Our Activity Advent Calendar

It is time for some Christmas craft! This year I decided to update last year’s advent calendar.

Last year I created stars from brown paper bags and ribbon and filled with stickers, toy cars and balloons. I thought it was a great idea until our little Duckling started opening them. We quickly  had a house full of balloons and stickers! It was too much stuff. Since calendars filled with chocolate are a no go (food allergies), I jumped onto Pinterest (yes, I’m adicted!) in search of a better idea…..I came across the notion of an activity filled calendar.

The concept is to fill the advent calendar with activities rather than things. I’ve reused the frame from last year and decided to create something that can be used for years to come. I found some blank 3×4 cardstock, perfect for writing an activity on. I used about 40 cards – I stamped 1-24 on one lot of cards, and the others are used to write activities on, this way they can be swapped around if’ I don’t have time to do an activity one day.

Most of the activities I have used  are things that we already do in December, they are now written down and makes it a little bit special to do one each day. The days I work Santa’s elves leave Christmas stickers or stamps. Our list of activites looks a bit like this:

Visit Santa and have photo taken; buy a present for a child in need and leave under the wishing tree; make a Christmas garland {left over Christmas cupcake liners from last year & string}; decorate our little man’s room; bring the Christmas tree inside {ours is in a pot and only comes inside just before Christmas}; read a Christmas story; watch a Christmas movie {thank you library!}; help Pappa Duck hang the Christmas lights; write a letter to Santa; go for a drive to look at the Christmas light displays; check Santa’s delivery box.

Santa has left a special delivery box where the Elves have been leaving special little items for our little duckling. Yesterday they left some LED battery ran fairy lights for him {$1.50 from Masters, best find!} and a note asking him to clean his room and hang from his bed {he can’t read which helps as I made up the cleaning bit on the spot! hehe!}. He was so very excited. There are a few other special deliveries due for the box in the coming weeks – a small craft activity from the $2 shop, and new pjs to wear Christmas Eve.

We are having lots of fun with this every day!

Sweet dreams and Merry Christmas,

Duck Egg Blue Mamma xx

September – celebrations all round.

After a busy few months here at Duck Egg Blue HQ along sneaks September! Always a beautiful month of celebrations and the beginning of my favourite season – Spring.

It also sees me move into crazy organiser lady. I’m sure I drive the people around me crazy with all my planning and organising.  I just wish I could transfer it to cleaning and organising my house more! So the beautiful month of celebrations include a baby shower, Pappa Duck and my 30th birthdays, half of my friends have a birthday this month and little duckling also has a handful of birthday parties to attend. Being the mum of a little duckling with allergies means that every birthday party we attend, I bake a cake that is wheat, egg, nut and dairy free. Our wonderful friends always check to make sure there is party food he can eat and they always offer to make him some cake and as much as I trust them I always feel more comfortable bringing my own. I think cupcakes will be put in the freezer this month so I just have to defrost and ice them as needed!  We are lucky to have family coming up to stay too, which we are really looking forward to. Busy bodies!

I have so many thoughts and ideas whizzing around in my head at the moment, I am hoping that after the celebrations are done I will have time to write them all down.

Before we know it I will be organising Christmas! (who am I kidding, I already have started, I am such a Christmas tragic, but I can’t help it I love Christmas so much!)

Duck Egg Blue Mamma xx

A few of my favourite things

I am grateful for…

…My beautiful organic blue and white polka dot sheets

…Furniture found on the side of the road

…Knobs and buttons for a little boy to play with

…Nan’s crystal champagne glasses

…A friendly kookaburra

…Nan’s handiwork

…A nook of old books

…Beautiful blonde hair

Happy Weekend!

Sweet Dreams,

Duck Egg Blue Mamma xx

And…. I’m back!

What an exhausting 5 months it has been! After a big Christmas lead up collecting for charity and organsing ourselves for Christmas, my blog has been left in the dark. 

Well I am ready to turn the lights back on and get stuck into 2013!

 

 Image via The Graphics Fairy

http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com.au/

Toddlers and Teething

Today’s blog post is Mummy related, not craft related. 

Teething – some bubbas breeze through teething, our little duckling hasn’t. With every tooth has brought little to no sleep, and a grumpy little boy. That was one whole year of short daytime naps, and nighttime sleeping where he would wake every 3-5hrs. Sleep deprivation is just plain nasty. I look back now and I am amazed at how I actually functioned. Luckily he has had a couple of months without teething where we have enjoyed 10hrs of sleep a night. Bliss. Back to having time for myself and Pappa Duck of an evening, having time to sit and eat dinner together, having time to craft (it keeps me sane). We have been waiting for the last set of molars to arrive, hoping they would make a quick entrance. Not the case. We have gone back to the old days of little sleep. I am not coping at all. I find myself being easily frustrated with our little duckling being grumpy. I know he cannot help it but I am having trouble adapting to the patterns of no sleep again and no time for me. This morning I gave him some homeopathic teething relief and applied some SM33 to his gums to numb the area – 5 mins later he was asleep. Usually 9am is playtime but today it has become sleep time. Soon both of us will be back to our happy smiling selves. 

To all those parents of teething bubbas, I feel your pain, hopefully they cut through soon and we can have happy smiling, sleeping bubbas once more.

