Spaces for kids

Our house is pretty small. Not necessarily by inner Sydney standards, but in terms of housing 5 people and 2 cats it is. Which is different to the scenario when we moved in almost 7 years ago and there were 2 people (who were mostly out working) and one sleepy cat. So I'm always looking for ways to rearrange our spaces to make them work better.

Lately I've been thinking about letting the kids take over a bit more space. In the past we've tried to keep the lounge room from looking too much like a kindy, but I decided to add a little 'reading corner' the other day using our existing furniture and giving more space up to the kids' books.

So it went from this...



to this...



I took the rattan circular chair out of the bedroom and put it here, as they love playing in it (it spins right around so they push each other around), added the comfy rug, some cushions and more book storage. They immediately took to it and love having a soft place to lie and look at their books.



I'm thinking of framing more of their artwork and hanging it.



And this is a cushion I made for the big girl when she started to read... 2 more to make now, an "A" and another "M".

Homemade sushi (and 'vegetarian snails')

I'm enjoying these school holidays much much more than the last one. Which is possibly because we'd just had a holiday recently and so are not burnt out, or because the weather is warmer and not so rainy, or a mixture of both. I'd also like to think, though, that I'm getting a bit better at working out how much activity they need to keep them happy without overdoing it and making myself stressed and tired along the way. Do you identify with that?

One organised activity we did have on last week was a kids cooking class run by our local council, which was great fun. They made 3 dishes, including sushi. I'd never made this before but after watching them I thought surely if kids can do it then I can! I thought we'd give it a go as a little holiday activity of our own.

So off we went to the fantastic local asian grocery store I've posted about before for some supplies, including this lot:



It's always an interesting excursion with the kids, who love seeing all the different things including the fresh chicken feet in the butchery section - which I walk past rather quickly! The thing that caught my eye this time was the 'vegetarian' section of the freezer. As a vegetarian, I don't want my food to smell, look or taste like meat, but obviously not everyone shares my view, as the following packs show. I've always found the 'mock' foods fascinating but I thought this took it to another level. I couldn't resist whipping out my iphone "dum-de-dum... I'm just checking my phone, click click click" to show you:









and my personal favourite - vegetarian snails!



Anyway... the sushi making was lots of fun. It was also very, very messy - imagine extremely sticky rice, small pieces of vegetables, bowls of water (for wetting the seaweed sheets) and extremely excited 5 and 2 year olds! The Mr, who is known here for his love and tending of clean floors (an interesting pursuit with 3 kids under 6 - hmm!), would have had heart failure if he'd seen it! But go girls! You did a great job x

Holiday inspiration - tropical flowers

One thing I look forward to when I'm going to a place with a tropical climate is the flowers. On our recent holiday to Fiji we went on a walk through a private garden filled with beautiful plants and flowers.

The colours and intricate designs of the orchids was particularly amazing.







And we always seem to find that a bit of nature has a calming effect on the kids. So, a lovely excursion for all!

Weekend snaps

A cold, grey old weekend in Sydney, but still some inspiration for a bit of photography...


Stormy Sydney harbour, complete with shark-net fenced swimming area


Plenty to explore...


... by a girl as fascinated with detail as her mama

This moment

I'm joining Soulemama (and many others) this week with the Friday ritual of 'this moment' - a moment from the week to pause, savour and remember. Happy weekend to you.

Domestic roles

Most mornings I feel like a short-order cook... breakfast for 3 hungry little mouths, trying to accommodate different tastes and allergies and still provide a healthy, nutritious start to the day. There is whining if it doesn't happen quickly, and screaming from the boy if I take a break to refill his bowl!



I also feel like a barista most mornings. It's been a long time since I've been able to have a quiet morning coffee (as any parent of small children will know) and these days the whole morning coffee routine is quite a saga with 4 drinks to make (hot chocolate for the kids of course)!



We use my favourite Koziol cups that I enjoy collecting. They come in varying sizes - huge for me (or 'bucket sized' as the Mr calls it - well, it does have to get me through the morning :-), medium for the girls and small for the boy....



who insists on holding his own cup...


"Yes? Something wrong?"

and needs a lot of cleaning up afterwards!

Then there's my role as washerwoman and the absolute mountain of washing to address all the time. If you're in the neighbourhood and feel like an exciting evening of clothes folding, drop in!



Although I loved taking part in the kids clothing week challenge it came at a bad time for me as we'd just arrived back from holiday and when I looked around the house I realised just how grubby it was - all the holiday sewing I'd been doing had been to the detriment of the cleaning. It looked like the the grubby fairies had been in and messed up. Now we need a visit from the cleaning fairies... wait, that'll be me... oh dear!

So I've promised myself no more sewing until I can get a bit of control back in the house. It's going to be tough, I'm sewing addicted at the moment, but maybe that's just the incentive I need!

Cook Clean Craft has some great cleaning tips to help. Now if I just had the time and motivation to do a huge spring clean on the house... the desire is there, the problem is that the sewing machine is too :-)

Any tips for me? Ways you motivate yourself to do the not-so-fun stuff around the house? I'd love to hear them.

Connecting

Something I love about having a blog and being an Etsy storeholder is 'meeting' lovely people along the way.



It's particularly nice to connect with other mums trying to channel their creativity into something to help out their families along the way. Helen from Poss&Wom sells her gorgeous prints for children's rooms on Etsy and Madeit and also has a lovely website. Her illustrations have so much character and a real feeling of joy and wonder about them, which I think is great for children.



Helen recently bought two of my sleepy teddies and gave me some lovely feedback after receiving them. Although I know I should just get on with doing what I do, having positive feedback like that really is fantastic and makes the sometimes late nights and unsure moments all worth it.

Then there are other nice things, like Jen making one of my recipes, Fi following my sewing tip and thinking I'm clever (shh, don't tell her otherwise ;-) and also the map below that tells me that people from different places have joined me in my little world for a time.



Thank you everyone!