A Trip Down Memory Lane

I have been on a mission since we returned from our summer holidays: to declutter the house of all the items we do not use or love. I have, of course, tried this many times in the past but this year I have my serious hat on. No cupboard is safe. It is time for all those unused items to go. That is until I reached the cupboard that has housed all my baby clothes. 4 precious, beautiful girls equals a LOT of clothes I can assure you. And each one is a trip down memory lane as I recall who gave it to us as a gift or what occasion/s it was worn on. I dare say I could give you this information for almost every item of clothing my girls own. So, what to do with it all?

For us, we are done having babies {sigh} but these items really tug at my heartstrings and I have struggled to let them go. I have put aside one special outfit that I associate with each of my girls as a tiny baby to keep in their memory boxes but that didn't seem to be quite enough. And so back into the cupboard it went.

I recently came across a lovely idea that I think might just be the answer to my sentimental side. It is called a memory quilt. I have seen them made out of favourite t-shirts before but never thought about making one out of those favourite baby clothes. My heart sang when I saw this. It was just what I have been looking for; a way to preserve those items I love but in a new, practical form.

I am pleased to report that I have now sorted through ALL my baby clothes (many, many tubs full!) and I have put aside the special pieces I want to include in my memory quilt. All of the others I have either listed on a local Buy, Swap, Sell site or given away. You cannot believe the amount of cupboard space I have reclaimed. And I feel like a weight has been lifted too.

I can't wait to start assembling my own memory quilt. It will be something I can treasure forever. I may even use it to cover my grandchildren one day. Who knows?

(* Photos of memory quilts from www.maidenjane.com)

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!

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.

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!

Love Notes

 My girls love to get notes from me. I often leave them in their lunchboxes for them to find while they are at school. Over the years, they have even kept most of these notes which makes me smile when I see them hanging from their noticeboards. But I also like to leave them around the house for them to find; usually in their bedrooms somewhere or the bathroom mirror - somewhere where they won't be easily overlooked. It is just another small way of telling them that I love them and that I am thinking about them.
 

To make this easy, I have a small Love Notes Kit on the shelf in my kitchen. It has all the goodies that I need to jot a quick note to them .... post it notes, sticky tape (so the notes don't flutter off whatever I have stuck them to and end up under a bed or somewhere on the floor), assorted stickers (my girls love stickers) and a pen. You could just as easily keep all of this in a drawer but I find that a little container is just much easier. That and I am a visual person so I need to keep things where I can see them to remind me to use them!

The afternoon after I had left notes for all the girls (and David - I don't let him miss out) Rebecca came to me and asked me if I had seen a surprise. She said I should look in my room and I might find something special. And there it was stuck on my bedside table - a little note from her. She stood next to me and asked if I would like her to read it to me. "It says ... Thankyou for my notes. I love you. Rebecca." I love her too - with all my heart.

Sand Art

School holidays are fast approaching and I am thinking about activities I can do with the girls. This is one that we did a while back but I thought I would share it as the girls really enjoyed it. They had asked on several occasions to do sand art when we have been at fairs and the like. The jars are pretty but it is a very quick activity .... they pour the sand into the jar in different coloured layers, it is all done and then you hand over the money. So I was very excited when I discovered that they could make it themselves at a fraction of the price and we would get a longer lasting activity out of it too.

You will need a bag of table salt, coloured chalk, a sheet of paper and some glass jars for this activity. A word from the wise: You will NOT need a 10kg bag of table salt! Been there, done that.  A little goes a long way. The jars in my photo I found at Ikea (love that store) and were quite inexpensive but you can use any size or shaped jar you like.

To colour the salt, spread a small amount on a sheet of paper. Then just rub the side of the chalk over it until it is all coloured. The more you rub it with the chalk, the darker the salt will be. Then bend the paper in the middle and use it as a shute to put the sand into the jar. Repeat with as many colours as you like. Easy.



Enjoying the Simple Life

It was a glorious day in Melbourne today and Josie and I were having a lovely day together. We weren't doing anything exciting; in fact we did the banking, the grocery shopping and the washing, but it was a good day. For Josie is my last baby and just for this year, I have her all to myself. She is at that delightful age (2 1/2) where she chatters all day long and is developing quite the sense of humour. And I just know that this time will pass all too quickly and before I know it, she will be heading off to kinder and school too.

Today we got out the baby bath and her babies along with several outfits and she gave them all a bath. Then she hung her washing on her little line while I hung mine on the big line. "I'm same as you mum". Her delight in such a simple activity made my heart burst with love for her (and how could you not love that adorable face?) Having 4 children, we have been considerable supporters of Mr Fisher Price and Co and there is much evidence to support this fact strewn around our home, but I think she got much more pleasure from a little tub of water today than she ever has from a piece of molded plastic. And I did too.

Favourite Storybooks

Josie and I have been enjoying our time together now that all the big girls are at school. We have lots of plans for the days ahead but our favourite time of day is snuggling up on the lounge to read books together. Josie likes to choose and her choice is invariably the same each day (in fact, often more than once each day!)  This is her current favourite ... "Are You My Mummy?" Josie loves to 'read' the words she knows from the story and she loves the happy ending.



Over the past few years, I have learnt many of our books off-by-heart. Each of my girls has had a few favourites that we have read again and again and again. There are days where I would give anything for a new title but the girls' enjoyment of this same story never seems to dwindle. And truth be told, when they have eventually moved on, I have missed those special books we shared together day in and day out.

Savouring Every Minute

Today I sat out on the balcony with Rebecca (Miss almost 5). We had a picnic rug and cushions and we sat and played a game together. She smiled and sang and chatted away and I drank her in. For in a few short months, she will leave me to start her school journey. This 5 years has gone past so quickly and I find myself wondering if I have made the most of this time together. There are days where I have been so caught up with things that need to be done around the house and out of it that I forgot to cherish these early years. But not today .... for today she is all mine.