Out of the mouths of babes ...

If you have children (or spend any time around children) you will know that they tend to say exactly what comes into their little heads. This can make for some hilarious moments. It can also cause their parents excruciating embarassment from time to time too! I would love to remember all these funny little things they say but the truth is that I have a mind like a sieve. So I have resorted to more permanent record keeping methods.

I am a scrapbooker (that sounds like a confession somehow) and each of my girls has their own album or albums. To ensure that I don't forget those funny little things they say, the last page of each album is dedicated to recording their precious words. When I start a new album for them, I design a page with room for me to write bits and pieces so that I can record them as they happen. This is my best defence against a failing memory. The girls think some of the things they said or did when they were younger are incredibly funny. It's a nice way to remember them at those younger ages.

Megan: "In the olden days, the world used to be in black & white" (passing on some 7 year old wisdom to her younger sisters. She had seen a black & white show on the TV).

After watching the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics, David said to Alison "Would you like to learn archery Ali?"   Ali: "Yes but I don't think I'll do the flaming arrows". (I don't think that is actually an option they give 7 year olds!)

 

I really encourage you to do something with those funny little tidbits. Some people use a notebook or a journal, if you are good enough to use one regularly. Use a jar with post it notes or scraps of paper. You could even have funny quotes from your children printed on canvas to hang in your home. But whichever way you choose to do it, just do it. You might think you will remember but writing them down is a good insurance policy.

A New Valentine's Tradition

We love a good family tradition in our house. Traditions bind you together as a family. It's the little things, as well as the big things that you do together that are important. Songs you sing together, things you say to each other (Bec tells me "love you to the moon and back" every morning when I drop her off for school), regular "events" (Friday night movie and freddo frogs).

I am always on the look out for new traditions I can incorporate into our family. Recently I saw an idea for the lead up to Valentine's Day. We don't really celebrate that one at our house with romantic dinners or gifts but it is a good reminder to tell our families that we love them. Everyone needs to hear this and they need to hear it often. So every morning between now and Valentine's Day, when the girls and David wake up, there will be a new heart on their bedroom door telling them something that I love about them. (David's will actually be on our bathroom mirror where he will see them while he is getting ready for work.)

 
To make it even easier, I sat and cut out lots of hearts last night while I was watching some TV and wrote on them. Now I can just grab one each night before I go to bed and stick it with the others. The girls were curious to find these on their doors this morning and I look forward to seeing their excitement as the hearts multiply.

Spread the love peoples!

Happy New Year

2013... wow! When did that happen? It seems like we just blink and another year passes by. 2012 was a VERY busy year for me and sadly I had to put my blog to the side for the second part of the year but in 2013 I am back! I have so many things to share with you and I am so excited to be writing again. I will continue to post on a range of topics including organising projects, crafts, fun stuff the girls and I do together, favourite recipes and lots more. If there are particular things you would like me to write about, feel free to drop me a line. I would love to hear from you.

And so we have a new year; full of opportunities, goals, new things to try, things to achieve. I always spend a good part of our summer holiday thinking about what I want the coming year to be like. I reflect on the past year and try to work out what it is I will do for this year to make it better. I am a highly visual person. I find it really helps me to be able to see my goals regularly to remind me of what it is I am trying to achieve. So this year I have a new way to display them around the house and in key locations.

Some of the biggies on my list this year revolve around limiting technologies and being present with my family. I have a tendency to be easily distracted by my laptop ... Facebook, Pinterest, email. These are all amazing tools but they can also be huge time wasters if you let them. 5 minutes on Pinterest  is the equivalent to 1 hour in real time! I have had a serious think about my priorites for this year and at the top of my list is my family. They shouldn't get the left overs of my time, they should get my prime hours. So accordingly, I have decided to try to limit my computer time to a short block during the school day and then in the evening after the girls are in bed. My focus when they are here after school will be on them. We all know how quickly they grow and this time will be gone before I know it. I want to cherish every minute. Afterall, this is exactly what I always wanted; I don't want to waste one moment.

Having everyone leave the house in the mornings nourished of mind, body and spirit is another goal for this year. Too often last year we seemed to be rushing in the mornings and I yelled at one or more children before we had reached the school gates; to hurry up, to remember to pack a drink bottle, to grab their homework, to please NOT redo their hair for the seventh time that morning. This year, we will ALL be getting up earlier. No hitting 'snooze' on the alarm clock. Up and at 'em! School bags and activity bags packed the night before as much as possible so we can have calm mornings.

2013 will also see us all being more creative. I have a list of projects I would love to get stuck into this year. I also really want to teach my girls to cook and to sew; two things I really enjoy doing. So no doubt it will be another busy year but I am up for it. Bring it!

