Have a great New Years Eve

I hope something makes you happy tonight and you enjoy time with family and friends : ) I will try to share my tulip lollipops, promise!!

Pregnancy Snacks

I spent a little bit of time whilst dinner was cooking yesterday packaging up some healthy snacks for myself. As I get further along in this pregnancy I am finding that I need to snack a lot more regularly. So I went to the grocery store just for snacks for me, I know the broccoli is a bit weird that is my latest graving!! I am going to try and do this at the start of every week so when I leave the house I can grab a few bags of different things to have ready for when the hunger hits !! I don't always eat this healthy, please don't be fooled but I am trying : ) So for this week we have rice crackers, grapes and the vegetables at the front.

Attitude is everything

I have a belief system that a happy daily life requires a great attitude. I have thought this over the last few years and it has helped me to deal with the "stuff" that life has a tendency to throw at you, just to test you. That is why you will find on my blog mainly the things which enrich my life and make me happy- not because my life is perfect (because it isn't) and not because I am trying to pretend that it is either but just because these are the things I like to focus my life on. As humans we have a tendency to focus on the negative in our lives and not to let go of the past, I believe this can bog us down in the present and cause us to be unhappy.

This faith and belief system that everything happens to us for a reason has been tested to it's absolute limits for me over the past 18 weeks of my life. I wake up ever morning hoping it will be different, hoping that on this day I will feel great and I will not have to pretend to be happy and well. And almost every morning is the same- I feel sick from about 10 minutes after I wake up- that's about 6am until I go to bed at about 11pm- that's 17 hours of feeling like I am going to die.

But through it I try to decide to be happy every day. Why? Well because it is not all about me anymore, I have Flynn now and he deserves better, he deserves a mummy who is able to get up and make breakfast and do activities and be the best mother possible under the circumstances. This is not to say he doesn't see me meltdown- he does only the other day I sat down in the middle of the nursery and just cried and cried- because I was tired and frustrated and exhausted and wanted so badly to feel better.

This was taken a little while ago and although I was not aware it was being taken I am glad it was as this is real life, this is me at the moment and this is part of my daily struggle- having a sick moment. I was so grateful to have a break from the sickness over Christmas/boxing day but now it is back with a vengeance.

Staycations : )

What are they? Well they are holidays where you just stay at home! We have stayed at home this Christmas Holidays the last 3-4 days have been spent exclusively at home and it has been great. Not having anything to do can be hard for me at times as I am such a busy person but I have tried to just enjoy it and I am going to try and have an afternoon nap at some stage this week. We have some fun activities planned for the rest of this week but for the weekend there has been nothing- it is so liberating.

Taking a moment to capture what I love most, family-

Lots of comfort food, sausage hot pot in the slow cooker, home made pizza's, crepes and scones just to name a few : )

Getting dirty in the backyard-

A sneak Peak

Here is a sneak peak of what I have been working on over the weekend. A little mini album of the best of 2009 for us as a family, more to come tomorrow.

Christmas Morning

We had a great Christmas morning this year, it was so great to see Flynn so excited that Santa had come to the house. It was so wonderful to see his face light up as he was ripping open all of his gifts : ) I touched yesterday on that I would talk about how we have made Christmas morning a little easier. After our first Christmas with Flynn we realized that the first thing he wanted to was rip open the present and then use it straight away. But then came the time to unwrap the actual gift from the package with all of the twisty ties and plastic snaps and then to find the batteries (hoping you have the right size).

Then with a gift like the Tag Junior you also have to load the machine onto a laptop and register it along with each book. This took Simon about half an hour. So what we do now (starting last year) is open the actual present and add batteries, register it etc and then put it all back in the box/bag in this case. This way when he opened it on Christmas morning he was able to play with it straight away. It makes for such an easy morning and saves all the time involved in opening some of the more complicated toys : )

The Leapfrog Tag Junior was a huge hit this year : ) I am so pleased at it was my pick, admittedly I tend to buy the education toys whereas Simon buys the fun stuff!! It is a good balance though. I bought one book- The Winnie the Pooh one and the pack came with one book. We also bought the cute house travel bag and I am so glad as it keeps the Tag nice and safe. Flynn was lucky enough to receive another 2 books from my mum which was great. This little machine reads out the stories in the books to the kids and also adds sounds, houses, colours, numbers to things in the book which is great.

