Putting your hand up can mean cleaning up.

Sometimes I am a hand-puter-up-erer.

In my head it goes like this "Cool, that should be fun, the kids will love that"

The reality is often a little different.
Last weekend I said, sure, we would love to have baby chickens for the weekend. What is not to love about baby chickens?

Let me tell you what is not to love about baby chickens.

Poo.

Lots of baby chicken poo.

They poo all day and night, when sitting in your hands or when Immy drops them and they run behind the chair.

Even on your shoulder.


Poo gets stinky quick.


The baby chickens have returned to creche to be squished and cuddled by tiny hands and to poo themselves crazy away from my carpet.

Are you a hand-puter-up-erer or a poo clean-er-up-erer?

Lipstick Art

I am in a nesting type of mood, but rest assured there is no baby on its way. The baby shop is out of business in the Huey household.

We're planning a bathroom makeover in the next few weeks so I decided if the current cabinet is hitting the tip it would be best to clean the poor thing out first.

I seem to have a collection of make up bags so I started with one and filled it with makeup that I no longer use, the other I filled with items I had forgotten I had but was thrilled to find.

I can't believe how many fashions I have been through in make up. I am not a high user of cosmetics at all which makes me wonder just what could be in other peoples cupboards. Or maybe, that's the point, I purchase, but don't use what I have. The colours and products still showed fashions that have been and gone. Glitter body sticks!

This is so bright, I can't believe I once wore it, excuse the un-manicured nails.

I told the girls that the make up in the first bag was their's to do with as they pleased and expected they would hit the cubby/club house/beauty parlour and get to work face painting.

Instead they spent a few good hours sharing the colours and getting crafty.

The new textures were fascinating for them, using brushes, sticks, eye shadow applicator thingos plus fingers!

Craft items can sometimes be expensive, look around the house and you will be surprised what your kids will really want to play with.

How much old make up do you have laying around at your place? 

Win a car or a holiday (not on my blog though)

This post is sponsored by Toyota

Marketers have long used the competition format, be it collecting bar codes (is there anything more dull?) or cereal boxes, they make you ‘lick a prize’ or ask for your funniest entry to help build momentum around a brand or product. They even use blogs!

It can be a fun way of people linking with a brand and if done properly just entering can be part of the fun. Toyota is currently running a competition and they seem to have ticked all the right boxes in making it worth your while.

1) The prize is worth it.

$10,000 to spend on a family holiday for three winners and a prize of a Toyota Kluger Grande for one super lucky duck family (I wonder if the winner would be interested in swapping for our old Tribute, it is accessorised with sultanas in the seat grooves?). There are also 90 chances to win some My Family Stickers, I know lots of people don’t like these, but I think they are pretty funny sometimes. Especially this one - who needs internet dating, this lady has a bumper sticker!

2) You won’t have to collect a single barcode or make a purchase to enter, nor will you have to lick ice cream off a car to find the one that says ‘instant winner’.

3) If you would like to you can have a laugh at your own expense by playing with the My Family Stickers and placing them in certain travel scenes, but really you should get writing about one of your favourite road trips as a family to win.

See, this is what I will look like at the beach, and Mr H already thinks he looks like this: 

Really there is nothing to lose and lots of chances to win. Get yourself over to My Family Kluger and enter. Some one has to win and if it isn’t me, then I reckon it should be you.

I can tell you nothing at all about this car, except that I would really like to win one.

Winning Weekend #2: Zoe and Beans

Currently I have two fines.

One at the local library and one at the school library.

This is pretty common, as we have kids books all over the house, we read a lot and often. I have them stashed in both cars, in bags I take to restaurants to entertain the girls or if we visit friends who are childless. Popps has them hidden down the side of her mattress in her bed and Immy has a collection of Pooh Bear books on her bed head.

I have mentioned Zoe and Beans before, and here they are again.

Simple, fun, funny. 

There is a particular thing I look for in a kids book, it isn't the message they want to send the child, in fact I am not really a fan of picture books whose main aim is to teach rather than entertain.

I look for a book that as a parent I can cope with reading about 42 million times.

TICK!

I have two Zoe and Beans: Pants on the Moon to give away - hide them in your stash for Christmas for any child who enjoys a fun story.

Just leave me a comment telling me what you would leave on the moon if you landed there one day.

Comments open asap and close on Sunday 26 August at 8pm.

Fine Print:

Australian Residents Only

If email is not responded to within 48 hours I will redraw the prize

No arguing with the umpire

One comment per person allowed

Edited: 28 August
CLOSED - this giveaway is now closed:

Winners are Kim and Hannah, I will email you asap.

An actual real secret garden

Most secret gardens are not really so secret. They are more just forgotten, left unattended or new  owners are not blessed with a green thumb.

We have a real secret garden.

