Enjoy a great family day out at Better Homes and Gardens LIVE  24th – 26th February 201 2 at the Royal  Exhibition Building, Carlton.

This fabulous LIVE event brings to life the pages of Australia’s favourite magazine, providing home makers, DIY enthusiasts, keen gardeners and aspiring cooks with inspiring new ideas for their home and garden.

Don’t miss live stage shows from your favourite TV presenters, inspiring ideas, workshops and products for you to try and sensational shopping from over 250 exhibitors. Plus, with plenty of entertainment for the children, this is an unbeatable day out for the whole family!

All your favourite Better Homes and Gardens TV experts will be there and you can see them LIVE!  Graham Ross, Tara Dennis, ‘Fast’ Ed, Karen Martini, Jason Hodges, Rob Palmer and Johanna Griggs will take to the stage to share their creative and original ideas to help you make yours a better home and garden! Click here to view the stage timetables.

For tickets and more info visit bhglive.com.au

SPECIAL OFFER
Purchase a double ticket (admits 2) for just $20 – that’s 50% off the door price!
To take advantage of this offer, simply click here and enter the code BHGLIVE18. But hurry, offer ends at 5pm 10 February.

Love your home? Love your garden? You’ll love Better Homes and Gardens LIVE!

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There is no excuse not to spoil this kids this Christmas with these huge savings, see you all at the Junior Sample Sale.

www.juniorsamplesale.com.au

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The Baby & Toddler Show is finally coming to Brisbane on 2^nd – 4^th September 2011! This is a ‘must attend’ event for expectant parents and new parents & their little ones. Featuring a shopping extravaganza (well over 100 of the latest & greatest brands), amazing children’s entertainment and fantastic “Show Only” offers. Plus invaluable one-to-one advice from leading parenting experts and premier facilities to make your day enjoyable and fuss-free. It’s an event not to be missed! Early Bird Tickets are on sale now! Find all the info at: www.babyandtoddlershow.com.au

TOP 10 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD VISIT THE BABY & TODDLER SHOW!

1. Shop from over 100 of the latest, greatest and hottest brands and receive Show only offers.
2. The little ones can have a ball in the free & fabulous Fisher-Price Playground.
3. Save money on your ticket! Receive a $5 discount if you buy an Early Bird Ticket.
4. Get free first hand advice from a line up of parenting experts at the Bio-Oil Live Seminars.
5. Visit the Blackmores Wellness Centre to enjoy complimentary refreshments, massage therapy and a one-on-one chat with a Blackmores naturopath.
6. Enjoy free one-to-one consultations with parenting & pregnancy experts at the Advice Hub.
7. Trial the leading stroller brands in the fabulous purpose built Pram Trial Track.
8. Enjoy the luxurious Feeding Room and BabyLove Changing Room, which is fully stocked with free BabyLove nappies and wipes.
9. Your little ones can meet the fabulous My Little Pony’s Pinkie Pie and give her a big hug, and enjoy Face Painting & Balloon animals.
10. Better yet they can sing & dance along to (free) daily Live Shows featuring New McDonald’s Farm and Shrek & Fiona!

The Baby & Toddler Show is a spectacular event – call your friends, mark it in your diary and book your Early Bird Ticket now & save!

We look forward to welcoming you from 2^nd to 4^th September to the brand new Baby & Toddler Show at the Brisbane Exhibition Centre, Southbank. www.babyandtoddlershow.com.au

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Construction

A paper fortune teller may be constructed by the steps shown in the illustration below:

1. The corners of a sheet of paper are folded up to meet the opposite sides and (if the paper is not already square) the top is cut off, making a square sheet with diagonal creases.
2. The four corners of the square are folded into the center, forming a shape known in origami terminology as a blintz base or cushion fold. The resulting smaller square is turned over, and the four corners are folded in a second time.
3. All four corners are folded up so that the points meet in the middle, and the player works their fingers into the pockets of paper in each of the four corners.

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The stylish HP Photosmart Premium (valued at $299) is a full-featured e-All-in-One printer that boasts a 4.3-inch, full-colour touchscreen. With HP ePrint technology, this Energy Star® qualified printer enables you to print and share your favourite memories and photos, travel itineraries, concert tickets and other vital weekend essentials – anything that you can email – from anywhere in the world using your smartphone device by simply sending an email to the printer’s unique email address. Also access exciting and up-to-date HP PrintApps content without turning on your computer via the Photosmart Premium’s touchscreen. Get the kids ready for the weekend with jam-packed content from colouring in pages, puzzles, print at home books and craft activities from some of your childrens’  favourite characters including Disney, Sesame Street, Nickelodeon and Dreamworks.

As a part of this prize, HP is giving away tickets to Miley Cyrus in HP’s corporate box – the best seats in the house – if you live in Sydney. HP is giving 6 Kids in Australia readers (6 families of 3) tickets to the Miley Cyrus show in HP’s Corporate Box in Acer Arena, Sydney on Sunday 26 June 2011. Don’t forget to bring your smartphone to the show so you can print your photos directly to the printer after the show!

