MeadowLea luncbox switcheroo project

I have been lucky enough to participate in a number of projects through thesoup.com.au .  They are an awesome marketing company that will periodically send you products to trial and report back on how you enjoyed the products.  This time I was lucky enough to be invited along as an official blogger for the MeadowLea switcheroo project. 

This project invites users to switch from butter to MeadowLea which in a year can save you up to 2.5kg of saturated fat.  The soup sent me a replica of 2.5kg of saturated fat modelled below by my husband.

It was gross and did make me put down my kit kat that I was halfway through munching!
So with a large tub (because I love value) I set about making the kids lunches using MeadowLea instead of the usual Western Star. 
My fussy eater who will can smell salad before she has opened her lunch box was the luck recipient of a banana, apple and honey roll made using the MeadowLea spread.

For my healthy child, meaning Mac I made chicken breast rolls, with Meadowlea spread, spinach leaves, grated carrot, baby beetroot and dijionaise. 

The Rolls were all eaten as evidenced by the ball of gladwrap in their lunchboxes and upon questioning was told lunch was awesome, so noone noticed the switcheroo!

Travelling with a toddler

We are now in the great USA after having made 4 plane trips with our 3 little rascals.  The girls being older were fine on the plane but the little man was a nightmare!!! Our first flight started at 11pm (bad idea) he was tired and grumpy as he is usually in bed by 5pm.  He screamed blue murder for the 30 minutes we were boarding the plane I was sure we were going to be asked to leave the plane, so I kept praying they would shut those doors.  Then he continued to cry for the next 30 mins as more and more bells were pressed around us with people asking for ear plugs.  The stress was unimaginable knowing you are disturbing everyone on the plane, no one would meet our eyes!! Then the over dressed extremely posh lady asked us if she could try settling him down, are you kidding me! I am not inept he was just not going to settle until he went to sleep. Hubby laughed when she asked me in the condescending tone, I told her to step off and let me handle my business.  The little one probably would have ripped her much styled curls out and slapped her a good  one, later as he slept peacefully I contemplated  how easy the trip would have been without a screaming toddler but looking at him all peaceful and gorgeous in hubbys arms I thought Nah, the other passengers can just suffer in their jocks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What makes you happy!

I thought I would share the picture that makes me happy everyday! This sits on my desk and I love it, it is the girls at a Halloween party.

Countdown until holidays!!

photo courtesy of behindthestudio.com (I found it on Pinterest)

It is 1 week until we leave for America for 2 months.  We have a gorgeous friend who will be housesitting so we can leave a lot less stressed than might otherwise be the case.  We will be hitting the east coast from Florida, up to Washington and New York, then over to hawaii for a month over Christmas, all with 3 kids in tow!!  We are uber excited but also very nervous about being in the air for 20 hours with a 18 month old on our lap.  We know he will cry a lot, we know we will cry a lot (at least I will do mine i the privacy of the airplane bathroom!!).  He is so gorgeous and he has no idea what is coming his routine which is set in stone of sleeping from 5.30pm until 7am ,with a 2 hour nap thrown in at 11.30am is about to be uprooted in a big way.  It will involve long car rides, late nights and unfamiliar cots, I hope he manages ok.  But on the plus side we will be saying Mele Kalikimaka this year (Merry Christmas - from Hawaii) xoxo

cooking with the kids

Ok I am not one of those mums who loves cooking with the kids! I am ashamed to admit it, but the mess and the length of time everything takes to do drives me nuts!  But I am learning slowly (thanks Junior Masterchef) that the girls especially need to learn how to cook.  After all if a 9 year old can whip up a confit of duck surely my girls can make cupcakes..  So today I let them loose in the kitchen and they made delicious lamington cupcakes.  I resisted the urge to hurry them or get involved apart from helping them read the instructions. 

The result was beautifully light and moist cupcakes..



My son clearly loved them..

All in all a successful cooking experience, eat your heart out Junior masterchef!!

Possible Halloween ideas!

With Halloween fast approaching I thought I would put up the pics of the homemade costumes I made my girls for Book week.  They were very cheap costing me next to nothing and a big hit with the kids.  First my daughters astronaut costume, was a pair of painters paper overalls from bunnings (hardware store), the jet pack was 2 painted coca cola 2 l bottles, with paper badges from google images on them.  The helmet was bought at spotlight for $12, and the badges on her arms were from google images and printed off at home.

My other daughters costume was free, I took an old black shirt and cut out the feather shape template and then sewed them on in lines and then searched google images for owl mask and came up with the one i used.  The idea I got from pinterest cannot remember which site it was from but was easy and she got lots of comments on it.  Hope this has helped some looking for cheap and easy halloween costumes!

Little Fingers everywhere!

My little man has decided he is a big boy now! he opens the fridge to get his own drinks out, and then puts the drink bottle up to the fridge water dispenser and lets the water flow!! oh it flows all over him, and the kitchen floor.  Its hard to tell him off though because he is so cute.  Here he is inspecting the freezer.. 

Its hard  to believe he has grown up so fast, he knows what he wants when he wants and how much he wants..  but when he gives you this look my heart just melts xoxo