Growing Up

It’s been a REALLY long time since I had a chance to write on my blog and I have missed it. Thankyou to those of you who have told me you have missed it too … you have inspired me to write again.

2012 has been a ridiculously busy year so far and shows absolutely no sign of slowing any time soon (or possibly ever in the foreseeable future at the very least!). I guess that is to be expected with our family of six; certainly people expect you to be run-off-your-feet-busy when you have 4 children. But I suspect my difficulty in saying “no” to near any request is also a mitigating factor in the craziness that is my life. I tend to take on lots of projects, celebrations and the like and then find myself drowning in my to do list. This is not the only culprit though; I am easily distracted. And for heavens sake, don’t give me a book because I find it near impossible to put it down until I have read the very last line!

Since I last wrote, I celebrated my birthday. I am not going to tell you how old I was but I will tell you that I am still a few years off the big 4-0. I am however, experiencing a mid-life crisis of sorts. When did I get old exactly? I didn’t mind 30 at all, in fact, I felt rather grown up. 35 wasn’t too bad either but the other side of this number is not so great. Much better than the alternative, my Dad always reminds me, but I don’t want to get older. I certainly don’t really like the physical side of growing up. I could do without the wrinkles (even if you do call them “laugh lines”) and my figure is certainly not what it used to be. To wallow or to do something about it? That is the question really.

So, I have decided that there is nothing to stop me getting younger! (If only that were actually a possibility) But I can do something about how fit and toned I am; about the condition of my skin; about how good I feel about myself. You know all about my love (obsession perhaps?) of Pinterest. I have been busily pinning lots of great ideas for exercising, changing my diet and reading magazines like Prevention and Women’s Health. All the info you need to be your best is out there, you just need to go find it and then put it in to practice.

This morning, for the first time in …. well, let’s just agree that it has been a really long time …. I went for a run. (Just give my Mum a moment to pick herself up off the floor! Yes, I did really run Mum) And it felt good. Well, let me clarify that … it didn’t actually feel that good (and I am guessing that the man with his dog that I was sharing the local football oval with, thought I was about to keel over at any moment, based solely on my ragged breathing) but it felt good to be doing something. In fact, the hardest thing about exercising is dragging myself from my very warm, comfortable bed when everyone else in my household is snuggling. Once I actually step outside though, it is all worth it. I use this time to think, to pray, to plan my day. It is amazing how good it feels to have some clear head space. I highly recommend it.

My goal is not to look like a teenager or become a size 8 even. I would be happy to be mistaken for 30! But I do want to be the healthiest me I can be. And to fit into a gorgeous outfit I have in my wardrobe. (I will post pictures when I get there). Oh and I want a tattoo and a sports car. Well, what self-respecting  mid-life crisis is any good without a sports car I ask you?

 

 

Here’s to a healthier me!

My lunch tub

The routine in our house used to be the same each morning as I prepared the lunches for David and the girls ... fridge open, grab margarine / butter and ham. fridge open, grab jam. fridge open, grab cheese and mayo. fridge open, grab tomatoes and dijonnaise. Somedays, all of the required items were in plain sight; other days I had to go feretting around in the back of the fridge to find said items. All that opening and closing of the fridge drove me mad.

One day, while out browsing at Ikea (love that store!), I came across a little white tub. Well, a medium size tub really, with a cut out handle at each end. And I had a brainwave ..... What if I were to store all our regular lunch items in this tub and then when I go to make lunches in the morning, I would have everything I needed (my family are creatures of habit when it comes to their lunch choices most days) without having to dig around or do multiple trips to the fridge. Really, such a simple idea, why hadn't I thought of it before?

Since I have implemented this system, there have been a couple of added bonuses ... like the girls making their lunches on the weekend using the tub and being able to see at a glance if I am running low on something.

As I was on lunches, thought I would share a product that I love (more for the little girls than the big ones) ... the lunch punch. They come as a set of 4 and punch out shapes in sandwiches but rather than losing half the sandwich that falls outside of the shape, these cut out almost all the sandwich except the crusts. Genius!

Oh and just a final thought, my fridge is not usually this gorgeous. It had a clean out before I took the photo; it is usually a little more haphazard.  :)

A bit of creative fun

Recently I came across a great, cheap crafty idea that I thought my little girls particularly would enjoy. Of course, since the big girls have seen it, they are also keen to give it a go. It used common kitchen ingredients and required very little set up. So, the next time I was babysitting, I thought I would give it a test run with the kids. Let's just say it was a huge success. Master 4, Miss 2 and of course, Josie-rabbit, had a ball. Check it out for yourself.

Ingredients required: bicarb soda, vinegar and food colouring. You will also need a reasonable size dish (I used glass), a medicine dropper (I purchased a couple of small droppers at the chemist for about $3 each) and a few dishes for different coloured vinegars (I used ramekins).