We have spent the last few days reading the books over and over again which is fantastic : )

Christmas Day : )

I hope your Christmas and Boxing Days were as wonderful as mine. The day spent with those you love is the most important thing, but the yummy food is also nice : ) We spent this years at my mums house which was great as there was minimal work to do for me, it was nice to have a year off an just enjoy ourselves.

I think I have learnt a lot about entertaining from my wonderful mum. She truly takes it all in her stride, no rushing around on the last day shopping and cleaning, no complaining about the work involved in hosting she really does it all so well. We had 21 for lunch and it was wonderful, great food and great company- what more in there to say!! Days like Christmas make me appreciate even more what a wonderful family that I am truly blessed to have.

Flynn had a great day as well and loved opening his presents- Some more tomorrow on that and how we make Christmas morning easy !!

Merry Christmas

Twas the night before Christmas ...

Have a great day tomorrow with your families.

I know I say it a lot on this blog.

I know I say it a lot on this blog and you are probably sick of hearing it by now. But it really is the small things in life that make it amazing and worthwhile and will create moments that you will remember forever, like Flynn getting ever so excited about making cupcakes with mummy.So on that note on Christmas Eve 2009 I want to share with you a letter a wrote to my gorgeous boy.

Dearest Flynn,

It is Christmas Eve 2009 and on this special holiday there are so many things I want to say to you. Is has been an amazing year for us as a family and so much has changed since last year. In all that has happened you have been so adaptable and always willing to come along with whatever new adventure we have planned for you.

Your language is amazing now and you are starting to construct your own sentences and have your own opinion about things- it is amazing how much you have changed in this last year. You love going to daycare/school now and have fun there with all of your friends playing trucks and making crafts. You also still equally LOVE having your Nanna and Grandma over to look after you during the week, this is still such a novelty for you and you run excitedly squealing to the door when they arrive !!

This year the concept of Christmas has become clearer to you and we have had so much fun this year explaining it all to you and helping you understand the meaning of Christmas. You have participated this year in all of our traditions instead of just watching which is wonderful. The best thing for me has been watching your whole face light up when you see Santa, a Christmas tree or get given a present to open.

We have also spent lots of time towards the end of this year talking about your new baby brother who will be arriving in late May. You have said so many cute things like "I want to get baby brother out now", "I share my grapes with baby brother". You think he is in my belly button and you love to peer in there and see if he is awake and you will talk and wave to him in mummy's tummy. I cannot wait for you to meet him and see what an amazing, helpful and loving big brother you will be.

You have taught me a lot this year Flynn, how to be extra patient- we all know you cannot hurry a toddler!! Learning to let go of the mess with a boy has also been a learning curve for me as I have had to stop myself from changing your clothes a thousand times a day and just ignore it. Learning to love the everyday and seemingly mundane moments with a toddler has been great, moments like this photo where you were so happy to be at home with mummy for the day making cupcakes : ) These are the moments I want to remember forever with you, they are so special to me.

Most of all know that mummy and daddy love you more than you will ever know. You are the treasure in our lives and the light in our hearts. We cannot wait to show you the rest of the world. We hope you have an amazing Christmas Day tomorrow and that Santa brings you all of the things you wish for.

Love Mummy

xx

Small gifts for colleagues and neighbours

It really is the thought that counts over Christmas : ) I made a few of these before I went to work yesterday morning for some work colleagues and neighbours, simple but effective. I just used some cookies we had made the day before and packaged them into these plastic stripy bags that I got from Spotlight. Added a gift tag and tied with a cute ribbon.

It shows that I care and that I am thinking about these people in my life over the holiday period and they have a personal touch.

I had a girlfriend ask me the other day where I get a lot of these gift bags I use on the blog for packaging. These ones came from Spotlight but it is best to find them in the cake decorating section not necessarily the Christmas section- there were a few different designs. I also get a lot of stuff from a gorgeous Etsy shop called Cute Cups . She has loads of cute stuff for baking- a lot of it comes from Japan and it is really well priced. *Hint* start thinking about ordering for Valentines Day now, I know I am.

