morning

I know it's really late morning, but good morning nevertheless!

Just wanted to share my latest Etsy love.....this lovely little store has the most delightful pillows and covers. I think I'm in love with them all. Go and have a look.

And please don't miss this, it's too good to pass up!

ahhhhhhmazing! {giveaway too!}

See those little rectangular things up there with the red ball in the middle? Yes, dishwasher tablets. Now, I don't tend to get excited about anything that revolves around cleaning dishes. All those powders are they same aren't they? Well, that's what I always thought. I would kind of just gravitate towards whatever was on special that looked like it would basically get the job done. I'm also one of those people that doesn't think they can really notice the difference between products either.

Towards the end of last year, I received an invitation from Soup to trial some new dishwasher tablets. The new Finish Quantum ones. I was pretty keen since we do give our dishwasher quite the work out so jumped on board to give them a go. I received a huge stash of tablets to try out myself as well as some sample packs to hand out to friends to try. Every one I have spoken to so far has been impressed. And I also have to say I have been totally amazed too. I've certainly been able to tell that these have significantly washed my dishes better than anything I've used before, including Finish powder, and it also seems to wash your dishwasher too. I'd never seen my machine looking that sparkling before! My cutlery was also less streaky that what I was used to seeing at the end of a wash cycle. Ahhhhhhmazing, truly.

I love it when you get the chance to trial something and it well and truly surpasses your expectations. I normally expect to love something but not this much!! Without a doubt I've been truly blown away by the way these tablets do their thing, and I will definitely be adding these to my supermarket trolley in future.

Now not only do I get to benefit in trialling out this new product along with friends, Soup and Finish are also providing an opportunity for you guys to experience something truly amazing too.

All you have to do is leave a comment below answering the question 'what is amazing, every time?' in  100 words or less. This giveaway will be judged on the creativity of your answers by the lovely people at Soup, so get creative and interesting with your answers.

And what will you win? There are two prizes up for grabs: 

• 1 x $150 Coles/Myer voucher and 
• 1 x $100 Coles/Myer voucher. 

How amazing is that?!

Giveaway runs until next Thursday 3 February 8pm and the winners notified within the week following.

Good luck!!

beep beep - new wheels

Well, I hope you didn't think it was me with the new wheels! In actual fact, it's Josh with the new set of wheels. I had a big fail with Christmas presents for Josh and Zoe in some super cheap Disney scooters. They were very difficult to put together and couldn't really be tightened properly so Josh's scooter sort of became a little unsafe to drive. My reasoning behind getting them was that if they weren't a hit then I hadn't spent too much money on them! Turns out Josh really loves the scooter, and recently when we went to the local park, he spied a little boy (and his sister) with this rad little scooter! It's called a micro scooter. Josh couldn't take his eyes off it and eventually coerced the little sister into giving him a turn of hers. He was in love. For days after, he didn't stop talking about THE scooter. So I caved, did some research and got him one.

He is still in love with it. It's a great little scooter. It's a Swiss design and there are two wheels at the front instead of at the back, and to steer it you lean from side to side. It also has a little brake on the back which is very cool. We bought the model up from the one we saw at the park. The toddler one isn't height adjustable so we upgraded to make sure Josh would get the maximum enjoyment out of it for years. If your little one doesn't have a scooter yet and you are planning on getting one soon, I'd definitely recommend looking at this one! We got ours from Rebel Sport and the mother I spoke to said she was always getting comments on the scooters. Now I know why, they really are great!

Hope everyone is having a great week. I have a few brilliant giveaways coming this week and next so please come back and visit later too. Anyone have children back or going back to school? I can't wait for Josh to start preschool again next week. Am fast running out of things to do to keep him occupied.....tips?

produce from the garden

Our garden bed for our vege patch isn't quite ready yet, but in the meantime we have a few other things growing around the place, and one of those things is a passion fruit vine that we have been growing since last year. A few months ago, we noticed some green fruit on it, and finally this week we noticed a few had fallen off the vine as well as there being another on the vine ready to pick! Here they are on the kitchen window sill ripening a little more. I'm just waiting for a batch of homemade vanilla ice-cream to arrive this week from a work colleague's wife so I can enjoy my first home grown passion fruit! Yum!

calling all sewing experts

I need your help!

