Fingers Crossed

This was an interesting one as I wasn’t really sure what to do, then I thought about it and came up with being hopeful about our camping trip.

It is pouring with rain outside and it is forecast for showers for next week, we are however hopeful that where ever we chose to set up camp it doesn’t rain too much, but just watching the weather forecast on the TV it doesn’t really look that good.

Oh well, it is what you make it.  Now for a couple of pictures, sorry but they are not that exciting this week just hopeful.

We are hopeful that these camp beds are going to comfortable for a couple of weeks.

We are hopeful that we don’t see this nasty rainy sky our whole holiday.

Now you can have a look at what others are hopeful for at I should be folding laundry

I will just add a little story here that will help to explain my hopefulness. Ever since I was young, it has always felt to me that whenever I go on holidays you can almost guarentee that it will rain. Even if it hasn’t rained for months it will rain as soon as I arrive. You could ask any of my family members and they will tell you. I organised a camping trip once for my birthday, it rained the whole weekend. I get to the stage where I almost give up organising a holiday anymore as I just kow that it is going to rain.

We are getting excited now, we are heading on a 2 week camping adventure next week. We have never taken the children camping before, but we thought that it was time to bite the bullet and just go.

Nana & Grandad are coming with us which will be fantastic, the children I think are looking forward to going but I am not really sure if they really know what it is all about until our first night in a tent.

I have very fond memories myself when I think of camping. I remember camping as a young child with my parents, sister and grandparents and we had fantastic times. I am hoping that the little man and little miss will have the same memories as I do.  I just remember all the fun things that we used to do, see, travelling and stopping pitching the tent. My sister and I used to pretend we were cowgirls and build camp fires from seaweed at the beach.  Great Fun!

I am very excited to be going, a little nervous at the same time, but I am sure that we will have fun no matter what we do, we all get along really well so I am sure it will work out. My husband is not 100% sure about it all, but I think he will enjoy it once we are on our way.

So it is a bit of a busy week, so I will try to keep posting but I can’t guarentee as it is very busy, as my husband has gone to the US on business for the week, he gets back on Saturday and we leave for our holiday on Monday, so I have to get everything organised.

I will unfortunately not post while we are away, but I will have pictures and stories from our trip when we return in a couple of weeks.

Lunch with Family

We have just had a very full, and very fun weekend with the family.

This picture was taken after a lovely lunch near the wharf in the city.

A small story to make you laugh, while we were having lunch, Uncle took the children for a walk and the little mans hat blew off into the water. He was extremely distressed that he lost his hat. Daddy went to see if he could get it, which he did, but not without going in the water for a swim fully clothed. The things we do for our children, it was just a hat afterall.

Photo of the Week - Wk29

You Capture for this week is Shapes, what a great topic, you can do soooo much with this one.

It just so happened that I was in the big city of Sydney last weekend and I just so happened to capture this great picture of the famous Sydney Opera house, now that is an interesting shape if ever I saw one. I think because it is such a great shape that it only needs the one picture.

Check out more great shapes at Beth’s I Should be folding laundry

Eggs are yummy!

We have over the years been told that we should be limiting our intake of eggs as they contain dietary cholesterol. But, recent studies have now shown that eggs in fact contain high levels of lecithin, which can help to lower cholesterol. So we should not be limiting our intake at all.

Excessive consumption of any food, including eggs, is not a good idea. But , now you don’t have to avoid eating eggs. It is a good idea to take advantage of the high nutrient content of eggs, they can also give your diet a great variety as they can be used in a great variety of recipes, plus they are low cost. It is also advisable not to eat eggs more than once a day if you are trying to lose weight.

Eggs are extremely nutritious little things, they provide us with protein and a wide variety of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. Eggs are full with high quality protein, and essential vitamins and minerals, including Vitamin A, B12 and folate. Eggs have been found to the be the best whole food source of vitamin D. Vitamin D is an important vitamin as it helps the body absorb calcium.

As far as weight loss is concerned, it has been found that eating an egg or two for breakfast, could help limit your calorie intake throughout the rest of the day. The study suggests that if you eat eggs for breakfast you feel fuller for a longer period of time, so you tend to eat less for other meals during the day. Which is fantastic , because it makes it easier to eat less calories but still feel full through the day.  I suggest that these eggs should not be fried but poached, scrambled or boiled (known as a dippy egg in our house).

Try to eat organic or at least free range eggs if you can. Fresh is best.

TIP -If you are not sure if your egg is fresh or if it is past its used by date, then there is an easy way to test this. Place your egg in a large cup of cold water, if the eggs floats it is no good, if it sinks then your egg is good to go!

Glycemic Index
Start with a handful of Nuts
Choosing a Weight loss program

Dinner Time!

I really really dislike dinner time in my house, dinner time for the children that is. I really don’t know what else to do.

Here is the story, dinner time comes, I have all these plans for what I am going to make the children. I always said that I would not make two meals, one for them, and one for us, but they eat to early and my husband is not home yet, so I wait and eat with him.

I will always sit with the children while they are eating, or should I say not eating their dinner.  I ask the Little Man what he would like for his dinner, big mistake really, he usually says “nothing”. Ok good start. Little Miss is usually ok, she will eat most of what I put in front of her, even if she spits it out all over the table every now and then, saying that it is too hot, when it is bearly even warm. But you can usually put it back in and she will eat it up.

However she is now little miss copy cat, so she has started to take notice of what the Little Man is up to and sometimes follows. Not very often fortunately but sometimes it does happen.