Pour a layer of bicarb soda in the bottom of the dish. Add food colouring to several small dishes of vinegar. Use the medicine dropper to draw up the vinegar and then squirt it on to the soda to form patterns. The soda will bubble up when the vinegar is dropped onto it which is fun for the kids to watch too.

Suffice to say, the kids enjoyed this activity and it kept them occupied for ages. Great for their fine motor skills and colour recognition too. We also talked about what colours you can make when you mix the colours together. And as for the clean up, wash it down the sink with a jug of boiling water and you can clean your drains at the same time. Nothing like multi-tasking!

Sponge Cake with Sprinkles

This is a family favourite. My mum made this for my sister and I when we were growing up. My girls (and David) love it too. Quick to make and delicious, my recommendation is that you double the mix and make a large cake (use a lamington tray) because you will find that it disappears very quickly. (This one went so fast that I didn't get a chance to snap a picture before they started eating it!)

SPONGE CAKE WITH SPRINKLES
1 1/2 cups self raising flour
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
vanilla essence
1/2 cup milk
4oz margarine

Melt butter. Mix all ingredients and then add melted butter. Cook at 180'C for about 40 minutes.

To make icing: melt 1 tablespoon of butter (or margarine) in 2 tablespoons of boiling water. Add to 1 cup of icing sugar. Then add sprinkles.

Rebecca proclaimed "I'm in cake heaven" as she was enjoying her cake when I made it just a few days ago. I hope your family likes it just as much.

Keeping the kids entertained when you're out

I decided to have the night off last night … from cooking that is. We took the girls out to La Porchetta’s for dinner. And even better than having the night off from cooking, is having the night off from doing the dishes!

But taking our 4 girls out to dinner requires some preparation in the entertainment department. We learnt very early on in our parenting journey that a meal out is a much more pleasant experience when the girls are entertained while they are waiting for their meals to arrive (or waiting for the adults to finish). So for years we have toted along colouring and activity books and pencil cases to keep them distracted. Tonight, however, we, or rather I (David sometimes takes a bit of convincing) had a brilliant idea and it took up a whole lot less room in my handbag.

While we waited for our meals to arrive, instead of distracting the girls, we spent time talking to them but with a bit of help from some great little cards … conversation starters. These help you to chat about more than just “how was your day?” but ask questions that make you think or laugh  and are just a bit of fun … and the kids love them. Tonight we chatted about the most beautiful place we had ever visited, what we keep under our beds (Spiders was Rebecca’s surprising answer!), our favourite food, the best present you could ever receive (animals featured heavily – there was mention of puppies and ponies!) and nicknames we have had. Not only did it give us a few giggles while we were passing the time, but everyone was able to contribute including Josie who is only 2 ½.

I have recently come across this great website that has lists of conversation starters you can download. http://debbiehodge.com/2012/03/keep-a-5-year-journal-progress-to-date-and-prompts-for-april/  Who knows, you may just find out something you didn’t know and you are bound to at least get a few laughs.

Gaining back control

Life is crazy busy and sometimes that means that things get more out of control than I would like. It is usually a combination of factors that contribute and this time, it was having a weekend away, feeling a little under the weather (probably due to lack of sleep), various appointments and lots of projects with deadlines that made me feel like my head was spinning and my house look like a medium size tornado had just gone through. I am never productive when everything is in such a mess so I needed some serious intervention. Just so you know I am not over-exaggerating, here is the evidence of my disarray.

I'm sure you recognise my messes ... overflowing laundry hamper, dirty dishes, heaps of clean washing to be folded and sorted, paper piles and assorted clutter on my kitchen bench. I am a little alarmed about actually sharing these photos with you but this is what real life looks like sometimes for our family of six.

So, here are my best tips for righting my house and alleviating the stress that this kind of mess causes me.

Tip #1: Put on my runners. That might seem like an odd first step but it does really help. It was a tip I picked up from www.FlyLady.net . (This is a fabulous website with great tips for streamlining your home and your life.) It helps me to focus on working rather than being distracted with other things.

Tip #2: Start with the kitchen ... a clean sink without dirty dishes makes me smile (and looks better if you have unexpected company)

Tip #3: Tackle the washing and laundry. I have a secret ... I love doing the washing. It is one of those jobs that gives a large return for a small investment of time. And even more so now that I have my new super-sized washing machine. I can catch up in just a couple of loads.

Tip #4: Beat the timer. I love a deadline to spur me on so I set my timer for 10 or 15 minutes per room and then try to beat it. (Works for kids too who are reluctant to spend time cleaning their rooms or tidying up common areas).

So after a busy few hours (including Bejewelled breaks - you need a reward when you are working hard), my house it back to rights and I have a clear head to tackle the next project. It's all good.