Duck Egg Blue Mamma xx

Be Thankful

I have to get myself out of this bad mood. It all started yesterday. Nothing major went wrong for me but it just felt as though nothing went right. Then our little duckling who is doing such a great job of sleeping through the night now (we had 12 months of nighttime sleeping where he would sleep for about 3-5hrs at a time, I look back and am astounded at how we coped but you just get through it). He didn’t have a great sleep and ended up in our bed,  lovely for cuddles but I never sleep that well when he bunks in with us, which means I am tired and grumpy as well!

So I am turning my frown upside down and ending this post with things I am thankful for, a bit of a mood lifter. When I stop and take in what I have in my life it makes me realise that I have no need to be sad.

Here goes…

I am thankful for my craft. My creative outlet. I always feel better after playing with a bit of fabric and felt! I finished an easter range this weekend, and have uploaded it onto my Facebook page here

Today I got out the sewing machine and started sewing a new piece I am creating for my little duckling. I was excited when my ideas turned into reality. I am thankful for it working!

I am thankful for my best friend, she is always there with an honest opinion. No matter what time of the day or night I know I can call her. I feel blessed to have such a strong relationship with her.

Note to self: take a photo of the two of us, this is the only one I could find and it is from 2009!

I am thankful for my little duckling. Just months from turning 2, the world is so exciting and he loves exploring it every day. So full of life and energy.


I am thankful for having a hand to hold, someone to grow up and grow old with. Life is much more fun when there is someone to share it with.

That’s it! On the way to putting myself in a better mood…

Duck Egg Blue Mamma xx

Feeling grateful

My best friend and I caught up yesterday. We don’t get to see each other as much as we’d like and I always feel so great after seeing her. I think we inspired each other to do big things in 2012, and have a feeling that it will be a very busy and rewarding year. She has decided to do the 365 project this year, which I’d love to do but have lots of projects planned for the year I know I can’t fit it in, but here are some things I am grateful for today…

 The rain

 my new veggie patch is just loving it!

 makes for a perfect day for craft, 

especially since our little duckling decided to have a good daytime nap for a change 

 cuddles with the little duckling after naptime

 duplo on a rainy afternoon.

 

At 21months old, our little duckling is obsessed with my point and shoot camera. You can’t get it out without him saying ‘roro’ and wanting to take photos himself. I have lots of pics from him playing with the camera this afternoon, mainly of the carpet and the ceiling but out of those found a couple of gems, a budding photographer in the making perhaps?

 

 self portrait

 

 Hoot, one of my favourite friends

 my books and toys

 my little toes

Duck Egg Blue Mamma xx

 

 

 

 

 

The Christmas wrap up

This Christmas I decided rather ambitiously to handmake all of our Christmas presents. I did try but in the end, the shops did get the better of me. Yep I failed! Found some great bargains and gave in in the end! I found it quite hard to find things to make for teenagers, especially the ones I needed to post presents to. We did make up some lovely beauty packs for family and friends consisting of handmade bath salts, and exfoliating vanilla and coffee scrub. My little duckling and I had fun baking Christmas cakes, gingerbread people, and oreo cheesecake truffles. He also had a great time painting canvases for his grandparents and great-grandparents which they all loved. We handmade all of our Christmas cards and gift tags, and through pinterest I found some great free printable tags and images to finish off our presents with. I think I will try again next year but will not set the bar so high! 

 

Mamma Duck xx

Charity Hampers Delivered!

Like I have said in the past, I have always wanted to do something at Christmas for others more than just leaving a present under the wishing tree (which I have done with my Mum ever since I can remember). So this year after reading “One a week project’s” blog I decided to start my own, by adding an item to my groceries each week. I really wanted to find a local charity to support and decided on ‘Rosies’ who provide wonderful support for homeless, those in temporary accommodation, and people going through the local courts. I have wonderful friends and family that also added items to their groceries each week. I was aiming to fill one at the most two laundry baskets full of non perishable food items and toiletries, since I had left it to late October til we started.

This week with the help of our little duckling, we filled 5 baskets!

Each basket contained toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, pasta, pasta sauce, uht milk, biscuits, lollies, juice, tinned soup, spaghetti, tea plus extra bit and pieces! Just fantastic! Each basket had a little tag wishing the recipients and Merry Christmas and letting them know that the following families wanted to help them out.

I drive a little hatchback and they only just fit in the car – 3 in the boot, one on the backseat, and one on the frontseat! When we turned to ‘Rosies’ drop in centre that is located in the bottom of the Gold Coast City Council carpark across the road from the Southport Court House the lovely volunteers were amazed how much we had collected. They were very grateful for the generosity of my family and our playgroup family for helping them out. They had served a 2 course lunch to 250 people the day before so they are very busy this time of year.

I am already planning what I want to do next year. I think I will start a little earlier in the year and am planning on making up individual toiletry giftpacks. I didn’t realise until I started doing this how expensive basic personal care items really are. 

To me, Christmas is about giving and spreading the love. I feel great pleasure in helping out others and even more so the fact that I will never meet those people. I know that they will be thankful for our generosity and hopefully one day they will be in the position to pass it on.

Merry Christmas!

Duck Egg Blue Mamma xx