Christine Knight, Author at Adventure, baby!

Christine Knight

Christine is the editor of Adventure, Baby!

Pirrama Park Playround And Cafe, Pyrmont, Sydney

April 29, 2015 / Outdoor Play, Sydney, Sydney Life / 2 Comments

This beautiful playground in Pyrmont has shiny, well-designed equipment, new, well-maintained bathrooms (including baby change facilities) and a cafe with shaded seating.

In the warmer months, water fountains spurt out of the ground in sporadic patterns, and a shade cloth over the sand pit gives kids a place to play without getting burned.

Undercover barbecues mean the park is great place for picnics and birthday parties, too.

Pirrama Park Playround is part of Pirrama Park, at the end of Harris Street Pyrmont.

Pirrama Road, Pyrmont
Get directions.

How I Do It: Blog Monetisation

April 29, 2015 / Writing / 16 Comments

There are already so many great articles out there about how to monetise blogs, that I’m not going to cover the same ground. Not every blogger is going to make it big, or make a 6 figure income from blogging, so I’m certainly not going to say that any blogger can use these methods to make money, because it’s just not true. Many other aspects come into play when enabling a person to make money from blogging. Instead, I’m going to talk about my thoughts on it all, and what works for me.

Briefly, here is a description of the main options for monetising blogs. I like how they are grouped into the four areas. Thanks to Blogger Holy Smithereens at the General Assembly and Etsy blogging night for this idea. If you’re after a full run-down on ways to monetise your blog, head over to ProBlogger and this post on 60+ ways to make income from your blog.

Advertising
Display advertising, sponsored posts, ambassadorships

Affiliate programs
Eg Amazon

Products
eBooks, courses, merchandise

Services
Freelance writing, copywriting, designing, consulting, public speaking

When you’re starting a blog, your traffic is going to be pretty small. Even if you’re been blogging for a while, your traffic might still be small, which is ok. It does rule out generating decent money from avenues that require more traffic though, such as the advertising option. And while some brands are willing to pay sponsored posts for blogs with very little traffic, most are not.

I’ve had the most success is with the “services” section. I have had an occasional sponsored post, but with my blog not generating huge amounts of traffic, I’ve had a lot more success making money by using my blog as showcase of my writing and photography ability to help me get paid work as a writer.

A blog can be an extremely good way to promote your skills to prospective clients. You can point back to your blog to show prospective clients your writing style on relevant topics. I certainly used my blog to start pitching my ability to write parenting and family-travel articles.

Want to get freelance writing? Here is my advice.

1. Start at the beginning
There’s no fast road to the top. I started by contacting a few websites I wanted to write for, and emailed their contact listed under a “submissions” or “contact” section. As I knew these websites wanted submissions, it was a bit less scary to contact them cold.

I did a few articles here and there in the topic areas I wanted paid work for free to give myself a few pieces my resume before contacting slightly larger sites for paid work. Even though I wasn’t paid, I still had to do the whole pitching process and write something decent to get it published.

2. Put together a portfolio
All of my published work links go onto my portfolio website, which was easily set up in WordPress. I update it with every new piece of writing I have published so it’s always up to date if a potential employer looks at it.

3. Remember it’s a small world
One of my best writing gigs came through company who contacted me after seeing my blog and wanting similar content for their own site. The initial proposal for our partnership wasn’t quite right but, a year or so later, a blogger friend was employed as their editor and immediately thought of me as a good fit as a paid writer. This was a serendipitous meeting of two contacts that I kept on good terms paying off at the same time. So even if you are approached for something that isn’t quite right, be sure to part on good terms as you never know what benefit will come from the relationship down the track.

4. Work your contacts
People won’t know you’re after freelance work unless you put it out there. If you have any friends, or even old work colleagues, who are in areas where you want freelance work, email them about it. Let them know you’re looking for this kind of work and you’d be very grateful for them to put you in touch with whoever hires/commissions freelancers in their business. The majority of people will respond positively to this kind of request as it doesn’t put any pressure directly on them to find you work – only to make an introduction. Remember to pay back their helpfulness by throwing useful information or contacts their way in the future.

