lunchbox ideas....

Happy New Year mummies for 2011!  

Cant believe we are in 2011!  It just feels like yesterday we were celebrating the coming in of 2010!  Anyway, on with the present date!  Did you make any resolutions?  I didn’t, simply because I break them within days of the new month – I have no long term will power!  The only mantra I am saying to myself is ‘No more chocolate, Nick’..  me and chocolate have a complicated relationship!!

Well with the new year brings new thoughts and activities.  This month is a big month for our household because the J-girl is going to start nursery! Will it be successful?  Who knows!  Im taking the chance and going to put her in for 3 days a week and see how it goes!  So with that in mind I started to think about food to bring to nursery and what do we put in her wee lunch box?  The nursery doesn’t want unhealthy food – which is fair enough. So I did some research to get some ideas and I found a few websites which I thought had some tasty ideas.  Takes the thinking out of the situation and the choosing becomes your next tasks.

So Mummies – here you go – here is what I picked up.  If you have any other ideas – let me know!

http://www.parenting.com/recipes-gallery/Recipes/10-Fresh-Lunchbox-Ideas/1/

http://esvc000643.wic059u.server-web.com/lunch_box/lunch_box.html

http://www.healthy-eating-made-easy.com/lunch-box-ideas.html

Christmas day, Christmas Games - FABtastic!!! What you gonna play?

Christmas is days' away now and I don’t know about you but me and the J-girl are getting excited!  The J-girl met Santa at the Muscat Mums’ christmas party and I think (I think) it went ok!  The fact that he handed her a present may be made it easier for her to deal with!  We’re off to the Busy Bee christmas party this afternoon too and again Santa will be in attendance – so lets see how attempt number 2 goes with meeting Santa.  When I was 5 (as my mum tells me) we had christmas day at the beach club in Abu Dhabi and Santa arrived on a speed boat (sledge was out of order!!) – apparantly I was right on the beach edge shouting, ‘Santa I’m hear’ and waving desperately to get his attention!!  I wanted that present and I wasn’t gonna let anybody get in my way!!  Thirty odd years on and the urge to get in front of Santa still exists and now I wonder if the J-girl will follow my footsteps!  

 

Anyway, I was having a think about Christmas day and what games we could play with the J-girl.  We are with my parents and my sister’s family who also has wee daughter who is just 6 weeks younger than Jessica so with two little ones in tow I reckon a few fun games could be in order on christmas day.  So, with the excitement building I did some research to find christmas games and I came across this site which has a multitude of holiday games but most importantly a selection of christmas games!  So folks I leave u with this site to browse.  Let me know if you do play any of the games and how they go down.  I fancy the game called find Santa's reindeer!

Later mummies and Merry Christmas…  how messy is ur house gonna be on xmas day?   Ha!!! 

Xxx

 

Christmas Party Games

 

 

I'm hungry Mummy!

'I'm hungry Mummy!' This is what the J-girl is really saying when she points and grunts at food, the fridge or someone else’s food!  The J-girl really loves her food (family trait) me thinks and really ‘so far’ I haven’t experienced any pickiness or stubborness to eat food!  But, that’s doesn’t always seem to be the case and in my future I do expect some form of difficulty !!  I know some mum’s struggle with feeding their little ones.  Not only getting them to eat but also what to give them! So I had a wee wonder round Google and found a few sites which I thought might be worth looking at to help ‘inspire, get the little one to eat or even had some new ideas to your evening menu!

 

15 ways to get your kids to eat better 

An article I picked up from a lady who is a mother to 7 year old triplets and she shares some really useful tips!  My fav tip:  ‘bite your tongue’.

 

Annabel Karmel

You may or may not heard of annabel Karmel – I’ve got a couple of her cookbooks and I really love them!  The food is great!  Infact this week on our menu we have her ‘spaghetti bolognaise’.

 

Children recipes

A nice, easy to read website with meal options to choose from. 

 

Indian baby food recipes

I put this one up cos I’m bit partial to a good indian dish and why not get the little one enjoying those exotic flavours from an early age!

 

Food for Tots

I love this site.  I get hungry for all of it when I'm looking at it.  My fav dish??  If I wrote the list it would be very very long!  Check it out – its got a lot of options and dishes from all over the world.

 

Yum-O.org

I got the November issue of the Rachel Ray magazine and came across this really interesting site called ‘yum – o’. It was launched in 2006 by Rachel Ray and is a non profit organisation that empowers kids and families to develop healthy relationships with food and cooking.  Check it out aswell and see what you think.

 

Let us know if any of these sites work out for you.  And if you cook something let us know if it went down well.

 

laters...xx

 

 

 

 

 

Your top toddler questions

I admit it – I go to Google for everything!  I google loads of stuff – always trying to find answers, recommendations, suggestions and ideas!  So with Jessica starting to ‘toddle’ and my Facebook comments on Jessica’s recent development milestone saying stuff like ‘it all starts now’, ‘let the games begin..’, ‘run Nick run’; ‘you’ll loose that weight now nick’….I started to think about what sort of things may I expect or concern myself with!  We got through the baby thing so is the toddler thing scarier??? 

So I ‘googled’ the top toddler questions and the link below is what I found.  My favourite top toddler question is point number 5, What should I do if my toddler has a tantrum!  The tantrum thing haunts me!  I haven’t yet experienced a serious tantrum so preparation is the key.

So have a look!  For the mums that are more experienced in the toddler department would there be anything you would add to this list?  Let us know.

Have a great day!  x

 

Your top 10 toddler questions?

What's great about being a mum?

I wanted to open this blog on this subject of 'what's great about being a mum?' because sometimes I need to remind myself of this and why we do all the things we do.  So I thought you might need that too!

Well lets see, the routines, the problem solving, the organising, the pre-planning, the mess, the tantrums, oh god this list could go on with all the things we do in a day.  Seriously mummies we are great at multitasking and getting things done no matter what’s going on.  We do all this and don’t even hear the words ‘thank you’ or ‘cheers’ or ‘job well done’ or other words of gratitude.  Some how we push ourselves to continue on all with that key phrase in our head ‘this is not forever’. 

Yes it will all end one day and we can speak, interact with our kids in a more civilised way but right now my world is some what different.

So a small reminder of what’s great about being a mum would be grand.  So I googled ‘What’s great about being a mum?’ and here is what it came up with.  It’s from a mother’s day article but seriously as a mummy – everyday should be mother’s day!

Here you go: 10 best things about being a mum

My favourite point in this article is ' your baby adores you'.  awwww....I love my daughter Jessica!