Family Traditions

There are certain family traditions that exist in my family at the moment. I'm very lucky to have very clever parents who make wonderful things for new children in the family. 

My Mum crochets a 'granny blanket for each child's bed. She also makes a mini version for their dolls or teddy. 

My Dad makes each family a set of cubby house furniture (he's glad I'm the last!). He hates painting so we have to do that ourselves!

Dad also makes each grandchild and great child a their own stool. He puts their initial letter on it for them. He had already made my girls stools before they were born and had to wait til they were born so he knew what letter to put on it. The stools are fab. Molly uses it as a stool to sit on and do her colouring at the moment. I've seen my sister's use them as little launching pads for the kids with their bags behind them, their shoes tucked under and their clothes for that day neatly folded on top. 

Love my family traditions :)

Trick or Treat?

Okay so this is a first for me. Halloween is not something my husband or I grew up with so we've never done anything for it before. This year I decided to at least make the trick or treat bucket a little more interesting. 

 

I had shared some cute buckets on my Facebook page from Red dot for $2 and the lovely Liz from Bizzy Dayz had suggested that the orange that I didn't like would be great for Halloween so I went back and got two. I found a great free printable from The Twinery found here, printed them out and tied them to my buckets.

Morning Routine

Mornings in our house are involving a few protests at the moments. Miss Molly is not wanting to get dressed or have her hair done. 

So I remembered having seen these printables here. They have boy ones too! I printed, cut and laminated them. Then I stuck them up high so Molly can seen them but not pull them off. 

Of course she needs my help with all of these tasks but she likes order so I know she will respond to this. She got off to a rocky start this morning with it but I saw a glimmer of help at the end. Hopefully tomorrow morning goes better :)

Cubby House Update

Yesterday some Cubby House furniture that my Dad made arrived. 

Now I have to paint it!!

Kids Craft Cupboard

I finally did something with the kids craft stuff. It was all in different  places around the house. I was inspired by the lovely Bianca from A Little Delightful after she shared her craft cupboard. Thanks Bianca xx

Now its all together and I can what we have. The problem with that is now Molly is getting more into craft, I need more craft stuff. Hope it stays this tidy when I add more stuff!

My Pram

I get rather a lot of comments about my pram so I thought I'd share it with you. It's a Steel-craft Strider Plus. Now these are rather popular and I see them all the time at the shops and out & about but I've never seen anyone else with the toddler seat so I thought it was worth sharing.

I love it because Molly has heaps of room on the bottom and I can still fit lots in the basket underneath.

Museum Playgroup

Today I took Molly and Jasmin to their first Museum playgroup. It was run at our local Wanneroo museum. It cost me $25 for the term which I think is quite reasonable. 

They had some simple activities out today for the first session. Badge making, weaving, play-dough with nature, painting boomerangs, colouring sheets and a touch and feel table which some goodies from the museum. 

 There was only about ten children so it was a nice quiet group except for the occasional spat by a child (mine included). Jas was super happy sitting in her pram just watching all the other kids and chewing on her toys. 

There was story-time at the end which Molly was not very good at. She has trouble sitting still and listening to a story at school too. After that Molly played in the museum play area.

There is a truck, market with an abundance of play food, puzzles, blocks, drawing and lots more. Can't wait for next week.

I Cleaned Out The Fridge

Today I cleaned out my fridge! It was long overdue.

What's in my baskets?

Top shelf - yoghurts

2nd Shelf - cold meats and cheese

3rd Shelf - fruit 

I'm going to try to clean it out the day before I shop each week. I'm also hoping to make more of an effort to use my Tupperware fridgesmarts. I need some more though. I only like the blue though and they don't make them in that colour anymore :( Boohoo!

Next job with the fridge is to get the seals replaced. Might look for someone in the community paper. I always like getting local people. 

Wardrobes with a Tradie

Anyone married to tradie will know that most of them are not known for being very tidy and organised people at home. Now yes I know some are but my husband is not! We've been together for 9 years now and he has come a very long way. 

However I do still find cups with apple cores in them behind the couch cushions next to a yoghurt tub and spoon from the day before. He still manages to put his clothes on the floor of the bathroom right next to the washing basket. So as you can imagine keeping a wardrobe tidy is near on impossible especially when he has not only clothes in there but also dive equipment and dirt bike riding gear. 

So in order to organise his wardrobe without creating a massive daily task for me I got some great stackable tubs from Bunnings for his work clothes. We've had this system going for nearly two year now it I love it. He can't make too much of a mess of this.

Tub 1 - socks & hats

Tub 2 - work shirts

Tub 3 - Work shorts and pants

Tub 4 - Surf-life saving uniform 

(Patrols have started so it's time to dust these off after winter)

He does still have clothes hanging (mainly shirts and jackets) and his everyday clothes are all in drawers.  

My side is much nicer ..

 Might look minimal but my work clothes are all packed away and 

I have a chest of drawers too. Actually seriously I'm not much a clothsoholic these days. I used to be then I had kids and whenever I go to buy clothes for myself I come home with 2 or 3 new outfits for the kids!

10 Things you really didn't need to know about me.

I got tagged! Deb from Home Life Simplified tagged me to share with you 10 things you didn't really NEED to know about me.

So he goes ...
 

1. I'm a little nerdie at heart! I love crosswords, Sudoku, word puzzles and jigsaws. I blame this completely on my parents who are big crossword freaks.

2. I love art - Picasso, Monet, Modigliani are just a few. I love to paint but haven't for years and years. I love teaching kids about art too.

