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Easter Holidays are upon us | How to enjoy the fabulous weather | Creating outdoor living with ACE

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Creating an outdoor living space was our priority this winter/spring – we had put it off long enough. We wanted to take advantage of the great outdoor living weather by adding a comfortable furniture set that was durable with four children and a space to create memories for our family.  We also needed to look for something a bit more sophisticated for entertaining our friends too.  Now that my youngest is three, and gone are the nappy days, I am finding it much easier to entertain again and less concerned about accidents.

We will stay in Dubai during this Easter holidays, and there has to be something said about not packing 6 suitcases and rushing straight for the airport.  As much as we love travelling as a family, I also love staycations in our villa, and with such busy schedules we realise we spend little time in the house.  This holiday will be the perfect way to catch up with home friends and to spend quality time together as a family, and more important to enjoy the unstructured time for the next two weeks.

Staycations at home means a great deal of outdoor time as a family – BBQs and beach days. My husband’s ideal day would be to have his whole family outside in the garden for breakfast and dinner everyday but as the children have grown older their school commitments have increased too.  The holidays are just perfect for lounging in pyjamas having long leisurely breakfasts in the garden before jumping into the pool or sea.

We had outgrown our previous outdoor furniture and it was falling apart because of the harsh summers (it was a quick purchase from Dragon Mart several years back, I confess).  It was time to discard the old and bring in the new. True to my new shopping style I even now buy my garden furniture online. ACE recently launched its online site showcasing a full collection of BBQs, Sheds, outdoor garden furniture, laptops and Dyson products and much more so it was ideal for my husband and me to scroll through looking for furniture sets as the stores displays are much more limited.  We came across a neutral coloured Maui 7-seater Sofa Set with multicolour pillows from ACE online price fairly resonably and if you wait long enough they always have fabulous offers and deals to economise your finances even further. (who doesn’t like a good bargain?)

After the purchase online, ACE was quick to contact us with a delivery, and outdoor set was unpacked by the ACE team and set out.  Honestly, I don’t know why it took us so long to get it organised especially when ACE made it all painless.  To make the furniture design our own, we threw on some outdoor Pottery Barn palm cushions (Seashells On The Palm, of course!).  Then, we had tailors from Satwa make out fabulous fitted outdoor protective covers to increase the durability of the furniture.

I do encourage you to have a scroll on www.aceuae.com and get 10% off your first online order.  They also have 25% – 50% off End of Seasons collection until 15 April 2018.

Top 5 things to do to enjoy the fabulous weather this Easter

#1. Do an Easter Egg hunt in the garden

#2. Visit Park House on Ness Nass Beach

#3. Spend the day at Legoland Water Park to exhaust the children

#4.  Join Privilee and enjoy access to hotel beach clubs, restaurants and spas.  We often frequent, Fairmont the Palm, Waldorf Astoria and Sofitel, the Palm.

#5. Have dinner every evening outdoors with the family.  With recent increase of mosquitos, I also use DoTerra’s essential oil blend of Terra Shield to diffuse outdoors to protect the children.

Activities

Flip Out | How to host a kid friendly party with ease | Balancing expense, time and logistical planning and ensuring that your children will have amazing childhood memories.

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We stopped doing birthday parties at our house about 5 years ago – it was too stressful and I often couldn’t be there for my birthday child as I was always running around taking care of everything else.  It also became more and more challenging to host older children at home, especially our boys.  We are always in search for new venues that also appeal to both girls and boys.

Birthday party logistics are always challenging because large numbers can be costly.  The question is whether to invite 10 – 20 close friends or the whole class. Then, there is the organisation of party bags and food, and working out logistics can be stressful especially when you have multiple children to also care for. Much of the hassle is taken out by the Flip Out team who will look after the children for the next 2 hours and organise the party food leaving mums and dads with party invitations, cake and goody bags to deal with.

My husband and I are happy to farm out the experience to a venue like Flip Out who have the energy (more importantly) and experience when it comes to children’s parties and keeping the kids entertained.  We hosted 30 children for our 4 children to say goodbye to their old school friends.  It felt like a very large playdate of all their favourite friends!

The kids arrived along with their friends and had a 15 minute welcome and safety briefing with the team.  The children wear similar colour vests so their instructors are able to identify them as part of the party.  The children are usually divided into 2 – 3 groups, and depending on the ages, they will do archery, bubble soccer or trampolining. The typical format would include 1 hour of structured play + 1 hour of free jump or archery, and Flip Out Grip Socks will be provided for each child, and you will have one dedicated party host.

The instructors and Flip Out team are hot on safety so they do watch over the children.  The instructors also got involved with the children demonstrating wall running, and taught some of the older children how to do backflips during the sessions.

We often worried with 4 different age groups how Flip Out would manage them but they actually split them into two groups and did age appropriate activities with them.  Also, the younger children were not exposed to the large boys who might have accidentally toppled them over on trampolines.  It is always reassuring for parents to see that the venue takes these issues seriously to ensure everyone has a good time.

Food

The party food at the venue is outsourced to a premium pizza delivery company, and it was popular with both parents and children alike.  My Italian husband and kids approved of the taste and quality of the pizzas.  The party package includes 2 slices of pizza per child (pepperoni or margarita), 1 organic juice per child, and unlimited water. It is optional to add potato wedges and chicken nuggets for an extra fee.  The kids were starving after all their activities and everything gobbled up.  Adult coffee, teas and beverages are extra  but they can serve you in the party room or you can set up a table upstairs in their coffee area.

