DIY Personalised Money Boxes - Advent Calander

These are super easy and cute. I honestly cannot remember if I saw these somewhere on Pinterest once upon a time or if I made them up myself, so for that reason I am not claiming that I came up with the idea! Plus, I'm sure someone would have done this before.

You will need:

- A shadow box photo frame (make sure this is a box type frame and not just a deep frame with the glass sitting flush against the picture. Because obviously then there would be nowhere for the money to go, but of course mummy brain got me and I almost made this mistake!)

- A picture the size of the frame (I copied an image off Google then had it printed)

- Marker

- Ruler

- A drill (or some sort of tool to drill the slot in the top of the frame for the coin to enter)

That’s it!!

Take the back off your shadow box. With a marker and ruler, draw a guide line along your frame where you want your coin slot. Don't forget to make the slot big enough to fit your largest coin! Carefully drill your slot following the guide line you have drawn. As you can see I have not done this as I don't own a drill so I am waiting to borrow one. But I plan to use a small drill piece to drill small holes along the drawn guide line. Then i will run back and forth with the drill bit along the slot to open it up. Clean up your frame, insert your picture, place the back on the frame and you’re done! Super simple and cute.

I got my frames from Kmart (Australia) for $6. I plan to use my personalized money boxes for my kid’s advent calendars this year. Along with a small chocolate, they will receive $1 each day for 25 days. Then on boxing day we will go out and they can each buy a toy with their $25!

Merry Christmas, I hope you enjoyed this DIY.

XX

   

A day in the life

Caitlin (10) and I woke up this morning at 6:30am. I ate my breakfast in peace and got myself dressed, all by 7am. James (2) got up so I got him dressed then I caught up on my fb for a few minute. Every morning I have to push Caitlin to hurry up with each task she has to do because if I leave it, she will spend 3 unknowing hours doing her hair. So every 10 minutes I remind her that there is 30 mins untill we leave, then 20, and so on.

7:30am - I wake up Mary (4), my child who could sleep for 14 hours straight. I start dressing her and while doing so, reminding Caitlin that she has 5 mins until we leave, she starts yelling at me that she has no food and ‘oh well thanks, guess I’ll starve then’. She had told me about an hour earlier that there wasn’t anything for lunch so I said make a salad sandwich, take an apple, a muslie bar and cut up some carrot and have dip and carrot. So I ask her what she had made in that hour. She hand selected a muslie bar. So naturally while then trying to tackle James to the ground to get his shoes on, I began to yell at her. ‘Stop having a go at me for not getting you food when your too bloody lazy to make any!!’ I then told her what there was to eat again, I found a muffin for her to take, I went to hand said muffin to her and then I realised that I’m talking to thin air! She had walked out and sat in the car back somewhere between ‘fine Ill starve’ and ‘stop being lazy’. I threw the muffin at the couch, stormed outside and said FINE YOU CAN STARVE!

7:40am – Getting the kids into the car is tedious. It’s really not that bad but for me, the door is opened, I sit down, I turn the key, change the gear and I’m gone. 30 second job. Anything longer annoys me. The worst is when I’m waiting for a car park and the person digs around for their keys, slowly unloads their shopping, checks their mirrors, adjusts their hair, checks Facebook, takes a phone call and then reverses out of the spot at a snail’s pace. Mary generally stands at the door in the way of her brother who needs to get in first (only one of my back doors unlocks, I need to get it fixed), and she’s somewhere in lala land because she’s woken up 10 minutes beforehand. I asked her to move, her brother jumped in, over the centre console, and into my seat. Mary always climbs in in a way that can only be described as someone with two broken hips trying to climb a stair case. It takes FOREVER. She gets buckled in, James laughs at me, I yell at James and eventually he sits in his car seat. Now I get into the front seat, lean across the console and try to strap James in while he argues with me that he wants to do it himself. Which also takes FOREVER.

