Reader's Digest Online!

When someone mentions "Reader's Digest" I picture a magazine that I read in the supermarket aisle and the doctors surgery. Whenever I read it, I have my favorite pages that I always flick to. I love the Laughs section as it always takes away the boredom of the above mentioned places!

Recently I discovered that Reader's Digest has an awesome website and popped over to have a look.

Guess what? My favourite supermarket section also has a website section! Hooray! Pop over to RD Laughs Main to check it out. We could all do with a laugh now and then! There are also Stand-up Videos, Funny Cartoons and games.

Another of my favorite sections on their website was their ReadersDigest.com Widgets section which has heaps of things you can play with and download on to your website or blog.

By far the most useful widget for the everyday person, though, would be the Reader's Digest Toolbar, which is compatible in both IE and Firefox. It has all the sections the magazine and website have, but all put in a handy little toolbar so that you can access it with one click. How cool is that?

If you think you are up for it, I challenge you to a game right now with one of the widgets I picked up!

Toot Toot!

I am definitely getting value out of my yearly pass to Cockington Green. The weather was lovely again today so we packed ANOTHER picnic and off we went. This time, we were accompanied by my very good friend Tanya and her two boys. The older boys are only 6 days apart in age and the younger boys are six week apart. All four of them get along really well and just had the most fun.

Sorry for the flood of pictures today, but I just cant resist!

Feature Creatures

As part of the school holiday entertainment recently, our local shopping centre a "Feature Creatures" event. They brought in a whole range of reptiles such as lizards, snakes, frogs and even a crocodile! It was scheduled for each weekday so I took the boys down on Monday morning.

Squiggle, who loves anything faintly revolting, was in raptures and couldn't tear himself away! I just happened to have my camera on me and grabbed a few snaps.

I have joined...

...Entrecard! I got put onto this site by a fellow blogger. Basically, it aims to increase your traffic while introducing you to a whole lot of new blogs. It is also a social networking site.

I have to admit, I am hooked! Those in the know say that you should "drop" 300 blogs per day, but I just don't have the time to do that many! There are apparently widgets that can help you acheive this, but until then i have set a personal daily goal of 100 drops er day. Any more than that and i would spend no time actually blogging!

If you want to check it out, visit http://entrecard.com.

If you do join, "drop" by!

Halloween is Coming!

Have you noticed how stores have started advertising holidays earlier and earlier? Christmas decorations appear in early October and the seasonal stock clearances lead immediately into floating red hearts for Valentines Day, which are soon swallowed up by Easter egg towers. After Easter, the aisles are crammed with Mothers Day gifts, Fathers Day gifts and then Halloween pumpkins which all too soon become Christmas Trees again.

Hang on... Halloween? In Australia?? But we don't even celebrate Halloween!

But I don't mind because as a Stay at Home Mum to two toddlers, any holiday is an excuse for arts and crafts to keep those little hands busy!

So recently I have been looking around for supplies to my latest craft activities. Here are some of the things we will be working on.

Halloween Jewellery

1. Creepy Spider Bracelets

Measure a strip of paper ( a few inches across) a little longer then the circumference of the childs' wrist. In the middle of the strip attach a small oval of black felt. Four pipe-cleaners make up the spiders legs. You may want to attach these first so that they cross over underneath the spiders body. Use red bobbles to make the spiders eyes. To make an especially scary spider. cut out tw small triangles and attach to the felt to make fangs. Once dry, staple to ends of the strip together to make a bracelet. Voila! Perfect for any halloween costume!

2. Creepy hair accessories

This is for the older kids to accessorise their costume.

Buy a few plain hair combs. Decorate with spiders made from felt and pipe-cleaners (see above craft idea) of cut our small witch hats from black construction paper. Attach to the combs with super glue - dont forget to wear plastic gloves to avoid getting it on your fingers!

