Camping on some wild coastline, going to the beach for daily swims, getting sunburnt and giving my feet and lets a good workout on some bush walks.
Trying to get a little organised with our first week of our year long road trip adventure, finding a home for everything is a little tricky at times.
Catching up with some friends and family, eating lots of good food, laughing and breaking up kiddo fights, playing cards, being annoyed by flies and freaking out at all the koalas in and around our campsite (boy they are really noisy at night too!).
Looking back at the year, time to reflect. All up a good year — what about you? Major events, changes, projects?
It was a year of ups and downs for me. I wrote a book, made 12 (make that 14) quilts, wrote two book proposals, published 5 issues of Action Pack magazine, dreamed and planned for our trip away (a year of travel 2013 — read about it here). I had a minor melt down, my daughter grew taller than me, I read lots of books, I turned 41 … I crocheted, I sewed, I cooked, I blogged, I parented, I gardened … mostly a good year.
Looking back at the year through the eyes of whipup.net: — the highlights … a year of real life
January 2012 — a month of tutorials, controversy and taking it slowly – this was my 2012 welcome letter
Thinking about friends and all the things I will miss by being away for a whole year.
Urging myself to get organised. I have written copious lists, lists for camping, lists for renting our house, lists for packing our things, lists for homeschooling and traveling and budgeting … lists, lists, lists.
Contemplating what was for us a simple Christmas celebration … games, family and good food. Marred only by a migraine.
Thankful I can now safely pack away the Christmas tree and decorations. I am really in clean up, get rid of stuff, tidying mode.
Wanting this packing and cleaning process to be over already, so I can get onto the planning phase of our trip. I really want to get stuck into reading my new camping guide to Australia.
Dying to play with my new Christmas toy — a gorilla tripod — I need an iphone sized one now too.
Looking at a pile of paperwork to sort and file and do stuff with. Thankful though that I have completed my tax, and hoping with my new budget / money management app that I won’t have such a headache come tax time next year.
Enjoying watching season 10 of Project Runway with the kids. Better late than never. I missed season 9 and thinking we should watch that now too.
Wondering what to do with my stash of egg cartons. I can’t bear to throw them away for some strange reason. To the recycling centre we go.
Feeling quite proud about cleared out closets and bathroom cabinets. Empty bookshelves and kitchen cupboards. Boxes are filling up the shed.
Remembering another proud moment when the kids made the Christmas Pavlova due to my Christmas migraine. Such great kids.
Pushing down waves of overwhelming stress about this whole packing for a year thing. What on earth were/are we thinking … oh yeah thats right — family togetherness, adventure, creating amazing memories and relationships as a family, travel and excitement, swimming at the beach, fishing every day, reading lots of books in a hammock under a tree, climbing mountains and gazing at the stars, building sand castles and making land art, cooking out of doors and learning so much from each other. Can’t wait to get started!
What are your plans for 2013?
Some links I have loved lately — mostly all related to camping and the outdoors
Do you make some (all) of your gifts each year? Do you encourage your kids, family and friends to do the same. This time of year it is so difficult to get away from the commercialism of the season, it is inevitable that you will enter a toy shop at some stage … being realistic myself I know that I won’t be able to make all our gifts this year.
But for those that do … here are some free printable labels you might like to use. Click on the image to go to a print quality pdf. This is from the latest Action Pack — it is the Family Apothecary edition — and includes some great ideas for last minute gifts, lots more labels, and just lots of really scrummy things for your skin and body care.
This compilation issue is a curated mix of projects from the first 2 years of Action Pack.
These projects have been specially chosen to appeal, and be appropriate for, the 3-6 year old pre-schooler age — and their parents.
These projects will enable pre-schoolers to explore craft, cooking, science and the outdoors in a fun, messy and interesting way.
Parents will be required to closely supervise these projects, assist where required, help set up the space and explain the projects. However the projects themselves should be carried out by the children with only minimal assistance. Parents will of course be able to choose projects they think their children are ready for.
These projects are messy, fun and useful! And they require only the most basic of supplies (paint, paper and a few pantry items), and you’ll most likely need aprons or old shirts to use as paint smocks, some paint brushes and some newspaper to lay out to make clean up a lot easier.
Enjoy xx Kathreen
This is an e-magazine – you will receive a download link to a high quality printable pdf [you can save the file to your hard drive and access it, read, and print it anytime and you can view the pdf on a Tablet or iPad].
Projects in the Preschool Action Pack Special Compilation Edition
35 projects // 60 pages of projects aimed at the 3-6 preschool age group
ART & CRAFT
Origami Cup
Lemon Prints
Chalk & Sand Art
Stone Eggs
Message Stones
Munch’em Egg Cosy
Cornflour Paint
Aztec Prints
Watercolour Feathers
Cornhusk Dolls
Party Mask
OUTDOORS
Herb & Fruit Tea
Seedling Pots
Paper Seed Bombs
Nature Jewels
Wild Body Paint
Three Simple Games
Stic-Stac-Stone
Scavenger Hunt
COOKING
Fruit Salad Kebabs
Fruit and Nut Snowballs
Trail Mix
Oat Balls
Homemade Butter
Honeycomb Lemonade
Pretzel Log Cabin
Easy Granita
SCIENCE
Cornflour Slime
Vinegar Volcano
Bubble Prints
Marble prints
Lava Concoction
Oily Fireworks
Lemon Acid Fizz
Zesty Bath Bombs
This is an e-magazine – you will receive a download link to a high quality printable pdf [you can save the file to your hard drive and access it, read, and print it anytime and you can view the pdf on a Tablet or iPad].
This compilation issue is a curated mix of projects from the first 2 years of Action Pack.
These projects have been specially chosen to appeal, and be appropriate for, the 3-6 year old pre-schooler age — and their parents.
Important: The pdf magazine will be automatically delivered via e-mail as soon as your payment is received. The e-mail you receive will include a link to download the file directly to your computer. Please note that the link will only allow you to access the file for a limited period (150 hours or 5 tries), so please make sure to download and save the file on your own computer as soon as you receive it. Lost files may be replaced for a period of 30 days following purchase.