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.

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 .....

Chocolate Spoons

Family Movie Night is tonight and I wanted to make a quick treat for the girls. I came across these chocolate spoons a while ago and the couple of times I have made them they have been a big hit. They honestly could not be easier - just melt the chocolate, scoop it up on a spoon and decorate with a few sprinkles. Leave to set or pop in the fridge for a few minutes. They are also great party treats and of course you can colour coordinate them with any theme (smile).

Happy New Year!

I'm back after a lovely summer break with my family. I hope that you all were able to enjoy some time of relaxation in preparation for what will surely be another busy year.

And on that note, Happy New Year! Oh how I love the start of the new year. I honestly love everything about it - goal setting, resolutions, a fresh start. My focus for 2012 is going to be largely close to home and close to my heart - my family. I want to do what I usually do but do it better; to be a better wife, mother, cook better meals and be a better manager of our home. I am going to try not to take on too many outside or random projects (I am not very good at saying 'no').

I have spent most of the summer break with my trusty notebook and planner by my side jotting down ideas as they come to me. This year will see my gorgeous Bec start Prep at school so I will be down to just one of my girls with me at home (and no kinder - hooray! My girls love kinder but I spend a lot of time in the car running backwards and forwards so I am looking forward to dropping them all off in the one location each morning and picking them all up from the same place each afternoon.) I am hoping that this will help me to be more organised and squeeze more from each day.

The start of the new year also sees me fly into organisational mode like a tornado!! We are busy sorting out desks and homework centres, cleaning out cupboards and of course I have a few projects for my long-suffering hubby to build for me too (more about those in coming days).

So, what are your plans for 2012? What are you planning to accomplish this year?

Family Christmas Photos

It’s that time of year again … time for me to attempt to get some lovely  half decent photos of my girls to use on our annual Christmas card. It is, of course, near impossible to get a good photo of 4 children together – especially my children. 1 is always playing the fool, 1 is off with the fairies, 1 is usually cooperative and then there is the grump – the one that for whatever reason, doesn’t feel like having their photo taken today. (These roles are not always played by the same child, in fact, they seem to enjoy mixing it up a little and keeping me on my toes!) 

In fact, I have considered sending my Christmas cards out with seasonal pictures on them rather than bothering with the photos. However, most of my extended family lives interstate so I figure that they all at least receive an updated photo of the girls every December. And so I persevere.

For Alison’s 8^th birthday party recently, I made up some photo props. The kids could then choose from a range of props to pose with for their photos. It really was a lot of fun so I thought I would make up some Christmas ones for our Christmas card photos. I found some printable props (Santa & Rudolf) from http://jessicapeck.blogspot.com/2011/11/holiday-photo-props-tutorial-sew-or.html and then made up a few of my own (Elf & HoHoHo). The Top Hat and Moustache were from http://ohhappyday.com/category/free-printables/

The girls enjoyed trying them all out and I did get some cute photos of each of them. Then I tried to get a photo of all four together. As I said up front, this is not always an easy task and today, I just abandoned it. Maybe I will have better luck next year.

December Parenting Tool

Oh how I do love the Christmas Advent Calendar! Such an amazing parenting tool if only used in the right way. Early in my parenting journey, we always opened the little numbered window in the morning. This was an exciting way to start the day, no doubt but I’m afraid that if you too subscribe to a morning opening, a large part of the value of this little chocolate is lost. We have swapped to an evening opening of the Advent window and oh how much mileage I am able to squeeze from one small block of chocolate. It is surely worth it's weight in gold.

In our home, this chocolate has to be earnt. Each night before the opening, we have bedroom inspections to make sure that they are nice and tidy. I always go to some effort before December 1 to clean out the girls rooms with them and get them all tidy to start the month but from then on, I expect them to maintain them throughout the month. December is a busy month in our house as I'm sure it is in yours and doing a quick clean up each night after dinner ensures that the rooms stay looking neat and don't become overwhelming. (If I thought this would work on a continual basis I would buy 12 advent calendars for each child - one for each month of the year. Sadly, I think the novelty would wear off.)

Now here is the important part .... If the bedrooms are not tidy (or if the girls behaviour has been less than desirable throughout the day), they don't get to eat the chocolate! They still get to open the window but the chocolate goes to mum or dad who eats it on the spot. Let me tell you, there were tears and tantrums last year when all three of our big girls missed out on their chocolate one night. (In fact, David & I felt pretty mean I do confess.) However, DO NOT NEGOTIATE (with terrorists or children!). The next day the girls were extra helpful and sweet and their rooms that night were spotless and they made sure that mum and dad had to find their own source of chocolates from then on.

