Father's day is just around the corner

Me and my dad circa 1976

Let's face it. Dads can be tough to shop for. You've given him a tie he never wears for the past ten years in a row, but it's hard to come up with something he'll actually like...and use. Here are a few ideas just in time for June 15th...

Food

All men love bacon, right? Why not bake him this bacon & corn bread (found on Pinterest, of course) for breakfast on Father's Day? 

250g bacon, diced
2.5 cups all purpose (cake) flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tbspn sugar
1 tsp salt
4 large eggs
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 cup milk
1 can whole corn kernels (drained)
1/2 can cream style sweetcorn
1 cup cheddar cheese, grated

Beer

What better than bacon, but beer. Craft Beer Connect offers packages of craft beers in prices ranging from $30 to $60. 

“Do not cease to drink beer, to eat, to intoxicate thyself, to make love, and celebrate the good days.” — Ancient Egyptian proverb

Tools

I'll admit it. Tools aren't really my thing. But my husband, he gets pretty excited over a new tool... possibly even as excited as I get about organizing a closet. So why not just go the easy route and get him a gift card to Home Depot, or even better, to your local hardware store. Then give him the gift of a few hours of free time when he can go poke around the store on his own. 

What are you getting the men in your life for father's day? Do you have a traditional gift that you give each year or do you try to switch it up every year? 

A week away

We are just back from a fantastic week away in the Lake District. It's the first time we've been away since we had kids where we haven't been staying with friends and family in the US or London and we were pretty excited to throw down some new ground rules before we got there.  

1) No television

This was easy as we told the kids the television was broken. We read A LOT of stories, particularly Beatrix Potter as one of our main days out was going to the museum:

Finn searching for Mr Todd

2) No phones except to check in when we had reception

This was easy, we hardly had reception.

3) No internet

This was easy as again, we hardly had any reception. I also feel like I gained more time in my day by not stalking the BBC News website or Facebook. Plus, who needs a computer when you can kick back like this?

Just chilling

4) Parents were not allowed to say "2 minutes" when the children asked for their attention. The kids LOVE this rule. We have to pay them 5 pence if we say "2 minutes," but with no chores to do, emails to read or clothes to wash, we came back with all our change!

5)  Do something different

Now that we are done with strollers, we have been anxious to start bigger adventures with the kids. It turns out, they both enjoy the hills as much as we do. They were both so proud of themselves, I thought they were going to cry.  

Reaching Alcock Tarn

We climbed the first hill on our 10 year wedding anniversary and laughed how silly we were thinking we'd be back in Mauritius in 10 years to celebrate. We wouldn't have traded this for anything!

Top of Helm Crag

After a mini break from real life, I always come back recharged with great plans how I am going to parent better. For the record, it took until this morning at 8:30am as I heard myself shouting "Hurry up you two! We are going to be LAAAAAATE!" that I was back to my usual love and life moments...

Birthday partying again

Holy cow, how did I get a six year old? Our big girl turned six this past week and true to form, she had a very specific idea about what she wanted for her birthday party. Last year she wanted a Mermaid Party so we created this invitation together. The year before that when she turned four we all had a blast with this Wizard of Oz party. This year she wanted her very own American Girl Doll party. As much as I am all about the parties, I did try to convince my almost-six-year-old lady that maybe this was the year we move away from the big bash and suggested she invite a few close friends to come to the American Girl Doll store with us instead. She was having none of that silly suggestion. So, ahead with the doll party plans we went and came up with this little invitation. 

The weather forecast was for a washout on Saturday, but luckily the sun came out and it ended up being a beautiful afternoon. The party was fairly low-key if you can call it that with 17 little girls running around the yard. We made these bracelets for girls and dolls alike.

Other highlights from the day include:

mini snacks and pink lemonade,

a game of musical chairs with dolls in hand,

and a splurge on a delicious cake from a local bakery!

And here is one last shot of the birthday girl with her girls!

It's all about me... at least for a few hours a week

Happy Mother's Day to all you Mommas out there! Sorry to be a day late, but well... I'm a mom and the weekend was busy with taking care of kids and entertaining a house full of people. This Mother's Day reminded me of how incredibly blessed I am to have these three little ladies in my life. They are little bundles of just plain awesome. The cards, messages and live shows they put on for me to make sure I had the absolute best day were just perfect. 

One of my favorite mother's day messages

Mother's Day this year also reminded me of something else. I am one very grateful and very tired momma. I'm not complaining. Really, I'm not, but I just think it is time that I acknowledge the fact and stop pretending that I'm not. As I'm closing in on my eldest's sixth birthday (tomorrow!) I realize that it has been six years since I have had consistent, uninterrupted sleep. Sure, there were short spells here and there where my older two started sleeping well, but mostly I was in my third trimester of pregnancy during those times so I'm not sure that really counts as good sleep. 

My point in all this isn't just to complain. Just to remind myself and all moms out there to give ourselves a break. Take time to relax both with our kids and on our own. Starting now, I am going to try to find two hours a week to do something relaxing. I'm a lucky lady that my family is close by so I do have lots of help looking after my children. But let's face it, usually I'm running around like crazy trying to fit in a quick run, grocery shopping for the week, and any other errands that might be easier without kids. 

So now comes the fun part. I need a plan. What are things I can do that are relaxing? So far I've come up with: reading a book at the beach, reading or writing at a local coffee shop, getting a massage or pedicure. Maybe I should add napping to the list in light of how exhausted I seem to be. This two hours of me time might sounds incredibly selfish, but I really do think it will make me a better mom. And the biggest "rule" of this relax time is no guilt. This one is tricky for me. I find myself feeling guilty every time I leave my kids and no matter what the situation feeling rushed to get back to them. This adds a stress which basically defeats the whole purpose and makes it impossible to return relaxed. So, I repeat NO GUILT. 