Breakfast

We are having a bit of a Christmas breakfast this morning : ) Have a great day !!

Quiet time

We are having lots of this around home this week. With all of our Christmas presents, shopping and cooking etc done we are using the time to just chill out together as a family with a bit of work, baking, colouring etc all mixed in together.

We made these cute snowman chocolate chip muffins the other day : ) The muffin tin was just from my local Coles and only cost $5, I think it adds a cute Christmas touch to some ordinary muffins. I kept the decoration really simple, white chocolate buttons and mini M&M's attached with white chocolate.

I hope you used some of the Christmas checklists I blogged about late in November so that you too are sitting back relaxing before Christmas and not rushing around with the crowds at the last minute : )

A great website.

I just wanted to share with you this amazing website- Family Fun It is such a great resource for parents. I have printed off a lot of my Christmas crafts and ideas from this site, there is lots of great stuff and best of all it is free!! Even better : ) It is a great place for extra inspiration and ideas, I love to use resources like this as it keeps ideas fresh. I love the Santa postcard and Christmas wish list printables from this site, very cute and great to keep for when the kids are older.

And just because I can't have a post without a photo, Flynn discovered his Christmas presents and opened one LOL.

Those Chistmas tree bags

Yes they were lolly/treat bags, great guess Paulette! I always do these now for birthdays, our Christmas BBQ, Christenings etc. I love to be able to say thanks for our friends and family for making the time and effort to come over and it saves sending out thanks you cards later : ) I generally lay everything out and put the bags together the night before.

And here is a glimpse of some of what I included in the bags- just little Christmas bits and pieces.

These were Flynn's contribution : ) This was just our basic sugar cookie recipe found here. Once they were bakes we decorated them with green icing and then some Christmas sprinkles.

This was the final product. The red and white stripy bags were for the kids and the paper bags were for the adults : ) I think it is a great way to say thank you to everyone for coming to your event and adults always love a lolly bag !!

Wow well this post turned out to be longer than what I thought but hopefully this gives you some ideas for your own little treats bags.

Mothers Group

I still love being able to sometimes participate in Mothers Group. Now that I work full time it is a lot harder and I don't get there as often as I would like and often as I did in the past- but I try !! This week we had a little Christmas Party as it was out last meet before we break for the holiday season. I hosted and we had 3 out of the 4 kids attend. We started the group with something like 8 but other girls have moved away and gone back to work and so we are a little group now! There are two of us girls who are pregnant with baby no 2, one due in March and then me in May so our group will grow again. They have been a great source of support over the last 2 1/2 years.

We are hoping to add to our activity list next year now that work has settled into a routine we will be doing swimming lessons on a Saturday, and Gymbaroo and Playgroup after work. We have come and gone from some of these in past years when it has suited our changing work routines. I think it is great for kids to be able to interact with kids their own age group and to have both free play with them and also structured activities for them to learn and develop. I am looking forward to these activities starting in Term 1.

Some yummy snacks for the mums and the toddlers : )

The kids reading through my scrapbooks : ) I have them out on the coffee table at home and Flynn loves flicking through them and looking at himself and pointing out family members. They are pretty robust and I love that they are able to enjoy them !!

Can you guess ?

Can you guess what we are going to make with these?

Our Christmas Decorations

This year I decided Flynn was old enough to help make out first Christmas decorations together. We wanted to start this as a family tradition and something we would do together every year. We started really simple this year as I wanted something Flynn could do that was easy as well. First I traced some simple Christmas shapes - bells and baubles onto some white cardstock. Then I let Flynn go crazy with the glitter glue and then crepe paper gluing for the bells. It was great fun, I try and make it a little educational when doing stuff as well as fun- like counting out the crepe psper squares etc.

Waiting patiently to start-

Finger painting with the glitter glue-

And the finished products : ) We made extra's to give out to family and friends-

Coming Tomorrow...

What we made with these : )

Sharing and some 365 photos

Here are some of my recent 365 photos for December. I am so looking forward to do this project again next year it has been such an amazing experience and I am so grateful that I have been able to secure a kit for next year which should be arriving in January.

Trying to bribe Flynn to drink some milk (with sprinkles) !! He is not a big milk drinker and so we are trying lots of different things to try and get some extra calcium into his diet.

