Kids - Our "Lovely Day" At Bedtime

Sometimes kids bedtime can be a real chore, and my children are at the age where nightmares are rife. I read somewhere that often nightmares are a result of kids seeing something during the day that they didn't understand, so in order to help with nightmare prevention and to have some nice "us" time, I came up with this idea, and my kids love it.

After story and milk time I turn off the light, sit on their bed and we talk about our "lovely day". Beginning from the moment we woke up right through to "and now we have had our story and we're talking about our lovely day and it's time to go to sleep. And wasn't that..." and the kids finish the sentence with "a lovely day!" This is a really, really enjoyable time for all of us, and it gives the kids a chance to ask questions about things that might have confused them. It also gives them a chance to really think about what they did (handy for us nosey mums who can't get anything more out of them on the way home from school than "what did you do today?" "can't remember"). I think this works best with younger kids (it's helping my youngest with his speech too) but I am hoping my kids never grow out of it because I really enjoy it, it gives us all a chance to wind down (and it doesn't even take half an hour) :-)

Welcome to my new blog!

I love my home, and I love my family, and I love things that can be done in a short amount of time. Big rewards in little time.

This is for all of you with only half an hour to spare. I will post regular ideas of things you can do in just half an hour, recipes, crafts, organization techniques… if it can be done in half an hour and it’s something to do with home and family, I will be posting it.

We are all so busy these days. There are not enough hours in the day to get everything done. But I think we can all find half an hour, once a day, once a week, once a month even and take pleasure out of creating, organising, and loving our homes.

Let’s just get one thing straight from the outset. I am no domestic goddess. My house is more often than not a messy chaotic place, with me spinning around in the middle of the carnage panicking about how to take control. But in all my years of striving for domestic perfection I have come across new ideas, and new ways of doing things. So this is where I will share what I do know and the new things I find. I’m not saying that I do them all (ha if I did my house might be less messy), but I would like to invite you to learn with me.

It’s a new blog so I don’t know where it will go as yet. I have spent two hours just fiddling around with the layout, changing fonts, trying to make it look pretty and nothing seems right. I wanted it to be perfect. This was when I came up with the first rule of The Half Hour Home: perfect is not the goal. If you can reach perfection in Half Hour then that is a great bonus, but striving for perfection is what puts most of us in a spin in the first place. So embrace the Half Hour ethos, and just put half an hour in and see what you get.

Happy home, happy heart. Enjoy!