Author: Caroline

Birthday gifts for the under 3s

This post originally appeared on From the Wolf’s Den. I’ve updated it to include gift ideas for children under 3.
Disclaimer – I’m not receiving anything for the products I link to. They are just ideas or products I personally own or sites I have bought from before.

My goodness, that has snuck up fast! Miss A will be one in a couple of months. I’m so not ready.

We’ll be doing lots of birthday prep sharing soon but today I wanted to share a list I’m working on that I thought might be useful for other mums of littlies – what to get a 1 year old

We’ll be asking guests to Miss A’s party to not buy toys this year. Now don’t get me wrong – toys are awesome but we have heaps. Boxes of toys that belonged to Miss K, most of which are still in great condition. Miss K and I will be sorting them soon into toys to keep for Miss A, toys that have sentimental value, teddy bears (cause you never get rid of teddy bears lol), toys to give to the needy (cause I really want to instil this in my girls each year before birthdays and Christmas but more on that another time) and stuff that can just get chucked out.

So what does one buy for a 1 year old that isn’t toys? With the help of the internet, mums in my birth group, friends and family, I’ve compiled this list of handy non toy suggestions for you.

  • Books. Kids can never have too many books. Write a little note inside to the recipient with the month & date.
  • Clothing. Check with the parents for size/season recommendations or if they have any preferences
  • Vouchers. Grab a voucher parents can use to buy baby goods – things like nappies & wipes. Boring but useful.
  • Memberships. If you have a zoo nearby grab a membership.
  • put some money in their saving account
  • A coin set (My mum has done this for Miss K – a set each year since she was born)
  • A dish/cup/spoon/fork set
  • a little something special for the mum & dad
  • Music CDs designed for little kids
  • DVDs for kids
  • Something my godmother did was to buy me a charm bracelet then a charm each year
  • Something personalised – towels, bowls, cups
  • An IOU for babysitting/day out with the little person
  • Adopt an animal on behalf of a child (eg. through WWF – yeah I know it comes with a toy but it’s sooo cute AND a good cause)
  • Have a toy made out of a special piece of baby clothing – like the onesie they came home in. Check out Beary Special Memories
  • Something knitted or crocheted. I can recommend the Beanie Bunch
  • Pram liners or car seat liners. I can recommend Max & I
  • Handmade bibs

Over to you. What non-toy gift would you give a 1 year old?

100 Happy Days – Month 3

Yesterday marked the last day of the 100 Happy Days challenge so here I am, sharing the last of my images over 2 posts.

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63. Cupcakes; 64. ‘Napping’ with my polar bear; 65.Soccer fun; 66. Elsa by Miss K; 67.Another snapchat; 68. Sunrise; 69.Miss Esther Grace; 70. Dreaming of better storage; 71. Toasting marshmallows in the fire; 72. Our little team held the ladder leaders to a 1 all draw; 73. More Awesome Ladies Project; 74. Miss K practicing her writing; 75. Reading together; 76. Before and during the current flooding in Launceston; 77.Homemade chicken and vegetable noodle soup.

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78. Awesome clouds; 79. Thank you Ita; 80.Homemade KFC style chicken; 81. Dancing girl; 82. Still my favourite snapchat; 83.Mother & daughter; 84. Our girls; 85. Tiramisu martini (virgin sadly); 86. New towel ladder; 87. Tandoori chicken yum; 88. Potato roti, grilled veg and cheese sauce; 89.Birthday cake for a special lady; 90. Moroccan soup; 91. Reading together; 92. More Awesome Ladies Project

Currently #10

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WEATHER: cold, raining and sometimes windy. Winter is definitely here

EATING:   out for a meal at the in-laws. Cooking lots of new recipes last month

DRINKING : Hot chocolate or coke

LOVING :  how family rally when something bad happens

READING : more uni notes, a new unit 

ANTICIPATING : warmer weather, school holidays

LISTENING TO : MUSIC :  a bit of everything  PODCAST :  Pocket Talk, Simple Scrapper member podcast

WATCHING : AFL, what ever is on TV, GoT

PLANNING : Miss A’s 2nd birthday, blog posts

LOOKING FORWARD TO : school holidays (sort of, I think)

CREATING : Awesome Ladies Project layouts,  Project Life

NEED TO FINISH : cleaning up  

WISHING : there were more hours in the day 

MAIN GOAL : have fun with Miss K & Miss A over the school holidays

What are you “CURRENTLY” doing?