M & Ms Cookies

OK, after several requests, here is my recipe for M & Ms Cookies. It's another quick and easy one (my favourites these days) and it makes 4 dozen cookies. Enjoy!

1 1/4 cups brown sugar
185gm butter
1 tspn vanilla essence
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups plain flour
180gm M & Ms
1 tspn baking soda

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Grease baking trays. Cream together butter and sugar until well combined. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in sifted flour and soda. Add M & Ms. Roll into balls by teaspoon mixture. Bake until light brown (approx 10 - 12 minutes).

Note: I'm a big fan of cooking in bulk and cookies are no exception. Most cookie doughs freeze really well, so make one batch and freeze a second, ready for easy cookies another day (great for mornings when you realise you have nothing to put in the kids lunchboxes!)

Everyday displays of love

I had the luxury of a weekend away with the girls scrapbooking just last week. There were 60 of us and we had a fabulous time creating and relaxing. One of the projects that I worked on was creating these everyday displays of love for my girls. I like to leave post-it notes around the house for them. The girls love to find these notes and they keep them for ages. The difficulty is knowing where to leave them so they won't be overlooked. Well, this is my solution. The plan is to display these little boards in the hallway where they will see them all the time. The boards have a peg where I can pin up notes for each of them. It might be a quick note or an inspiring quote or even a drawing - whatever I can fit on a post-it note. Just another way to say "I love you" really.

Pen Pals

I am always looking for new ways to connect with my girls. When you have a big family it can be difficult to always give each of your children the one on one time and attention they crave. I recently came across a great idea for my big girls ... we are going to be pen pals. I can't begin to tell you how excited my girls are about this; they were literally squealing with excitment when I introduced the idea to them. It was an idea that came from www.mama-jenn.blogspot.com/2010/11/mama-me-journal.html. I bought each of the girls a gorgeous hardcover notebook and then I wrote them a letter (the letter was a copy of the one I found on this site).

Both of them received the same letter which said ...

Dear Megan/Alison, Would you like to be my pen pal? Instead of mailing letters to each other, we can keep them here in this notebook. Does that sound like fun? I will write to you and then leave the notebook on your bed. Then, when you want to write back, you can begin writing on the next page and leave the notebook on my bed when you are done. You can write about anything! It can be funny or serious. Just write about whatever is on your mind. I am so excited and I hope that you are too! This is going to be fun. Something special just for the two of us to share. Love Mum xxx PS Write back soon.

I took the girls out to Gloria Jean's together for our favourite beverage ... white hot chocolate. (If you haven't tried it, do yourself a favour. It is so much better than regular hot chocolate.) Then I gave them their notebooks and I watched the smiles spread all the way across their faces to their sparkling eyes. Ali asked if I had a pen then and there to reply! I convinced them to wait until they got home to write me back. They did make one additional request ... that we hide the journals under each others pillows rather than just put them on the bed. This will avoid drawing the little girls attention to them (especially our youngest artist!) and it makes it a bit more secretive which appeals to them both.

Later that night, I found my first two letters. I won't share them here because they are just between us but the girls did give me permission to share a little of what they wrote.

Megan ... "This is going to be the best thing ever.....This way I can tell you things that I won't tell other people."

Alison ... "I love having a diary just between you and me. This is going to be great ... Write back soon."

And now I must go because I have two letters to write to my beautiful girls. Xx

Polly Pocket & Me

I have a love-hate relationship with Polly Pocket. For the uninitiated, Polly is a tiny doll who lives in a tiny world and has oodles of tiny accessories. Great idea, right? I mean, straight away she is a space saver - tiny stuff doesn't require much space to store it, right? Wrong! Polly has a jumbo jet!! A scale model it would seem. Try fitting that in a lunchbox. I dare you.

My girls of course love Polly. She does after all have a lot of cool stuff and when we go away and they are limited to one small backpack each for items to entertain, Polly really comes into her own (so long as you leave the jumbo at home). Our Polly collection (sans jumbo) lives in a large lunchbox, however, you can bet that whenever the girls have played with her (and her many, many friends - she is very popular), there will always be tell tale signs left behind - a teeny tiny necklace, an even smaller shoe etc. (And I am a little ashamed to say that on occasion the temptation has just been too great and I have vaccuumed them right up! Ooh. I think that is bad. You do understand though, don't you? I hope so.)

But I have come across a couple of inspired ideas for dealing with Polly's penchant for accessories and all things small. Check these out.