It is not always visible. 

You can't drive to it, you need to walk through the bush and climb fences. You need to know where you are going and at what time of year to go there.

The Bees were apparently noisy.

Once upon a time someone lived here. There are the last remains of the fire place, the 'house yard' boundary is marked out by rocks still half buried in the ground. Someone lived here and planted some bulbs and some trees. Someone who wanted flowers in an Australian bush setting.

One day they left.

The bulbs stayed and each year they jumped out of the bushland grass and bloomed their special yellow sunny faces.

Each year a few extra bulbs sprout and the daffodils keep on blooming on.

No one else ever moved in and the house disappeared or fell down so the bushland claimed back the space.

Not many people know where this is, the locals don't want the bulbs dug up, they enjoy this quiet and peaceful place, a secret garden that will remain and expand, where the screeching Cocky is the only one who will pick the flowers.

The scent in the air is amazing. 

Within a few months the bulbs will be gone, until next year when our secret garden will sprout again.

Have you planted some blubs this year, because you never know who might one day enjoy them?

The Terrible Pants

On the weekend I was delighted to find myself a new pair of cargo style pants, the type you can roll up and wear in summer so I could wear them pretty much year round/

Colour, fabric, price, comfort all seemed perfect.

Yesterday after waiting around all day I threw them on, rolled down for winter, with a new black jumper I recently got. I was so comfortable, so warm and loved wearing my new outfit.

I was cooking tea when Popps came over and said, "Mum, I don't want to hurt your feelings, but those pants are really stupid. They are dumb. You should give them away. They are terrible."

I told her they were new, I liked them, I thought they were ok.

Popps has requested that I don't wear them to school pick up anymore, they are really bad pants and she thought I was looking weird.

At bed time she double checked with "you wont wear those pants again tomorrow will you?".

I was laughing to Mr H later on, saying can you believe that she has started to try and tell me what to wear?

He smirked an odd grin and simply said 'please don't wear them out of the house, go and buy something else, they are shockers.

Maybe I will try them again in the summer time.

This is them without the model and rolled down, what do you think...Keep or throw?

Waiting

This week I am doing a lot of waiting. A week that started off as routine as most quickly changed after a phone call from my Mum about my Dad's health.

The hours are going by slowly between phone calls and I am reminded that waiting has never been one of my strengths.

Even on the weekend at the back stage of a concert that Popps was performing in, there was a lot of waiting. I had her dressed and ready to go and was then told we had two hours before stage time. One lady had her knitting. Others relaxed and chatted. I looked at the clock on my phone.

Yesterday as I awaited phone calls about test results and diagnosis I was unable to focus on a task. I can't just read a book and wait. I could vacuum and fold clothes, things that can be done without thinking. I couldn't get any work done and I cancelled a meeting for today that I was meant to present at as I just couldn't focus on what I needed to do. I also don't like to be around people. A cocoon is my preferred place to wait.

Phone calls came with the response that we need to wait some more, a few days, not hours. Doctors are busy, they have lots of patients and are not at my beck and call. Tests take time, there is fasting to be done, waiting your turn. Waiting.

In an age of instant everything my waiting skills are rarely tested. They are certainly far from refined.

It is a good time for the girls to ask for something as I am pretty likely to say yes, have whatever you want.

I might need to take up macrame.

Being snapped in our natural habitat.

We had a photographer come to the house to take some images of us 'au natural'

Emma arrived with camera at the ready and we were to go about our usual Sunday morning while she took some shots.

I have seen other people's photo's like this and loved them, but most also seem pretty story book gorgeous, homes from Vogue magazine, windows clear as crystal where the cleaning fairies have been.

Designer clothes clad families.

Not really us.

I was worried that we are just too boring for a photographer to capture.

I tidied away junk and the stuff that litters the ends of benches and sits on book shelves knowing that I would hate for those itty bitty bits to be in photos forever.

I spent time looking through wardrobes trying to work out what fits perfectly, has no stains, loose threads and buttons missing and then the girls refused to wear those outfits and it was way too cold to wear what I would have liked.


At the start the girls were not even dressed.

I tried to get their hair to look neat and tidy and was successful half the time.

Professional photos of us in our natural environment is quite the task even for the most skilled snapper, Immy wants to be in every image, Popps just goes about quietly. 

I ensured the most important thing was done. My hair was coloured.

We went off to the park, taking the dog for a walk and grabbed a few more images. Peppa looks camera shy.

When we got the results I was thrilled, we are not all dressed up in clothes that we never wear. There is no fake setting and coloured generic background. The photos are just us. Just the way we are.








Disclaimer: Haven Lifestyle Photography provided these images to me on a CD, there was no obligation for me to blog about the photography session. I just really like the images and think other people might enjoy images that capture their family in a similar style.