7:45am - We sat in silence until I realise I forgot my phone! ‘CRAP’. What if day care needs me? What if the school needs me? No one has my work number because I’ve only just started and honestly, when do I have time to call everyone and give them my new emergency contact? Too bad. I have just enough time to do the drop offs and get to work. James usually kicks up a huge stink when I leave him and I usually hang out for a little to wait till their settled but today, I just didn’t want to. So I didn’t. And he didn’t even care. Winning!!! More car silence until we got to school. I said goodbye to try to break the ice but I was frozen over when she just shut the door. What really annoyed me was that I had given her $20 just before the whole, I’m a crap mum who starves her children incident happened, so that after school, she could go buy a matching top with her best friend. I really wanted to run after her screaming and take it back but I figured her starving for the day was punishment enough.  And I didn’t want to embarrass myself. And ain’t nobody got time for that.

There was an incident with a truck, a ditch and a lot of dirt on the road so I had to wait in traffic. Thank goodness I didn’t go back for my phone! But the whole drive I just had a bad feeling. Like maybe I should try to call the school and daycare from the work phone to give them my work number.

8:30am - WORK – waitress, barista, all round good person. (Didn’t call the school or daycare)

2:55pm – Roughly 1.5 hours before I finish work, I get a phone call on the work phone. ‘I have Caitlin here in sick bay throwing up. We’ve been trying to contact you. We have contacted your second emergency contact and they gave us this number.’  Clearly my other emergency contact doesn’t want to look after my throwing up kid! Like gee it’s just vomit which may be contagious but you’ll be right lol. I had 20 mins until school finishes and my work is 30 mins away. But I’m super mum.

3:20pm (5 mins late) – Me: ‘How are you feeling babe?’, Caitlin: ‘Yeah fine now, can I go to my friends?’ Me: ‘Are you serious?’. Lucky for her, she started to feel poo again as soon as we got in the car.

4pm - Food shopping, pick up kids. I get told by James ‘I want daddy’ (daily occurrence), then he folded his arms and I had to bribe him with icypoles to leave the day care with me. The kids had a bath while I cleaned the kitchen and then James and I cooked dinner together. He’s really into cooking so I try to involve him as much as possible. Having my 2 year old standing at the stove stirring strips of beef is probably a very frightening picture, but he’s been doing it for ages now. He’s basically a chef. We had souvlaki style wraps so the kids built their own, but then James refused to eat anything else except cucumber. And Caitlin was feeling much worse so she didn’t eat at all. The poor thing wanted cuddles but I was like ‘sorry mate, I don’t want what you got. Have a wet face washer and a bucket instead’.

6:30pm - I got a request from James for cordial so I started to pour, then James began to scream and cry. He had changed his mind. He wanted milk. Mary wanted cordial. Caitlin was still yelling out to me to lay down with her. For the next hour I just floated around. A bit of YouTube here, a bit of cleaning there.

7:30pm – BED TIME! Mary asked me if its bedtime yet. That kid loves her sleep haha. They’d been naked since bath time because it was super hot here today so they went and choose their own pyjamas and I dressed them. I popped them into bed and in doing so, discovered that James had pulled everything out of his drawers when choosing his pyjamas. Yey, now I have something to do in the morning. Mary has been having night terrors the past few nights so she started crying saying she was scared. Mind you, it was still daylight because its daylight savings time. I decided tonight I would go the tough love approach, I told her she would be ok and I just walked out. James ran out, turned on the hall light and went back to bed. It’s the end of the week now so they went straight to sleep. The start of the week is a different story! They get 4 days off day care and that’s enough time to fully recharge the batteries. By Monday they jump on beds, kick walls, giggle ect ect. But tonight, I get blissful peace, followed by a moan from Caitlin every now and again.

XX

Co parenting

I miss my son. It's only been an hour but I miss him. I know as time passes I'll get used to it. I think break ups are a million times harder when there is a child involved. I want to be selfish and keep my son all to myself, I don't want to have to see my x, continually feeling the pain of loosing him added to the heartache of giving up my son for a weekend, but unfortunately I have a conscience. I know letting him go to his dads every fortnight is the right thing to do. I know putting my own heart aside for my son is the selfless act that we sign up to when we choose to be a parent. No matter what the cost to your own heart.