3. Halloween necklace

This craft has a multitude of possibilities! I like to make a spider out of an egg carton cup and decorate it with paint and then pipe-cleaners for legs. Eyes and fangs can also be added with cut up pieces of paper. Simply string the spider onto a length of wool and you are done! (Older children cold even thread different lengths of string across the bottom of the necklace to make it appear that the spider is sitting in a web.)

Other ideas for the necklace are:
> paint a piece of paper black and roll into a cone shape. Attach a circle of the same to the bottom to make the brim of the witches hat. Thread the string through two hole in the side of the cone.
> Stick together two egg carton cups and paint orange. Decorate with a black marker. Thread the string through the cups to make the necklace.

Some other Halloween Crafts


1. Handprint Bats

These are great and a lot of fun to make. A warning though, the paint can be messy!

Get some black paint and construction paper. Make paint handprints and cut them out. These are the wings.

Paint an oval for the body and a circle for the head. Cut these out as well.

All of the painted sections can be decorated with glitter to make them shimmer as they spin.

Assemble the main parts of the body together with either tape or staples then add pipe-cleaner legs, bobble eyes and use sequins in a line for a mouth.

Punch a hole in the bats head and attach a length of black wool to hang from the ceiling.

2. Pumpkin Face Masks/Puppets

Mega simple, but can encourage hours of creative play!

Use orange and black markers or paint to decorate a paper plate as a pumpkin. Cut out the eyes and attach a length of cord to secure around the head.

To make the puppets, simply attach a popsicle stick to the plate as a holder.

3. Mini Spooky Pumpkin Patch

Cut the egg cups out of an egg carton. Attach two together to make a pumpkin. Repeat for all the cups. Paint them orange and decorate the faces with a black marker.

Paint the flat side of the egg carton green to make the pumpkin patch. Use popsicle sticks to make a rickety fence. Attach the pumpkins in the patch with glue.


A few of these ideas (or variations) can be found on many websites, along with scores of others. Most of the ideas, however, are my own thoughts, but I am sure I am not the only one to have thought of them!!

What Halloween crafts do you like to do?

Sydney!!

Justin recently write a post about his favorite place to visit (Las Vegas!) and it got me thinking where my favorite place to visit is. While some might not consider it as exciting as Vegas, I do admit to being rather fond of Sydney.

WE used to live there a number of years ago and therefore we always have heaps of catching up with people to do. But I am finding that now we have kids, there is a whole new side of Sydney opening up to us.

Where we would previously consider going to the Sydney Aquarium boring, for example, the kids love it! All those fish up close - not to mention some of the other sea creepy crawlies they have there!




Then are the other attractions like Circular Quay - there is a great family park there, IMAX 3D Movie Centre - how scary that things pop out of the screen (!), and Hyde Park is fantastic for a picnic and kicking around a soccer ball.

One of Squishy's favorite things to do in Sydney is ride the monorail around the city. I like the Paddington Markets and DH likes the sporting complexes. Squiggle is just a little too young to have a favorite just yet, but I know he will love Sydney as much as we all do!

Of course, as I said before, the best attraction is Sydney is definitely the friends we have there. :-)

I LOVE Op Shopping!

I LOVE Op Shopping! A Lot of my clothes come from the local op shop and i have found some grat bargains. When I was pregnant, rather than buying expensive maternity clothes, I often went down and picked up work clothes in a size to accommodate my ever growing bump!

Anyway, I just had to share my latest bargain. For $3 I picked up this...



How awesome is that? I have been searching for the perfect non-nappy-bag nappy bag for ages now! This bag is soft leather and totally perfect. It fits in a small set of wipes, two nappies, snacks, drinks, spare undies and trousers for Squishy just in case, my purse, the boys sunglasses and hats, my camera, my makeup, my phone, keys.... and still there is room to spare! It also isnt as big as you would imagine. Looking at the picture to give you an idea of the size, the smaller front pocket is the size of a standard flip phone.

Plus, as I am frequently found running after a hyperactive toddler and a speedy preschooler, the best bit is that it goes across the body! No more dropping my bag or juggling a child on my hip to reach my purse.

Hurrah!!