I mean he must. There is no other reason why he would be waking every day at 3.50am but to get some buns in the oven, maybe rustle up some mince and cheese pies or get his eclairs ready for the glass cabinet. Lord knows …
In the grand scheme of My Grown Up Life, this is the breakdown; I’ve been a mother for 11.5 years and married the same. We purchased our home 4 years ago and completed our Grown Up prerequisites by adding two dogs and another baby to …
Navigating the treacherous rapids of the great sugar debate and the myriad voices of nutrition experts filling our social network feeds with raw food, gluten free recipes and chia puddings is exhausting, and confusing and ………….. a little bit boring (gasp!) to be really frank!
In the face of all of this often unsolicited advice, making smart choices around treat foods can be an exercise in #mumguilt – something I wholeheartedly refuse to subscribe to when it comes to food. Teaching the boys to enjoy all food (and treats!) in moderation and with educated consideration is definitely more my style.
Phew. Glad I got that off my chest!
So, we all know that flipping the pack and scrutinising the teeny tiny nutritional info panel on food is supermarket de rigueur these days (as it should be), but, I’m loving the latest offering from Allen’s which takes the guess-work right out of the treat-allocation process. One piece = one portion.
Easy.
I love this concept for many different reasons, but mainly because my kids are sticklers for the rules – “The pack says; one piece = one portion guys, so there’s pretty much NO way we could have more than one lolly!”. Ok, who am I kidding, ETHAN is a stickler for the rules and would totally buy this, Nixon would simply scale me like a coconut palm, steal the pack and run away – but he’s a work in progress lol.
I see the pre-defined portion control in a bag of Allen’s new Sea Stretchies as an excellent tool in my mum arsenal and have teamed up with Allen’s to bring you 5 ways to make the most of these perfectly portioned, stretchy and fun lollies!
There’s always room for cutting back on treats when it’s party time. Curate a fun collection of party goodies such as inexpensive toy car, balloon, cool pen or pencil, stickers or stamps and add one Allen’s Sea Stretchies for a take-home gift little guests will love!
The school holidays have been and gone and many of us will have hit the road and got out of town. The entire family can become quite ‘loud’ and ‘antagonistic’ when in transit (…..it’s not just mine right??). How about, on the next road trip, treat yourself to a few minutes of peace and quiet by passing out a Sea Stretchie to each of your passengers. They’ll have so much fun stretching, twisting and eating them that they’ll forget to ask “Are we there yet?”.
I’ve seen sideline-parents go nuts with after-match treats for their littles over the years, let’s pare it back a little and reward their ‘exertions’ with ONE perfectly portioned, stretchy, fun treat. A Sea Stretchie for each little All Black is easy, inexpensive and sensible.
Being good is sometimes really hard when you’re little, even harder when you’re in that awkward, hormone surge of Tween-ness. Ethan is being encouraged to work hard on self-management this year, and I’m quietly recognizing his efforts with surprise treats now and again when his chore chart is looking particularly spectacular! Little Nixon on the other hand is working hard on toilet training. I cut up a Sea Stretchie into little pieces and for every successful bathroom excursion he can have one as a small reward. No, I’m totally NOT above bribing my kids lol.
I’ve hidden in the pantry scoffing bikkies, laid down beside the bed to retrieve my hidden chocolate stash and feed my craving before the kids find me, and……I’m pretty sure most of you have too. The problem with sneaky snacking is that monitoring portion size usually goes out the window as you’re shoving your guilty pleasure into your mouth. #MumLife is hard, so don’t heap #FoodGuilt on top of it. Enjoying a Sea Stretchie takes the guesswork out of Mum Treats, 1 piece = 1 portion!
Thanks Allen’s for the lollies!
Screen time, device time, iPad use, tablet time, TV time – whatever you call it, letting your kids use a screen, be it large or small immediately places a target on your back and immediately opens you up to judgement by Sancti-Mummy’s everywhere. Screen time gets such …
There are certain items you covet for a while, quite sure that you need them but ‘Life’ forces you to bump them down the wishlist over and over again. Usually these are the pretty things, the luxe things, basically the things that don’t feed your …
The words ‘luxe’ and ‘organic cotton’ seem like a bit of a juxtaposition in general but in the case of these gorgeous sheets from Babu they are totally synonymous.
Nix is still waking quite often at night, climbing into our bed and then commandeering the lion’s share of our king-sized bed. I never, ever imagined that I would wish we had upgraded to a super-king but then again I was never in possession of a Nixon before lol!
Instead of toughing it out and being kicked in places that one shan’t mention, I now change camps and head for Nixon’s sweet little single bed that’s made up with the most divine set of sheets imaginable. And I sleep. Quite well to be honest!
Babu’s 100% GOTS organic cotton stretch double interlock sheets are made from the the thickest, snuggliest and softest cotton I’ve ever felt in my life. They literally transform Nixie’s modest (cheap!) single bed and mattress of dubious quality into one of my favourite places in the whole house. Anyone that touches this fabric is blown away by the obvious quality and attention to detail.
The top sheet is fitted at the bottom end which is absolutely genius if you have kids who are wrigglers like mine, it makes making the bed each day a much more mum-friendly task lol.
I’ve washed these sheets multiple times and they still look and feel as good as the first day I popped them on the bed – without having to wash them first of course as they are organic! Yay.
