Mindful Mondays...

Happy Mothers Day

Happy Mothers Day to all the Mummies out there.
 As both our Mamas are in Australia and New Zealand we are celebrating mothers day with them from afar. They are the original Yummy Mummies..
Thank you for being you, for your love, your care and for making us in to the Mummies we are today.

Mothers hold their children's hands for a short while, but their hearts forever.  ~Author Unknown


Lots of Love Mama Julie and Mama Helen

xoxo

Mindful Mondays...

Nameste! (That's Hindi for 'hello')

Hello All,  I have been very lucky to meet some amazing women since getting involved with Cuidiu the Irish Childbirth Trust. Kym is one of them, who last week e-mailed me with some brilliant photo’s from her trip to India. Kym has been doing some excellent work to raise money to help Sightsavers New Delhi.

I thought that I would share this with you and if you can I encourage you to support Kym’s fundraising efforts over at www.mycharity.ie. Kym recently travelled to India at her own expense to learn more about how blindness effects people’s lives there and I have posted a few photos from her trip too. To see all of Kym’s photos on flickr click here.

From Kym….

Nameste! (That's Hindi for 'hello')

India is an incredible country of contrasts.  Delhi is a very run down crumbling city surrounded by shanty towns and people living in tents made from plastic bags. Almost every pavement or kerb has someone living beside it, many children were shoeless, dirty, some half naked. Whilst there were many other ordinary families on the metro too. The caste system seems to perpetuate the acceptance of poverty in so many.  It makes it very hard to better oneself and the dowry system makes it very hard too, that's only my opinion from the people I met there.  We travelled to Agra to the Taj Mahal and if anything the poverty, filth and chaos was worse.

As you know I have been doing some fund-raising for the clinic we visited.  I am so amazed and thrilled at everyone's generosity.  Blindness is a devastating and debilitating disability to suffer in this unequal society and the work at this clinic goes some way to preventing this misery.

If you would like to donate and haven't had an opportunity yet my appeal is still 'live' and if you're not in a position to help, do please keep Sightsavers in mind for some other time. I have created a fundraising page on www.mycharity.ie. On it you can read a few words about the project.

www.mycharity.ie/event/kymberly_dunne-flemings_event/  

Click on the link and it should bring you to the page or Paste this URL into your browsers or search under my name on the website.  You can sponsor the project via credit or debit card. Even €5 goes a long way.

Sincere thanks to all that supported this Fundraising.

Children on the street outside the Hope Foundation

Patients in the Womens Ward

Patients in the MalesWard

Congratulations Kym on all the hard work,

love the Yummy Mummies and Jetsetting Babies xxx

Slurp it... new review for the Giddy Goose

The Giddy Goose Cafe was the first review we ever posted back in January '11, having recently read the review I have realised as our blog is not the only thing to have grown. The Giddy Goose was relatively new itself back then and it really seems to have completely found its feet this last few months. So here is a new review, a little more up to date and fitting to the Giddy Goose today...

This week the Giddy Goose is participating in Soup for Life - National Soup Week.

Soup for Life is a fun and positive campaign which urges everyone to sip some soup!
For every bowl of soup sold in the Giddy Goose this week, a donation of €1 will be made to Gorta

Donations will help the poorest families in Uganda secure a better future. The money raised will provide seeds, tools, livestock and training on nutrition and food security.

Good on ya Giddy Goose and I urge everyone to get down and support this campaign. Now for our review...


THE GIDDY GOOSE CAFÉ

A :     138-139 Lower Georges Street
          Dun Laoghaire

T :    (01) 2148634

The Giddy Goose... we go back to again and again, baby friendly you ask? Well Yes! How friendly you ask, well honestly you can't get much better. The staff are brilliant and the service is really fresh and friendly, there is always a helping hand with your buggie or baby. The coffee is consistently good (it is what has always kept me returning to the GG.) There are a couple of high chairs for the littlest ones and for slightly older kids with better dexterity and larger appetites the Giddy Goose has all sorts of treats from colouring pencils and toys for entertainment to delicious kids options on the menu. They even sell babychinos to complete the cafe experience for the youngsters. Ame loves the ginger bread men, pretty much for the tiny chocolate buttons. Beware it can get super busy on the weekends so it makes a little squishy for too many buggies! I can't say much about the food as I always order the same thing, very tasty eggs Florentine with a side of sauteed mushrooms and a sausage to share with Ame. The pastries are fresh daily and there are always very tasty homemade cakes in the counter. Overall we go back again and again because it is a lovely little place with a lot of character and a nice buzz to it for Yummy Mummy and Jetsetting Baby alike.

High chairs Y – 2

Baby Changing Y

Children’s Menu Y

Children’s Activities Y

Colouring, Puzzles, Blocks

Love Angi x

Happy World Book Day - A bit of nostalgia...

I have been thinking a lot lately about the way people in my life  have influenced me and more importantly the way the people in our lives influence our children. I posted before the anecdote… ‘When you thought I wasn’t looking’ by Connie Black. Children notice the smallest things, emotions, actions, tones, ideals and morals and they take these things through to their adult lives, consciously or otherwise.

As I sit here in Costa Coffee inside Easons book store in Dun Laoghaire the sun shine is oozing in the windows, there is the pleasant buzz of the coffee grinder and the subtle hum of the milk frother in the back ground a wave of nostalgia has hit. A distant memory came to light of my Aunty Liz taking me to a book shop with a café in it when I was young. I couldn’t’ tell you which bookstore(in Adelaide Australia somewhere I guess) or why we were there or what we ordered all I remember was that we were there together and I was having fun.

I was so lucky to be surrounded by cool Aunts and Uncles growing up. They all loved to read. They all took me to book stores and they all gave me books as I was growing up. Books that were challenging and interesting. Books that I didn’t understand, or thought that I understood until we started talking about it and their questions made me want to go back and read them again and get a different meaning out of the pages that hadn’t hit me the first time around. The reason I thought that I would share this bit of nostalgia is that tomorrow is World Book Day. I found myself asking the question 'where did my love of books come from?' I find myself with the desire to surround Amelie with book lovers, with people who can find a real adventure within a story, with people that can get lost in pages for days and days, with people who when they get on to a good read can not put it down for anything. I am one of these people, I love books and reading. I don’t care what Ame reads, as long as she reads. So I will surround her with books, with people who love to read, I will read to her, I will read with her, I will take her to libraries and I will definitely take her to book stores that have café’s hidden inside and I hope that I pass on the special gift I was given growing up. 

 

Happy World Book Day to Everyone,

Especially my Aunty Liz for taking me to book stores with cafés in them. My Uncle Mike for the Lord of the Rings and quizzing me on the Hobbit and my Uncle Paul for Dostoevsky, Hesse and for pushing me always to be better in my writing.

Love Angi x

For great tips on reading with your children check out this Facebook page. They post daily tips for creating a love of reading in little ones. Reading with Infants, Toddlers and Pre-schoolers and also give some excellent statisticss to keep us all focused on the importance of reading and early childhood education. The World Book Day web page has loads of online celebrations happening today to pop over and take a look http://www.worldbookday.com/