I also co parent with my daughters fathers. We're all friends so this makes things run very smoothly. My eldest spends holidays with her dad and grandma as they're a few hours away and my middle child spends every second weekend with her dad. I'm not going to sugar coat it. Nights like tonight, when you've only spent 2 days away from your child in a whole year, will be hard. Heart wrenching, search through old photos, crying asking yourself why, hard. But trust me, from experience, it does get easier. Just remember who your doing it for, that beautiful blue eyed, blonde haired boy who I know loves his daddy more than the world. Who am I to take that away?

Xxx

James turns 1!!!!

I can't believe it! My baby is 1. A year ago on the 19th of March, I gave birth to a healthy 8 pound 8 baby boy. 

I decided in celebration, I'm going to write out his birth story! It's a little scary, very emotional and not what you all expected but at the end of the day, my little prince was born, and that's all that really matters.

I was 2 weeks away from my due date. Things between Tom and I weren't right, and he decided we were better off separating. So I had 2 weeks to wrap my head around being a single mother to 3 children! I can tell you it wasn't a fun time but back to the story.

My due date, the 14th of March, came and went. I think James could sense my fear. I had decided to have Tom in the birthing sweet anyway as it was such short notice, I still hadn't wrapped my head around him not being apart of it. My braxton hicks were getting crazy in the days following my due date. A few times there I thought labour was starting but nope, James wanted to stay put in the safety of my womb!!!

I got a phone call around 2am on Wednesday the 19th March, from a very upset Tom. He didn't want this for his son, he wanted to work on our relationship. I swear to you the minute I heard those words, James knew. He wanted to come into this world and be with his family!! Contractions started so Tom raced over. We began to time them and they got harder and faster very quickly. 

We'd been apart for 3 weeks by now so we had a lot to catch up on! In between contractions we would chat and I was feeling over the moon :) Our baby was coming into the world and our family was together again. We were close to calling the hospital and heading in to meet our little man!! That's when Tom dropped a bombshell on me. He was feeling guilty about something (personal) that he no longer wanted to hold onto. This news shocked me that much that labour literally stopped as quickly as it had started. My next contractions distanced to 15 minutes apart. I had been in labour around 3 hours now, my last labour being only 5 hours long.

I tried really hard to get back into the swing of things. A bath, positive thinking, some sexy time ;) Another 6 hours of contractions every 15 minutes and we'd all had enough. We headed to the hospital.

The nurse monitored me for a while, then came to the conclusion that my labour had stalled and I was now in early labour, and probably would stay that way for a while, even days. I was only 2cms and I was a mess. Any emotional stability that I had left was completely gone by now. The nurse genuinely felt sorry for me and decided together with the change over nurse that I could have my waters broken in 4 hours if they hadn't broken themselves. That was a loong 4 hours! I was at 4-5cms when my waters were finally broken. 

Well, did that wake James up or what? Holy crap on a cracker labour came on fast. Within seconds my labour amped up to 1000 and I was sucking down gas and air like no tomorrow! This was by far the most painful labour I've been through. My body hadn't eased into it, it had started, stoped and then was force started again. Within an hour I was at 10cms and ready to push! I had been put into the all dreaded bath about 5 minutes earlier (I hate that thing!) and had to jump straight out as my midwife was not certified to do water births. Man was that annoying! If you've ever had a child it's not as easy as 'close your legs and don't push'!! 

I don't really remember all that much but I remember that head. That 36.5cm head! The one that got stuck half way out. The one I had to wait what felt like a life time for another contraction to get the rest of it out!! Ouch..

So here he is! Here's our baby James!! I remember looking over and seeing Tom's face. I wonder what he was thinking at that exact moment? 