5. Put yourself out there
The next step is what I found to be initially the hardest. As an introvert, I struggle with talking to people I don’t know, or approaching people who are strangers. If I wanted work though, I had to get over this quickly.

I listed myself on some freelancer websites (some came through with sporadic work, some didn’t), and started building contacts to grow my work portfolio. If possible, in person is always the best way to make a contact, as you’re a face then, rather than just another anonymous email coming through.

Networking events and conferences where editors from publications I wanted to write for would be attending were right up there on my agenda. I was terrified about speaking with the editors or business owners, but I rehearsed my elevator pitch, kept it short, and asked for their card.

For the majority of publications however, I simply cold-emailed them. Do not be scared to do this! It does get easier over time. Some I found the direct information for their editor either through their website or twitter. If you find the editor on twitter, tweet to them, asking for a submissions email address. You can also look for an “editorial” contact email listed on the website.

The key to landing work is to pitch a LOT. You might send out 10 pitches one week, and only hear back from one. The key is volume. That way the rejections and lack of response won’t feel as personal, either (which they’re not!).

5. Follow up
Editors can receive hundreds of pitches a week. Emails fall through the cracks. Follow up a week later. Persistence often has landed me writing gigs that otherwise wouldn’t have happened if I’d been too scared to send that second email.

6. Track everything
I have a spreadsheet where I have contacts and info on where they work, who they represent, when our last contact was and what the pitch status was. I also have a spreadsheet for commissioned work, due dates, payment and pay dates. It helps to keep on top of everything. Every Sunday night I look over the sheets to plan my next week.

I hope this information is helpful! I’d love questions from you on what topics I should cover next. Thank you for reading and good luck with your own freelance endeavours.

Photo credit

Linking up with Grace.

Golden Ridge Animal Farm: Best Animal Experiences in Sydney

April 23, 2015 / Animal Experiences, Cheese, Sydney, Sydney Life / 4 Comments

We’ve raised Cheese thus far as quite the city kid. She, like our whole family, loves animals and we try to get her out to experience the bush and country life where we can. We had the opportunity recently to enjoy a day trip to Dural for a birthday party at Golden Ridge Animal Farm.

Golden Ridge has been running as a children’s farm for 41 years. It has been owned and run by family of the current owner, Alisa Nye, for the past 26 years.

The animals at Golden Ridge are all pets (you can see more info on the animals and their names online.) and they absolutely love visitors.

A standard visit to the farm follows a path of activities, for which you must be on time to be able to enjoy. The farm opens at 10:30 am weekdays, and 11am on weekends. Activities are guided and hence if you are late, you will miss out.

The visit begins with holding baby animals. On our visit, this included ducklings, chicks and rabbits that were only a few days old. We were told how to hold them and asked to assist the children in holding the animals correctly. It was had to tell who was the most excited about holding the baby animals, the kids or parents.

Next was a walk around the farm feeding and seeing the larger farm animal varieties. We bought the $5 feed bucket option and had a wonderful time feeding the various goats, lambs, deer, ponies, cows and alpacas, all of whom were most excited to see visitors bearing delicious food for them.

Our tour concluded with feeding a baby goat with a bottle. Cheese thought this was awesome.

Afterwards, it’s lunch time, which can either be a picnic lunch or a barbecue using the farm’s facilities, or you can buy lunch from the canteen. After lunch the ponies come out and kids can take a little ride on one of the very friendly farm ponies.

One of the best things about the farm is the space. While the activities are guided, kids can return after the tour to see the larger animals, pat and feed them, or just run around and enjoy seeing a range of other animals roaming around, like ducks and a very friendly little dachshund.

For a day of hands-on country activities, Golden Ridge can’t be beat.

Golden Ridge Animal Farm
686 Old Northern Road,
Dural NSW 2158
(02) 9651 1028
Hours: Mon-Fri 10:30am-2pm, Sat & Sun 11am-2:30pm.
Prices: $15 per person entry. $5 extra for a pony ride or a bucket of feed. Babies under 1 year free.
BOOKINGS ESSENTIAL.
Get directions.

