Everything's Famtastic

July 7, 2019June 26, 2021

The Half-Year Growth Check-Up

Hey everybody! There is an electricity in the air around here. Can you feel it too? No, we don’t live underneath one of those really tall, high-voltage transmission towers 😉. I’m talking about the summer school holidays countdown! Have the school hols already kicked off where you are? We have 5 school days left and counting…

Did you see the long list full of FAMtastic ideas for the summer holidays I posted last week? Have you tried any of them yet? Or have you made your own “To Do List” for holiday fun?

I need to sit down with our 3 kiddos and make up our own personalised “bucket list” for these school holidays. Because I can tell you now, as much as I am looking forward to having lots of fun times with the kids, we will NOT be ticking off ALL of the 61 suggestions from last week’s list! We have however, already started experimenting with making ice cream 😉 based on a Donna Hay recipe. Oh my, how my children are currently infatuated with our @donna.hay cookbook…

Coconut, raspberry, choc chip ice cream. Delish!

I don’t know whether you remember, but at the start of the year I wrote about setting goals for GROWTH for myself for this year. Not drunken New Year’s resolutions, but real goals that I plan to achieve by year’s end. And given that the year is already half done with, I thought it was about time I gave myself a review. If you set yourself some goals for this year too, I hope that you are straight up rocking them! Me? Hmm…

June 30, 2019June 21, 2024

Mega List of 61 Super Summer Boredom Busters for Kids

school holidays, summer holidays, tips, parenting, kids, boredome busters

Woo hoo! Summer has really been showing off this past week in Germany (and much of Europe, actually)! We’ve had temps up in the high 30s (around 100F). Reminds me of being back in an Australian summer. How’s the weather been in your part of the world?

I am constantly being asked how I feel about the hot weather here, while many of my compatriots (well, not really, because I am not a German citizen so that word is technically not correct. But I can’t think of a better one… “fellow inhabitants of Germany” isn’t quite as catchy 😉). Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, I am constantly being asked how I am coping with the weather while many of those around me seem to be flustered, sweaty and melting. FYI- I’m all good 😉.

These past weeks I have been celebrating some of the exciting things I love about spring and summer; like strawberry season and enjoying the outdoors. And yes, we are still eating our boundless strawberry products. Can’t get enough! *nom nom*.

Since summer holidays are a HUGE deal for kids at this time of year, what a great idea it would be if only there was a long list of fantastic things to do during the school holidays. No more “Mamaaaaa I’m so boooooooored!”. Right?!? Well, drumroll please…

June 23, 2019June 26, 2021

Get Outdoors and Savour the Summertime

Hey! Just like I promised last week. Here I am, back again! For a multitude of reasons I really needed that week’s break. But it was good for me. Now I can share with you all the good stuff that has been keeping me so busy these past weeks!

The sun has been shining here, with a few gorgeously puffy clouds gently sweeping across the blue skies. And we have been having lovely summery temperatures which I have been hankering for for months now (well, except for the 5 week break in Australia over Christmas 😉). But not counting that…

Now, I don’t know about you, but all this amazing weather makes me want to skip and twirl and grin wildly in the sunshine. Of course there are always the complainers who bemoan that at 25 degrees is it already “too hot”. Me? I’m just getting started!

I thought that it could be fun to share a few of the things that we have been doing around here these past couple of weeks. Perhaps you will find a couple of ideas that you and your family could try out now that the warmer weather and longer daylight hours are here (in the northern hemisphere at least). Or maybe it will inspire you to get outside and discover your own adventures!

So, summer days, here we go…

June 9, 2019June 26, 2021

The Sweetest Season of All- Strawberry Season

Hooray! This week’s Everything’s Famtastic post is brought to you from a germ-free household! This is very exciting news, let me tell you. If you have no idea what I am talking about, you ought to go back and read my post from last week talking about how our family was knocked over one after the other like a set of bowling pins with a stomach virus. But healthy we are and here I am!

We are still finding and ridding our garden of strips of glittery streamers and pieces of confetti leftover from the confetti bomb my daughter and her friends gleefully enjoyed at her party last Saturday (see also, last week’s post here).

It’s wonderful that we are all healthy, because that means we can get doing things outdoors. Like soaking up the Vitamin D-filled sunshine… Like having spontaneous waterbomb fights over the hedge with the neighbours… Like taking advantage of the season and picking strawberries!!!

I might still have some adjustment issues with being an Australian expat living in Germany. Sure, a few months back I even posted about some of my personal difficulties of living an expat life here. But I’ll tell you what, I have totally found my groove when it comes to Erbeerzeit in this country.

You seriously have NO IDEA how much I love strawberries.

June 2, 2019June 26, 2021

Fab Fathers, Giggling Girls & Irksome Illness

Willkommen again to the weekly entertainment and information session that is Everything’s Famtastic.

I thought that this week I would give a shout out to all the German Papas out there. A couple of weeks back, I wrote about Mother’s Day, with a big, warm virtual hug for all you Mamas.

