Birthday Bunting {Free Printable}

As you may know, my gorgeous Mayana Berry turned FOUR on Friday!!

We/she had a wonderful day… and weekend… and there’s more to come with her Mermaid Birthday Party this coming Saturday. But more on all that later.

One of the things I did for Mayana’s birthday was to decorate the dining room beautifully for breakfast. I had a picture in my head which included ‘Happy Birthday’ bunting, but I couldn’t find any I liked online. So I did what any sensible person does late at night the day before her daughter’s fourth birthday, and made my own!

And since I had trouble hunting for a free printable birthday bunting, I thought that maybe someone else might be looking for one too, and thus, I’m posting it here for you to use too!

It’s fairly simple, not too big, but nice and colourful. It looks a little something like this:

And it prints out like this…

It’s pretty obvious, but all you need to do is cut out the pieces, fold down the flap and tape to a piece of string or ribbon (I used twine). I have two blank pieces (bunts?) on the printable, I put number ‘4’s in them, but you can put whatever you like, or just leave them off! If anyone is interested, the font I used is called ‘Irish Spaghetti’ and is my new favourite, you download it for free here.

You can DOWNLOAD THE BUNTING PRINTABLE by clicking this sentence.

And by the way, I did pull of the picture I had in my head. Mayana walked out of her bedroom to see this:

make your iphone pretty

I don’t know about you, but I like to accessorise. I’m the sort of person that gets a new wallet at least once a year, because I see something prettier. I’m the same with phone cases.

When we got our new phones, Peter went to eBay and got us a couple of clear cases for them. They were less than $10 for two of them! I have to give it to my husband… completely brilliant idea. A clear case means that I can essentially change my iPhone cover at a whim!

I can simply insert a photo or two, or some pretty scrapbooking paper… anything I want and I have a new cover for me phone, practically for free!

I’ve knocked together a couple on the computer with favourite quotes or scriptures, and I thought I’d share them here. I have made them for an iPhone 5, but have chosen not to put the camera cut-out on the template, so that you might be able to use them for an iPhone 4 if you need to.

So here are a few, and if I get some more together I’ll add them to this post! If you click on the pictures it will lead you to a jpeg download on my Google docs.. I believe they have saved in the correct size to print.. but let me know if you have any issues!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve currently got the quote from ‘The Lorax’ in my cover. Love it! I like to have a quote that is uplifting or makes me smile… a cover on my phone is something that I see multiple times a day, so it’s can be a good reminder for me.

What quote would you like to have on your phone cover?

Chores + Pocket Money {+ a free printable!}

Mayana is four in twelve days *sob*. She is getting to be such a big girl, and very capable. She’s a great helper, and makes my life easier in many ways. She is learning to help around the house, and is especially helpful in entertaining her baby brother when I need him distracted for a few minutes!

I really want to encourage Mayana in her attitude of helpfulness (she generally LOVES to help), and Peter and I have decided that we would like to reward her with some pocket money for the help she gives us.

The three of us had a chat about some jobs that she was already doing, and some jobs that she could learn to do, and decided on eight things that she can do daily to help out around the house. We talked to her about how it was important that everyone in our house has responsibilities to help make our lives run smoothly. Mayana know that if she helps me out with my chores in the mornings (ie washing up, sweeping the floor etc) then I have more time to play with her. She also knows that I shouldn’t have to be picking up her dirty underwear from the bathroom floor every night!

I’ve made a chart for Mayana, and each time she does one of her special jobs, she gets a stamp or a sticker. I actually plan on laminating this and sticking it on the fridge so that I don’t have to print one every week. Mayana has eight jobs she can do every day, plus I’ve given her an extra space for ‘Being an Awesome Helper’… so that I can reward her extra for things like looking after her brother, helping with grocery shopping… and okay… maybe I’ll be able to use it for a little bit of a bribe when necessary.

The rest of the jobs are mostly things that she was doing already, and a few things that she just needs a bit of encouragement to remember. She doesn’t do all of these jobs independently – for example she’s only really in charge of unpacking the silverware from the dishwasher… not the whole thing. She hangs the nappy liners on the clothes airer while I do the rest of the laundry (about 6 pegs per liner, if you don’t mind) and at this point she’s only really clearing her own dinner dishes from the table.

At the end of the week, Mayana will get 10 cents for every job that she has done. I’m under no illusion that her chart will be full of stars every week, but if she ever manages that, she has the potential to earn up to $6.30 in a week. We’ve talked to her about tithing and giving to God, and she’s excited to think that she will have money each week to put in the offering bucket as it goes past at church. We’ve also discussed saving money, and she’s already eyeing off a few Lala-Loopsy things that she’s quite like to save up for!