I read in some parenting book a long time ago, that you should not reward children with food. I would like to suggest to you that the author of that book had never had children of their own. And if I can harness their desire for chocolate for good rather than evil, well I am all for it! Happy parenting :)

Colour my world event planning

I'm a fan of colour! I love it. And so when I start planning an event, the first things I work out are the theme and / or the colour scheme. Then everything else just seems to fall into place. My lovely husband just celebrated his 40th birthday and as he has 4 girls, he lives in a world of pink whether he likes it or not, so I thought we should have a really masculine colour scheme for his birthday. We decided on blue with orange. Blue on it's own can be a bit boring but orange is such a vibrant, exciting colour it really livens things up.

Balloons are great for decorating with - they are inexpensive and they come in such an amazing range of colours and patterns. The banner in the background I made with the girls: 40 Reasons We Love You and they each wrote their own reasons. (Some of these will be priceless as they grow older.)

David is really not a fan of celebrating his birthday, so when I saw the idea for the "40 sucks" bucket on  thesuburbanmom.com I knew it was a keeper. (David laughed when he saw it so it started off the day nicely too!) You will be amazed what you will find to coordinate with your theme when you start looking. The orange tub was a dollar store find and the blue foil was once a Christmas decoration. I also used orange cup cake papers and just made coordinating flags to jazz them up a bit in my colour scheme.

I have a tendency to go just a little overboard when it comes to party planning but owing to the busy time of year, I had to keep things simpler this time. We had a lovely birthday breakfast of mini pancake stacks with maple syrup, a beautiful fruit platter and then egg and bacon muffin cups. (You can find the recipe for the muffin cups here http://www.thehighheeledhostess.com/2011/06/fathers-day-breakfast.html - they were really easy and very delicious!)

My lovely husband with his gorgeous girls.

Now to start thinking in pink again! Rebecca turns 5 in the next week and has requested a Charlie & Lola party so I am back to party planning in a big way (but for tomorrow, I feel some more Christmas craft coming on!!!)

No cape for me....

I have written a few posts now including several that included crafty projects. And somewhere along this short way, I have earnt the unwarrented title of SuperMum with a couple of my lovely readers. So I thought I should set the record straight early on in the piece.

I started this blog to share with you the things I love .... my family, crafty fun and my organising projects. These are the things that make me happy and fulfilled but please know that this is only a small part of my life. What you don't get to see on here, is the day to day struggles that go on in my household as they do, no doubt, in yours.

And like mums the world over (and I know I am generalising here but I am pretty sure I am right) I have bad days, I yell at my girls much more than I (and I suspect they) would like, I get caught up wasting time on the computer instead of spending time with them and I worry about whether I'm doing a good enough job of being a mum. These are the types of things that us mums worry about. (Feel free to add your own list here.)

But I aspire to be a SuperMum, I really do. I love the thought that I could have a perfectly tidy home, that my girls would keep their bedrooms neat, that I would never have washing spilling out of laundry hampers and on to the floor, that I would always have nutritious meals on the dinner table at a reasonable time and that my children would say "sure Mum" to my every request rather than launching into a protracted dialogue with me. What a perfect world that would be. But it's not very realistic I'm sure you will agree.

What I do love though it to visit other people's blogs and to talk to real people about what works for them at their house. I am always looking to incorporate new ideas into our home and lives that might make things easier, more fun or more beautiful. None of us is SuperMum but we can help ourselves along a little by sharing these ideas and our stories. Besides, if I was a SuperMum, what would my girls have to tell their therapists as they get older? This way the therapist will have the perfect reason (or lots of them) to blame all their shortcomings on their mum! lol.

All the mums received a little card at kinder a couple of years ago and I keep it on my desk as a reminder, it says simply "You are doing a great job". No one ever promised that being a mum would be easy, just that it would be worthwhile.

Freddo Night

At our house, Friday night is Freddo Night! This is a tradition that David grew up with and that we wanted to continue in our own family. Freddo Night is family movie night (and we eat the odd frog or two!) The girls really look forward to Friday Nights as family time. We often have a meal that they either help cook or assemble (tacos, nachos, baked potatoes....) and then we all sit back and enjoy the show. This week, it was mini hotdogs and choc-top ice-creams for dinner.

I found these cute ice-cream cups a while ago and the girls loved that they came with the little wooden spoons. (We have made little choc-tops in cupcake papers too - just add ice-magic to a scoop of your favourite ice-cream flavour).  

  

So, what great ideas does your family have for spending time together? I'd love to know what you do at your house.

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.