digital life

Good Luck!

The free plan will expire one year after winner signs up for MiMedia.

MiMedia will contact the winner prior to their expiration of one year, and he/she will be given the option to cancel service or renew the service for the cost of the plan. The winner will also have the option of switching plans to meet their need.

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of The Motherhood and MiMedia  We’d love to hear how you think of MiMedia, too!