3. Colour coordination is an obsession. Now this is TMI but I often have to have my underwear match the clothes I'm wearing even if I'm just at home in jeans and a T-shirt.

4. I love the beach, have a pool, have lived by the beach nearly my entire life, my husband is a surf lifesaver and yet I'm not a very good swimmer.

5. Teaching was not my first choice as a career. My mother was a teacher and three of my four sisters are teachers. Being the youngest I swore I was going to do something different that paid lots of money. In the end I couldn't escape my genes and realised that I loved teaching kids. I still do.

6. I'm allergic to mosquito bites. When I get bitten sometimes I get little reactions, sometimes it swells up about 2cm around the bite and others times my whole foot has been known swell up.

7. I was a tom boy growing up. I never had a Barbie and only had one doll but I had the largest collection of lego ever!

8. I don't eat any seafood. Which is ridiculous when my husband dives for prawns, puts crayfish pots out every season and we have one and a half boats (one is ours and we own half a dingy with a friend). I like going fishing though!

9. I have a real fear of heights. I hate shopping centers with massive escalators that go up and down several stories. You will never ever see me para-sail, hang-glide or skydive.

10. My name is an anagram. When my parents were expecting me they could only agree on a name for a boy which was Kieran after my Uncle. So after I was born my parents rearranged all the letters in Kieran to come up with my name, Kerina.

Are you still awake??

I'm now tagging you!

Yes you!!

If you are a fellow blogger you are now officially tagged!!

A Little Gardening Mischief

Earlier this week my husband planted some new tomato seeds in a pot with Miss Molly. He was being a great Dad teaching her how to fill the pot with potting mix, planted the seeds carefully, topping with more soil and geting her to water them with her watering can. He gave her clear instructions to water them every day when she went outside to play.

Two days later my Husband came home from work. He'd been power washing a roof that day and was quite dirty and wet. His boots were soaked so he put them out the front in the sun to dry. I had a few things I wanted to do so I left him at home with the girls and I went out to Officeworks to get some photos printed. While there I get these photos sent to my phone ...

The message read ..

 "Your daughter killed the tomatoes and filled my shoes with dirt!"

I was laughing so much I was crying!!

My husband though she was drawing with chalk out the front like she had been doing that day with her cousin. But no she was filling the boot of her car and his boots with dirt!

It's a shame he didn't get a photo of  his boots half filled with dirt.

Time for a big bed.

Molly's has been quite happy sleeping in her cot with the sides taken off for a while now. She still fits in it easily but with all the books that seem to end of in her bedding by morning maybe it's time for a big bed. I've seen one I think will do nicely. Well on the internet it looks nice and two of my sister's girls have the same bed. It's from Bedshed and we will buy it in the next week or so. 

Source: bedshed.com.au via Kerina on Pinterest

In the meantime I've bought the bedding. Target had this cute quilt cover on sale. Oh dear I just released I don't have an actual doona to go in it. We used to have one and I think we gave it away. Oh well time to look out for one on special - I had paying full price for things!

But now I have the bedding sorted I can start on some pictures for the wall. I saw this on Pinterest and though we might try it.

Source: styleberryblog.com via Kerina on Pinterest

I also like these ideas ...

Source: theparishfam.blogspot.com via Kerina on Pinterest

Source: mollymoo.ie via Kerina on Pinterest

Source: google.com via Kerina on Pinterest

Now I have a colour scheme I could be dangerous!
Lucky I'm on a serious budget so all will have to be what I can make myself!!
Hopefully I can stick with it!!

Toy Area

Toys certainly are multiplying fast in this house! We don't have a separate play room so I like to have good storage for the girls toys so at night all the toys are packed away and I can feel like I still have a family room for me too. I shared a photo of my toy area on the Lovely Living Facebook page recently. 

This is what my toy area looked like last year.

This is it now.
I have a slight love of Fisher Price!! The farm house and ark are hand-me-down from my sister. There is also space for future toys.

Molly's soft toys and some of her books are stored in her room. She has a bucket full of all the toys from her Grandpa. He travel a lot for work and brings her back a new soft toy from the different countries he visits.

Jas's toy's are kept in a pink tub which is great as we can moved them around the house easily. I wish it was a pretty fabric box.

More books, puzzles and art'n'craft stuff are in a cupboard next to our TV and in our study.

It's a mess and seriously not working so I need to do something about this soon.

Bali

Our Bali getaway was wonderful. I really missed the girls but really appreciated time with just my husband. In fact I think I came back a better mother as I felt so relaxed and revitalised. 

We stayed at the beautiful Padma Resort in Legian. It is the second time we stayed there and I am so glad we choose to stay there again. Although I think I'd liked to have stayed in one of these lagoon access rooms!

The breakfast buffet is HUGE at the Padma! There is just about everything you can think of available. In fact we ate so much at breakfast most days we didn't need lunch. 

There was no sightseeing this trip and any shopping was minimal. We did however spend a lot of time in the pool. Actually in the pool at the pool bar to be honest. We enjoyed many a strawberry daiquiri, strawberry margarita and love boats.

We were in Bali for a friend's wedding so there was also lots of socializing with some of my husbands old school crew. Bali has changed since we last went 6 years ago for our honeymoon. There are some flash places to go now like the Cocoon and Ku Te Da below. Some of them have some pretty flash prices too! Loved the look and feel of these places but I didn't go to Bali to pay Australian prices. 

Yet despite all that fun I missed home. 

I also missed blogging and the new friends I have met on this journey.