Enter HERE NOW

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My almost 11 month old is starting to get a confident—a little too confident if you ask me. She’s a climber, washing baskets, toys, chairs and worst of all the stairs. I’m the kind of mum who doesn’t “baby proof” with the exception of things that could seriously hurt my children I try to allow my kids to learn through experience. Something I’m learning through this process is that this type of parenting is so much easier with a cautious child.

Erin, my first child was a very sedate, wary child where as Abi is much more adventurous. Where Erin would sit back and avoid a particular situation Abi’s very gung-ho. Without a word of a lie I could leave Erin on our bed for her afternoon sleep without fear of her falling, in fact she didn’t fall out of bed until she was about two and excited about somersaults!

On the other hand, Abi’s a livewire. Even before she could roll she could cover distance just by thrashing about. There’s no way I could ever leave her on something like a bed unattended. This is something of a disappointment for me because one of the things I enjoyed most was being able to co-sleep with Erin at nap time.

I guess I could say that parents also learn through experience and boy what an experience this parenting thing has been! I had so many preconceived notions about parenthood before I had kids. There were so many things I was never going to do, now I look back and realise how naive I was. My illusions have been further shattered since Abi’s birth because I’ve suddenly realised how different one child is from another.

Has parenting been a wakeup call for like or has it been more or less what you’ve expected?

A former web-designer Bec is now a stay-at-home-mum to two wee girls trying to wrap her head around the idea of “domestic bliss” while jotting it all down in her mummy blog.

Find her on Twitter or Facebook

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As melodramatic as that may sound—and it is, I know it is—this is a big thing for me. I’m the person who told the world she was considering homeschooling because she could give her children a better, more personalised education than they would receive in a mainstream school when the truth was she just couldn’t let go. The idea that my little girl would be out in the world without maternal protection was too much. She’s too little, too sensitive, too sweet. She’s always had me or someone I implicitly trust to care for and shield her; I couldn’t dream of a world where that sensitive soul of hers would be subject to the elements and the cruelty the world can provide—there I go with the melodrama again.

Yes so, two weeks ago I let her go out into the big wide world of daycare. I watched her walk away from me without a backwards glance let alone a tear, to play with other children her age under the less than keen—as far as I’m concerned—observation of her teacher. A woman I’d met five minutes earlier.

There I stood for a moment longer than strictly necessary watching her head towards the sandpit—most of which came home in her hair—before I turned to leave with an ache in my heart and a tear stinging my eye. I didn’t cry though, I just pulled up my big girl undies and headed for the door. Of course I spent the rest of the day resisting the urge to call and ask how she was fairing, but that’s beside the point.

I had it all worked out in my head. She’d cry—just a little—at drop off and plead with me to stay and I would, for a little while so she could get settled in before sneaking off to start my day. At pick up she’d rush into my arms, pleasure at my presents evident in her smiling face, but it wasn’t to be. Instead, she had had such a good day that she was a little disappointed to be going home and was keen to come back.

My mum said to me before that first day, “pretty soon she won’t need you and I at all” and that’s how I felt—a little redundant, a little pointless. She’s moving forward in her life to a place where I don’t belong. That’s the way it should be, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt, just a little.

A former web-designer Bec is now a stay-at-home-mum to two wee girls trying to wrap her head around the idea of “domestic bliss” while jotting it all down in her mummy blog.

Find her on Twitter or Facebook

Are you the kind of person who enjoys reading reviews? Or do you prefer a more personal touch, with a more “bloggish” style so you can learn more about the authors life? Maybe you come here looking for information to make your life easier? Anyway, complete the following poll so I can get to know you a little better!

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Amid the constant mistakes and criticism—sometimes even from my four year old—one thing that I have learned is, despite being tired to the point of exhaustion and having no time, if you keep putting off your career you’ll never get back to it. I’ve also learned that two kids is a hell of a lot harder than just having one, especially when that one was an easy baby, but that’s a whole other story.

So here I am, back on the career path, but a different one than before. One that I’ve always imagined myself doing but was never game enough to try—maybe that was simply because I didn’t know where to start? My new career, that brings me to my point, more or less.

Over the next couple of weeks I’ll be setting off on my new career path and you guys will be coming along with me. You see my new career path is that of a writer, like I said before, this is something I’ve aspired to since I was a child sitting in my bedroom bashing away on my prize possession, a beige and red child size typewriter, creating stories about giants which I’d self publish with the stapler I’d promised to be trustworthy with. Alas, then there was the unfortunate incident when, somehow, a staple become lodged in my thumb, but we don’t talk about that.

All that’s history now, and here I sit before a laptop rather than a typewriter writing for a big Australian parenting website. How cool is that?

Just so you know what you’re getting yourself into here’s a bit about me.

Before my girls were born I worked as a freelance web designer which was something I enjoyed in the beginning but found it had run its course. I still do the occasional job on the side of parenting two gorgeous girls, Erin who is 4 years old and Abi who’s nearly a year old. My main claim to infamy is my personal blog Bad Mummy which I have been tending to for almost four years. I’m “big on Twitter” and some of you might know me as @badmummy but if you don’t know me never fear you will soon—assuming you hang around.

I’m really looking forward to getting to know you guys so drop by and say hi!