Making a Career Change: How I Became a Freelance Writer

April 20, 2015 / Writing / 36 Comments

Like many women I know, after having a baby I wanted to change my career direction. In my pre-baby life I worked at Google Australia in publisher management and digital marketing. It was a wonderful place to work and I learned a great deal about online marketing.

In late 2010, my husband, Alec, was offered the opportunity to work at a startup in New York City – somewhere I’d always wanted to live. The same week, we found out I was pregnant. Alec took the job and a few months later we moved and I quit my job. Moving country and preparing for the baby became my new job, and then motherhood when Baby arrived.

I’d already been blogging casually for about four years at that stage, and when we moved to the US to I started to document our expat experiences, and then my pregnancy and new life as a parent.

Without a job and itching to keep my brain active, I upped my blogging game when Baby came along, starting to take it more seriously. I started working on a site with a friend in NYC on kid-friendly dining that expanded to cover other destinations in Sydney and Singapore. I got active in the local blogger community, attended blogging events and started to connect with brands and other bloggers. At night I read about SEO and stumbled my way through building a self-hosted WordPress site.

I also began to put my digital marketing training into practice, working on growing social media channels and subscribers to increase traffic to my blog. The SEM (search engine marketing) experience at Google really helped me to naturally be able to write well for SEO (search engine optimisation, or how to show up in the search results on Google), and I saw organic search becoming a big source of traffic to the blog.

After a while I felt ready to start working again in a small capacity, so I put together a simple WordPress site as my online writing portfolio and resume to send out to prospective employers. By this time I had written guest posts for a lot of other sites, too, and also had quite a decent amount of published work from my first few jobs in the editorial departments of Australian lifestyle magazines, plus from my work in marketing at Google. All together, it was enough to help me start getting a few freelance writing jobs.

Work started coming through all kinds of sources. People approached me through the blog, and I signed up to Contently.com and received work through that for Fisher Price and Electrolux.

Most of the work I have taken on, however, I’ve had to really put myself out there for. I cold-emailed publications after asking for the editor’s contact details, and then pitched the publication ideas for articles. I also attended events where the speakers worked for brands or sites that I wanted to work for, and approached the people after their talks with a quick elevator pitch and request for their business cards.

After getting the contacts I was after, I’d research their publication and pitch stories. It’s time consuming, and there’s a lot of either no responses or straight out rejection. Some days it’s hard to get past this and keep up my confidence to continue, especially since I’m a bit of an introvert.

What helps keep me going is when the articles I write perform really well, such as getting picked up by other publications like the Huffington Post and going viral.

I also love the blogging communities I’ve joined, both in the US and in Australia. Bloggers are very supportive of each other, so even though I spend most of my work days at home alone with a computer, I feel strongly connected to other people in my field and don’t feel disconnected as a result.

Taking the freelance route does not pay wonderfully well so far, but it’s rewarding in many ways. I make my own hours, and get to spend a lot of time with my daughter, who is now 3.5. I really enjoy what I do, too. I get a lot of joy out of seeing my articles helping people – I feel like what I’m doing now has a lot of meaning.

Are you thinking of making a career change, or trying freelance writing? I’ll be writing more in the coming weeks on tips to break into freelance writing, and other posts on what I’ve learned about digital media. If you have any questions you’d like answered, please email comment below or email me at adventurebabyblog.com.

This post was first published over on Thienlan.me.

Where I Work (AKA How I Manage Being A WFHM)

April 17, 2015 / Writing / 35 Comments

I see a lot of beautiful blog posts from travel bloggers (I’m looking at you here, Girl Tweets World!) who work from exotic locations on a regular basis. I thought today I would share a bit about where I generally work as it’s a lot less, um, fancy and relaxing.

Here is an example of my week and how I get work done while working freelance and also being home with my threenager.

