(Apologies if you have already seen it – it originates from our other blog at Babyjo Bamboo)

I love it! Our friends over at Monkey Caboose have done it again – just arrived, the Lunch Punch makes lunchtime and sandwiches fun!

Speaking from experience, my 3 year old just won’t move past the good old Vegemite sandwich (and even then, she usually pulls the 2 pieces apart, licks off the Vegemite and then leaves the rest!) – not the most nutritious lunch and frustrating for me, as sandwiches can be healthy, interesting and nutritious (not to mention fast and easy to make and take on the run). She is a fantastic “eater” and is happy to much away on most healthy food, she just WONT touch sandwiches for some weird reason.

Enter – The Lunch Punch, an interesting “tool” to add to your parenting toolbox. I was lucky enough to road test one from Monkey Caboose, and I am so impressed. I have never managed to get my little one to eat a full ham sandwich (baby steps here, I will work up to salad and chicken/avocado etc) – but hey presto! The Lunch Punch made the cutest 4 piece puzzle which took her attention and made it plenty of fun – she seemed to forget that she doesn’t eat ham sandwiches, and ended up eating the lot AND asking for another puzzle. (I have always loved that she will eat the crusts of her toast and vegemite sandwiches, however the lunch punch does remove these, so I had to just go with it and see!)

With 4 “punches” in each box, you can make one Monster puzzle (great for if you are feeding multiple mouths at the same time) or you can have 4 smaller size puzzles in varying forms. For just $12.95, I highly recommend trying this one out for a bit of fun – great for fairy bread at a party too – make the giant puzzle, and watch them have some fun!

**Disclaimer – Yes, you WILL end up “punching” out your own sandwich into a puzzle – it can’t be helped. We take no responsibility for this!

Suddenly, I remembered the great idea I had earlier in the day – “yes, let’s make Spinach and Ricotta Cannelloni for dinner”…. Uh-oh, it was nearly witching hour 3pm and I was not looking forward to toddler wrangling entertaining the little miss while trying messily to get the gooey mixture into too small tubes  of uncooked pasta!

On the way back to our place, I asked Mia if she would like to help me cook dinner and she calmly responded that “yes mummy, that would be nice” – Great! I had a helper. She then told me that she thought I should make dinner in her kitchen (see below image of her pink retro kitchen for more info – purchased from Hipkids) and it would cook well in her oven! Well – there will be none of that , ha ha ha. So I rearranged the furniture a little when we got home, popped her stove and sink next to my prep bench and then placed her table next to it for more room. The fridge was placed next to mine and stocked up with play fruit and vegetables. I provided a useless thing that wouldn’t cut through a sausage at  a BBQ serrated plastic knife and got her little chopping board out and ready.

On your marks, get set, go…………. Mia had a bunch of real food from the fridge, which I had placed (in no apparent order) on the bench. Lettuce, tomatoes from our garden, cucumber, mushrooms, capsicum and parsley. I asked her to make a salad for us all while I did the cannelloni. What would usually be a hectic time running around the kitchen, madly trying to get dinner ready and guarding the fridge from a hungry 3 year old, turned into a blissful 2 hours of cooking together, laughing and having fun!

I have luckily never had any trouble with fruit and vegetables with this little person, she eats a very wide variety of everything, and is happy to have it raw or cooked. For example, her little snack box (at her height in the fridge which she can now open) is usually full of: raw beans, snow peas, red and yellow capsicum strips, raw mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, mung beans, alphalpha, 4 bean mix and an assortment of fruit. She loves to eat frozen beans for some reason, and has very savory tastes.

I was amused to see that she assembled a lovely salad after roughly cutting up each different ingredient, but I am sad to say that by the end of it, there was not enough left to use for our dinner, as she kind of ate it all! (Ah well, snacking healthy food while making dinner is fine with me). As I was still stuffing cannelloni, she climbed up next to me at the bench (on her stool) and asked if she could help. Why not, I thought, you couldn’t get much messier than me at the moment! So I am proud to say that she successfully filled 2 tubes with mixture (and yes, her hands were lovely and clean before we started) and managed to leave just as much mess as me around the bowl and on the bench.

