Thirty Days Of October Fun For 20.00 or less!

October is my favorite month!  Everything is burnt orange, pink and pumpkin scented.  I love seeing breast cancer survivors and their friends participating in 5k races, defying odds, and inspiring us.  I love watching the kids transform into their favorite characters and letting their imaginations run free.  Fall harvests bring about fall festivals and pumpkin pies. The apple trees are droopy from the bounty. You see a subtle shift in messages from spooky puns to thankful tidings.   October is a…

LEGOLAND BRICK OR TREAT 2020: What To Expect!

If you’ve been a reader of This Messy Season for any period of time, you know my boys are LEGO obsessed. We love to visit LEGOLAND and we’ve decided to head down for Brick or Treat this year. I’m so pleased with the safety precautions they are taking so that the kids can have a sweet Halloween. (See what I did there?) 2020 is the year of “it’ll look different, but..” fill in the blank. And that’s exactly how Brick…

The Best Places To Eat In Jacksonville, Florida

I’ve said it before, but food is my hobby. I love to eat, cook, buy snacks, and try new restaurants. Since I’ve been trying to get back in the habit of sharing my favorite things I thought it would be fun to share some of my favorite places to eat in Jacksonville, Florida. Stay tuned for Bloomington, Indiana and Portland, Oregon edition next week! 1) Mama Kim’s Korean BBQ- I don’t know what we love more. The food or the…

Cheapskate Birthday Party Idea: NERF birthday battle!

What an easy and fun birthday! I was proud of this, to be honest. Remember how I used to swear I’d never host a party at my house ever again? Well, since we moved to Jacksonville I’ve only done parties at home. This year, staying mindful of quarantine/ Covid policies we had a very, very, small birthday party. It’s so beyond crazy to me this sweet, sweet boy of mine is 8. Here are the details! Liam is my one…

Save 1000.00 in 52 weeks + budget vacation tips!

Disclaimer: If this isn't your season to save weekly, we've been there. Totally understand. My heart in writing this post is really just to encourage you that travel may be attainable than you realized. I also wanted to add that if you want to tweak this to save more, awesome. I just hope you can sit aside cash to travel when we all can again! I've created this 52 weeks saving schedule. I really want you to get creative here.…

MULAN: Family Movie Night & Review!

Last week, we had the opportunity to watch the new Mulan film. It’s going to be released with premier access on Disney Plus tomorrow (September 4, 2020) -- it’ll be available for 29.00 on Disneyplus.com, and you’ll be able to watch it as often as you’d like on any platform Disney+ is available!When cartoon Mulan came out, I loved it because she was a girl power bad ass warrior. I'm white. I didn't realize how little Asian representation there is…

My favorite apps right now!

Look, I know we are all trying to spend less time on our phones. But why don’t we work with them to use them for the greater good. Let’s make our lives easier. Here are some of my favorite apps right now. Color Story- if you don’t want to spend money on expense photo editing apps. This is a great free one. There are some in app purchases but every feature I use in this app is free. Cozi- y’all…

This Messy Season: September Edit 2020

I love when other content creators put together edits so I’ve made the executive decision to start offering them monthly too. Especially as we inch towards the holiday seasons, I think this will be especially fun. Look, I’m going to be honest here and tell y’all how much I’ve struggled to create content lately. Between Covid and blatant racism, xenophobia, people losing their livelihoods, and all the other uncertainties that accompany the first global pandemic we’ve seen in over 100…

“The One & Only Ivan” Family Movie Night!

My family and I read "The One & Only Ivan" back in April as our nightly read aloud. I actually put a copy in Liam's Easter basket. It was a family favorite read aloud, and we couldn't pre-order our copy of "The One And Only Bob" fast enough. Needless to say, we've been really looking forward to watching this movie in theaters, but this pandemic had other plans. I do feel blessed it'll be on Disney+, because I don't think…

Foster Care Wishlist: What To Add!

I said I'd do a post on this months ago, and I'm sorry to just be getting around to it. A fostering friend suggested to me that before we become foster parents we start a wish list, I'm glad I did! What I learned is that your friends want to help, and this makes things easy on them. Your actual needs/wants are on one page. I also made sure my friends knew we were open to hand me down versions…