Monday
Monday is ballet day and now that Cheese is in a drop off class, I can sit outside with my laptop and write while she is fluttering away. I set up tethering on my iPhone to give me a bit of internet so I can still get something done while she’s dancing.

Since it’s school holidays, this week she has a special Frozen-themed ballet class, and while I’m trying to write, all I can hear is 15 preschoolers screeching “Let it gooooooooooo!” at the top of their lungs. I’m also sitting on a concrete step, which is getting colder and more uncomfortable by the minute. The rest of the day I put my phone and laptop down and take Cheese to see her grandparents or friends.

Tuesday
Tuesday is swim day for Cheese and I sit on the side of the pool replying to anything urgent on my phone, jotting down article ideas and following up on pitches while simultaneously telling Cheese to put her bottom on the pool step and to stop squirting water out of her mouth at the kid next to her. Tuesday is, obviously, not a work day. After swimming we often go to a playdate, playground or park. I love how in Sydney we can be outdoors all year around, except for the torrential rain days.

Wednesday to Friday
These are my usual work days while Cheese is at preschool 9-3. After a quick gym session (I’m loving the Ballet Barre classes), I work from my living room couch. I do not have a designated workspace as our apartment is just too small. My husband also works from home, so I do have an office mate to bother when I need some companionship, but I generally don’t see many other people except for Jayne from Girl Tweets World, who lives near me and has a similar freelance working schedule as I do.

Weekends and evenings
I do a lot after Cheese goes to sleep, pretty much every night of the week. This is when I work on social media, edit photos, finish up blog posts and reply to blog comments and emails. I try to switch off at around 9:30 and watch a TV show or read a book after that.

Working freelance and from home is great in many ways. The absolute biggest plus is that is gives me so much freedom. I can spend a lot of time with Cheese, and also work towards my own career/business goals at the same time. I also set my own goals and priorities. While I do have clients I answer to for the work I do, I am the one who decides what i think is important to work on for my own progression, rather than having a manager tell me what I should be working on to benefit a company.

On the down side, it doesn’t pay as well as a regular office job, and there is a lot of unpaid work that needs to be done, like pitching work, finding clients, networking to get more work, etc, and it can also get a bit lonely and disheartening if it’s a period of not much success. I find the best way to deal with this is meeting with friends when I can, particularly people who are attempting the same career path as I am.

I’ve been thinking of launching a video or blog series on working as a freelancer, to give tips to anyone thinking of a similar path. I would love to know any questions you have about what I do that I should cover in the series.

Linking up with Grace and Bron.

Barbie Princess Power High Tea at The Langham Hotel Sydney

April 14, 2015 / Cheese, Indoor Play, Sydney, Sydney Life / 10 Comments

I was a Barbie kid myself, so it’s been an enjoyable case of history repeating to see my own preschooler getting out my old Barbie dolls and playing with them at the same age that I did. Barbie and I experienced so many adventures during our time together, and I love watching Cheese take the same Barbies (and a few new ones who have much better hair than mine) on her own magical outings.

One such outing that almost too good to be true was the Barbie Princess Power high tea at The Langham Hotel Sydney. The Langham has recently re-opened after a significant renovation and this was our first visit since the launch. Boy does it look good. The old hotel was beautiful, and the renovation has given everything a facelift to make it brighter and shinier.

The Barbie high tea was held over two weekends during the school holidays. It was more than just a high tea, it was a special event for kids who love Barbies, and their parents who love good food.

The high tea was split into two rooms. One with activities and one with tables set up for enjoying the high tea. The activities room had a paparazzi style media wall set up for some photo ops, a nail salon and an activity table with stickers for the kids to decorate their own superhero masks.

Inside the dining room, the new Barbie movie was set up to play on a large screen while we enjoyed our high tea. At each child’s place was a gift bag containing a Barbie doll, plus a blank mask for colouring in, and a poster that, when turned over, had more colouring and activities. The tables had containers filled with textas and pencils, so the kids has plenty to play with while waiting for their high teas to arrive.