We were having so much fun, that we didn’t stop here, Mia suggested we make a pie to put in the oven too (something that she has seen on a cooking show on TV (cooking for kids with Maddi I think) no doubt. “Ok – let’s do it” I said – sure that I had some puff pastry in the freezer somewhere. Lo and behold, there was a sheet (yes, only one!) sitting there, waiting to be made into a pie. As I am a champion pie maker have never made a pie before, I was completely winging it by this stage, and asked her what we should put in our pie (a little sad just having the base and no filling). A rummage around in the cupboards turned up a tin of apricots and that was about it. The fruit bowl had one lovely green apple left though, so Apple and Apricot it was. After a quick look in the fridge, Mia suggested that we  could use strawberries too, so I agreed with this,  having made one before not knowing any better. I realised we didn’t have a “lid” for our pie, so out came the chunk of butter that has been in the fridge since I last made home made muesli bars and a crumble of sorts was made from flour, cinnamon and a little brown sugar. (NB – No, our pie is not pictured above, but it did look fairly similar, just with apricots and strawberries too!)

So the salad got eaten (prior to sitting down for dinner), the cannelloni was delicious and perfectly cooked, and our (VSP) very special pie was stunning and very very yummy. A successful afternoon, easily avoiding the usual dinner time rush and with only a little extra cleaning to do (read: wipe down every cupboard and draw that had something smeared all over it), I thoroughly enjoyed this special time with my little person, she loved every minute and definitely had a ball – try it out with your little person one day soon and have fun covering the benches in food making a masterpiece or two.

We spend all day running around chasing our little people, having fun and being “domestic godesses” that we forget often forget to pamper and look after ourselves. Here is my little bit of “peace” at the end of a long day – our gorgeous, gorgeous bathroom (design c/o myself and built by my lovely husband!) – just thought I would share to remind you that it is ok to be totally selfish and have a long hot soak in the bath, or treat yourself to 30mins of uninterrupted bliss!

and now – our lovely indoor/outdoor shower (yes, it is covered of course, being in Melbourne) – reminiscent of the gorgeous shower style in Thailand Resorts….

The view from inside the shower – serene and calm at night, when some quite time is required!

Anyhow – to all you super mums (and dads) out there – go and take some “time out”, relax and enjoy!

Don’t miss the unbeatable shopping, great offers, fantastic entertainment and expert advice – The Baby Show really is an essential part of having a baby!

This brand new event is not to be missed and will be filled with some of the most exciting entertainment acts as well as fantastic shopping for pregnant couples and parents of babies and toddlers:

•    Shop and enjoy exclusive offers on an array of products and all the baby essentials from over 100 big industry brands and stylish boutiques ranging from: Huggies, Tommee Tippee, Mothercare, Maclaren, Chicco, Medibank, Ecostore, Happy Baby, Nestle, Peg Perego, Nintendo, Pumpkin Patch, Babyjo Bamboo and Angus & Robertson.
•    Meet Dorothy the Dinosaur and dance with The Teletubbies live with an exciting new interactive dance show!
•    Get the best advice on parenting and health from leading specialists in free seminars and talks.
•    Try before you buy some of the big name brand strollers.
•    Relax in the Tommee Tippee Baby Feeding Room, The Babylove Changing Room and ask for assistance from our dedicated team of porters.

Everything you need for your pregnancy, baby and toddler – The Baby Show is an essential part of having a baby.

Tickets start at $10 and can be purchased in advance for a limited half price offer via http://www.thebabyshow.com.au  or you can contact me and I have some freebies to post out if you are interested.

The gorgeous work of Carli from MiniLala is highly sought after and loved by mums and dads (and bubs!) everywhere. Not only are you making the best choice for our environment, you are also giving your bub a funky start to life with MiniLala’s bright, modern and gorgeously designed Cloth Nappies.

Cloth Nappies are great on the budget as well – Obviously, there is an initial outlay, however over 2 – 3years of nappy wearing, the average parent will save around $ 1500 – $ 2500 (or more!). Made from gorgeous prints and funky designs, MiniLala’s reusable nappies are easy to care for, trim, easy to use and highly absorbent! We love these and wanted to share them with you, so head over and read all about “cloth nappying” at their site, and maybe, just maybe, you will be converted too!

I am now converted though, after stumbling upon the most delicious cheesecake ever (on Christmas Day in the afternoon, when you have eaten too much, drunk far too much and couldn’t possibly fit in another bite!)

I am in love and I want to share that love with you! Unbaked, this is an easy and effective way to impress your friends, family or just treat yourself (and yes, I mean sit in the corner and eat the whole lot!)

