Word of the year - Organise

Choosing a word of the year is not something I have done before, I normally just produce a lists of usually somewhat un-achievable new years resolutions and attempt them with a typical end result of failure and disappointment. I had heard about using a word of the year through other bloggers and thought it was a good idea, although most bloggers who do this choose words like "brave" or "mindful" or "gratitude".  These words seemed a bit airy-fairy to me and didn't appeal, I wanted something a bit more concrete which involved things I could actually do and which would have visible results.
With life being so chaotic since the birth of Biscuit, I had been having a strong desire to get my life in order, I had been wanting lists, calendars, plans and schedules.  I also felt like I wanted to get things done, weeks and months were passing without me feeling like I had achieved anything, and valuable weekends were coming and going without seeing friends, making visits or travelling anywhere.
So it didn't take too much thought to decide my word of the year - Organise.  (I also really like the look of the word because it looks a bit like the word "organic".)
So what do I intend for this word to inspire me to do?  Well essentially I want to get organised by:

• Tidying my home, creating systems for our stuff and keeping it in order, and organising and sticking to a cleaning schedule,
• Making plans for the year, organising meeting with friends and family who live further away, planning activities and holidays,
• Re-vamping my diet and health routines, cleaning up our meals and introducing weekly and daily rituals to ,my health routine,
• Being more active in  engaging Boris in fun, educational and creative activities.

I have already started putting my word into practise by starting the 21 Day Junk Food Challenge, putting together a family planner, starting a 30 day toddler challenge and a 30 day organisation challenge.  I really hope I can keep my momentum going on this one, I want to get my life together and stop it being one long blur of sleepless nights, pooey nappies and endless breastfeeding sessions! I think I will keep re-reading and referring this blog post to keep motivated. I think 2014 is going to be an exciting year of me and my family.

Do you have a word of the year, what is it?  Please share a link if you have blogged about it. 

40 Soups - Bean and vegetable

Life with a toddler and a small baby is HARD, by far the hardest thing I have ever had to do, and I thought parenting one child was hard, adding another to the mix takes parenting to a whole new level.  It can be very easy to forget to look after yourself when you are giving so much energy to your children.  In spite of my somewhat optimistic new years resolutions to take care of myself, my diet has been starting to slide, I had stopped planning meals and we were winging it at dinner time, cue lots of frozen veggie burgers, baked beans and *hangs head in shame* pot noodles.  So I realised it was time to inject some much needed vegetation into our diet.  So I planned a couple of veggie soups into our reestablished meal plan, one of which is this delicious and really healthy soup that takes hardly any time to make - Bean and vegetable soup.  

Isn't it colourful? It's easy, just get:

1/2 an onion,

2 cloves of garlic,

1 big carrot,

4 leaves of cavolo nero (or any type of kale),

Big handful of young spinach leaves,

1 carton of kidney beans,

1 chicken stock cube,

Fry the onions and garlic in a tablespoon of olive oil,

Add the carrot chopped into small cubes,

Add the finely chopped kale and spinach,

Add kidney beans,

Add enough boiled water to cover the vegetables and make it nice and soupy,

Add the stock cube, 

Cook on a medium heat for about 15 minutes or until the carrots feel soft,

Partially blend with a stick blender.

Enjoy your colourful soup with buttered toast. Yum, and at least 3 of your 5 a day!

P.S. I use all organic ingredients because I prefer not to consume all those yucky chemicals.  

Fun things to do with toddlers - ball shuttle run

This activity sort of evolved one week day evening, my toddler had watched Monsters University and was inspired by a scene where two characters race each other, he was posing as if on starting blocks then running up and down from the back door in the living room, through the living room to the front door.   I decided to make his running a bit more purposeful by placing a bucket by the front door and a small pile of plastic balls by the back door.

I showed him how he could pick up a ball and run with it to the front door and drop it in the bucket. But his mama didn't raise no fool, he took two balls at a time! Clever boy!

Then I remembered something I had seen on Pinterest with a child dropping balls down a paper towel tube taped to a wall.  I had always thought this was quite a fun idea except that my son would probably get board with it pretty quickly, so I decided to adapt this idea by taping a crisp tube to the wall above the bucket.  My son loved it!  He spent quite a while running back and forth with the balls and even carrying the bucket back to the living room and emptying the balls out onto the floor to start again.  He needed a bit of help replacing the bucket to underneath the tube as sometimes he was putting it into the wrong place and the balls were dropping on the floor.

A fun activity that kept him entertained for quite some time, and gave him a good burst of exercise to tire him out! Also built on his fine motor skills and problem solving skills.

Have you come up with any new fun activities for toddlers recently?  I would love to hear about them, also share your blog posts about activities you do with your toddler.