In the Den Kitchen – Homemade takeaway chicken

It’s been a little while since I’ve shared a recipe here as most of my recipes I’ve been sharing over at Caroline’s YIAH Adventures but hubby recently decided to do a little experimenting in the kitchen. Hopefully this will kick start us to try a new recipe (or 2) each month.

Anywho, KFC is a firm favourite in our house so when I saw this video on Facebook we decided we had to give it a go.

OMG the chicken is sooo close to actual KFC. It’s delicious, and it reheats the next day really well too. Bonus!!

The gravy, not so much. Don’t know why but I have another KFC style gravy to try so I’ll report back with my thoughts on that one.

I even found a recipe here for KFC style chip seasoning and it’s not the same but pretty yum.

If you like KFC I’d suggest you give this a try. Word of advice – make sure you don’t skip the eggwhite wash and it has to be fried. We tried it backed and it’s not as nice.

2016 List–half way check in

Disclaimer – contains affiliate links

Midwinter here in Australia and it’s time for an update of my List of 100 things from my 2016 Life workbook.

As with previous years bold is started, strike thru is finished & red isn’t done

Blog/Social Media

1. Increase my social media following (see 2-4)
2. Increase Facebook followers (Jan 1 – 152   Dec 31 – )
3. Increase Pinterest followers (Jan 1 – 665   Dec 31 – )
4. Increase Instagram followers (Jan 1 – 283   Dec 31 – )
5. Organise Pinterest boards better
6. Learn a new recipe each month and blog it
7. Continue In the Den Kitchen
8. Create a monthly blog backup
9. Try something I’ve pinned and blog the results
10. Start a new blog series
11. Start my YIAH recipe blog
12. Sort bookmarks
13. Blog everyday for 1 month
14. Blog emails to zero
15. Be more active in Facebook groups that spark joy
16. Cull email lists
17. Cull Facebook groups

House & Garden

18. Weed garden beds.
19. Work out what vegies to plant and then plant them
20. Start a Garden Journal.
21. Get a garden shed
22. Finally get gazebo up
23. Do Declutter 365 (& maybe blog my progress – you can read them here)
24. Finish custom recipe books – Thermomix Favourites and non-Thermomix recipes
25. Donate/sell remaining recipe books I don’t use
26. Paint laundry
27. Get laminate up in laundry
28. Get dryer up on laundry wall
29. Get new laundry sink
30. Laundry storage
31. Get floors polished
32. Organise office (I finally have a plan!)
33. Organise garage
34. Work through (& complete) Creating your Goddess Haven e-course (started then stopped. want to restart again)
35. Re-tidy the pantry. Toss or donate stuff we don’t use
36. Sort linens.
37. Redo my herb garden

Family

38. Do something special for 10 year anniversary in November
39. Family holiday – Melbourne or Queensland
40. Have my parents over for dinner
41. Have in-laws over for dinner
42. Get an updated family photo
43. Work on family tree
44. Organise some play dates for the girls
45. Write a letter to Miss K to open on her 18th
46. Write a letter to Miss A to open on her 18th
47. Watch a documentary every month

Things to do

48. Anzac Day dawn service
49. Have a family movie night (complete with popcorn & choc tops)
50. Spend a day at the beach
51. Go on a picnic
52. Go for a drive somewhere for no reason other than getting out
53. Spend a rainy day in PJs watching TV/movies
54. See more of Tassie
55. Go to Botanical gardens
56. Visit QVMAG
57. Go to MONA
58. Cirque du Soleil

Work & Finances

59. Money into Christmas club (starting balance – $0; June – $126)
60. Put $5 a pay into girls’ accounts
61. Get BAS in on time
62. Keep work accounts up to date
63. Work through the Business Goddess e-course
64. Upgrade RAM & Hard drives in laptops
65. Sort EHDs and make sure there’s no duplicates
66. Work on better backups of important files
67. Work email to zero

Scrapbook/Craft

68. Find an inspirational quote and make it into a piece of art
69. Finish JYC 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015
70. Scrapbook with mum more
71. Finish wedding scrapbook
72. Do #30Lists (March, September, December)
73. Organise all my paper scrapbook supplies
74. Scrapbook with others more
75. Backup digital Project Life supplies
76. Start a cross stitch
77. Project Life date at least once a week – PUT IN PLANNER!
78. Do some more classes & make sure I finish them
79. Apply for Scrappy Canary design team
80. Create a scrapping binder
81. Organise craft group days

