7 Favourite Gifts We've Given Mum

Now obviously we would always give our mum one of our hampers or maybe even a mix of a few of our hampers but if we picked just one of our gifts that she would love it would have to be:

1. Wine and Treats Gift Hamper - although we would switch out the bottle of red for another bottle of white as mum doesn't drink red wine but everything else in this hampers is totally her! It's even better when we're with her and get to (hug her) help her eat the yummy goodies!

Wine and Treats Gift Hamper

2. Along with an 'actual' gift, something she can open on Mother's Day, how about taking your mum out somewhere or, if you can't be with her, make a booking for her and dad (or a friend) at a local restaurant and include the details in the gift tag or mother's day card you send her. There are a couple of favourites for mum that we've been to over the years plus the local bowls club has a great all you can eat buffet which is great value. This also means everyone's stuffed themselves silly so no dinner is needed, well maybe just cheese on toast :-)

Book your mum a cruise - she'll LOVE it!

3. A real splurge gift could be a cruise! Our mum loves cruising, as do we, so we are always looking for a bargain. We generally look on OzCruising. There are many short cruises, 2-4 days, which could be just perfect for your mum. Cruising is such a great choice for a relaxing holiday as you can choose how active (or not) you want to be BUT the BEST thing is NO COOKING or CLEANING or MAKING BEDS, did I mention NO COOKING, it's breakfast, lunch and dinner out ever day! You could either try and find a cruise that is on over Mother's Day or just one that you can afford and you know your mum will be able to go on. This could be a whole family gift and holiday or could just be for you and your mum or your mum and dad. Pick who you think she'd love to cruise with. If it's a friend, contact them and see if they'd love to go on a cruise and if they'd be able to pay for themselves. I bet they'd love it!

4. If you're a bit tight on cash but still want your mum to know how special she is to you send her a card with a gorgeous photo of you and her or a hilarious, funny photo of you and your siblings. Maybe a photo from a holiday or day out that you and your kids took - mum's always love photos of their grandkids! There are plenty of places online to order photos or even a photobook or just visit Officeworks, Kmart or often your local chemist will have photo machines. You could even just print them out on your own printer at home, this is what we did last year and mum absolutely loved the photos!

5. Groupon is another great place to look for something fun and different for your mum. You can either buy an actual gift or organise a 'fun' activity. My mum gets a bit nervous now when I ever mention the words 'fun activity' as the last 'fun' activity I planned with her wasn't a great success, although we can laugh about it now :-) I won't go into details just to say mum hates heights and I booked a bridge climb! Number one daughter right there!

6. A phone call is always a winner and now with facetime no matter where you and your mum are you can spend some of her special day together. Maybe don't call her first thing in the morning, unless of course she's an early riser, let her get her 'face' on first :-) I've saw an ad on TV just recently for Ovo mobile, plans from just $10/month - another gift idea for your mum (or dad) maybe? Then she has no reason to not be available when you need her!

Medium Sweet Tooth Gift

7. Our mum doesn't have a huge sweet tooth (I know right, how is that even a thing?!) but she does still enjoy a red frog or a chocolate freckle every now and then. I regularly send her a medium sweet tooth box, making sure her favourites are front and centre, and always give her one on Mother's Day. She then hides it aways so dad can't get to it. He says he's not a sweet tooth either (I know, I think I must be adopted) but whenever there is a box of chocolates around dad's never too far away!

Whatever you choose to give your mum this Mother's Day don't stress about the 'dollar' value, it's all about making memories and celebrating her being your mum. Facetime her while you're both eating a box of chocolates, send her a text with a funny photo of her, plan a surprise trip away, whatever you do your mum will love it almost as much as she loves you. You are her favourite after all ;-)

Games, Roadtrips and Moving

Sometimes it is all fun and games. Just after Easter my family and I headed up to Noosa for a couple of days. It was a bit of a break from the every day as well as a visit to the cemetery to see Grandpa and organise our Grandma's plaque. It was hard to have a reflective moment at the cemetery as where Grandpa's plaque is there are also about a gazillion mozzies. We all had to jump around while paying our respects, taking photos and getting measurements for Grandma's plaque. Sombre is wasn't and I'm sure Grandpa would have found it quite amusing!

Learning on our Noosa Roadtrip

We popped into a cheapy shop to see what games they had and found a few crackers. They were mini traditional games, we ended up with Monopoly, Cluedo and Mastermind as well as a pretty groovy Hangman. Cluedo ended up being a BIG hit, hangman was a close second, my sister and I liked Mastermind but you had to use your brain too much for the kids and Monopoly is well, Monopoly, it takes forever whether it's in mini format or not. My sister lasted one circuit of the board before she was bored! Cluedo is a game I had back in the day and it's always been a great board game, especially now the kids are older and understand the concept of it although I think it was still a little tricky for master 10. So if you're ever in the Reject Shop look for these little games, they were $3 each and well worth it. We're planning on getting a couple more as there's Game of Life and Yahtzee, two more games we've enjoyed in the 'big' format.

The kids couldn't wait long enough for me to take a photo - Nutella Pizza

One night we had dinner at the resort we were staying at, woodfired pizzas! For dessert the kids wanted to try a Nutella Pizza - now as you know I am a big sweet tooth but ever this seemed a bit over the top for me. It's not something I would ever order again but the kids loved it! It was VERY sweet but was helped a lot when we added a scoop of chocolate choc chip icecream we had back in our room. Yes, we'd gone to the supermarket to stock up on the essentials!

Three days away was well needed and I *tried* not to think about work at all and give myself a complete break from Rainbow Designs. It's been such a hard slog for such a long time that I was in desperate need of a time out from it. I'm back into again and have, again, been working behind the scenes as well as blogging and FBing. Orders are low and so far there hasn't been any Mother's Day orders come in. Traditionally I have found that it is generally only a week or so before Mother's Day that they really start to come in so I'm hoping that again that is the case. My bills haven't stopped coming in so I can't afford my orders to stop coming in!

Sweet and Savoury Hamper - $95 including delivery and gift card

Our distribution warehouse has recently moved from Hawthorn in Victoria to the Gold Coast in Queensland - no disruptions were had and I don't expect anything to change with the possibility of some new hampers and a few updates to a couple of our current hampers. So far everything is as fabulous as it always has been so I'm really hoping for a boost in sales. These bills won't pay themselves unfortunately! Talking about bills I'm looking at changing over my mobile from Amaysim to Ovo and possibly cancel my Telstra internet and also go with Ovo. Has anyone had any experience with Ovo? I think they're only fairly new. (I did notice they were on the HSV cars at Phillip Is on the weekend) They run on the Optus network, same as Amaysim.

Back to it, with a cuppa in hand and a sneaky Easter egg I hid at the back of the freezer, ssshhhh don't tell anyone.