So, here goes – “Bergies awesome Mango Lemon Cheesecake”

BASE:

1 x 250g packet plain sweet biscuits (or butternut snaps), crushed

65g  Walnuts or pecans finely chopped

1 tablespoon packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon grated lemon peel

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

155g melted butter (or margerine)

FILLING:

5 teaspoons gelatine

1/2 cup very hot water

250g packet cream cheese

1/3 cup of sugar

1 teaspoon grated lemon peel

2 egg yolks

425 g can of mango pulp, drained and pureed (or even better, fresh mango flesh pureed)

100ml icy water

1 1/4 cups sour cream

2 tablespoons lemon juice

TOPPING:

Whipped cream

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To make Base:

1) In bowl, combine biscuit crumbs, walnuts/pecans, brown sugar and lemon peel. Mix well. Add butter, stirring until moistened.

2) Press mixture evenly into base and 5cm up sides of a 20 – 21cm springform tin. Set aside.

To make filling:

1) Sprinkle gelatine over hot water and stir vigorously until completely dissolved. Allow to cool.

2) In a large mixer bowl, beat together cream cheese, sugar and lemon peel until smooth. Beat in egg yolks.

3) Reserve a quarter of the mango puree. Beat the remainder into cheese mixture with the icy water. Fold in sour cream, lemon juice and gelatine mixture.

4) Pour filling into prepared crust. Chill until set (several hours or overnight ideally)

To serve, remove from the springform and place on  serving plate. Pipe whipped cream over the top, in whatever pattern is desired. Spoon reserved mango puree onto the top (in between whipped cream)

**Disclaimer** – Love Ya Baby takes no responsibility for the misuse of this recipe. Please be warned that once made, this cake will sit in the fridge and taunt you, making you eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner (if it lasts that long). Do not attempt to make this cake if you are on a diet or you do not like tasty, sweet and oh-so-very-naughty treats from time to time.

Enjoy!

Not only does it allow your little one to have fun, it also works on improving fine motor skills, language and memory, family dynamics and the social world, concentration and imagination.

I love reading things such as this – they tend to motivate me to do the very best for my little person and also encourage me to do different things that haven’t been done before. So, $12 and 9 dinosaurs later (thanks to Toys’R’us) we find ourselves out in the brilliant sunshine making “Dino World” in the sandpit. I actually had a lot of fun playing with my little person and we spent a good  40 minutes landscaping and building caves, mountains, lakes and roads (We also fashioned ‘nests’ for the dinosaurs, even though I think they had caves for rearing their young!)

Following the setup, Mia spent about another hour playing away happily with her new friends, imagination running wild, she found a little toy truck that was the park ranger checking on the dinosaurs, a waterfall was built out of rocks and blue cardboard and the Dino’s had a wonderful time frolicking in the sun too!

Allow your child to develop their imagination by helping (depending on what age) them build an area such as this, it doesn’t have to be dinosaurs, it could be water world, the zoo, a farm – whatever! Most toy shops sell plastic animals for these types of things, or you could get creative and make them yourself out of old toilet rolls or similar, then colour or paint them.

Through free play in this type of activity, little people increase fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination by handling and moving the animals and pieces around. When using imagination to act out play sequences, your little one is using memory recall to remember ‘what dinosaurs eat’ or ‘where dinosaurs sleep’ for example. They will show you their understanding of the social world when playing in this way – how do people interact with each other, who plays what role in the game. Exploration of the dinosaur family will show how your child perceives your own family life and who plays which role and lastly, your little person’s concentration is improved by enjoying a game so much that they sit and play quietly for a longer amount of time.

Belinda suggests asking plenty of questions as you and your little person play and also to use lots of foliage and garden material (such as leaves, logs, sticks and rocks) so that you can discuss these objects at the same time.

Watch as your little person becomes immersed in free play, creating and imagining all things wonderful – it comes as no surprise to me that I actually enjoyed this myself as well!

Sitting peacefully on the banks of the Maribyrnong River, with a super cafe only a few paces away, you and your little people will be sure to love this one!

The Boat-House playground, Maribyrnong, Melbourne

7 The Boulevarde, Maribyrnong, Melbourne (Just near Highpoint shopping centre)

We love this playground – there is loads of shade for warmer weather, courtesy of the large trees close by and the huge shade sails over the main part of the play area. The banks of the river are just a short stroll (eg 2 mins toddler pace) away, and great coffee is close by at the Boat Shed Cafe/Restaurant.

We often do the “circuit” where you can walk around the track next to the river and over a bridge at both ends, which brings you back to the playground for some fun before going home. At a fast walk with the pram, this will take you around 45 minutes, so great exercise.  Unlike other playgrounds, this one has many different areas for all ages. The wooden structure has 3 slides and underneath section where little ones can role play out of the windows or look in the mirrors underneath (there is even a periscope leading up to the top level) – a “wobbly” boat is ready to take little passengers on a trip down the river and there are interesting interactive sculptures on the lower level, complete with a bumpy track around the outside for those with bikes that want some action!