For me

82. Do something different for Afternoon Teal
83. Do Frocktober
84. Write a letter to myself to open on my 40th
85. Keep a gratitude journal for 30 days
86. Get a massage
87. Make a list of 30 books I want to read & then read those books (2/30) 
88. Burn to CD/DVD stuff I don’t need on my PC all the time
89. Sort & cull movie folder
90. Deadpool
91. Create a mini Goddess altar
92. Personal email inbox to zero
93. Get to bed earlier
94. Drink more water
95. No more screens in bed
96. Rejoin the shining life & biz academy when renewal due
97. Cook more with the thermomix
98. Renew Thermofun membership
99. Journal every day
100. Enjoy life

100 Happy Days – Month 2

Opps I forgot to post my second month of my 100 Happy Days. So here are the next 30 days 🙂

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33. The simple things – hot chocolate, marshmallows and scrapbooking; 34. Our first pumpkin; 35. A selfie I like; 36. Happy mail; 37. Esther Grace; 38. Donut cupcakes; 39. Birds in the rain; 40. Playing with Hex bugs; 41. Soccer training; 42. Devil sausages & rice, cooked by Miss K; 43. Sunrise; 44. Early Mother’s Day delivery for a friend’s mother in law; 45. One of my Mother’s Day pressies, illustrated by Miss K; 46. Mother’s Day flowers; 47. An orange tabby drawn by Miss K.

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48. Miss K reading her school reader; 49. All ready to go; 50. Cupcakes; 51. Hand in hand after soccer; 52. Choc Raspberry brownies; 53. Cross Country; 54.Tidy again (but not for long); 55. In The Examiner talking about Ovarian cancer and our 1000 ribbon challenge; 56. Happy mail from Miss K’s teacher; 57. More ginger kitty cats; 58. Snapchatting; 59. Love how Miss k’s friends are happy to play with Miss A; 60. Tatty scones!; 61. Love this idea for a card; 62. Soccer training.

38 days to go.

My Declutter 365 journey – May check in

May was all about paper work. Our home binder is slowly filling up now and we have better systems in place to deal with all the paper clutter that comes into the house.

We got rid of our home phone a few years ago but I decided to make a message centre to put in our ‘family command centre’. Much easier to remember something I have to let hubby know if he’s out & forgets his mobile.

Bills – we have 2 major bills – rent for our business laptops and our internet/mobiles. Both get taken out on a certain day each month. Any incidental bills are filed into the appropriate folder and made not of in our budget. Due dates are added to the calendar. This system seems to be working ok for us.

I created a ‘family command centre’ in the kitchen under our whiteboard (& in between the Soda Stream and water filter). Notes and invites go on the cork board. This week’s menu is on the whiteboard. Our month calendar is underneath. Our family/home binder sits on the trolley underneath that along with my file for bills/mail that needs actioning (& our hand vac)

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Next we moved onto tax items and receipts. Since we run our own small business I keep all our receipts in a lidded plastic box in the office and then after we have been to our accountant, I scan it or file it. At the end of the financial year I shred or burn any receipts we no longer need to keep. Anything that needs to be kept, including the previous years tax return info is kept in lidded file box, arranged by financial year

Our filing system is pretty simple – 2 files for each member of the family. One for important stuff I know we may need to access and one for papers that I want to keep but aren’t super important. The rest of our papers are sorted by what they are – sports, business, house etc Have used this month as a good excuse to go through and sort/shred our filing cabinets.

Challenge 21 was super easy – we rarely get magazines and any newspapers we get are piled in a bag and stored to help start our wood fire in winter. Catalogues get read then binned.

Challenge 22 looked at passwords, warranties and manuals. Since that finishes in June I’ll be back next month with how we are going.

Kitchen update – a bit messy but nothing a quick tidy wouldn’t fix. It’s finally sinking in how easy it is to keep the kitchen cleanish. Still trying to get the rest of the house on board.

Currently #9

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WEATHER: raining and windy. That above is the rain radar for today

EATING:   homemade beef pies and hopefully some homemade slices shortly

DRINKING : Hot chocolate or coke

LOVING :  the weather for the past few days – glorious winter sunshine

READING : uni notes

ANTICIPATING : the next GoT episode

LISTENING TO : MUSIC :  a bit of everything  PODCAST :  Pocket Talk, Simple Scrapper member podcast

WATCHING : AFL, what ever is on TV, GoT

PLANNING : blog posts, uni assignments, organising my scrap stuff

LOOKING FORWARD TO : the rain stopping (even though we need it)

CREATING : Awesome Ladies Project layouts,  Project Life

NEED TO FINISH : Miss K’s & Miss A’s 2015 PL albums – just the journaling to go

WISHING : the rain would stop so I can hang washing outside 

MAIN GOAL : get 2015 PL done and in albums

What are you “CURRENTLY” doing?