Me & You Keepsake book Winner Announced

Oh my goodness, picking a winner was so hard. Thank you so much everyone for sharing your beautiful memories, I loved reading through them, they made me all teary and mushy! Aren't daughters and mothers amazing! I finally have a winner (sorry it is a little late). But, I loved Caoimhe's entry about surprising her Mam! Beautiful. Made me want to do something similar for my own.

Caoimhe, can you please email me at yellowdandydreams@gmail.com with your mailing address so I can get the Me & You Keepsake book posted out to you. I hope you really love it, it is such a fabulous book!

Thank you again everyone, and I'm so sad that not everyone can win. But, remember you can get your hands on a book at www.meandyoubook.com

Podcast Episode 4: Cross Cultural Marriage and Living in Another Country

The forth episode of our podcast (Joel's and mine, our combined effort) is now live on iTunes. Yay!!

EPISODE 4: Cross Cultural Marriage & Tips on living in a different country

In this instalment we are talking about what it is like to be in a cross-cultural marriage  (he's the American, I'm an Aussie) and how no matter where you live, one, or both of you is always living in a different country to their homeland. Joel gives one or maybe more, it is hard to tell, tips on how to deal with living in a country that you didn't grow up in. We share some of our stories of our own experiences and have a good laugh while we are at it.

That is what this podcast is all about, just getting together and having a laugh at our expense!!

Like I have said before, you don't just have to sit at your computer and listen, the best way, is to get the Podcasts app on your iPhone (or equivalent for other types of phones) and download the episodes so you can listen to them when you are scrubbing the shower, or driving in the car, or going for a walk or while you are enjoying a nice glass of wine when the kids go to bed!!

If you SUBSCRIBE on iTunes then it will automatically download the new episodes onto your phone, so you wont miss any!

If you don't have iTunes, you can listen here too.

And of course if you want to, we would love for you to give us a quick review or rating on iTunes!

& Linking with Jess for #IBOT today too!

Have A Handmade Christmas

I love things that are handmade. I just think of the time and effort that has gone into making it so special. I know the many loving hours that it can take crocheting a blanket, designing jewellery or painting a picture. This weekend a friend and I ventured up to the big smoke (Perth), to visit a handmade market in Forrest Chase, Made On The Left. I like the name.. a lot! I love to try and support local, handmade artisans when I can. There are just so many talented people who are working really hard to make gorgeous hand crafted treasures, its really quite inspiring.

I picked up a couple of Christmas presents, and loved admiring the amazing work! Some that I will revisit when our house is finished, because I have nowhere to put too many lovely things yet, so I keep the in the back of my mind for later.

For now, I just oooh and ahh over these beautiful items, and (of course) share some of them with you!!

Taking Stock

Again, as always I am inspired by the lovely Pip at Meet Me At Mikes she is leading the way in taking stock, and so I decided to join in. I love the idea of taking stock! Of taking the time just to sit and reflect about where I am right now, so this week I am playing along. Taking some time out.. and tacking stock. I've had a busy day in the city, it was fun, but I'm exhausted. It is nice just to do something a bit different though. 

Making : Pom Poms, lots of them
Cooking :Only the basics, I've lost my cooking mojo
Drinking :  Fifth Leg, wine.
Reading: Nothing, I feel like I have no time to read
Wanting: Our house to hurry up and get finished
Looking: At Pinterest, inspiration for the house coming out of my ears.
Playing: The National.
Deciding:  Christmas presents, so glad we are doing Secret Santa again this year
Wishing:  I had unlimited time and funds to decorate our new house
Enjoying:  The summery nights and days
Waiting: To see how many people listen to our Podcast! Please listen!
Liking:Having a fun little venture to do with my husband (podcast)
Wondering: If my baby girl's cough is just a cough, or something more serious
Loving: My new necklace from Made on The Left, by Miscii
Pondering: How to make it onto the iTunes New and Noteworthy feature page
Considering: Cutting my hair short (like shoulder length) and going red again
Watching: Just watched 'The Way Way Back' movie. Love it, so much
Hoping:For more than 4 hours sleep at a time.
Marvelling: How well Willow is taking to solid food, she is loving it
Needing: Someone to come and clean my house, I just never seem to get it all done
Smelling: The sweet salty sea air.
Wearing: My maternity shorts still, hopefully not for much longer
Following: My classmates from Blog With Pip's great blogs! So many new ones to discover.
Noticing: Ezra's language skills improving every day, its amazing to listen to him!
Knowing: That I need to make the effort to get to bed earlier, but it never seems to happen.
Thinking: I need to go to bed
Feeling: Tired, but happy for a really great day. I love weekends
Admiring: All the pretty baby nurseries on Pinterest, makes me want the perfect one.
Buying: Toys, duplo and Octonauts related items
Getting:Excited about Joel having a month off over Christmas.
Bookmarking: Canva, I am using it almost every day for my blog.
Opening: A fresh tube of Natio moisturiser, the young one, the only one I like.
Giggling: Joel's story on our latest podcast about the crazy petrol station! Still makes me chuckle.
Feeling: Pretty lucky that these are my biggest worries and concerns in life. Its a good life, it really is. 

Do you like to take stock too? 

5 Easy Toddler Lunch Ideas: That don't involve sandwiches

Some days I really struggle with ideas to make toddler lunches more exciting! If you are like me, sometimes the easiest meal for toddlers for lunch are sandwiches. We love our toasties in this house, a good old cheese, ham and avocado toastie (jaffle) is always a winner. But, on the fifth day in a row of having a toastie, I'm starting to feel that this lunchtime thing is getting a little redundant!!

So, I decided to put together this little post, and share some of the toddler recipes and ideas I already have in one nice little easy to find place!

Change is as good as a holiday

So, you might notice that things look a little different around here. I felt that it was time for a bit of a change! I made a nice new little header, which personally I really like, to toot my own horn just a little bit! I was getting so sick of looking at my old header, although Joel told me immediately that he misses the car, probably because it holds all those memories of our dear old Dandy. Maybe I'll incorporate it again some how, we will see.

In the process of updating I had to deal with major glitchy blogger and not being able to change any fonts or do anything with my new template, so I had to strip everything back to the bare bones. It was probably a bad idea to try to rush through it during the kids nap time, but I'm not sure when else I would have gotten the chance! Life is too busy sometimes.

can you believe she fell asleep here? Who is this girl!

Anyway, I made it this far. It's feeling better to me, but you'll probably continue to notice some changes as I keep getting little pockets of time to work on things make it cleaner and freshen it all up! It is just a bit fun to learn how to change things around and create something new!!

I hope you like it!!! x

Me & You, the Keepsake Book & Giveaway

{Firstly, wow what a great response to our first podcast episode, my nerves have been (somewhat) relieved, so Thank You to everyone who listened and gave us such great feedback! It really is appreciated so much}

Today, I have such a lovely book to share with you. When I first saw this book I really was taken aback at how gorgeous it was, and how many loving hours must have gone into creating something that is so beautiful and so personal.

In the kitchen with toddlers: Cheese & Vegemite Roll Ups

So, every time I go into the kitchen at the moment it is quickly followed by a little squeaky 2 year old voice demanding 'me help, me help' followed then by the screeching sound of a chair being slowly dragged over the tiles towards the kitchen bench. So, he like many toddlers loves to help in the kitchen, which is awesome (sometimes) and he wants to participate, which I love (sometimes), and I really don't want to make him feel disheartened and squash his love for helping me or making things in the kitchen.  So, in the limited time I have, I've been trying to make some really simple recipes with him, that mean he can actually help, we can have some good quality time and he can learn some simple skills as well!