Signing off

I have decided to sign off for the rest of the year. A bit of a blogging holiday.  With all the birthdays i have between now and new years and of course with Christmas looming i am getting quite stressed. That is NOT the way i should be feeling at this wonderful time of the year. And my family do not deserve a stressed and cranky mummy.

I am going to at least take the stress of blogging off the table. I have been worried lately that my posts have been suffering the effects of my busy schedule and i have not been writing quality posts. I want to know that i'm giving each post my full attention. So i am going to sign off till next year. I will still be posting on my Facebook page but nothing on here.

I would like to wish you all a Very Merry Christmas and a wonderful and successful New Year.

<3
Clare :)

Wiggles = Fail

A few months ago i was looking through my emails and i noticed one from Ticketek that said there was a Wiggles concert coming up in December. My little boy, Master almost two LOVES the wiggles. It is the only thing i can put on if i need a bit of peace. Guaranteed to get Master almost two, to stop roaring around the house like a tornado and actually sit relatively still. I bought tickets straight away. This was going to be perfect. An outing that is guaranteed to be a success. I was so excited to be taking him and i could not wait to see his cute little face when he saw the Wiggles come out on stage.

Advent Activities

Well, the first week of Christmas has been and gone. We have been very busy little beavers at my house. We have decided to do a "Christmas Activity" everyday day in December as part of our Advent calendar.

I can never really tell day to day how busy i am going to be so we have been winging it. I have chosen a different activity depending on the time i have available that day. This is what we have done so far...

A very Horsey Party

It was my Miss 7's birthday party on the weekend. She is about to become Miss 8! Where has that time gone? I let her choose what she wanted to do for her party and she decided she would like a pony party. So i googled and i pinterest-ed and this is what i came up with.

I decided to make it pink themed, I decided on a trail ride for the kids, and i decided to keep it simple to try and minimise the stress and make sure that i could enjoy the day as well.

Its The Silly Season!!!

Its the silly season once again! My how the time has flown! 

The Silly season is even sillier at my house as i was not a very good planner when i decided to have my 1st 2 children and their birthdays are on the 22nd and 23rd of December. I know, i know, TERRIBLE timing :) Then after Christmas its my partners birthday on the 31st. With birthday parties, Christmas parties, family gatherings and all the organisation that is involved in planning  christmas, i'm sure you can imagine that things can get a bit crazy over at my house. 

iChristmas

I am always amazed at how much my life has changed since i became an iPhone convert. My poor little phone has become my personal assistant. It creates my shopping lists, reminds me of my upcoming appointments, it has movies on it to keep my little angles occupied when i am out, it sends my emails, logs into my student account at uni and now it even helps me to organise CHRISTMAS!!!

Making Christmas

Due to my very busy life style, i usually cheat and buy everything. I mean who has time to make all the crap that is required to celebrate christmas right? The catering side of christmas has never really interested me. I was all about the presents and the decorations. But this year for some reason i have been getting excited about the food side of things as well. I am blaming better homes and gardens. But i think im going to start small. I bought the cutest Christmas themed cupcake stand that i am planning to fill with little christmas treats.

Almost Wordless Wednesday

I was super excited to to receive my new life...your way printables update today. Their printables are amazing and they are mostly responsible for the organisation in my home. I will show you all some more of their printables later on but for today i just wanted to talk to you about 1 of the ones i received in todays update. 

My Weird Diet

In my house, there are some pretty strict rules when it comes to food. We eat a low fat, low Gi, Low sugar diet with only lean proteins. I know that it sounds like a fairly boring diet, i also know that my friends think that our food habits are a little odd. But it's really not as bad as it sounds, well at least i dont think it is. To me it is a little bit like the swap it campaign they seem to be advertising a lot at the moment, except we swap different things. In my house we swap white foods for brown, so thats brown bread, brown rice, brown (wholemeal) pasta. We swap full fat for low fat that includes everything from milk to salad dressing to soup. we swap junk food for healthy snacks (which is the part that kills me).

So... what does a normal day of food look like at my house?

Organising my Daughter- Part 2

Still on my mission to create a sense of calm in the house, I sat down to think about what other day to day events create arguments between my eldest daughter and me. Now that i have solved the "getting ready for school" arguments that were happening frequently,  and put a stop to the "i forgot i was supposed to do that" dance that seemed to occur when asking her to do her chores, the next most common disturbances in the force happen at homework and room cleaning times.  So what can i do to help ease the tension....

Update- No Sugar Challenge

Just a short post to let you know the results of my sugar free challenge

before i start this post i must admit that just before the 21 days was up... i cheated :(  I am really disappointed in myself. Its very out of character for me to not achieve a goal that i set for myself. But i guess that i am after all only human and that means i am entitled to fail every now and then. It was not a total fail though - i did manage to lose a little bit of weight (2 kilo's) which was the reason for taking the challenge in the 1st place.

