Life With Tiny Humans

Here are my Summer reading tips & ideas for kids who love it, kids who sometimes like it and kids who’d rather do literally anything else 🫣🫠
Supporting your child’s literacy over the summer doesn’t have to mean worksheets and battles at the kitchen table. As a mom of three boys—each with very different abilities and enthusiasm for reading—I know there’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to keeping literacy going over the holidays.
One of mine reads nonstop, one’s only recently started reading independently after a slow and steady climb, and one needs extra support and encouragement every step of the way.
So over the summer, we focus on simple, fun ways to keep the brilliant skills they’ve worked so hard on during the year from slipping away—because that dreaded summer slide is real! 😅
Here are some of the things that work for us:
📖 A reading challenge using Accelerated Reader points as a target (yes, I use ChatGPT to make quiz questions to check if they’ve actually read the book 😅)
🎧 Audiobooks and the Yoto player for listening skills, comprehension and calming quiet time
🎲 Board games like Cluedo, Guess Who, and even Pokémon and Match Attax cards—all of them involve reading in sneaky, low-pressure ways
🐣 Reading Eggs – perfect for reluctant readers when you sit and play alongside them
📚 Weekly library trips and joining the Summer Stars reading programme
🖊 Wipeable boards, fancy markers, and LCD tablets to make writing fun, not a chore
Save this post and Comment “READ” below and I’ll send you my full list of easy, fun ideas to keep literacy alive over the summer!

I tracked every cent we spent on food and household bits this week as a family of five… and I am actually shook 😳

In my head, I thought we were spending around €250 a week.

The actual total?

€342.04

That’s around €1,368 a month — nearly €400 more a month than the number I had in my head.

And before anyone comes for me, we didn’t go wild.

We didn’t eat out. No alcohol.
We didn’t get a takeaway.
My husband and I mostly work from home.
I do a loose meal plan.
Two of the boys get hot lunches in school twice a week — although they still bring sandwiches and snacks because apparently lunch now has several instalments.

And just to note, it’s like the famine here again today and there is no food left.

HOW?

We do eat a lot of meat, and we’re in our late 30s trying to eat protein-rich foods in the hope of saving ourselves… which appears to be a pricey game.

I’ve tried the different supermarkets and honestly, it’s expensive no matter where you go. But I do think I need to do a proper deep dive now and see where the money is actually going. I don’t want to get rid of all the little things we all enjoy, because life is expensive enough without making everyone miserable - but there's definitely room for improvement.

Is it the meat? The snacks? The top-ups? The “few bits” that somehow cost €40?

Because feeding a family is just so expensive now.

Is this shocking, normal, or what you expected?

And if you’ve made changes that actually helped lower your food shop, please tell me everything - I'm now a woman on a mission 💪🏻

Our bedroom needs a full glow-up… but for now it’s getting a tidy and clean sheets 😅

This is the one room in the house we never really did anything with when we moved in. We put the furniture in and have been saying “we really must do something with this room” ever since… and then absolutely not doing anything with it.

I don’t love the wood-panelled wall behind the bed, but I also don’t fully know how to get it off without opening a DIY can of worms, so naturally the whole project has stalled.

I have a full plan for this room in my head — colour drenching, a rug to anchor the space, a few cosy additions, and making it feel like somewhere I actually want to relax in… instead of just the place where laundry goes to lose the will to live.

But that’s a September job.

For now, the budget is saying no 😂

So today we’re working with clean sheets, a proper tidy, a deep dust, a mattress hoover, and the delusional confidence that fresh bedding can fix most things.

And to be fair… it does feel about 74% better already.

But obviously now the September bedroom glow-up is taking up far too much space in my brain, so I need opinions.

Would you colour drench a bedroom?

And more importantly… would you go dark green?

I love the cosy cave vibe, but would love to hear your thoughts?!?

Are you spending more time scrolling than connecting? 😓
I am really committed to limiting my kids screen time... but then was finding myself doom scrolling on the couch 🙃 Until one day I made a time wheel and realised just how much of my limited real life hours I was giving to my phone. 😳
So I started my own digital detox. I got the phone out of my bedroom, bought a real alarm clock, assigned designated phone hours and made a conscious effort to be present. The results? Better sleep, more patience, and deeper connections with my favourite people 💛
If you're feeling drained by your digital habits, this is your gentle nudge to take a step back. You don’t need to quit your phone entirely — just take small, intentional steps to take back your time 💫

👇 Comment 'Detox' below and I'll send you a full list of tips I use to keep my phone use in check and limit my screen time.

I’m tracking every cent we spend on food this week as a family of 5… because the weekly shop is only half the story.

It’s not even just the “big shop” anymore.

It’s the top-ups.
The bread and milk runs.
The “we’re out of yoghurts again” trips.
The extra fruit.
The snacks.
The random bits that somehow cost €27.
The “just popping in for two things” shops that are never two things.

And even though 2 out of 3 of my kids get hot lunches at school, they still bring sandwiches and snacks every day too — because apparently one lunch is not enough when you’re a growing child with the appetite of a small horse.

I feel like the main shop is the part we all notice, but it’s the little extras during the week that quietly push the total up.

So this week I’m tracking the lot.

The weekly shop.
The top-ups.
The lunchbox bits.
The snacks.
The extras.
The things we forget to count but absolutely still pay for.

I’d love to make this a bit of a conversation, because I know we’re not the only family feeling this.

What are you spending on food each week at the moment?
Family size?
And do your kids get hot lunches, bring lunches, or somehow manage to need both?

I’ll share our final total at the end of the week, but I’d love to know what it looks like in other houses too.