The thoughtful staff confirmed who at our tables were vegetarians, and asked the girls if they would like a hot chocolate? With TWO marshmallows? Would they ever.

Next came the platters of food – top tier full of sweet delights like red velvet cake, pistachio cake, and macarons, the next tier plan and raisin scones with jam and cream, and the bottom tier savoury, with sandwiches, wraps, mini burgers, pumpkin tarts and heart-shaped fairy bread.

With one vegetarian adult and child, and one non-vego adult and child, we had quite the variety of food. It was hard to tell what was meant for who, so we let the girls choose what they felt like eating, and then ate the rest ourselves.

As you’d expect from a hotel as gorgeous as the Langham, the food was exquisite. The scones were some of the best I’ve ever tasted. The sandwiches were fresh and light, and the desserts full of flavour, with perfect pastry crusts and light creamy fillings. It was a delicious high tea.

As the event wound down, the girls were getting tired from all of the excitement, which was our cue to leave. Cheese was getting over a bad cold and was very tied and grumpy – hence the next pic we asked the concierge to take outside the Langham as we were leaving, where she refused to get in the picture. A big thanks to the concierge with the wicked sense of humour who captured my cranky daughter in the photo anyway. Does this sum up life with a threenager, or what?

We had a wonderful time at the Barbie high tea, and will absolutely be back for the Langham’s next event for kids.

Barbie Princess Power High Tea at The Langham Hotel
89-113 Kent St, Millers Point,
Sydney NSW 2000
Prices: Children’s high tea is $65 children with gift, $70 adults with glass of bubbles
Get directions.

Circus Factory: The Best Of Sydney For Kids

April 11, 2015 / Cheese, Indoor Play, Museums, Sydney, Sydney Life / 4 Comments

The Powerhouse Museum is one of my favourite places to take Cheese in Sydney at the moment. Not only does it have the fantastic Wiggles exhibit at the moment, it also is home to Circus Factory. We finally got around to seeing the exhibition during the school holidays (and if you want to see it you’d better be quick as it closes May 3, 2015).

I wasn’t planning on taking Cheese as the Powerhouse recommends it for kids ages five and over, but after seeing some adorable pics on Instagram I decided to give it a go anyway, and was so glad we did. At age 3.5 Cheese was a fantastic age for the exhibition. No doubt older kids will et even more out of it, including areas of the exhibition Cheese was too little for, but we spent three solid hours in the exhibition and I had to drag her out at the end, which says that this exhibit was a smash hit for the preschooler set.

Circus Factory celebrates the daring, absurd and curious nature of circuses. It focuses thankfully on the human element, such as clowns, acrobats, circus acts, etc, rather than the sad history of animals in circuses.

The Circus Factory is set up over three levels. The top floor has costumes and the bottom one has a fantastic collection of automatas – the later you can also see when you purchase a general exhibition pass. An automata is an interactive artwork, where you wind a handle and it moves the subjects inside. They automatas are kind of creepy to be honest, and they really freaked Cheese out. The subject matter includes things like freaky looking monkeys and skulls. Fascinating for adults, but some of them are a bit scary for little kids.

We spent our entire visit on the main floor of the attraction. The massive space is broken up into many interactive areas for kids to just go wild and really experience elements of the circus for themselves.

Cheese highly enjoyed each of these areas: clown costume dress ups, colouring in, a mirror maze, hula hoops (they were a bit heavy for her but she made her own game out of them), clown faces, balancing tricks (again, a bit hard for her but she enjoyed trying), the balloon room and carousel.

Her absolute favourites were the carousel (we had three rides) and the balloon room. The carousel is a hand-carved 100-year-old beauty made in England around 1900. It is paired in this exhibit with the original Luna Park 89 key Gavioli organ. Absolutely magical.

The balloon room was basically a netted area with a wind tunnel blowing into it, and many brightly coloured helium balloons floating in it. AKA paradise for kids, little and big. Cheese spent around an hour just in this one area chasing balloons. Thoughtfully placed couches inside give parents a place to sit while keeping an eye on the balloon activities.

