Well, we did it... survived our first camping trip during ridiculously hot weather and the threat of possible bushfires looming in the background.
The kids loved the whole experience. They did get hot, but it was a great reason to spend loads of time in the pool. (I couldn't convince them into the river, despite my best efforts)
The tent experience was enlightening for us. Mike and I have both been camping before, but testing this particular tent out with the kids showed us that what we have doesn't cut it and we are now researching other brands and designs.
I had thought we had grossly over-packed the amount of camping "stuff", but most of it was used or the potential to use it was there.
We had friends staying nearby which turned out to be fantastic. I had always thought that holidays with friends kind of defeats the purpose of going away- you can spend time with them at home, why travel to hang out? But spending an evening with friends while the kids entertained each other was a great break for us as parents.
Taking the kids' bikes was a GREAT idea, too. Whenever they got underfoot, or bored, we sent them out on their bikes to do laps of the caravan park. Thankfully it was a small, quiet caravan park so they passed us often enough for us to keep an eye on them.
So, all in all, it was a great few days away. Just long enough to enjoy, despite the weather, and we are already planning our next sojourn. Hopefully it will become a regular event on our calendar and maybe even an Easter trip is on the cards.
(I had hoped to add some photos from our time away, but Blogger is being a pain and not letting me upload. Visit me over at http://instagram.com/linbritt/ if you have an Instagram account for the few pics uploaded there. I think the time has come to move on to another spot in cyber-space!)
Showing posts with label Traditions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Traditions. Show all posts
Friday, 11 January 2013
Friday, 21 December 2012
The joy of giving...
Our Family Activity Advent Calendar has been doing OK in it's inaugural year. We've forgotten to look at the activity a few times and totally ditched some when we simply ran out of time. But there was one particular task that I was very keen to add and made sure we didn't miss.
I love the idea of the kids donating something of their own before Christmas. Partly to make room for new gifts received, but more importantly to recognise that there are other families with a lot less than us and its nice to give for the sake of giving.
My mum often talks to the kids about the "Smith kids" who are from the Smith Family (charity). Megan and Alex think that the kids on the Smith Family ads are real kids who don't have toys and clothes like they do. I know it's not entirely true, but it has given a very real face to a difficult to understand topic.
So when we pulled out today's advent calendar card and it said donate a toy and book, Megan got really excited. She chose her book and toy carefully and wanted to find more and more to give. I really didn't want her to give away the 'Meg and Mog' book because I had searched the Internet especially for it when we first had Megan. But it was her choice and I think she chose it because she likes the story and wanted the Smith kids to enjoy it too.
Alex didn't really understand so just randomly chose a book and toy, but I hope he remember it for next year when he may understand a bit more.
So the gifts are boxed, ready to pass onto the Smith family charity (I'll make a point of donating to them so that I can say they items DID go to the Smith Family!)
And I'm looking forward to keeping this tradition up for years to come.
I love the idea of the kids donating something of their own before Christmas. Partly to make room for new gifts received, but more importantly to recognise that there are other families with a lot less than us and its nice to give for the sake of giving.
My mum often talks to the kids about the "Smith kids" who are from the Smith Family (charity). Megan and Alex think that the kids on the Smith Family ads are real kids who don't have toys and clothes like they do. I know it's not entirely true, but it has given a very real face to a difficult to understand topic.
So when we pulled out today's advent calendar card and it said donate a toy and book, Megan got really excited. She chose her book and toy carefully and wanted to find more and more to give. I really didn't want her to give away the 'Meg and Mog' book because I had searched the Internet especially for it when we first had Megan. But it was her choice and I think she chose it because she likes the story and wanted the Smith kids to enjoy it too.
Alex didn't really understand so just randomly chose a book and toy, but I hope he remember it for next year when he may understand a bit more.
So the gifts are boxed, ready to pass onto the Smith family charity (I'll make a point of donating to them so that I can say they items DID go to the Smith Family!)
And I'm looking forward to keeping this tradition up for years to come.
Saturday, 15 December 2012
Going Overboard...
I'm about to be controversial...hold onto your hats...
The consumerism and "I want, I want" mentality of kids is our fault...us....parents.
Do kids really need 10 birthday presents? NO.
Do kids know if you have spent the same amount of money on one and not the other? NO.
It's our own sense of fairness and keeping up with the Jones' that leads us to buying more, doing more.
