WFMW - tub gardening

I love gardening - the feel and smell of rich earth, the quiet pleasure of watching plants thrive (or not, as the case may be!). And fresh vegetables to feed my little family. But I do not love weeding, bending over, or the cost of expensive containers.

So this round of vegetables are being grown in these inexpensive plastic tub trugs instead. The tubs are flexible, lightweight and have very convenient handles. They cost A$9.00 each (about US$7.20).

Just be sure to drill some drainage holes in the bottom (being soft plastic, the drill goes through very easily, and the plastic doesn't crack).

Then fill with soil or potting mix and plant out your seedlings. We have tomatoes and cauliflower in at the moment. I am just using a single stake in the centre of the tub, for all of the tomato plants. We will see how this goes.

The tubs get hardly any weeds, are higher up for ease of planting, they are light enough to move around the garden easily and could even be put up on a bench, for no-bending gardening. Perfect for balconies, and renters (like us).

For more WFMW ideas, visit We Are That Family.

WFMW - Great idea resources

This is the "Mum, I'm Bored" edition of WFMW. Thankfully, I haven't heard those words much yet (Naomi is still stuck in an "I want..." phase, which is driving me crazy).

Anyway, when I need to divert attention from crankiness, boredom, or simply pinching her baby brother's cheeks too hard (yep - he doesn't have *naturally* rosy cheeks, poor kid), I have a stock standard list of places to get easy ideas that can be done quickly.

Some great websites that I highly recommend:

http://www.huggies.com - yes, good old Huggies. I don't buy their product, and don't ever intend to. But their website is chock full of great activities, games and ideas for keeping young children entertained. Lots of templates to download and print off and simple hands-on activities that we can do with things we have in our craft box. You just have to sign up online (for free) and receive their junk emails (which I have directed straight into my spam).

http://www.starfall.com - this is a great site for very young children to learn their letters. Naomi (age 2) adores it - it is interactive, colourful and I like to think it is educational. I was put onto this site by Kara at Eskimo Kisses & Air Hugs.

http://www.handsonhomeschooling.com - This one isn't fee, but Terri has written curricula folders for children ages 2 to 5. I bought the one for 2 year olds. It is about 3 inches thick, and is chock full of wonderful fun ideas for activities that are also educational. It also includes devotionals and simple activities to teach little ones some Bible stories. I highly recommend it as money well spent, that will last for years.

For more ideas to keep children entertained, head over to We Are That Family.

WFMW - Kids parties

As previously mentioned, Naomi just turned 2 and we had a small party for her little friends, on Sunday afternoon. Here are a few of the things that I found worked for me --

1. Don't feel obliged to invite every child they know. We invited 5 children, and it was just enough to have some fun chaos, but not so many that we were frazzled and cranky by the end.

2. Keep children's ages in a similar range. This makes planning activities, and timing, much easier. Advise parents of multiple children that activities etc will be aimed at the age group of your birthday child, so that they can make alternative arrangements or bring along appropriate toys for their other children.

3. It's not rude to set a finish time, and write it on the invitations. The finish time doesn't have to be set in concrete, but it will let everyone know that you are not having an open house all day, with meals provided! We did from 2 to 4pm, with afternoon tea party food. Everyone was aware that we weren't doing lunch or an evening meal.

4. Have age appropriate activities. We recently went to a 3-year old's party where they did 'pass the parcel'. This was a disaster. 2 - 3 year olds do NOT share well, and didn't really get the concept of only opening one layer of paper on the parcel! For Naomi's party, I got some individual little art canvases from the discount store, and each child painted their own artwork. I also pre-cooked cupcakes, and iced them, then put a bowl of assorted decorations (marshmallows, lollies, sprinkles, etc) in the middle and each child decorated their own cupcake. These individual activities worked well - minimal opportunity for arguments!

5. For the butterfly cake, I ordered a half a plain vanilla sponge slab cake from our local bakery. I then just made a paper template of the basic butterfly shape, cut it out and iced it. Much less fuss than trying to bake cakes and stick them together.

Hope these tips make your next kids party a bit less stressful! For more tips, see Rocks in my Dryer.

