Travelling tips

We're packing up, ready to go on a family holiday for a couple of weeks. I didn't even think about how the kids were going to survive all the travelling until yesterday. I did a quick online search and found these two sites packed full of great travelling with kids ideas!

http://www.momsminivan.com
http://travelwithkids.about.com

Here are some of the ideas I found that I'm going to try out:

Foil figurine making - take a roll of aluminium foil and give the kids challenges eg. make a robot out of foil

Car bingo - printable car bingo cards available at www. momsminivan.com

Bubbles - that will be fun!

Tape/Post-Its - pass them to the back seat and let the kids go for it! I'm not expecting to be able to see much out of the back windows :o)

Pipe cleaner creatures - take a long some pipe cleaners so the kids can get creative.

Card games - don't forget the simple old-fashioned games like snap!

Trip journal - simple exercise books are perfect for your children to create memories in.

Have a wonderful trip! (oh, and please share your tips too!)

PS - these posts are going to become even more sporadic over the next few weeks. Have a great Christmas in the meantime - see you next year! xo

Experiment - are you willing?

It's FRIDAY!! The end of a long, hot week. Hopefully for all of you today signals the beginning of a couple of days of lovely, well-earned rest.

To kick off the weekend I thought I'd do an experiment. I really enjoy Mia Freedman's best and worst bits of the week segment. It's always really theraputic to look back through the week and remember the greatest times and the moments you could do without. What do you think? Shall we give it a go? If it goes well, I'll do it each Friday..

Here's mine (but I really want to hear yours)

Best part of the week: Realising that if I buy or make smaller santa sacks (as opposed to our current massive, pillow slip sized ones), they will be filled much more quickly! And realising - again - that Christmas really is all about family and God's love so simple presents are the way to go.

Worst part of the week: We're going to a funeral today :o( A lovely family friend passed away last week. She had a wonderful life and has left an amazing legacy but she will be missed.

How was your week?

The snow globe dilemma (and other sparkly things)

I went shopping for my daughter's (GB3) 4th birthday present yesterday. I wandered the aisles of Target and various toy shops and was caught off guard by the wave of guilt that washed over me. Standing there, looking up at all those noisy, flashing, expensive toys I felt guilty about the fact that our children just don't have that many toys. Don't get me wrong, they have enough! They have a dolls house, trampoline, swings, blocks, trucks, dolls, books, bikes, making things... the list goes on and on. They're definitely not spoilt, mainly because we can't afford for them to be but looking at all these toys I wondered 'do they have enough?'

Then, to top it all off, I thought back to when our first daughter (GB5) was born. People bought her so many beautiful things, snow globes, trinkets and special boxes. I realised, my little GB4 doesn't have anything like this! So, I decided, now was the time to fix that. I wandered around some more in search of the perfect little girls snowglobe and found it. All $80 of it. A pretty little ballerina elephant, dancing to the music. I baulked and couldn't justify spending that much on a snow globe that would just sit on the shelf - no matter how perfect it was. Then I felt even worse! Eventually, I decided to put one on layby and give it to her for Christmas, or next year's birthday.

My dilemma was this. How do you decide what to buy your children for their birthdays and christmas? When is enough enough or not quite enough? Do others feel guilty about all the toys their children 'miss out' on? Is there a group of staple toys every child should have, or can creativity fill the gap? In the end, I settled on a few little ponys and polly dolls, a special box to keep them in (away from little brother GB2's curious fingers), a dress up outfit and some pretty necklaces and hair tyers. Oh, and a fun learning book.

So, do you have a price limit or size limit or no limit at all? Do you your kids more gifts or fewer on birthdays and/or christmas? Am I the only one with these thoughts?

Pretty pink picture thanks to Zazzle.com