The "Potentially" Sane Mother's Guide to Raising Children

About two or three years ago, my husband and I ordered a bunch of books from the Deseret Book Shop, to give as gifts to family and friends. While doing this, I ordered a couple of books for myself that looked like they might be good reads for me. One of them was a book called The Potentially Sane Mother's Guide to Raising Children. I think I read the preface, and then it go put into storage with the rest of our belongings for a while, shifted around and stored again before finally ending up in our shed, before we finally got a bookshelf. Out came all the books we thought we needed, and it sat on the bookshelf for another year before I rediscovered it a couple of weeks ago. 

This time, I began to read it properly. It is wonderful! It's written very clearly and normally, without any professional jargon, and she uses great experiences from her own life to illustrate the concepts in the book. It has some really good activities in it that you can use as family home evening lessons that help to emphasize the concepts. And it's taught me a lot about myself as a mother. While it's geared towards LDS families and younger children, the ideas are definitely adaptable to families of all faiths or non-faith, and can be adjusted to suit older children as well. 

While it would be impossible for me to implement every change in the book straight away, I've picked out a couple of things that I want to work on. I love things that motivate me to try harder and be more aware as a mother, even if I don't succeed at first. I also love that all the concepts in the book are ideas that I can easily see being implemented in our family. I have read a lot of books about raising children and families that have made me wonder where on earth they are getting their information from? This book is realistic, and breaks the changes down into small pieces that make it seem simple. I'm excited to begin trying out more of the ideas in this book in time.

Singing Autumn Leaves

I was recently called back into primary as the pianist, and I think it is my dream calling. I absolutely love playing the piano for primary. I work with some wonderful music leaders. They do a great job. Much better, I think, than when my husband and I were music leaders! During the summer, they had a big cardboard sun on the board, and after each song, a child that had been trying really hard during that song was chosen to come and choose one of the "rays" from around the sun. Each ray had a song number written on it, and that was the song we sung.


At the beginning of autumn, our music leaders came with a basket full of real, dry autumn leaves. On each leaf was the song number. The kids have so much fun gently shaking the basket and then carefully picking out a leaf and reading the song number. Sometimes they have to guess the song. And sometimes the leaves get crushed :) But it's all part of the fun, and the leaves get replaced.I love this idea so much that I decided to incorporate it into our family home evenings. I figure that this way, if I use the same song numbers, it will give my children a few extra chances to practice the songs at home. 


I didn't use real leaves (although I do love the textural element of those dry leaves) because I wanted to be able to keep mine as long as possible, and because it's actually raining here in Perth, for the first time in a long while, so all the autumn leaves are soggy and squished. So I bought some red, orange and brown card and spent a couple of nights tracing leaf shapes onto my coloured card and cutting them out. I couldn't be bothered laminating and cutting out all those laminated leaves though. 

To make them re-useable, I put a piece of tape on the back of each leaf. Then I cut some plain white self-adhesive labels into small pieces and put a piece on top of the tape, then wrote the song numbers on the label. When I want to change the song numbers, I'll be able to just peel the label off the tape, and put another label on. 

 I'm thinking about making a cardboard branch for the leaves to be displayed on, or maybe once the rain stops and everything dries out again I'll get a real branch, put it in a vase and blu-tack the leaves to that. The kids think it's a great idea. They love picking out a song from the basket, and it helps them to learn the songs they're working on in primary too, because I use those songs on the leaves.

For winter, I think I'll make a cloud with raindrops and write the song numbers on each raindrop. I thought about doing snowflakes, but we don't get snow. We don't really get much rain either but at least the kids know what rain is :)

Thinking About Christmas Trees Already...

I was inspired last year by Cami from Tidbits and her "way back when" idea for redecorating her Christmas. I'm tired of our coloured plastic ornaments and bead strings on our tree. I really like the gold and green colour combination we have, but I want something warmer and more homely, and I want to decorate our whole house this way, not just our tree.

Cami's gorgeous "way back when" tree.

So for a long while now I've been thinking about our tree - because that's where I'm going to start - and what I want to do with it. I want it to have a handmade atmosphere that feels comforting and inviting, yet rustic and is also very textile. I've been pinning lots of ideas on Pinterest because even though it's only May, I know it will take me all year to make them. And also because I'm really not creative when it comes to decorating, so it will take me all year to figure out if my ideas will actually work together. I'm seeing browns and creams, maybe a little green and red too.


Some of my favourite ornament ideas on my Pinterest board:


I love these paper flowers made from sheet music and the words used as garlands around the tree... 

  And these gorgeous, print covered baubles...

These adorable little brown paper parcels... 

 This gorgeous little pearl wreath ornament to add a little elegance to the tree, while still being homely and vintage.

 And these twine covered baubles, which I think are my favourites because of the amazingly textile quality the twine gives them. Perfect to add to the rustic, homemade feel I want for our Christmas tree this year. 

 And because I absolutely adore felt and the warmth it seems to bring to projects like this. These pretty little felt balls...

I love these beautiful little twine baubles for a modern twist while still keeping with my textile, rustic theme...

Some vintage christmas sheet music for inspiration, to use in my ornaments perhaps...

Now, I'm not a fan of the burlap decorating thing. But I really love these stockings. Burlap would fit in very well with my theme. I especially love the wooden initials hanging from the stockings, instead of printed or embroidered names on them. 

Lots of inspiration, time to get started :)

Luncbox Treats

I've become a little tired of buying expensive junk food that pretends to be healthy for my children's lunchbox snacks. So over the mid-term break, I spent a little of my time off from uni Googling some easy lunch box treats that I could make for my children. 


I started by making a triple batch of muffins. I used the basic muffin mix recipe from Best Recipes and made apple and cinnamon variations. One batch of plain apple and cinnamon, one batch of apple and ginger, and one batch with the added goodness of wheatgerm and flaxseeds hidden in there. I didn't get any pictures, but next time I make a batch, I'll be sure to take some and upload them here.


These muffins are super, super simple to make. When they were cool, I wrapped each muffin individually in cling film, labeled them and put them in a container in the freezer. Each night I just grab a couple from the freezer to defrost for the next day. They may not be supremely healthy, but at least I know they are free from the additives and other nasties that hide in kids' snack foods. Plus, they're much cheaper (under $3 for a dozen, compared to $5 for a 6 pack of muesli bars - the ones that are halfway decent, anyway). And making them makes me feel like I'm a good mum :)


Next on my list are:


Afghan biscuits  - they were a favourite treat when I was growing up.

Anzac slice  - an easy variation on the Anzac biscuit

Peanut brownie biscuits - another favourite treat. These remind me of "camping" at the beach on our Uncle's farm during holidays when I was a child in NZ.

Peanut butter and oat slice  - it looks easy and yummy.

Here's to baking up a storm for the kiddies :) This weekend we're making afghan bikkies!