I’m excited to see how she goes with this. It’s been motivating so far in her keeping a much better attitude when I ask her to do a job. She loves going to get a stamp when she’s done something, and is offering to do things before I’ve even asked her. I’m hoping that it will help to ingrain some of these things as habit. As she gets older, she will get chores that are more age-appropriate, and these simple things will become more of an expectation – the things that she knows her her responsibility for helping our house to run smoothly. I also like the idea that she can learn about the fact that we don’t just always get things because we like or ask for them, and that sometimes we need to work hard and save to buy things that we want and sometimes even need. There are lots of learning opportunities involved in this too… learning about money is so confusing, and exposing her to different units of our currency is going to be good. She was so disappointed today that her fifty cent coin was only half of one dollar, and that she had to give both of her ‘dollars’ to the lady when she bought her cookie cutter!

Anyway… I thought that someone else might find it useful to use a sticker chart like this. So you can download it for free as a PDF printable if you click HERE!

I have only changed one thing from the original one above… I know not everyone has chickens so I’ve changed that to ‘feed the pets’.

If you use the sticker chart, I’d love to hear how it worked for your little ones!

Mama to two

It’s an interesting thing, being at home with two kids. I love it. Love it sooooooo much. And I’m learning how to balance my time so that my kids get equal shares of me, and the house keeps running, food keeps appearing… and I get a little bit of time to myself as well.

Mayana has been an absolute trooper since Reuben was born. When I was pregnant I was told plenty of horror stories about jealousy, and to be prepared for Mayana to really act out as she adjusted to this big change.

We have had a few rough weeks here and there, and there have been times when Mayana has tested my patience, but overall, Mayana has really taken this whole big-sister thing well in her stride. She hasn’t shown any jealousy at all really, and absolutely adores her baby brother.

That aside though, I know that she craves my attention, and I know that I could probably try a little harder to do more with her and make some wonderful memories for her.

Now that Reuben is sleeping predictably through the day, and his feeding has settled into a routine, I really want to make a conscious effort to devote more time to Mayana.. and one-on-one time when possible. It dawned on me last week that next year is the last year of Mayana being home before she starts school. That hit me pretty hard. As much as I loved working, and love that Pete got to have an awesome year at home with his girl, I feel like I missed a lot last year. The year that Mayana was two… it was really her last year of being a ‘baby’ and I missed most of it. If I’m being honest that does make me feel pretty sad. I don’t want to have any regrets about this season of Mayana at home. Especially since I have the opportunity to be at home with her right now. I want to make the absolute most of it, and have her look back on these days with a smile in her heart.

Mayana loves to make and to learn and to do things with me. Sometimes its as easy as pulling out her rice tub or getting into her play kitchen for some imaginary pancakes.. but she also likes to do craft (and lots of it) and other hands-on activities. I want to be able to provide some great experiences for her, and have lots of fun and do lots of learning in the process.

Pinterest is an absolute wealth of ideas and information (and a lot of fun and a little addictive), and I’ve been trying to use it more productively lately to find some fun things I can do with my girl.

The problem with Pinterest though is that you tend to find and collate all these fabulous ideas, and then they just kinda sit there, and you think, “Oh I was going to do something really cool that I saw on Pinterest… what was it again?”. So my plan is to not let that happen anymore.

I’ve made this cute printable to keep on the fridge. When we find things that look fun (Mayana likes to pinterest with me on the iPad), we’ll not only pin them, we’ll write them on our list. And when we’re looking for inspiration for things to do, we’ll know exactly where to look! If you like it, you can click on the picture to download a PDF file of it. You could even laminate it and use a whiteboard marker to write your ideas and wipe them off when they’re done.

I want to make Mayana a part of this, with her helping to choose the things that are on the list and then picking activities that interest her. I don’t want to structure our time or make any type of rigid schedule or to-do list, just a reminder of the things we’ve talked about and thought would be fun. Bringing pinterest to life! And having fun with my favourite girl in the process.

Can’t wait!

Pretty Things to Print!

I felt the need to do something creative today, and when I stumbled across the fabulous website Picmonkey.com, inspiration struck.

This is the first time I’ve played around with this ‘subway art’, and I enjoyed it!

I made some printables with some scripture and quotes that have been speaking to me a lot lately, and I’ve decided to share them with you here… so if they speak to you too, print them out and hang ‘em on a wall somewhere!