But now it is the men’s turn. Or at least those who live in Germany (Sorry to you Australian, American, Canadian, English… dads). Father’s Day was celebrated in Germany this past week. On a Thursday, no less. And Father’s Day- or Men’s Day as the non-parent males would claim- is an entirely different thing to most other countries’ way of celebrating fathers. So, Alles Gute zum Vatertag to all those fathers out there doing their best for their kids! I hope that your children thank you and appreciate all you do! To Hubby: we love you very much and thank you for all you do for us!! xx

Allow me to fill you in though, about our week of things (including Father’s day) going not quite to plan. Aha! Also the perfect opportunity for us mamas to show just how tolerant, unshakeable and adaptable we can be. Maintain a positive attitude and all that, right?!?

May 27, 2019June 26, 2021

How to Make Easy Money Selling Your Old Stuff

Another Sunday, another post here in Everything’s Famtastic. I know last week’s post was pretty heavy going. What, with talking about cornea transplants and pirate eye patches and such. By the way, my eyeball had the doctors raving with excitement at my check-up last week 😉.

This week I thought I ought to write something different! Something positive, motivating and hopefully really helpful. And let’s be honest, who doesn’t like to feel encouraged and nudged along sometimes?

Of course, at times a swift kick up the butt is needed to get things done! But today I was aiming more for the inform-and-inspire method of helping you to get the most out of a great opportunity to make some quick money. No, this is not one of those get-rich-in-a-scandalous-way-pyramid-type schemes.

I’m talking about selling your old stuff that you don’t need or want anymore!

declutter, easy money, sell your old stuff, spring clean, flea market — Now what to do with all this?!?

I spoke to a bunch of family and friends who have sold household items, clothes, books and more; between them they have sold at dozens of garage sales, flea markets and also online. And now I share with you, dear reader, their best advice on how to prepare well and how to make your sale successful!

May 20, 2019June 26, 2021

Anniversary of a Transplant

Hello World! Everything’s Famtastic is here! I hope that all is well in your part of the world, wherever that may be.

Looking in the calendar this past week I really just noticed how quickly this year is flying by. I think that’s a grown-up thing, right? As a kid it feels like you wait sooo looong for everything but as an adult *poof* and another year is over.

And then I realised something else. A couple of days away marks the one year anniversary since I had my cornea transplant. And that is even more unbelievable than how quickly the flowers have been blooming this spring!. A whole year since I received the ultimate gift: a cornea from an anonymous donor. ONE YEAR!

I talked about the subject of organ and tissue donation a while back here. I wondered whether any of you out there who might be needing a transplant of some sort just needed to hear that someone else has gone through such surgery and come out stronger on the other side.

Given that my own anniversary of being a recipient is coming up, I thought it might be interesting to share with you a bit more about my personal experience (skipping the more graphic details, I promise 😉).

May 12, 2019June 26, 2021

Mothers are Monumental

Hello Everybody! Last week I celebrated my 40-something birthday and I am not sure where in the world you are reading this from, but for me, today is Mother’s Day! Lucky for me, the sun is shining here, the kids are behaving, and all is good in my world 😊.

I know that Mother’s Day is not celebrated by every country on the same day. I know that my friends in England already had their Mother’s Day for the year. But plenty of other countries are celebrating today too. And making it completely convenient for expat me, is the fact that both Australia and Germany celebrate Mother’s Day today, the second Sunday in May. That means no mix-ups within our family and no excuses like “Ohhhh, I thought we were celebrating on the German Mother’s Day not the Australian one…” 😉.

Not only have my 3 beautiful, energetic and sweet children been extra lovely today and made it a special day. My dear Hubby too, of course (thank you very much for that massage gift voucher. I’ll happily take care of that!!). I also have another reason to smile today. I have some new babies in my life…

May 5, 2019June 26, 2021

Birthday Like a Grown-Up

Well hello, hello and hello again to you all! So nice to have you here. I can happily report that my antibiotic days are over and my tonsillitis has made a full retreat. Thank goodness! I hope that you are staying healthy as the season is changing over at this time of year.

For me here in the northern hemisphere we are drifting through spring, hopefully progressing towards a very warm, sun-filled summer. Which in our part of Germany is certainly not guaranteed! I know of at least one summer since I arrived here that not one single day was over 30°C (86°F). Which for an Australian girl like me was essentially an oxymoron in the definition of summer.

There are 2 big things that I really enjoy about May in the northern hemisphere. The first is that Spring is in full swing (hey, that rhymes!). And the second is that my birthday is coming up! What’s not to love about Spring flowers and birthdays? Wouldn’t you agree?!?

April 28, 2019June 26, 2021

What to do When You’re Sick (and Why It’s So Important)

Hello everybody! Good to have you here! Many countries around the world celebrated Easter last weekend and most children have been home from school for a week or 2. Did you have a nice Easter? If you have children, have you all been busy enjoying the school holidays? Got any chocolate left? 😉

Our holidays have been pretty good. I wrote last week about (amongst other things) the almost non-stop entertainment our daughters were enjoying. What, between cooking classes and church groups and parties and sleepovers, I hardly saw them at all in the week leading up to Easter!

Our Easter weekend itself was lovely. Plenty of gloriously warm sun and blue skies, making the outdoor Easter egg hunt an urgent affair. Take too long to look for your eggs and you would have ended up with a basket of hot chocolate! We went a-visiting (to my mother-in-law) for a couple of days and then back home received our own visitors (from my Australian family) for a couple of days. A perfect weekend all round, if I do say so myself!

Remember how I had been fantasising about enjoying some good quality dark chocolate (which I did indeed receive 😉) and a glass of chilled sauvignon blanc? Yes? Just one stumbling block though…