Away from the road and far enough from the banks of the river to not worry too much, this playground is fantastic fun. Swings, slides, whirly whirly’s and balancing ropes are all here – a great way to expend some “little person” energy.

I haven’t put in “the Bad” as there really isn’t anything to go on here! After frequenting this park for the past 2 years, the only thing I could suggest is that it gets astonishingly busy. Even so, there is always room for your little one to play around and have fun – what better way than to do it out doors.

Absolutely!  This one has lovely shaded, grassy areas that are perfect for dropping the rug on and relaxing with lunch or dinner – Plenty of wildlife in the trees (in the form of huge white cockatoos) and in the river (last time we were walking around the track there were 3 dolphins in there!) Sadly, there are no public BBQs here that I have seen, but that doesn’t stop you from taking good old chicken and salad or sandwiches and fruit for your feast. Nothing better than lazing about on a warm afternoon, totally content and relaxed with your little person. Take a few teddies and have a traditional teddy bear picnic if you want to relax for a wee bit longer in the shade~!

We hope you visit The Boat Shed playground, you won’t be dissapointed with this one, it is serious fun and a beautiful spot to share with your little person!

Much the same as me when I was little, she is generally outdoors, getting dirty, enjoying playing, rolling in the grass etc, and so is usually in pants, jeans or shorts. Rarely does a skirt come out of the cupboard (or a dress for that matter) so when the opportunity arises to dress up, methinks we should make the most of it!

In my searches for a beautiful,fit-for-a-princess pettiskirt, I came across Chic by Sha. (Who have also recently joined us (Babyjo) on the fab online store Trifle) WOW- I am in awe of their beautiful range and love that they are quite different to other pettiskirts available (which I also adore) currently.

With a gorgeous “vintage” touch to the range, I am loving these

(Vintage Lace pettiskirt, pictured here in Ivory, Coral and Rouge) – however, I have saved my fave until last! This brown Vintage Lace pettiskirt in brown is just stunning.

Also beautiful for little girls who love to be a bit funky yet girly at the same time, check out the Vintage Tattoo Wear and Mini pettiskirts.

Chic by Sha are also bringing out beautiful lace leggings to suit the summer weather in 3 different colours (white, pink and black) for little girls from 1 year old to 8, and I hear that they are looking into ladies sizes as well in the near future – woohoo! Just have to find somewhere to wear it.

So – it’s off I go, searching for the perfect pettiskirt for my beautiful little person, I think I may just have found the right one though!

Personally, I like healthy – My little person has a savory tooth on her, and she is happy to eat almost any fruit and vege I put in front of her. She does have the occasional ice cream or bit of chocolate as a small treat, but generally, we eat healthy all the time. We love these muesli bars as they are relatively healthy *bit of honey and bit of butter* and we know exactly what is in them. (Just quietly, my “big person” loves them also and they are great to take to work.)

Recipe is courtesy of my lovely friend Sommer, hence the name.

You will need:

150 g Unsalted Butter

175 g Honey

3 Eggs

200g Rolled Oats

60 g shredded coconut

1 teaspoon baking powder

3 tablespoons sesame seeds

200 g pitted prunes or dates, chopped into small pieces

100g dried peaches/apricots, chopped into small pieces

75 g currants or sultanas

To make:

Pre heat oven to 170 degrees (Celsius) and line a sandwich tin or flat tray with baking paper. (NB – size doesn’t really matter – I use a large one and just place mixture in part of it.)

Put the honey and butter in microwave until melted and runny.

Crack and whisk the eggs together (little people love doing this, and can easily help)

Combine all other dry ingredients in  a large bowl. Combine melted butter and honey with whisked eggs ans then stir into the dry ingredients. Spoon/tip onto tray and spread mixture to the edges (or spread and even up sides not touching edges)You can sprinkle extra sesame seeds on top for garnish.

NB – It is up to you how thick you make them, I usually try for about the same thickness as shop bought muesli bars or slightly thicker.

Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes until golden brown. Allow to cool for at least half an hour before cutting into snack sizes or muesli bar size. (Makes approximately 12) – If you try and take the baking paper off the bottom of them before they have cooled – you will be in a huge mess, so don’t be tempted! Just wait patiently….

I like to wrap individually in glad wrap and keep them in the fridge (or they can be stored in air tight container in the pantry for around 2-3 days.

Hope you and your little person enjoy as much as we do!