WFMW - tender noses

Despite it being spring in our part of the world (and feeling more like summer), we seem to currently be afflicted with a round of colds, 'flu, and chest infections. As our Family Daycare children are also bringing these bugs along with them into our house, some days I find myself wiping up to 4 little noses all day! All this blowing and wiping gets very painful for tender noses with just plain tissues, so I have found that occasionally interspersing tissues with blowing/wiping on wet wipes is quite soothing to little noses.

You can get wipes with aloe vera and other soothing things added, but do make sure that you use alcohol free wipes, so that you are not contributing to the drying-out of tender skin. Your little darling will have a moistened and soothed nose -- at least for a couple of minutes!

Now head on over to Rocks In My Dryer for more handy hints!

Frugal cheese

What is working for me this week? Well, a number of things aren't working for me, but this one sure is.

Miss Naomi likes cheese. Oh, boy, does she like to eat slices of cheese. And not the cheap processed stuff - it has to be the real McCoy block cheese that costs an arm and a leg. So how to make this fit into the Cherished Household budget??

Take 1 vegetable peeler. Take your block of cheese. Apply one to the other. Voi'la, as the French would say!

I use the peeler to shave off very thin slices of cheese from the block - enough to satisfy the tastes of our little cheese monster, but frugal enough to make the block last for ages, and soooo easy to cut. I am useless at cutting straight slices off with a knife - they are too chunky, hard for little ones to easily eat and wasteful of the cheese. But this way, everyone is happy! And it makes slicing cheese for sandwiches so easy as well.

Now head on over to Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer for more great tips.

WFMW - How close is too close??

If your kids are like mine (well, mine and our daycare kids), and allowed to watch a very limited amount of television, they will probably be desperately excited when it is on - and perhaps even cluster around the screen, to get as close as possible (because you don't want to miss a moment of the Bananas in Pyjamas!). After repeated efforts at "stay back from the TV - further, further...", I knew I needed another plan.

I now set up a picnic blanket on the lounge floor, as far away from the TV as I want the kids to be. They are not allowed to go past its front edge. This is a clearly marked line, and there can be no arguments about creeping closer to the TV. My real tip is to make it a comfortable, fun place to be -- add some cushions, have their water bottles close by, and maybe even a snack, if it is the right time of day. Make sure to allow some room around behind the blanket, for dancing etc, and for those kids that lose interest in the program. Pretty soon your kids will WANT to be on the blanket (and therefore away from the screen). They can all see, there is room to stretch out and it is almost like having an inside picnic, at a regularly scheduled time!

For more great tips, go over to Rocks in My Dryer.

Sweet as a rose!

I love gardening. But I am not really too good at it. So when the trailing rose that I bought in full flower didn't get any new blooms after the ones that came with it died, I rang my father-in-law, who grows beautiful roses.

He suggested trimming it back and putting.... a banana peel in the pot. Apparently roses like potassium, to flower well. And a great source of potassium is decomposing banana peels! I am pleased to report that my rose soon produced another flush of buds.

So, my WFMW tips are:

1. Put banana skins around your roses (or bury them near the roots, if you don't like the sight / smell!); and

2. Give even strange-sounding advice a go, if it comes from someone who has demonstrated expertise in the area!

WFMW - easier nappy changing

Do you have a 'roller' or a 'climber' on your hands? When you approach the change table do you just know that you are going to end up fastening the nappy 'on the run'?

It is now 5 weeks since I started running Family Day Care from our house, and I have the care of 3 little angels, all under the age of 2. (Yikes, how did that happen?!!?). I am learning some tricks pretty fast, I tell you!

My tips for making changing easier are:

1. Hang some windchimes (get them cheap at your local $2 shop), above the change table - up nice and high. Chime them when you put the child down, and re-tinkle whenever you have to!

2. Give the child a job to do. "Naomi, could you hold the nappy cream for me please?" (I keep an empty tube of cream so that I can still use cream without wrestling her for it.). Or "Could you get me 3 wipes out of the box please?" (Count to 3 with them -- otherwise you will end up with 23 wipes that can't be stuffed back through the dispenser!).

3. Bring a little toy with you, to keep little hands busy - but make sure that it is a plastic or wooden one that you can quickly rinse in anti-bacterial rinse afterwards. Stuffed toys are not good for this job!

4. Learn to fasten nappies up with the child standing (on the floor, of course). This is the last resort!

Now head over t0 Rocks In My Dryer for more great WFMW tips.

