Jikana Damaru

photo of the day : 3 years old

Easter chocolate / candy moulds

This week in my series of posts, "Friday Finds", I bring you a selection of fun Easter egg moulds. Early I know, but best to be prepared!

All the shops in the above links have a large selection of other chocolate / candy moulds for all other occasions, too.

Have a sweet day!

This week I'm grateful for... thunderstorms

I'm still not over the gratitude I feel towards LOML, my personal chef. He's gone from rarely cooking to cooking up a gorgeous fat-free meal every single night. He follows his recipe and produces the goods. I am so impressed (and would it be condescending to say 'proud'? But I am). My body is thanking him for it (and I suspect there's his motivation right there!).

This week I'm also grateful for...

1. Thunderstorms* - the frizzing, crashing, radiating variety that claps you awake and makes you notice. Hey there, I'm the boring old weather and I'm roaring.

2. Emails - such a quick and simple way to keep in touch, extend a blog conversation, have a yarn. Email is entirely responsible for the resurgence of the art of letter writing and I like it very much.

3. Forgiveness - thoughtlessness, mistakes, differences of opinion, the overlooked and the ignored. All can be forgiven. All can be returned to easy.

* With respect to those doing it tough due to too many of the darn things!

So, what's making you smile today? Grab my I'm grateful for... button from my sidebar if you like, add your I'm Grateful For post below and please add a link back to me in your post. Then pop over to visit other bloggers who are spreading a little sunshine. Happy day to you!

[Image by Chantal Baggley]

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Link up with Mummy From The Heart's cheeriness too.

Reasons to be Cheerful at Mummy From the Heart

this weekend

I am going to soak up some family time

with these 3 loves of my life

how about you?

Maxabella does Childhood 101

I love Childhood 101 for practical, no-nonsense advice about keeping the fun in childhood. I'm very excited to be a contributor for Christie today, especially as I never have imagined I would have something to offer such a fab parenting blog (see here, here and here). But she was keen for me to talk about morning time management and that I can most certainly do! Thank you for the opportunity to be a part of Childhood 101, Christie!

Come check out my routine for making it out the door on time...

[Image found on tumblr - please let me know if this image is yours]

Family Photos

Late last year we made a couple of attempts to get some nice photos of the family. We thought a lovely shot of the entire family would be a great present for Mr A's parents so we set about finding a date that would suit all 20 of us (no easy task!).

Of course as with all good photo sessions we had to have one or two kids that just weren't being co-operative on the day - unfortunately for me that happened to be one of my children! Photo's with Mr A's family done but I was unhappy with our family shot - Sofia would just not smile (complaints of a sore tummy which not even chocolate would fix!).

Enter the solution - my family needed photo's as well so another date was set and this time happy kids meant happy mum! Here are the results of both of our little shoots.

Shoot one - Mr A's Family