The Little Man has now not eaten his dinner for 3 nights in a row, so he gets half a cup of milk before going to bed, instead of his full cup and off to bed with nothing in his little tummy. I hate doing this, but a lot of books say a hungry child will eat. He will eat if I was to dish him up ice-cream or cookies or all the other bad things there are, but he won’t eat his main meal. So I have been trying the going to bed hungry and then the next night he will eat everything because he doesn’t want to do that again. BUT he doesn’t seem to care one little bit.

I am lost!. It is not like I am a dreadful cook, I cook them nice things. He will say “that smells really yummy mummy, I am going to eat all my dinner tonight” but when you put it in front of him he will say that he isn’t hungry anymore, or he will only eat a few mouthfuls and that is it. arrrrrgggghhhhhhh!!!!

He is not that fussy at other meal times, it just seems to be dinner time, I have no idea. I hope that it is just a faze that he is going through.

Stressed out dinner time Mum!

Story Time Before Bed

Most nights Daddy will read the children a story before they goto bed.

One night during the week they looked so cute sitting there on the couch I couldn’t resist a photographic moment.

Photo of the Week - Wk28

It is my birthday next week and my beautiful sister wanted to give me my birthday present, but I had to have it early and I had to go somewhere, but I had no idea where I was going. My sister loves to give experiences rather than just things for your birthday.

I left the children in the safe hands of the grandparents and went and stayed at my sisters house. We had to get up early and be in the car by 7.30am. I was a bit excited because days with my sister are always great it didn’t really matter where we were going.

Driving, driving, driving, we were heading in the direction of Canberra, so I guessed that is where we would be going. My sister decided it might be a good time to now tell me where we are going and what we will be doing.

Well we were going to Canberra (3 hour drive from Sydney), and we were going to have a lovely lunch at a fancy pants restaurant over looking Lake Burley Griffin, which is a man made lake in the middle of Canberra. Then we are off to the national gallery of Australia to see the Masterpieces from Paris.

What a fantastic Birthday present, we had such a lovely day, just the 2 of us having lunch and then wandering around the art gallery. The exhibition was fantastic, it was great to see the originals of such wonderful paintings. It was the first time that these painting had been outside of Paris. Masterpieces From Paris.

Here are a few photos that we took during the day.

The view from our table at lunch

The rest are of us just being silly, we are so good at it.

Thanks to my wonderful sister and brother in law for a wonderful day to remember.

Kisses for Teddy

This week was a great topic, kisses, but I really ran out of time to get some great shots.

But what I did get was pretty good anyway, if I do say so myself. Little Miss loves kisses and she loves to give her little, very well loved teddy big kisses, when she does it you get the great sound of a really great kiss.

This is what I came up with, she really loves this little teddy, he goes to bed with her every night.

Check out some other great kisses at  I should be folding laundry.

Toddlers

Little Man is doing really well now, and has managed to make it past the terrible twos/threes stage and is slowly making it over the top to the hill.

Little Miss is a totally different story, I never realised how different boys and girls really are until you have one of each.

Little Miss was a very plasid and gentle baby, she would sleep really well and just goo and gaa like a good little baby, we really thought that she was going to be such a little gem. Well didn’t that change as she has grown up a bit, she is a bit of a monster child. Lucky she is cute!. (of course she has her good moments don’t they all)

I am just going to jot down a couple of my dislikes and frustrations with her at the moment, if anyone out there is struggling with the same thing, talk to me. Have you found anything that works?

Love affair with the toilet

Not such a great thing to have a love affair with, but little miss seems to have one. I thought great she is going to be so easy to toilet train but this is how it goes.

We must get the urge “Wee wee, toilet (said only how she can)”, or “Poo” pointing to the bathroom. Off we go to the toilet and we lift the lid. “No” shutting the lid, walking out of the bathroom. 5 mins later. “Poo” this time we have taken pants and nappy off, so running to the bathroom with nothing on, great what if she really does need to go. I lift her on the toilet, ” No, off” , I say “you have to stay on there longer than that”, “no off”.

So it goes on, sometimes we get the bathroom and she then sees her toothbrush and wants to brush her teeth, forgetting about the whole reason we came to the bathroom for. “brush, brush”.

Sleeping or rather not wanting to

This is both day sleeps and night time sleeps, some days she will just go off with out and issue, but a majority of the time, it ends in tears and arguements.

I really believe that routine works, and it always has with the little man. So we go through all the normal bed time routines. Glass of milk, teeth, book, wee, nappy and bed. Some nights it works a treat, but at the moment it seems not to be working very well at all.

I put them in to bed, kiss and tuck them in, say goodnight, walk out. Then is starts, she throws teddy out of the bed and calls out ” Uh-Oh, Mummy, teddy”, I just go in, no eye contact, don’t say a word, pick up teddy and walk out. Now this can go on for about an hour, every say 5 or so mins sometimes less. She calls out at the top of her voice, not a little quiet voice.

The little man used to always need to go to the toilet, or want a drink. But we got to the stage where you just stand at the door and say sleep time, and he would just go off to sleep. we have tried all of that with the little miss, but she just gets distressed because teddy or blankie are on the floor.

Must explain also that the little man shares a bedroom with little miss, so he is trying to go to sleep himself while all of this is going on. I feel so sorry for him, the other night she was driving me crazy so I put him in my bed, but then he just started calling out, so I just ended up lying on the floor in the middle of the room and they both eventually went off to sleep.

Finally