Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Child Friendly Sunday at Lick My Spoon and Eagle Farm Markets

Lick My Spoon
1/160 Racecourse Road
Ascot
T: 3268 6023
Open 7am-3pm daily


Child Friendly Snapshot:
Pram access? Yes
Kids' menu? Yes - excellent.
Play area? No, but a kids corner with books and toys that can be utilised in that space or at the table.
Activities at the table? Yes, as per the above comment.
Room for kids to move around? Yes, but not really a place to let your kids run wild.
Child friendly atmosphere? Yes
Prices? Normal cafe prices.

With the fab weather at the moment, Lick My Spoon is a lovely start to a lazy child friendly Sunday.  Located at the end of Racecourse Rd, Lick My Spoon  is a child friendly breakfast and lunch cafe just opposite the Eagle Farm racecourse.  With parking right at the door, this is an easy outing for any sized family.

We arrived without a booking, and got a table outside straight away.  The service was quick and accomodating with particular attention paid to the children which was lovely.  The kids menu is really good, but not cheap at $10 each for 4 children.  However, the boys loved their bacon and scrambled eggs, and the girls loved their french toast - they ate everything on the plate, so money well spent I think!  They also loved the freshly squeezed orange juice...delish!  I had the omelette which was massive and I could not finish it, but it was really tasty.  Mike had the bacon and egg burger which he said was excellent.  The coffee was great and fast to the table, as were our meals.

When the kids started to get a bit restless, they went and chose a book and a toy from the kids corner and that gave us all a bit more time to finish brekky.  There were plenty of children in the cafe, but it didn't feel like a playground.  It was relaxing and well managed with fast service and a well stocked kids corner.

Afterwards we wandered over the the Eagle Farm Markets held at the racecourse every Sunday.  Fruit and veg, specialty/deli food items, flowers, artwork, clothing and other goods  - a really lovely mix in a great enviroment surrounded by the old buildings inside the grounds.  There is a lady there who sells beautiful dresses for young girls.  I don't know her and only came across her stall when we went there recently.  But I have bought 2 dresses from her already, and have ordered some others.  So cheap at $25 each and all homemade out of gorgeous materials!  Her business is called Nanny Ethel Treasures and you can view her dresses on Facebook.

Also at the markets are pony rides, a jumping castle, Bumbles the Balloon Clown, several buskers/djs and lots of space to let the kids have a run around.  It was a lovely Sunday, making the most of this sensational Brisbane weather at the moment!!  I would definitely recommend it for a child friendly family day out.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

A Good Wrap - child friendly and green friendly.

We are renovating our house at the moment, and so my regular past time is going through home decorating magazines. Recently I was reading House and Garden Magazine and came across a story titled Mothers of Invention, featuring a series of mums who have started new and innovative businesses and have been able to successfully balance this with family. I think having more balance in our lives is what we all strive for, be it with work, our partners, children, downtime, personal fitness etc. So of course I was drawn to the story for some personal motivation.

There were so many of the ideas that I loved, so I might go back and reread and feature others down the track, but this one really took my interest and motivated me to go to the website immediately. A Good Wrap is a great idea for school lunchboxes, doing away with glad wrap, sandwich bags and all those other disposable lunch wraps. A Good Wrap has created a reusable lunch wrap made from cotton and nylon. It can be simply wiped out with a cloth or put through a cold machine wash. The range of patterns in the fabrics are limited at this stage but gorgeous all the same. And they are all secured with velcro so really easy for kids to open. Our 4 year old triplets often find it hard to open some plastic containers when they are at pre-prep, so these will be so much easier for them.

The best thing about it is that the large sized sandwich wrap is only $12!! See here. So not only is it Eco friendly, cutting down on the rubbish in the playground and in our landfill, but it also will save you a heap in not having to use as much glad wrap. A lot of schools these days require nude food, so this also works brilliantly with that policy. I thought I might go for the bundle special. Seems to be child friendly, eco friendly and wallet friendly!!

Friday, January 27, 2012

Coffee Club Kid Friendly....

Just got the inside scoop on the new Coffee Club at Flockton St Everton Park.....apparently in the first week of February they are installing a play area for kids similar to what you would see at McDonalds. I haven't seen it myself, but we will definitely do a trip there in Feb and check it out, so I will let you know how we go. Flockton St has become a very child friendly precinct with the Swim school, Everton Park Hotel and now Coffee Club with a play area....watch this space for the play area update....