Depending when you visit there are a range of live activities to enjoy, too. As we visited on a Friday during school holidays, we were lucky to see a range of short performances called “Amuse Bouche”, especially created by Circa for the Powerhouse Museum. Every hour on the hour, two performers delighted the crowd with a 6 – 10 minutes acrobatic performance involving balancing, contortionism and the vertical rope. Each hour there is a brand new performance to witness, so we kept going back for more, wanting to see what amazing tricks we would be surprised with next.

Here is their schedule for live activities:

Amuse Bouche by Circa
Shows on the hour, 4 Apr to 19 Apr

Science of Circus Show
Explore the physics behind circus acts like plate spinning.
27 Jan to 3 Apr, and 20 Apr to 3 May
Weekdays: 11.30am, 12.30pm and 1.30pm
Weekends: 10.30am, 11.30am, 12.30pm, 1.30pm and 2.30pm

April school holiday activity: Clown carnival
3 to 19 April
Make your own juggling balls, contribute to our giant fabric bunting, play carnival games and get a balloon animal to take home (weekends only). On weekdays, learn how to hula-hoop, juggle and more from circus experts. (Free with general admission.)

Planning on eating while you’re there? You’ll love the Black Star Pastry outlet that’s set up in the cafe area. They serve sandwiches and lunch foods, plus their famous desserts and kids’ shakes. It’s worth going for the Black Star pastries alone!

We had the most amazing time at Circus Factory and will absolutely go back. It helped that we were able to get in for a bit cheaper care of finding a Groupon voucher for adult general admission $7 (instead of $12). At the entrance I was able to upgrade the voucher to include Circus Factory for an extra $8, making it $15, and significantly cheaper than the full admission price of $35.

Last notes before you go:
No strollers inside the exhibition.
The Powerhouse advises that you prebook your tickets (particularly on weekends) to ensure you get in on a busy day.

Circus Factory
Circus Factory FAQs
Open 20 December 2014 to 3 May 2015
Powerhouse Museum
500 Harris Street, Ultimo NSW 2007
Hours: Daily 10am-5pm
Circus Factory entrance (includes general admission into the Powerhouse Museum):
Up to 3 kids free with each adult ticket

Adult: $35
Member adult: $25
Family: $65
(2 adults and up to 6 children)
Member family: $45
(2 adults and up to 6 children)
Concession: $20
Additional child (4—15 yrs): $8
Free entry for children under 4 years

Exhibition tickets include same-day entry to Powerhouse Museum. Transaction fees from $3.95 may apply.

Get directions.

Brewtown Newtown: The Best Sydney Inner West Cafes

April 8, 2015 / Inner West, Newtown, Sydney, Sydney Food / 4 Comments

Newtown has long been a place where Sydney’s hip hangs out, but it’s really only been in the past few years that the area has seen an arrival of trendy eateries popping up. Newtown Brewtown is the epitome of the revival that’s happening in Newtown right now. It’s deliberately grungy-looking on the surface, but is actually a bit of an upscale eatery with a creative menu, and infamous Bronuts (Brewtown x cronuts).

We ordered freshly squeezed orange juice ($5) and a babyccino when we arrived to stem the hunger we’d worked up from biking over to the cafe. Note: Parking in Newtown is impossible. Where possible, get public transport.

Cheese had a pumpkin bread that was out of this world. Lots of crunchy seeds, a bit slab of some kind of maple butter. So more-ish.

Alec had the Wood Smoked Salmon (with curried Israeli couscous, poached egg, coriander, lime, $16.5). His report was that it was amazing, and unlike anything he’d ever been served for breakfast before.

My dish was the Poached Eggs on toast (with house relish, $10), and a side of avocado. The eggs were perfect, the avocado creamy and generous.

I love iced tea like nothing else, and was delighted to find Brewtown offered specially brewed iced teas. Today’s was Egyptian Rose ($6). So. So. Good.

The tables and interior in general is super tiny. No room for strollers or bulky bags, or for toys for kids to play with. We brought an activity book for Cheese and abandoned it for an iPhone when our food arrived and we needed the space.