I have just become the owner of this vintage Singer sewing machine and sewing cabinet. My father in law is moving house and is clearing out lots of things at the moment, and this lovely machine belonged to my husband's mother, who, sadly, we lost in 2001. I'm so glad to be the recipient of it (as well as lots of other lovely pieces of furniture I'm sure to blog about later) but there's a wee problem. I don't know how to use it! I have vague recollections of 'threading a bobbin' or two in Year 8 Home Ec. classes, but those distant memories in my head are not really enough to help me out right now. 

Fortunately, my mum sews and another lovely friend does too, so I may have to enlist their help to firstly see if this thing works ok, and then to show me the basics. I also know that many of you out there are also super creative, crafty types and might be able to point me in the direction of some super cool blogs or tutorials that might guide me along my 'learning to sew' journey as well.

So tell me my friends, what are the best 'learn to sew' blogs and sites that you have used? 

You never know, I might just become one of those super crafty mamas one day too! Anything is possible!!

point + shoot: random and spontaneous

One of the things I am learning about myself now that the kids are getting a little grown up is that I'm not spontaneous enough. Or I haven't been able to be. One of the two....I guess it's hard to be too spontaneous with little kids, but now that they are 3 and 2, I'm finding it easier to be, and this weekend we just randomly upped and headed off for fish + chips for dinner, then played at another park with a little beach. 

Now usually come 5pm there is no way I'm heading anywhere but on the the dinner, bath, bed train with the kids. I never wanted to mess with that little routine. But they aren't babies anymore, and I'm realising more and more that these are the moments that create memories for them. It doesn't have to be extravagent or crazy, just a simple dinner in the park, watching their delight at throwing food to the seagulls (what kid doesn't do that?) swinging on swings, playing in the sand, splashing their feet in the water and loving being out doing something different.

2011 will be the year of being spontaneous and fun!

point + shoot

need a pick me up....

 

I need me some of this right now.....chocolate espresso mousse cake. Get the low down for the recipe at Birthday Girl. Mmmmmmm.

stuck on you {sponsored post}

I know these little gifts weren't for me but I was super excited receiving them in the mail nevertheless. I've always loved Stuck On You for labels and when they offered some items to send our way to test out I was more than thrilled! Little did I know they read our minds and delivered a nice big new backpack for Josh with his favourite thing ever on it - cars - plus a lovely big pencil case for the princess herself, Zoe.

I actually really needed to replace Josh's bag from last year. I spent a fair bit on getting him what I thought would be a good quality bag last year only to have the stitching come away in bits and it turned out to be too small for what he needed to take with him to preschool. The Stuck On You bag is a great size with three compartments. This is great for us as it means I can put his change of clothes in one section, then his sheet, hat and lunch in the middle, and the front can carry little toys or notes from school. There's even room for his drink bottle on the side. Josh has been so excited with it, putting it on his back and hopping on his scooter and pretending to ride to school.

Miss Zoe hasn't missed out either. She is a great big stash of pencils she likes to draw with, and the pencil case houses these nicely. It looks like it would be very easy to wash too should it get a little dirty.

If you have a little one heading to school soon, pop over to Stuck On You today for the Back To School sale that ends at midnight! You won't be disappointed with your purchase!

point + shoot {daddy & his girl}

i loved watching daddy & daughter share a little moment over a pink cupcake on the weekend.

point + shoot

pampers {a sponsored post}

Late last year, I was asked to participate in trialling The Pampers Golden Sleep Program. This 12 step program was developed to help mums address their baby's sleep issues in conjunction with Tresillian. I was pretty happy to review the program given that I had eight months of issues with Zoe in her first year and was severely sleep deprived. She has now come good at night and it's now Josh at nearly 4 who is waking a lot and ending up in bed with us every night. I still find myself not getting a great sleep with all the disturbances and then having a restless preschooler next to me, often using my hip as his pillow. Comfortable, not.