What do you do to relax and unwind from your busy schedule? Do you schedule "me time" as I'm proposing to do, just try to fit it in when you can, or are you thinking what is me time and who does this crazy woman think she is? If you do try to take some time for yourself, what are your favorite and most relaxing things to do? Please share... I need some ideas!

Save the Date

Since the Minnetyan girls are all married off now, well at least the first generation, I nearly forgot we do wedding stationery. That was, until a friend of ours got in touch looking for some Save the Dates for their big day. We love doing Save the Date cards almost more than birth announcements because they are such a great way for a couple to really show their personalities. We have only a few on the website because we have found this is one area that people like their cards to be as individual as they are. Here are a few of our favorites:

Graffiti

Photo Booth

Portrait

Seaport

Another great way to make the most of your save the date is to include text on the back with any information you would like your guests to know about well in advance. These are just a few samples of what we have done. We would love to help make your Save the Dates something the guests are sure to remember! 

Please contact sona@loveandlifecards.com to get your custom save the date design started.

Fast chicks 5K 2014!

Love and Life is a stationery company and therefore our main focus and passion is designing well... stationery, obviously! But every once in a while it's fun to change things up a bit and dabble in graphic design for other formats. So this year we were excited to be asked again to design the The third annual Fast Chicks 5K t-shirt. The Fast Chicks 5K is an all women's race and it is happening this Saturday—May 3rd! 

Here is a sneak peak at this year's shirt:

Each year the Fast Chicks 5K focuses fund raising efforts on a different community or women-based charity. This year's race benefits The Wellspring House in Gloucester, Massachusetts. The Wellspring House mission is to empower individuals and families to live more secure lives through basic needs assistance, education and job training. For more information on their mission, you can visit wellspringhouse.org.

The original cut off date for registration to be guaranteed a shirt was last week, but the word on the street is that there are still a few shirts up for grabs so go to www.fastchicks5k.org right now to join in the fun and get your Fast Chicks 2014 shirt!

And don't forget to bring your little ones to join in the second annual kid's fun run at 10:30. All ages are welcome. Participants in the fun run are being asked to bring a non perishable food item to be donated to the ACORD food pantry. 

Come join the fun and support two great causes—The Wellspring House and the ACORD food pantry! 

I'm NOT done making my kid's childhood magical

There was a recent Huffington Post blog titled "I'm Done Making My Kid's Childhood Magical" that has been making the rounds on social media. You may want to click on the link and read it before I mount my soapbox. I thought it was rather funny and agreed with the author on many points, but it unsettled me at the same time. Clearly, with over 700K likes on Facebook, it resonates with mothers everywhere, but I wonder if anyone else feels the same as I do about it. It turns out, I am happy being the wizard behind the curtain in my children's magical lives, and am far from ready for that to change.

These last two weeks have made me think a lot about this article as it was Finn's 4th Birthday, Easter, and we had our first visit from the tooth fairy. Let's start with Finn's 4th Birthday. The author has a good rant over the perfect birthday parties planned to perfection and shared on social media. OK, hands up, this is us. We are a stationery company and rather like themed stationery to match our customers "perfect" birthday celebrations and then like to brag about it on our blog. Maybe I have some genetic defect, but I don't see the parental pressure there. Finn didn't want a party this year, so we took our birthday party savings and went to Legoland for his big day (apparently theme parks are another no no so I have still managed to commit a faux pas). If he is too young to remember as the author suggests, I don't really care. I was there, I have photos, and I also know he (and we all) had an amazing birthday.

Finn pointing to the Lego Big Bad Wolf in the Story book boat ride

Whether your parents played with you or not, whether you had a lot of presents or not, Santa still came, the tooth fairy still came and the Easter Bunny still came. You don't need to spend a fortune on anything over the top, in fact, this year, we spent all of 1 pound each on an Easter Egg for Rebecca and Finn. They had a lot of chocolate gifts and cards from family and friends, so we just gathered all that up and left their usual trail to their Easter baskets and voila, "The Easter Bunny's been!"

Say Chocolate!

We have friends who host an annual Easter party, and I marvel at her gorgeous party bags and favors and enjoy taking part in the elaborate games and competitions. Guess what? It's fun. Before you ask what it's all about, I blogged about it last year. Do I feel pressured to do the same at my parties? No, but I will probably steal one of her ideas for our future parties. (They had photos from the previous 4 years parties playing on the television.)

And lastly, one first tooth jar £3…a coin for the first tooth £2...the tooth fairy's visit…priceless:

Tooth Fairy Jar bought almost a year ago by Rebecca in anticipation

You can't see said tooth in this picture, but check out the excitement!

As for playing with my kids, to be honest, I wish I did more of it. I tend to dip in and out when they are playing to cook dinner or load the laundry. But now that Spring is here, I do take great pleasure in opening the door and kicking the kids out in the backyard which is pretty much where all my childhood memories live.

Just as every child is different, so is every parent. I celebrate my friends strengths, whether it be the time they spend doing crafts, or baking, or playing with their kids, or taking them to all their activities. I am in awe everyday and proud to call them my friends. And if they share it on social media, I am glad to see how and what they are filling their busy lives with…and you never know, it may just rub off on me.

What about you? Feeling the pressure or perfectly happy to do your own thing? We'd love to hear your view!