They left me to nurse James for over an our, still covered in baby goo and he still hadn't had his obs taken. I was really keen for Tom to hold James so we called in the nurses and asked them to take his stats and let Tom dress him. As they took his stats they took mine too. Suddenly alarms were going off, doctors were rushing everywhere and I was told not to move a muscle. Wires were strapped to me attached to monitors and my belly was poked and prodded. A doctor said to me 'do you feel light headed?' No... What hells going on? My heart rate was at 40bpm. 'Are you an athlete?' Umm no.. Am I going to die? 

Tom stood there in shock just staring at me holding James. It went on for an hour, monitoring my heart, jabbing me with needles, and no answeres. I eventually had to try to feed James with all these wires coming from my chest, that was a mission! After a few hours and my heart rate rising to 50bpm, I was eventually allowed to sit on a chair in the shower then head to to our room. We were lucky enough to get a single room, probably a nice way of saying 'if you drop dead in the middle of the night, we don't want to scare the other patience'. Tom decided to go home and sleep (not happy Jan) while James and I had a very long long sleep in the hospital. By morning my heart rate was back down to 45bpm, jumping to 60bpm after I walked around.

They never figured out what happened, I still don't know. But baby James Antony was finally in my arms. Maybe he's going to be a heart breaker ;-)

Xxx

Change

You know when things just don't go the way you planned. Those really big plans that make a huge impact on your life. Like where you live or having children. Look at your current situation. Now click your fingers and imagine the complete opposite. Did you feel excited? Nervouse? Sad? Anxious? I think if things could literally change in a click of our fingers we would all be feeling a little anxious. Even if the change is good because change isn't comfortable. It takes us a while to settle into our new lives. It's the predictability in each day that makes us feel stable, like what time our kids wake up, or what time we start work, or when we eat dinner. 

My life changed in a click of the finger. That dam finger. Anxiety is always with me now because it's hard to settle into something that you don't want. Maybe I blinded myself to the inevitable because I didn't want to believe it could ever end. Maybe I took the ring on my left finger too literal.

So what now? 

I sat on this question for a really long time. Those aweful what if's poured into my head like toxic waste. Then sadness, as if someone had passed away. I mourned for my children, especially my son. There's never a day that goes by that he doesn't cry from 6pm on. That was the time he spent with his dad each day. How can I fill his shoes? 

After a lot of tears and soul searching it finally dawned on me. I don't have a choice in the matter. The only choice I have now is how many days I dwell in these painful thoughts. 

I chose today to be my last...

The fill in..

For my next blog post to make any sense I will need to write one explaining what's happened since my last. Although the country was a lovely place to live, Caitlin was unhappy in her new school and Tom began to feel the strain of working 12 hour shifts 6 days a week. Despite the money being good, there was no time to spend it, no time for family and little time for rest. Tom made the decision on New Year's Eve that this year would be our "family year". We had planed to marry in April 2015 but decided that instead, every cent we earnt would be put into family activities and vacations where ever possible. As the month went on we realised that this just couldn't happen with the amount Tom was working so in the second week of January, we packed once again and headed back to our home town.....

DIY christmas: glitter branches

So these are literally what the title says. Branches/sticks with glitter on them. But they look AMAZING! I have a theme going on in each room of our house as each room is so different. Our kitchen is rustic, red, white and provincial. Our lounge is red, gold and very traditional. And our bedroom is silver, white, black and glamorous. So these silver glitter branches are going into our bedroom :)

So how do you make them? I bought wood glue for this project but I've seen people use spray glue and similar things. Then I went on the hunt for silver glitter and I actually couldn't find it anywhere in the small town that I live in. I did however find something that was labeled glitter, but it looks more like cut up tinsel almost. Its basically big flakes of glitter. And it came out surprisingly awesome! Then I went for a walk through our garden and gathered up some sticks. I got more then I needed so I could arrange the ones that turned out best in my vase :) Using a paint brush I painted on the glue to a section of my first stick and then sprinkled the glitter over. I had a plate underneath to catch all the glitter that didn't stick so I could re use it. 

So I just continued this until all the sticks were finished and then let them dry for a few hours. Im sure they were dried well before then but I had mummy duties to attend to!

So here they are looking fabulous in our bedroom!!

Xxx