I was sent all the information as well as a pack of Pampers Dry Max nappies. I was very happy to try the new Pampers out as we are Pampers users anyway, and the variety that we were using were trim but the new Dry Max ones are trimmer again! They are ultra thin but super duper absorbent! Josh was always a super wee'er overnight so I wish Pampers had been around when he was little. Zoe isn't so much but these still keep her nice and dry overnight.

Anyway, the 12 step program turned out to be the things that I had learnt and done with both my babes.

In a nutshell, they are (with my comments included):

1. Having realistic expectations (check!)

2. Teaching your baby how to settle (I did this to the best of my ability, but my method for this involved my presence and help for them until they were comfortable doing it on their own)

3. Looking out for tired signs (check!)

4. Understanding how much sleep your baby needs (each baby is different and I learned to read them both and work out what they needed to keep them happy little vegemites)

5. Understanding that your baby's sleep cycle is different to adults (I'm a reader and I came across this information in a few baby books)

6. Setting a routine for your baby (we never anything too strict, more of a general pattern to the day that was flexible depending on other priorities, this step was more about preparing little ones for bedtime approaching which we like to do with reading before lights out at night)

7. Wrapping your baby (big fans of wrapping although Zoe less so, she was out of wraps by about 5 months, Josh not until 8 or 9 months. Wrapping really helped my newborns sleep better)

8. Settling in arms in the early weeks (definitely!)

9. Hands on settling for baby's under 6 months (definitely!)

10. Comfort settling babies over 6 months (a little of this for us but still quite hands on)

11. Parental presence for parents who like to stay with their baby (this was more us)

12. Crying is part of normal behaviour (understood, but I always wanted to stop the crying as quickly as possible if I could work out what need the baby had, I never liked my babes crying for long, especially if there was something I could do to resolve it).

Overall, I think the program is pretty sound. It also includes information to help dispel some myths like 'newborns should be independent and sleep on their own' as I think there are still a lot of first time mums out there who think this or at least are unsure of what the expectation is of a newborn, and it's great that it can help these mums feel ok and completely normal if they are nursing their babies to sleep. Nothing is more beautiful.

At the end of the day, it's important to acknowledge that even after following these steps, it's not a magic formula for a perfectly sleeping baby. We did all these things with Zoe from the time she was a newborn - she slept perfectly for the first four months and then for the next eight months of her first year she slept terribly at night. Despite being consistent and doing everything within our power to get her to stay asleep, nothing worked except my getting up several times a night to comfort her and help her back off to sleep. Finally at 12 months, she just didn't need my help anymore. We didn't do anything differently, it just happened when it did. I spoke to several experts at the time and was on a list to attend a sleep clinic for a week with Zoe but after already doing everything they were advising me, not even the experts could tell me what the problem was. I just think Zoe wanted me near her (albeit several times a night) for whatever reason for that period.....to comfort her back to sleep. Yes it was exhausting but it was what it was and I'm just thankful she's a great little sleeper now.

Thanks for reading if you got this far! Would love your thoughts on your babies/children's sleep too......how do your kids sleep?

i want to live in this house

Isn't this house just so lovely? The interior was designed by Anna at Black + Spiro (images from her blog).

We've been fortunate enough to have received some beautiful antique furniture in the last few weeks from my husband's side of the family, so it's got me thinking about the house again, and how I'd love it to look. This house in the pictures above is pretty close to what I'd love. I have a bit of a thing for white, I have to admit, and always seem to go for painting walls in white or neutral tones, but I also love splashes of colour and a bit of quirkiness. Colour is so easy to change and when you get bored (as I often do!) you can mix things up again or remove the bits you don't like anymore!

We now have an antique dining table and chairs that need reupholstering. So I'm actually thinking at some point of doing a DIY job on the chairs and choosing a colourful fabric, better than the red velvet that is currently on them. I think I'm going to refer to these pics down the track for a little inspiration.