Do you ever buy yourself flowers? I do : ) When I am having a not so great day they work well at cheering me up, try it next time you need a little pick me up.

Apparently baby brother was very hungry and so Flynn thought he would share his grapes. So cute !! He thinks that baby brother is in my belly button and likes to look in there and wave/talk to him etc LOL.

If you don't like baking...

Then these are for you : ) I know a lot of your who read this blog don't necessarily like to bake and so this post is especially for you. These chocolate balls are one of my favourite desserts, they are super easy to make and really yummy, perfect!

Ingredients-

1 packet of milk arrowroot biscuits

1 can of condensed milk

Desiccated coconut

1 1/2 tablespoons cocoa

Put half of the biscuits in a zip lock bag and break up into tidy pieces with a wooden rolling pin. Repeat this process until all of the biscuits are crushed into very small pieces.

Add the condensed milk and cocoa in a bowl and stir until all ingredients are combined.

Roll out the mixture into small balls and then roll the balls in coconut.

Put them in the fridge to set (or if you are really impatient like me put them in the freezer for 10 minutes)

What does summer look like at your house ?

Summer at our house is great : ) There is so much more to do and it is just generally more fun, food is more relaxed, the light lasts longer and water becomes more fun : ) I have decided I am definitely going to make sure I do a few Summer layouts this year that include snippets of everything we do over the next few months.

Fun times at the beach, we are loving our new beach tent this year

A new favourite snack for Flynn-

The sprinkler has suddenly become fun and Flynn went in and got saturated over the weekend before I even had time to undress him!

Yum : )

And yes they are already all gone !! I love chocolate chip muffins they are a new favourite of mine, and the rest of the family.

Pregnancy #2

So I thought I would share a bit of an update of pregnancy number 2 for me and how I am finding pregnancy second time around. Firstly I have come to one of two conclusions- I have forgotten how bad it was last time or it is a LOT harder second time around. Or maybe it is both? Anyway I have to say I am finding it extraordinarily hard this time around, I am sick again as I was with Flynn all day every day until I go to bed at night.

With my first pregnancy I worked part time, had a much smaller house and did not have anyone else to look after. I remember coming home from work and sleeping until dinner, eating dinner then going back to bed !!! Those were the days : ) Now I come home from work (which is now full time) and spend the next 4-5 hours running around after Flynn, cooking, cleaning, blogging, baking, crafting, reading stories, running baths and playing dinosaurs. Then Flynn goes to bed I am usually up for at least a few more hours getting ready for the next day and trying to fit in some relax time.

What is so much more amazing this time is watching Flynn get excited about the prospect of having a baby brother - it just literally melts my heart. He is such a cute boy and loves kissing and hugging baby brother/my tummy. He loves running around and getting things to share with baby brother : ) It is very sweet.

I was hoping this pregnancy would be different than my first in that I wouldn't be sick for as long but at nearly 16 weeks it is getting worse every single day, not nice. I am so grateful though to be growing a healthy baby who is already very active, we cannot wait to meet the next addition to our family. Anyway there is a little wrap up of how I am travelling.

And seen I have been asked it a million times already no this is not our last baby- yes we will be having more : )

One of the greatest investments you can make.

In my opinion anyway, is a bubble machine : ) Although you can obviously still just blow bubbles having a bubble machine is so much fun, we all love playing with ours and it means we can chase and enjoy all of the bubbles. I snapped these cute photos of Flynn yesterday before I went to work having some bubble fun outside with his Nanna- my mum I wish I could have captured his hysterical laughter as well ...

Now get outside and go and blow some bubbles with your kids, they will love you for it : )

Where you live

Over the weekend when our family went to the Christmas pageant we strolled through our beautiful city of Perth. I had my camera with me and so as we walked around I snapped a few buildings and sites that I had never really noticed before. Isn't it funny how you live somewhere your entire live and you never photograph your own city and appreciate it's beauty?

Well I took the opportunity to do that on Sunday and thought I would share a few photos of this beautiful city that I live in. And more than ever these photos truly make me appreciate and love where I grew up.

There you go, that is just a snippet- a great street in the city where I live. Now I have to go and make a layout on this exact topic : ) Just to make sure I never forget.