A trip to Brewtown isn’t complete without a bronut. How beautiful do they look? We took one for the road because were were too full to eat it there.

Just a short walk away from Brewtown is Camperdown Memorial Rest Park, which has a large playground. Tables on weekends will incur a wait (ours was 30 minutes) due to how popular the cafe has become. My advice: put your name down and head down to the park for a short walk and play.

Highchairs: No.
Stroller storage: No.
Easy access: Yes.
Change tables: No.
Kids’ menu: No.

Brewtown Newtown
6-8 O’Connell Street,
Newtown NSW 2042
Phone: (02) 9519 2920
Prices: $$
Hours: Daily 8am-4pm
Get directions.

30 Reasons We Love Nap Time

April 7, 2015 / Family, Kids / 0 comment

Naps are the BEST. Seriously, there is nothing better than a happily napping child. Who knew that you could accomplish so much in such a short period? The benefits of naps are almost endless. My favourites include:

You can check your email.
You can update your Facebook.
You can make breakfast/lunch/dinner.
You can catch up on The Bachelor.
You can take a nap too.
You can make that urgent phone call you’ve needed to make all morning.
You can do 30 mins of home yoga.
You can read a book.
You can vacuum or clean up the house.
You can fold that giant pile of laundry.
You can write a blog post (like this one!).
You can download the photos from your phone and back them up.
You can give yourself a mani/pedi.
You can bake cookies for afternoon tea.
You can clean out your wardrobe.
You can drink your coffee while it’s hot.
You can take a long shower.
You can use the bathroom uninterrupted.
You can Skype a friend.
You can do your hair and make up.
You can shop online.
You can eat a cupcake without sharing it.
You can share a photo of them asleep on Instagram.
You can play Candy Crush on your phone.
You can unpack the dishwasher.
You can meditate.
You can clean all the crap you don’t need out of your handbag.
You can sit down and do absolutely nothing.

And the two very best things about naps:

Your child wakes up happy and smiley.
The rest of the day is a breeze.

This article was first published on MommyNearest.

Easter Sunday + Easter Egg Hunt 2015

April 5, 2015 / Cheese, Family, Kids / 10 Comments

Ahhh it’s Easter Sunday, one of the best days of the year. I managed to turn it into a week-long chocolate fest this year by eating a chocolate bunny a day. There is something about Easter chocolate – it just tastes BETTER than regular chocolate, even if it’s a plain milk chocolate bunny by Cadbury.

This year was our first back in Australia with Cheese, and I wanted to make it a lot of fun. After opening her Easter basket in her jammies in the morning, she then dressed in her Elsa costume to enjoy her chocolate spoils before we head out to our friends’ house to enjoy Easter brunch and an Easter egg hunt.

At my friends’ house, the girls decorated cupcakes with chocolate shavings and mini chocolate birds’ eggs. They made the cutest little nests.

We indulged in a”brown feast” of hot cross buns, pancakes and French toast (don’t worry, there was some fruit in there too), before it was time to release the girls on the Easter egg hunt. We used a mix of tiny and small chocolate eggs, plus plastic ones filled with fluffy toy chicks, tiny chocolate eggs and some Easter gummy lollies.

The kids all crashed out and opened their spoils. The plastic eggs were a great hit – they gave an extra fun element to the hunt, as opening them afterwards prolonged the anticipation.

It was a day for family, not just friends. My parents joined us, as did my friend’s. We’ve been close friends since we were 12, so we’re all basically family at this stage.

With my girlfriend who hosted us – I can’t believe we’ve been friends for over 20 years.

With the sugar high still going strong, the girls bounced it out on the trampoline. Haven’t things changed since we were kids? I remember placing a trampoline next to a swimming pool and using it to springboard into the deep end.

It’s always hard to head home after such a wonderful day with loved ones.

Last Easter gifts for the day from Nana and Pop, and a big hug, and then it was all over for another year.

Happy Easter!

Do you celebrate Easter? if so, how did you spend the holiday?