Sharing is Caring

I've always loved to share tips and advice with other mums.  I love to hear others opinions on topics and especially tips to make things easier around the house!

So here are a few of my favourite things to make life easier and to help the planet a little along the way :)

1.  I urge you all wholeheartedly to swap all your cleaning products to EARTH CHOICE.  Not only have I found that they are 100% better than any other cleaning product, they're good for the environment and they're cheap!  Who doesn't love a bargain ?  A $2 bottle of earth choice dish washing liquid lasts this family of six well over a month, it's definitely value for money.  We also made the switch to help Miss 8 with her asthma control.

2.  If you or any of your family/friends suffer with eczema, try this. http://www.thebodyshop.com.au/Product.aspx?Id=852  Miss 8 suffers severely from eczema.  Well I should say she DID until I discovered this $18.95 tin of pure goodness.  It took 2 weeks, but she has gone from cracked, bleeding, pain and scratching, to beautifully clear, soft skin.  Plus the Hemp Seed Oil is grown in the rich fens of Norfolk, England, and is produced by a Community Trade expert distiller, Norfolk Essential Oils.  It also needs the absolute tiniest amount.  It spreads SO far it's truly amazing.

3.  MEAL PLAN!  I so can't stress this enough.  The simplicity of it is amazing.  Below is a picture of my meal plan for a month.  It not only takes the pain away at dinner time, it helps me budget my groceries for a month sometimes longer, depending how far I get into it.  I have posted this too, because I was shocked to find other blogger's charging anywhere up to $9.95 for a template for a meal plan.  Appalls me the things people will charge for.  This template is altered from one in excel.  Who subsequently also have budget plans and chore lists ;)

4.  Budget.  So important for any family really.  Makes finances a much smaller stress and you can know exactly where your money is going.  I also suggest for those starting out on a budget to keep ALL your receipts for at least 2 weeks.  Go through them at the end and you may be surprised just how much you're spending where you don't realise you are.

5.  If at all possible do your grocery shopping online.  I use Coles.  The only thing I don't use them for is meat, because my local butcher is THAT much cheaper.  If you shop online, you 1. know exactly what you're buying and how much it will be before you actually pay, 2. it's harder to impulse buy and 3. yes you may pay delivery, but lets be honest, with the price of petrol it'd cost you that much to go out and do it yourself.  Honestly, you do save by shopping online.

6.  I highly suggest giving kids a chore list + rewards for those chores. Make them age appropriate and encourage them to complete it.  If they don't they miss out, no need to yell and scream and get upset because you're not missing out on anything, they are.  So they can yell and scream and get upset, but it'll be because they've failed to do something not you.  Make sense ?

Anyway that's my few tips for now.  I have a lot more too, but I don't like to shove a heap of stuff down people's throats and really, these 6 are probably the best I have.  The others are more me making the switch to organic as much as possible.

Welcome

*waves* hello and welcome to my life.  Be warned, I wont post everything here, I don't particularly feel the need to share every intimate detail of my life, and lets be honest, you don't particularly want to hear it, especially the boring stuff ;).  But I will share with you my journeys (movies, eating out the quirks of my children).  Let's simply start with a little introduction!

I'm Chelsea, a 27 year old stay at home mum to 4 girls, and a loving, devoted, somewhat sarcastic, better half to my husband.  Yes, you read that right I'm am completely "blessed" with FOUR girls!  Believe me, the toilet paper we go through is absolutely phenomenal and I'm not quite sure how much longer we'll be able to survive with just the one bathroom, but we make it work.  Although I'm quite sure if my husband's testosterone levels could talk they would be screaming an SOS at the bottom of a very shallow puddle.  You know the kind that the fish flip flop around in desperate to hang on to the last hope of life, even though they MUST know that the water wont be hanging around much longer.

My first blessing is my 11 year old, who is starting high school in just a week and is really looking forward to it.  Me, not so much, it is just a reminder of my age and the joys I'm about to face in the high school world of girls.  In saying that, this girl is SMART, she just knows things, absolutely amazes me, although is developing an attitude to match it.  But after almost 12 years of being a mum I am an expert at conflict resolution and I'm certain I could have the Iraqi's caving if the government would just send me over.  Actually, I think a group of rampaging mother's in any war zone would have those white flags raised in no time.  That is not to say I don't absolutely appreciate the amazing job our soldiers do.

Next is my 8 year old.  Heading off into year 4, the face of an angel and most definitely already interested in boys.  You will find through out my postings that this miss is quite quirky.  She says the most unusual things, but she can make this whole family laugh.  If they'd allow an 8 year old stand up comedian in a bar, she'd be an instant hit!

Following on is Miss 5.  Just started school in the middle of last year and not quite transitioning as well as I had hoped.  She's still very much my baby, loves her mummy time and separating her time between school and weekend's with daddy we've found her lashing out in the not so best ways for attention.  Although we give her equal attention as the others., she's just handling it differently.  Hoping that having 6 weeks at home to ponder if it's really that joyous to be home with mummy will make a difference when she starts back.

And finally my youngest, Miss 2.  She is only a girl because my husband decided before she was even conceived that "if" she was a girl her name would be Tessa, which coincidentally means "4th child".  Jinxed much ?  I think so.  She never really had a choice, but honestly, like I'd actually want to change it.  I mean think about this logically, and if you're having trouble just ask my husband, would YOU want to be the only boy in a house of women ?  She was smart from the get go, she knew what to do ;)  She's a precious thing, we've nicknamed "Tessazilla".  If you've ever seen Godzilla and you've ever had a 2 year old, I'm sure you can understand it.  Truthfully, she can destroy this house in mere seconds, but she's always ready with a hug and a kiss and she's slowly starting to understand the cleaning up side of things.  She's challenging that's for sure, but what about motherhood isn't a challenge ?

Then there is my poor husband.  Well, I shouldn't really say my "poor husband"  he loves us to death and wouldn't change our gender at all of that I'm 99% sure ;)  My chef, my chef who wants to teach!  How I love him, except when it's bed time and after exhausting 15-16 hour days he without fail gets the giggles as soon as his head hits the pillow.  Who does that ?  Probably a hysterical man with four daughters!  Although I must say, it's lovely to always fall asleep smiling.

So that's us.  And for now, that's it from me.  I must start the task of convincing these children that water does not contain poison when it comes from the shower and that the socially acceptable thing is to be clean.  Once that's over it's the discussion about the appropriate hours of sleep necessary for children their ages.

I love it!