Mike and I were racking our brains for types of food to include in Alex's Dinosaur Birthday Party last weekend. We thought for weeks about how to make a dinosaur birthday cake. But this was us trying to make everything perfect, not Alex demanding a party with strict design and food guidelines!
Would he have been happy with a plain round (even store-bought) cake... No doubt. The fact that it had a candle on it and it was for HIS party was all that mattered.
And Christmas.... Ahhh Christmas....
The time of year where parents feel they have to give their kids the biggest and best of everything.
We had planned to make a cubby house for the kids this Christmas, but time and money got away from us. But hubby then decided that we had to spend the money that was for the cubby on the kids anyway. HOLD UP!!!
The kids didn't know they were getting the cubby house, they didn't know how much it was going to cost, they will not notice amongst their other gifts that they are missing out. They are getting plenty already...no need to go out and buy more, simply to assuage our guilt over not being able to provide one particular thing.
Alex would be happy with a $1 bubble wand from Kmart and Megan would love a packet of new hair clips or nail polish.
So why do we feel the need to have to get them expensive, fandangled super-toys?
Parent guilt... That's why! (OK, and possibly some really good company marketing strategies!)
Lots of big gifts under the tree looks great. A mountain of wrapping paper ripped from presents on christmas morning makes us feel good.
But it leads to the one trait of kids that I can't stand.....greed.
And our little boy displayed exactly that on the morning of his party when he said...
"Where's my next present??"
The consumerism and "I want, I want" mentality of kids is our fault...us....parents.
Do kids really need 10 birthday presents? NO.
Do kids know if you have spent the same amount of money on one and not the other? NO.
It's our own sense of fairness and keeping up with the Jones' that leads us to buying more, doing more.
Mike and I were racking our brains for types of food to include in Alex's Dinosaur Birthday Party last weekend. We thought for weeks about how to make a dinosaur birthday cake. But this was us trying to make everything perfect, not Alex demanding a party with strict design and food guidelines!
Would he have been happy with a plain round (even store-bought) cake... No doubt. The fact that it had a candle on it and it was for HIS party was all that mattered.
And Christmas.... Ahhh Christmas....
The time of year where parents feel they have to give their kids the biggest and best of everything.
We had planned to make a cubby house for the kids this Christmas, but time and money got away from us. But hubby then decided that we had to spend the money that was for the cubby on the kids anyway. HOLD UP!!!
The kids didn't know they were getting the cubby house, they didn't know how much it was going to cost, they will not notice amongst their other gifts that they are missing out. They are getting plenty already...no need to go out and buy more, simply to assuage our guilt over not being able to provide one particular thing.
Alex would be happy with a $1 bubble wand from Kmart and Megan would love a packet of new hair clips or nail polish.
So why do we feel the need to have to get them expensive, fandangled super-toys?
Parent guilt... That's why! (OK, and possibly some really good company marketing strategies!)
Lots of big gifts under the tree looks great. A mountain of wrapping paper ripped from presents on christmas morning makes us feel good.
But it leads to the one trait of kids that I can't stand.....greed.
And our little boy displayed exactly that on the morning of his party when he said...
"Where's my next present??"
Saturday, 1 December 2012
Family Activity Advent Calendar....
The kids have their first chocolate advent calendar this year and I found on Pinterest a cool "activity advent calender" that I added to my Christmas Pinterest Board, so I thought I'd have a go at making one (in fact I think I like mine better!),
Once I finally got all the materials and got going, it was great fun! And choosing the activites was cool too. The Pinterest page had some ideas that we used and we came up with a few of our own as well. We strategically placed the activities in the calendar so that busy days weren't made busier with tasks and those that needed a bit more time and effort were done on the weekends. I even made a few spares so that we can change things around next year.
Here are the activities we have used this year...
- Decorate the Christmas tree
- Hang lights on the house
- Colour a Christmas picture
- Listen to a Chrostmas CD
- Make Christmas Cards
- Make a new Christmas decoration
- Write a letter to Santa
- Sing a Christmas Song to someone
- Take photos for Christmas cards
- Make hot chocolate and stir with candy canes
- Read a Christmas Story
- Wrap presents
- Choose a toy and book to donate (this is my favourite
- Cut out paper snowflakes
- Have a sleepover in front of the tree
- Make Gingerbread men
- Draw and Christmas Picture
- Take a gift to your teacher
- Drive around and look at Christmas Lights
- Go and visit Santa Clause (at the shops)
- Make reindeer food (I love doing this with the kids at school)
- Watch a Christmas movie & eat popcorn
- Make a treat and take it to a friend
- Read the "Night before Christmas"
I'm really looking forward to doing each of these activities with the kids and hope it helps build the excitement towards the big day!
