Word of the day

Diary....the girls have long watched me use my planner on a daily basis. And watched me evolve into memory planning (planning plus memory keeping). My biggest discovery during Covid-10 last year, was the TCMC community. TheCoffeeMonsterzCo has become my latest obsession to use in my planner. Helen (the wonderful creator) has the cutest emoti stickers. And my washi collection has grown considerably the last year. Well this week SweetieS asked me for a a lined notebook so she could start keeping a diary. Needless to say I was super happy that she has chosen to follow in mummy's footsteps (I still have all my diaries tucked away)

Since she had asked for a simple notebook I felt I needed to spruce it up a little. So I started with printing her a calendar to start of the month. And what better calendar than the freebie TCMC offers on their Facebook group? (this is the most amazing group, so I recommend joining if you need some sunshine in your life - doesn't hurt if you like planner and sticker though)

how cute is this calendar???

The cover design was chosen by the girls, both the flower (from a few I had picked out) and the foil color. I love how they turned out. Excited to see how long this hype lasts....

loving the foil

-Do you keep a diary?

Year of the Ox

 Happy Chinese New Year from our corner of the world.

Officially it's not until tomorrow..but the world needs a little joy these days. So this post goes up earlier. CNY 2021 we are celebrating entering the year of the Ox and bidding the year of the Rat good-bye!

 Wishing you and all around you a year of good health and prosperity! 

恭喜發財

Gong Xi Fa Cai

This year we will be celebrating even more modest than usual due to the pandemic still going on. CasaR will be gathered together around our hot pot as tradition dictates <3 

- how are you planning on celebrating CNY?

What goes around, comes around

Do good and good will come your way. Just a quote picked up from the packaging on my newest discovery, the Rituals of Karma interior perfume.

Every bottle lasts a long time when they come in 500ml bottles

The Rituals of Karma scent is one of my favorites. So now that it is release in the interior perfume I want to pick it up the next time I pass by the store. Still avoiding unneccessary shopping trips due to the Covid19 pandemic going around in the world. I know I could just order it online, but I like stroling thru the Rituals store. I recommend dropping by a Rituals store if possible, their stores are so nicely decorated giving a sense of calmness and peace. Did I mention they have a sale going on?

Now I’m just wondering when Rituals will release Ritual of Sakura in an interior perfume?

-do you have a Rituals scent favorite?

From our little corner

Ever since the Corona virus hit Norway earlier this month, the Norwegian government has put Norway “on pause”. Schools have been closed and those who can, work from home.. We have also been encouraged to social distancing and limiting human interaction as much as possible.

We are now in week 2 of the national lock down and things are still spinning. I see many  frustrated posts on social media about kids/youth/parents not respecting the need for social distancing to limit the spread of the Corona virus. With kids, it can be hard. The kids cannot sit inside all day watching tv and playing on the ipad. They need fresh air and movement. Luckily, the girls have each other to play with. I can’t imaging how the days a panning out for the only child…

SweetieS’ wonderful teachers have put together a daily plan for us to follow from home during these weeks. For SweetieL the day to day life is harder. While SweetieS is having “schooltime” there is not a plan for us to follow from her kindergarten. There is only so much fun in coloring, activity sheets, perler beads and games. Especially when we have to limit the noise, so SweetieS can concentrate on her schoolwork. Nevertheless we are getting thru the days…however slow they sometimes pan out.

The slow pace in our day-to-day life have made me appreciate the smaller things. Today I saw that my orchids have actually created sprouts! So maybe my fingers aren’t that brown after all. One can only hope.

not one, but two sprouts

I hear that many Norwegians are using the extra time at home to do some Spring-cleaning. We are just enjoying the low pased life before everything goes back to the normal stressful everyday life.

- how are you spending your days during the Corona season?
- what do you do to keep your kids occupied?

Book reports

Last week I attended a meeting with SweetieS school teacher. In the meeting we were discussing SweetieS progress in the different school subjects.

In the past year she has made good progress when it comes to reading and writing. But sometimes I feel SweetieS gets bored and doesn’t want to whether read or write. When the teacher showed me a few pages of stories they have been writing in class I got the idea of book reports. Using a creative way to combine reading and writing would hopefully keep SweetieS motivated.

Inspiration

This is a stamp I bought of Aliexpress, from this listing. But the stamped image will be to small for SweetieS to use as her hand writing still needs practice..and shrinkage if it is to fit inside this print.

As the concept of books reports have yet to be introduced in class yet, I made an example for SweetieS to reference. Writing a few lines in her own words about the story line in the book will make SweetieS both reflect over what she just read and describe the story line in her own words. Hopefully this will keep things interesting.

Been a while since I wrote a book report 

As for the rating of the books. We are going for a star system. We haven’t decided if we are going to just  color in the stamped stars or if we a using stickers. For now we will use the stamped stars as placeholders. The star stamp is an old Stephanie Bernhard stamp I've had for years (pre Stamps of life) so I don't remember the set it came in, but here you can use any small stamp you feel like. I ordered these star stickers of Aliexpress if SweetieS opts for stickers.

Me being big planner fan, of course I have made planners for my girls. For now these pages are inserted into SweetieS «training planner». It also holds pages for her to practice her writing. I just printed some pages I found on Pintrest. Like these.

-how do you keep your kids inspired when it comes to reading and writing?

-what pages does your kids have in their planner?