If you click on the pictures, it will take you to where they are stored on my Google Drive, and you should be able to save them to your computer. Let me know if you have any problems with downloading them!

This is a quote I came across in a Joseph Prince devotion I was reading recently. I tend to stress about things that I really have no power over. And I’m learning just what a waste of time and energy that really is… especially when I’ve got God on my side!

Are you sensing a theme here?

This is a mash-up of a couple of scriptures… Jeremiah 29:11, Joshua 1:15 and John 16:33. They were all used in a sermon I heard a few weeks ago, and I love their encouragement!

Like I said, I’m only new at this, and I’m looking forward to practising a bit more and seeing what I can come up with!

If you want to see some other fabulous printables, check out A Step in the Journey, Arian Armstrong, and Everything Etsy’s list of 101 pretty printables!

Enjoy!

Calendar + Weather Chart {Free Printable}

I have been having such fun making some resources for Peter to use in his Pre-Prep room. I posted a photo of this calendar and weather chart that I made on Instagram and Twitter, and sparked some interest. So, I have decided to share it here on my blog, for free!
You can access the four-page full-colour PDF file via Google Docs using THIS LINK.
Here’s a preview of what you’ll be downloading:
We laminated the two charts, and cut out the day-names and weather descriptions and laminated them too. Mr. Peter (as his students call him) uses the Calendar and Weather Chart each morning. They sing the ‘Days of the Week song’ to the tune of ‘The Adaams Family’:
There’s Sunday then there’s Monday
There’s Tuesday then there’s Wednesday
There’s Thurday then there’s Friday
And then there’s Saturday
Days of the week (click click)
Days of the week (click click)
Days of the week, days of the week, days of the week (click click)
Once they’ve sung the song, they choose the appropriate day name for today, yesterday and tomorrow, then they look outside and have a chat about the weather and choose the appropriate descriptions for the day and stick them to the charts. It’s a lovely little routing for them, and Pete says they all enjoy it.
I hope you will too!
I’d love to hear how you use it and if your kids like it.
Enjoy!
[All clipart is straight from Microsoft Clipart, and fonts were a mixture of downloaded and some that we made ourselves using this great app on our iPad!]

Checking in on the big girl.

It’s nearly been two weeks since that auspicious day when Mayana gave up her beloved dummy and became a big girl.
I am SO proud of her! She cried for her dummy at the afternoon sleep time of that Monday, and has only asked for it once since then. I just pretended like I didn’t know what she was talking about, and she just shrugged and cuddled Stella instead. I honestly cannot believe how EASY it was for her to get rid of the dummy (she seemed so dependent on it), and I’m so glad we made the decision to go cold-turkey with it.
Maysi got to go shopping for some big girl presents when she threw her dummies away (that was the deal). This is what she chose:

A big girl Tinkerbelle cup; a Wiggles toothbrush, and a big girl book about going to the toilet (are you sensing a theme here?).
Our next step in this journey to Big Girl is to get past this toilet training hurdle. Mayana has been partly toilet trained for some time now, but she just hasn’t clicked over to no more nappies. Admittedly we may not have been committed enough to it, but we’re really trying to get more on top of it. When you do put her in “Nudey-bums” (her self-concocted word for undies), she is usually quite good, but you do have to be reminding and asking her a lot (which I know is completely normal). I think having Easter away and slacking off a bit and just using nappies because it was easier has taken us a few steps backward. But we’re ready to jump right forward… so we’re trying this:

This chart is blu-tacked to the bathroom wall, and every time she goes to the toilet she gets a star (two for number twos!). When she lands on a balloon, she gets a lucky-dip prize. The prizes include stickers, a colouring book, a reading book, a pair of slippers and a matchbox car – only she doesn’t know what’s in Mummy’s Special Present Bag of course.
So far, it has been quite a motivating tool. We are up to seven stars, and I think once she’s been able to pick out that first present her motivation will probably increase quite significantly. I am very much looking forward to not buying anymore nappies, and to not changing anymore of her increasingly stinky nappies. So cross your fingers for us that something clicks soon! (And that Pete can stay committed to putting her on the toilet every half hour through the day while I’m at work…)
Also, I would love to put my potty prize chart up as a free printable (minus the Mayana of course), if anyone could give me any hints on where I can host the PDF file?
I’d love to hear some of your toilet training stories and tricks!!

EDITED: You can download a PDF of my potty prize charts HERE