Friday, 30 November 2012
Movie night...
We've been doing movie night for about 2 months now, and this is something I needed to blog about coz its one of the things that I really want to remember.
Channel 7 have been kindly showing great kids movies at 6:30pm every Saturday night. Perfect timing for our little ones. The movies usually finish at about 8:30 (sometimes 9pm for a longer movie or one with more ads!) so the kids think they are staying up REALLY late!
We've had special movie food-popcorn and a milkshake. The kids think its fantastic and hey, if you can't have junk food at the movies, when can you, right?
So far there has been lots of Disney Pixar films shown, which are my favourite. We've seen the likes of Toy Story 1, 2 & 3, the Incredibles, Finding Nemo, Up and loads more. Hopefully they will start to head into Christmas movies now that we are almost in December.
Luckily we have a good stash of kids DVDs so if anything undesirable is scheduled, we can change things up and the kids will be none the wiser. (I have my fingers crossed for the Tinkerbell series soon...I love them!)
I know this new tradition won't last forever, in fact it will probably only last until Channel 7 realised there is something better to show than old cartoons!
But for now it's lovely to snuggle on the couch, in our PJs and watch some awesome animated movies.
Channel 7 have been kindly showing great kids movies at 6:30pm every Saturday night. Perfect timing for our little ones. The movies usually finish at about 8:30 (sometimes 9pm for a longer movie or one with more ads!) so the kids think they are staying up REALLY late!
So far there has been lots of Disney Pixar films shown, which are my favourite. We've seen the likes of Toy Story 1, 2 & 3, the Incredibles, Finding Nemo, Up and loads more. Hopefully they will start to head into Christmas movies now that we are almost in December.
Luckily we have a good stash of kids DVDs so if anything undesirable is scheduled, we can change things up and the kids will be none the wiser. (I have my fingers crossed for the Tinkerbell series soon...I love them!)
I know this new tradition won't last forever, in fact it will probably only last until Channel 7 realised there is something better to show than old cartoons!
But for now it's lovely to snuggle on the couch, in our PJs and watch some awesome animated movies.
Friday, 2 November 2012
A family past-time...
My family on my Dad's side has always played cards. My Nana, the Matriarch at almost 90, is the family teacher and has passed her love onto her four boys, her ten grandchildren and now onto the next generation. She always says, "I teach them the games and then they beat me at them!"
We know a variety of games, and some are much more skilled than others. But whenever we get together with a bit of spare time (which is almost never!), the cards invariably come out.
When I was playing Gin Rummy with Nana a few weeks ago, the kids wanted to join in. At four and almost three years of age, pretty much everything in my small repertoirre was beyond them.
So we taught them SNAP! It was a very slow, deliberately leading game, but the kids loved the competition of it and Alex's attention was captured for at least 8 or 9 minutes!!!
From my point of view, the games were always for fun, although getting loads of draw fours in Uno can start to increase my blood pressure! And if things ever got too intense, Nana would always come out with her trade mark line of "We're not playing for sheep stations". It's become a family joke now!
I'm hoping that the kids' interest will stick around long enough to teach them a few more basic games, along with teaching them the important lesson of losing gracefully!
We know a variety of games, and some are much more skilled than others. But whenever we get together with a bit of spare time (which is almost never!), the cards invariably come out.
When I was playing Gin Rummy with Nana a few weeks ago, the kids wanted to join in. At four and almost three years of age, pretty much everything in my small repertoirre was beyond them.
So we taught them SNAP! It was a very slow, deliberately leading game, but the kids loved the competition of it and Alex's attention was captured for at least 8 or 9 minutes!!!
From my point of view, the games were always for fun, although getting loads of draw fours in Uno can start to increase my blood pressure! And if things ever got too intense, Nana would always come out with her trade mark line of "We're not playing for sheep stations". It's become a family joke now!
I'm hoping that the kids' interest will stick around long enough to teach them a few more basic games, along with teaching them the important lesson of losing gracefully!
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