So for the 19 days that i did follow the challenge- how did i survive?

Birthday Party time.

Its almost that time of year again! The silly season is extra silly at my house. Two of my angels have their birthdays on the same week as christmas! Master almost 2, will turn 2 on the 22nd and Little miss 7 will become Little miss 8 on the 23rd. I have been planning there parties for a few months now. Nothing serious, just jotting down notes on things i would like do, Pinning idea's on pinterest and buying the occasional cute decoration if i happen to see one. But its time to start getting serious. before you know it their party days will be here!!! 

This is what i have so far....

Organising my Daughter Part 1

Its almost Little Miss 7's birthday. She is about to become Little Miss 8. And that means that its time for her job list to be updated. Every year i add a few more things to the list of things that she is responsible for . I am hoping to teach her that she is responsible for some of her environment and i am also hoping that some of my organisational skills will rub off on her.

One Sick Kidlet

There is nothing that makes a mother feel more helpless than when her child/ren are sick. Its such a horrible feeling. You want to be able to "fix" them, but there is nothing that you can really do to help apart from giving them plenty of love and cuddles. 

In my  house at the moment it is master almost 2 (little G) that is the sick one. I have no idea what is wrong with him, but he has a temp thats above 39 degrees and with panadol it eases to 37. He doesn't want to eat (which is amazing as he normally eats everything that is not bolted down) and he is refusing milk as well.

My Weekends

Its the weekend. Those wonderful two days when you get to relax, and have some fun spending quality time with the family.This romantic idea was obviously thought up by a family with less than 3 children. Every weekend i get some fantastic idea about the fun family things we are going to do this weekend. I can see it in my head, The children are happily running around in the park/ at the beach/ at a friends BBQ/ in the back yard etc and the adults are having a nice relaxing chat.

This however is NOT how it turns out.

A little bit christmas

I was wandering down "Christmas isle" today at Coles which is one of my favorite things to do. I love looking at all the new decorations available and mentally planning how I could use them to decorate my house. I am such a big kid when it comes to Christmas. While I was daydreaming I stumbled across these super cute Santa letters and thought they were too good not to share, and for $2 they are a complete bargain. I'm planning to fill them out with the kids this weekend, so then I can start to use the good old "Santa's watching" line to get my angels to behave.

Organising progress

I am finally starting to make some progress in master almost 2's room. It is easier said than done in my crazy household. I thought that i would get in quick with photo's of my progress just incase it does not stay organised and neat for very long. The room is not quite finished yet but i am pleased with the progress i have made so far. Its quite hard to organise a small room that needs to hold the clothes and toys of two little people.

Surrounded by mess

Do you ever have times when it feels like the house is against you? When no matter what you do you just cant get the house clean? It seems that every time i finish cleaning one room and move on to the next the previous rooms becomes a mess again, and not just a little mess either. It looks like a bomb went off in there. That is exactly what is happening at my at the moment and its driving me a little crazy.

Losing my baby weight

After i gave birth to my first baby, i pretty much just bounced back to my usual weight. I guess because it was my 1st baby and because 1 was still young (25) it was easy for my body to return to normal. Fast forward 5 years and i'm still looking like my usual self and wondering what everyone is talking about when they say they are struggling to get their pre-baby body back. Surely they were just being lazy?

Bells Palsy

This post is not an easy one to write. But i know that when i was 1st going through this i felt alone and i searched for other people who were going through it. So i'm writing this post in the hope that will help somebody feel brave, and let them know they are not alone. So here goes... About 18 months ago I was sitting in an exam room doing a history exam. As i was writing i noticed that my lip was starting to feel funny. After a few minutes my eye started to feel like it was stuck and the inside of my mouth felt strange.  

Some Pic's

I always love looking at other peoples pictures and seeing what they look like. Putting faces to the names makes reading someone's blog more personal. Its easier for me to identify with a face. I have no idea why i didn't think about putting pictures in own blog so that you can put a picture to my name. I can only do what i seem to be doing too much lately, and blame it on a lack of sleep.

A clean spot

Have you ever discovered a hidden mess and wished that you could just cover it back up or close the door again and walk away? Well thats what i felt like this morning. While i was doing the washing up this morning i dropped the lid to a bottle and it rolled across the kitchen and came to a stop behind the curtains. This particular curtain never gets opened as there is a table in front of it. I bent over to pick it up, moved the curtain to the side, and there it was. A big dusty, mouldy mess. I wanted to move the curtain back over it and walk away but i knew i couldn't.

Introducing Me

Hi, my name is Clare and i am an ordinary mum with 3 beautiful but somewhat noisy and usually a bit dirty children. They are Gemma 7, Gregory 22 months and Amelia 11 weeks old. I live on the Central Coast NSW where nothing much ever seems to happen. I  am a 33 years old (wow i hate saying that out loud), and i am a uni student. Yep you read that correctly. I am currently making up for a miss spent youth.