Love Zip-lock bags!

The humble zip-lock bag. It has a million uses. And best of all, it can be rinsed and re-used over and over again. One pack of zip-lock bags has lasted the Cherished household nearly 6 months! Here are a few of my favourite uses for them:

1. Place your opened block of cheese into a zip-lock bag, to keep it airtight and avoid those dried out ends that no-one likes and you just have to throw away. Cheese is getting so expensive that I just love to use every little bit of it!

2. If you have left over chopped onion, (or peeled but not yet chopped), place it all in your zip-lock bag, and keep in the veg crisper of your fridge for up to a week -- without the smell getting all through everything you own.

3. My all-time favourite, is a use that comes from my older sister, who had her 4th little cherub in early January. In those first few weeks / months, when nursing the baby on one side, and the other breast leaks, slip an open zip-lock bag over the other breast, and collect the milk... beats expressing, and can be frozen for up to 6 months!

Now head on over to Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer for more great WFMW tips.

WFMW - lovely scents

I think that scents are one of the finishing touches that adds to your house being a home, so here are two pretty-smelling tips for your sniffing pleasure!

If you have scented soaps or candles that you are not yet using (perhaps, like me, you already have an abundance of candles on display!), use those scents in other ways! Tuck them into your linen press, underwear drawer or wardrobe. The smells will be magnified in the small spaces, and you get to enjoy them before the burning or washing begins.

Second, to make a dry nappy-bucket less offensive every time you lift the lid, sprinkle bicarbonate soda in the bottom of the bucket, and then sprinkle a few drops of your favourite essential oil in the bottom. Repeat the sprinkling of oil in on top of the nappies as often as you want. The bicarb soaks up the odours, and your oils will help to cover up any lingering smells - and it all washes out before going back on baby's bottom.

WFMW - creamy mash!

Want to make deliciously creamy mashed potato that the whole family will love? (LOL - Nigella, eat your heart out!)

My tip is, when mashing the boiled spuds, mix in the usual butter and milk, and ADD a couple of good tablespoons of cream cheese, while mashing. The cheese softens through the potato and makes it really creamy. For a twist, you can try the flavoured cream cheese (our favourite is herb and garlic), for extra yummy potatoes. My little family now loves their mash!

This would also be a way of slipping a little extra dairy into the diet of a fussy eater.

For more great tips and ideas, check out Shannon at Rocks in my Dryer.

WFMW - shiny sink

I am copping out badly on this one, and all you Flybabies will already know it, but my WFMW is a simple one. If you want a lovely shiny sink, then after using hot water and vinegar, and giving it a good scrub, finish with a squirt of any glass cleaner, and shine up with a cloth. Works as well as any fancy stainless-steel product I have ever used. And we all like to see our shiny sinks in the morning!

For my Works for Me Wednesday tips, head over to Shannon at Rocks in my Dryer.

WFMW - feeding baby on outings

I have learned the hard way that no cafe or other food outlet will heat baby food anymore - even if you show them the frozen cubes and your hungry baby's face ... and plead! They all say that some mother has sued after her baby's mouth was scalded from microwave heated food that she didn't check the temperarure of! What kind of a world is this??

Anyway, I had to slowly wean Naomi off warm solids and on to room temp or cold solids.

So my WFMW tip is to be sure to have your little one eating room temp food at home, from the start - let the microwave defrosted veges stand until they are coolish, before feeding. Otherwise, like my darling, they may refuse solids (both homecooked veg cubes and jar food) when you are out, because they don't like the strange temperature!

(one store did offer to bring a metal ice bucket of boiling hot water to the table for me to defrost the veges in --- how is this safer than just nuking the food and telling me to mind the temperature before feeding???!!)

Now head over to Shannon for more great tips!

WFMW - Frugal baby fruit

I don't mind cooking and puree-ing veges for baby food but I am not one to fiddle around cooking fruit. But I am equally not happy buying those teeny tiny cans of baby fruit, which are expensive and don't g very far at all!

So my WFMW tip is to buy large cans of baking fruit (peach, apple or apricot) and blend it with a blender of any description. Then freeze in cubes and store in zip-lock bags. Be sure to buy the baking fruit, because it is 100% fruit with no added syrup or sugar. More food for much less cost!

Head on over to Rocks In My Dryer for more Works for me Wednesday tips.