….that January 11 is International Fairy Bread Appreciation Day?

SO to commemorate this special day, I’ve decided to hold a morning tea with some friends and all of our kids.

Should be fun!

Annabelle has decided that she will decide when her nap times will be and while her naps suit me, I know it can be hard when little bubs don’t want to go down for their naps and the mamas start looking a little like my frazzled woman logo! LOL

So when I received an email from best-selling author, Elizabeth Pantley about her new book, “The No-Cry Nap Solution: Guaranteed Gentle Ways to Solve All Your Naptime Problems”, I knew I had to mention it to you!

Will your child only nap in your arms, in a swing, or after elaborate rituals? Does your child take cat naps — or none at all? Let world-renowned, trusted parenting author Elizabeth Pantley help you. She’ll guide you with the same sensitive expertise and gentle approach used in her other No-Cry bestsellers about sleep, discipline and potty training.

Research proves that daily naps improve health, mood, growth, intelligence and well-being. Yet children often resist the naps they need and parents don’t know how to make them happen. The results are fussy, crying babies and cranky, grouchy kids who also have trouble sleeping at night!

In The No-Cry Nap Solution Pantley explains to parents of children ages newborn to kindergarten the importance of napping to both behavior during the day and sleeping during (and through!) the night. She then shares with you her gentle, loving child-friendly techniques–tested on families of all sizes and circumstances–and shows you how you can customize her solutions for your own family.

Pantley addresses issues such as children who resist naps, dealing with schedule changes, turning short naps into longer ones, helping a child go from needing motion for sleep to “stationery” sleep, nursing at naptime, daycare-related napping problems, newborn “in-arms” or “in-sling” napping issues, and much more.

Check out Elizabeth Pantley’s website for more info and to check out her other books.

For the past few days I kept repeating “DON’T make any plans on Tuesday because Tuesday is family day!” I have to be quick with the teens and book ahead with them so they can’t get out of going out for the day with us LOL

So we packed a picnic lunch and jumped in the car. We stopped for fuel and at that point, we STILL didn’t know where we were going for our picnic. (Yeah, we’re like that sometimes. We’ll decide as we’re driving).

We headed South and ended up stopping at Minnamurra River for our picnic. It’s really nice there. Great picnic spot and the water isn’t too deep so it’s great for littlies.

I LOVE going on family days like this. The kids mentioned to us as we were driving home that they really enjoy it too and while we were driving home, we started making a mental list of places where we could go next for picnics.

It’s nice to be able to just pack a lunch, jump in the car and head off to some place nice and just enjoy being together.

Getting really creative with my post titles, hey?! LOL

After dinner this evening, we decided at the spur of the moment to go for a walk along the lake with 3/5 of the kiddos.

Annabelle took her “Ella” with her. Mads and Giorgia rode their bike and scooter. When Annabelle got tired of carrying her “Ella”, I had the pleasure of pushing her in the pram… and Bill got to carry “Ella” too LOL

Bill took some really pretty sunset shots…

And then I got the camera and took some snaps…

 

After getting a little sunburnt totally fried today, I thought I’d have a look for some home remedies that might soothe the sting.

I don’t know if these work but I guess if you’re desperate to ease the pain, you’d be willing to try anything, hey?!

* Try using plain yellow mustard. Put mustard directly on your sunburn and let it dry then wash off. Repeat as often as needed.

* rubbing a tomato on the burn as soon as you get out of the sun will stop the burn from going further and will take the burn out

* Mix 2 teaspoon tomato juice and 4 tablespoon buttermilk and apply. Leave for 1/2 hour, and wash off.

* Mix olive oil with equal quantity of vinegar and apply an hour before your bath for sunburn relief

* Cool bath in water with lots of baking soda.  Cold compress with same.

* a cool bath with tea in it… the tea soothes the burn and helps reduce the redness

* Applying aloe vera juice or gel as it helps in soothing the skin

* Make a mixture of grated cucumber with milk and apply it on the sunburned skin

* Remove juice from grated potatoes to be applied on the sunburned skin.

* Rub bruised onions on sun burn to provide the ample relief

* You can soak yourself in oatmeal in tepid bath water for few minutes and then dry yourself

* applying natural yogurt offers some relief

OK, so now I need to decide if I want to smell like onions, cucumber, or mustard. Nah, I think I might use the aloe vera gel that I bought just for this type of situation ;P

We went to Port Kembla beach today because i98 (one of the local radio stations) was hosting their Summer Search Party there.

It was a gorgeous day for it. There were so many people down on the beach. I didn’t manage to grab a photo of Tiesha because she took off to watch the battle of the bands event. But we had some fun down on the sand.

The older girls weren’t ready to come home when we were leaving so they stayed longer, and got dropped off by their friend’s nan. William didn’t come with us because he had made plans with one of his mates.