If you would like to win a set of Babu’s gorgeous 100% GOTS organic cotton sheets just let me know which size and colour you would choose in the comments below; bassinette, cot or single and white, grey, grey star, pink star, yellow star.
Competition closes 7/8/16. NZ residents only.
In the meantime, check out Babu’s amazing range here
I’ve taken a sabbatical from ironing over the past few years. When I didn’t return to my prior job after having Nixon I found that activewear and yoga pants usually fall into that wonderful ‘DO NOT IRON’ category in my wardrobe. Likewise, Dave has been working …
As a mummy of two boys, a mummy blogger that works from home, the wife of an IT Project Manager who also works from home and a self-confessed tech geek, the internet is my jam. It’s both our family’s source of income and one of …
There’s only one thing better than a great art project and that’s one that lasts for 7 days!!!
This one’s all you need mamas; the 7 Day Mural can be customized to use up whatever craft supplies you have on hand, will suit whatever age/stage your kids are at and can easily incorporate whatever creative project the kids have been dying to try.
The foundation of this crafty creation is definitely the Science Project Board. Ethan spent last term working away on his project and Nix became quite fixated on that damn board (that had to be protected from him at ALL costs!) so I decided to create his own ‘project’ and let him at it.
So, the plan here is to divide the board into multiple art-boards and create a different, amazing, fun, visual medium in each, working on a different aspect each day.
For Nixon’s board, I had to use some restraint and keep his projects simple and fun. I also wanted to use as many different materials as possible, resulting in a really textural, multilayered experience that he looked forward to working on each day and that he was super proud of at the end of it. Being conscious of the age of your kids is key here – Nix has just turned three and his attention span maxes out at around 20 minutes. Quick and easy to complete is definitely what you want to shoot for.
Ummmm, anything goes in this art and craft tutorial! I shopped my own craft stash for my supplies plus headed in-store to Warehouse Stationery where I really had to pare things back when I went to the checkout! Create Month is on right now so there are heaps of inspirational ideas to be found at your local store. Not a crafty bone in you body? Don’t worry, sometimes you just need to get started – plus the kids’ enthusiasm and ideas you can find at the in-store Inspiration Station might be all you need to get those creative juices flowing! As you can see in the photos I popped a cheap plastic tablecloth down on our dining table, which was one of the most genius ideas I’ve ever had to be honest! No worries about mess and I’ll reuse it as a playdough drop cloth after this project is over!
Print out some pages that relate to your theme (if you have one, we didn’t) or just something your kids are really going to enjoy colouring. I did a Google search for dinosaur colouring pages and lots of printables popped up. I left these out over the week so Nix could potter and colour bits and pieces when he felt like it. When we were finished with the mural I cut around his gorgeous colouring and glued the dinos onto the board. The crayons we use are Jovi Wax Crayons and they are perfect for stubby little fingers!
Watercolours are the best! Barely any mess and they dry quickly. Once again I just let Nixon freestyle here (there’s not much else you can do with a 3 year old to be honest – remember that attention span!). In the afternoon, when the paint was dry, we went back and decorated this panel with some assorted stickers that he had picked out in-store. Easy and great for fine motor skill development.
The inspo for this activity came from a flyer I picked up at the Inspiration Station desk at my local Warehouse Stationery. I used some masking tape and simply pressed it down firmly at multiple angles across the board. Nix got stuck in and, voila! I love this section of his board, he was amazed at how it looked when I peeled the tape off to reveal the clean white lines underneath.
I’ve always wanted to use a chipboard letter or word in a project so this was my chance! I let Nix loose with some Crayola paints and told him to “cover up all of that yucky brown!”. He did a brilliant job and we popped this off to the side to dry.
I had picked up a foam shapes ‘jungle scene’ in-store, but you can also buy a 10 pack of foam sheets if you wanted to cut up your own shapes. Nix had a great time placing the sticky shapes and then went to town with some markers for an extra splash of panache lol!
When I saw these boy doll cutouts, I wasn’t too sure what my plan was, but look how cute they turned out! I cut some pants and tops from my fabric stash, unwound some old knitting to make curly hair (just like Nixon’s) and used some googly eyes from the Fuzzy Craft Kit I picked up – just in case! This was definitely his favourite activity; he loved dressing the wee boys and making them look cute.
You could do whatever you like here depending upon the age of your kids. I wrote ‘NIX’ in sharpie and popped some paper scraps, feathers, pompoms, coloured foil, bits of pipe cleaner etc in front of him with some glue.
I couldn’t believe how cheap a 10 pack of felt sheets was at Warehouse Stationery – something crazy like $2 a pack! You can almost pay that for 1 sheet at other stores that I’ve visited. I had some velcro dots that needed a home so popped those on the project board and cut some random shapes from the felt. Nix loved this activity as he could take things off and move them around; he obviously had a ‘vision’ and knew when he was done lol.
So that’s it! Isn’t it so cool? Nixon is really proud that he created something so BIG – size is everything to a toddler and I’m quite proud that we did something creative every day for a whole week!
Guess what? The project board has TWO SIDES! Start planning now for round 2 during the next school holidays lol.
For more fun and creative inspo, check out our Dinosaur DIY’s here.
There’s heaps more inspo in store at Warehouse Stationery, plus lots of take home activities the kids can do, totally a School Holiday desperation destination!
I’m sure I’m not alone in absolutely despairing over my little one’s health this winter. Nixon has been unwell constantly and it’s wearing all of us down. The poor little guy can’t seem to catch a break as his maladies vary week to week …