You can wear your Polly Pocket accessories so they don't get lost (or vaccuumed up 'accidentally'). And let me tell you this from experience, Polly loves to change her outfit regularly but she rarely has time to worry about accessories because she is always in a rush. My girls won't miss them at all. I love this idea - very very cute. This is where I saw it www.kidsactivitiesblog.com

The other idea I saw was for an I Spy bottle at www.meetthedubiens.com This could be fun in the car - try to spot all the Polly accessories that have been mixed up with rice. I think I would use some of our rainbow rice as this would offer a little more camouflage. Actually, now that I really think of it, she is rather fabulous isn't she? And the girls would all love one of those bracelets. ... Perhaps I should have a look on ebay and see if I can grab the girls another set or two!

Organising with Post-It Notes

I have been doing some of my favourite things today .... moving furniture, rearranging things and getting rid of clutter! It's been a great day really. I'm sure my darling hubby would tell you that I jump into these things with little thought but I actually spend a lot of time planning and measuring before I ever move anything. I try to think through how I use the space (or want to use it), what has worked and what I can change to make it work better.

Today I have been working on my craft studio which is quite a large space and has a lot of storage (read a lot of clutter!) I am not quite up to photographing this space yet, in fact, I will probably be working my way through the debris for the next 2 or 3 days or so. But as I use the same technique for any space I reorganise, I thought I would share some pictures I took earlier in the week. This is my overflow pantry.

If it is at all possible (and it is not always) my first step is to empty out the space I am organising completely. Many of the organising books / tips I have read suggest that you start with a shelf or a small area. I much prefer the all in method. This way, I really know what is in the space (even in the back corners).

Next comes the planning for what is going to go back into the space. I am just slightly obsessed with post-it notes but they are so handy! I write all the items that need to be stored on them. I like that I can move them around to plan my space on my kitchen bench and then move them to the area that is being organised while I put everything back.

And back it goes! Now I must get back to the mess I have made downstairs but I promise I will share pics once it is all complete. Happy organising!

My own planner

Over the years I have tried all kinds of planners. I have had week-to-an-opening, day-to-a-page, a gorgeous leather filofax style planner, a monthly planner and many variations on the above mentioned diaries. But since my move from career woman to family manager, I have struggled to find something that really meets my needs. The past 2 years, I have even tried a couple of mum-style planners but they have still not been quite right for me. So born of my frustration with what was currently on offer, I decided to make my own.

The Baines Family Planner (Mark I) was just what I wanted but couldn't find. It didn't have lots of pages that weren't relevant to my family, had my preferred vertical layout for my weekly calendar pages and of course, it had my lovely family on the front. What's not to love? Well, 7 months down the track, (I began working on this last October) I am, overall, still very happy with my planner but there were a couple of changes that I thought would really make a difference and so I designed Mark II.

From the outside it looks just the same but the inside has changed a bit to make it more user friendly and to work with the way I tend to record things. The key change is that I scrapped the week-to-view pages because while I have appointments most days, they are primarily the girls activities which I am quite familiar with and the details don't change often. And so I replaced them with a larger monthly calendar which fills 2 pages and has plenty of room for me to write my activities on.

I have also added a page for my weekly to do list. This is an idea I have been using for quite a while. My to do page has 9 boxes that fit a mini square post-it note in it. This allows me to prioritise the tasks I really need to get done in the week and then when I have completed them, I just chuck the post-it note in the bin. This keeps my to do list neat and tidy and stops it from becoming overwhelming. I use a bigger version of this to do list on my kitchen bench for tasks that need completing at some stage (but not necessarily this week). I need to see the reminders regularly as since having children, I seem to have the memory of a goldfish! (The exception to this is an uncanning recall of phone numbers and song lyrics - the former is more useful than the latter!)

I have lots of other pages in my planner so that I can keep all my notes together. I just prefer to have one "go to" book. And so far, so good.

Missing In Action (...on holidays with the family)

Happy Easter. Well I know that I have been M.I.A for the past couple of weeks. My apologies. The girls were on school holidays and then we went away as a family for 10 days where we took a technology break - no TV or laptop. I am not a big TV watcher but I do spend quite a bit of time on my laptop ... Facebook, Pinterest, various blogs. I think my family enjoyed having my full attention for the time we were away and we got active as a family ... bike rides, hiking, rock climbing and abseiling all featured.

We arrived home to family visiting from Perth and staying with us for a few days. I grew up in Perth so I don't see my extended family as often as I would like. Which means that when we do get together, we have a lot of catching up to do and invariably stay up way later than is conducive to being productive in the following days. This time our visitors were my aunt, Cavelle and cousin, Coelli. We shopped throughout the day and then talked throughout the night. And oh the ideas we swapped. Cavelle has 6 children so we chatted large family logistics for much of our time.

I love to know what other people do in their families. How they manage meal planning and preparation, chores and housework, handling behaviour. I love to discover new ideas to trial with my own family. And I have SO many new ideas I am just itching to try. So watch this space .....