New changes to note

#They have also launched a new activity that the children loved called bubble soccer.  They children wear an plastic inflatable ball and run around bouncing against each other.

#Parents are no longer allowed into the jumping area unless they have socks and a wrist band

Top tips

#Order pizzas for mums and dads because they are delicious and most parents are famished.  Larger pizzas cost AED70 each.

#Book in advance because Flip Out is very much in demand especially on the weekends.

#Try to book a week day birthday party as it is more economical in terms of costs and the venue is not as busy so it is more manageable.

Pricing – it works out to AED185 per child for the party.

Check out also their winter flip camp (minimum age 5 years) from December 17th – January 4th.

Special offers in December – book a party this December, and the birthday child will go for free.

For more information head to www.flipout.ae 

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mrUsta | Need help with endless list of odd jobs around the house like plumbing, AC repair, plumbing, pest control? | One stop shop to post all your requests

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Who are mrUstas for?

#Expats who are new in town looking for reputable service providers to do basic work in villas and apartments like carpentry work, cleaning, pest control, AC repair and so forth.

#Busy mums who need an ‘e-Bay’ like forum to post jobs that they need done around the house.

#Anyone who is looking for something to be fixed.

#Anyone who has dealt with inefficient companies in the past who would like to deal with professionals.

Why?

Since coming back from the summer, I have been swarmed in children’s admin, and like every mum in Dubai, September is always an extremely busy month and no matter how much we organise and prepare in advance we still seem to be ‘fire-fighting’ through the day with chores and to-do lists.

However, I had procrastinated enough.  The Pottery Barn shelves needed to be put up and my air-condition units needed a proper clean after the long summer.  The list never ends and this academic year, I have decided to do little but often.  It was great to discover mrUsta, an online services marketplace that allows customers to find quality service providers (‘Ustas’).  It is an online platform, established in 2014,  where I type in any job that needs fixing in the house, and several ‘Ustas’ start bidding for the job. (top tip: do not put your mobile number into the website as they will all start calling you).

The range of services is huge with over 350+ jobs offered by service providers.  The most popular categories include carpentry, painting, plumbing, pest control services, repair, house cleaning, household appliance repair, instant AC Services, Apple iPhone/iPad repair, and you can even look for a short-term live in nanny, order custom made furniture – the list of available services is endless.  You get a rough indication about the price per hour or per month.

Instructions

#Post a job – do not divulge your mobile number.  This can done via their website or you can download their app.

#Wait for several companies to bid for the work, and you can price compare and then contact them via the website to book their services.

#Or you can scroll down and look for the Usta with the best reviews.

#There is a huge choice of 6,000 Ustas that offer 350+ types of services.

mrUsta experience

We posted a job to help us put up our Pottery Barn bookshelves up and a few photos.  The companies (mrUstas) started bidding seconds after the job was posted with different price ranges.  All companies that sign up to the website must provide a copy of their trade licence and are monitored by the the website, and complaints are taken seriously to ensure only reputable companies can bid for work. We selected a company who sent a team of two men who put up the three shelves and a couple of photos.  The men seemed professional and they took care with their work, and were neat and tidy.  I still watch over any workmen in the home for security reasons.  The company hired charged by the hour, and we booked 2-hours.

The second job we posted was to clean our air-condition units in the villa.  Again, similarly many companies bid for jobs and reviewed the prices and reputation.  The Usta was efficient at booking an appointment and clear about their pricing. They charged on the number of air-condition units in the house.  Each filter was removed, washed and cleaned, and again, the job took half a day with two men.

Loyalty program

mrUsta has also launched ‘The Guild, the very first customer loyalty program for a service provider marketplace in the region.  The Guild rewards customers each time they successfully book and close jobs, amounts other actions taken on the platform with mrUsta credit that can be used toward further job postings.

It is free to join mrUsta, and it is the service providers that pay a fee to the online website.  ‘In the first 6-months of 2017 alone, we’ve created over AED17 million worth of opportunities for our Ustas,’ explained Ibrahim Colak, mrUsta’s co-founder and CEO.

Next on the list, need to re-do my wallpaer.  The list is endless so I am grateful that I am able to just post a job through their app or website www.usta.com 

Her Little Black Book

Creating Memories | Barefoot Dubai Photography Photoshoot – a shoot with Alex Jeffries

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I love photography.  I just wish I had more time to capture every moment of my children’s life.  I really believe it is important to organise regular photoshoots to capture the moment, the age and the memory of the family during that period of time because every stage is different.  These days, most of our images ‘die’ on the iPhone – they are never printed, never placed into albums. It makes wonder what I would show my grandchildren and on what format.  Would I scroll through Facebook memories or my iCloud?  For me, I still prefer traditional photos albums because there is something so lovely about sitting around with the different generations of family laughing and reminiscing over old family photos.  It is one of my top priorities to get professional shoots done every so often to have a memories and keepsakes as the days and months rush past.

The world of social media has blasted into the world with many so-called photographers but very few truly have the skills and talent to call themselves professional.  Some clients may not see the difference between a good photographer or a great one but I do.  For me, one of the leading photographers in Dubai is Alex Jeffries, owner of Barefoot Dubai Photography, who captured moments with my family in such a unique way.

As well as beautiful photos, Barefoot Dubai Photography also offers a sleek service that is efficient and professional, and expectations are properly managed. Preparing your children for a photoshoot is tough enough and you need the photography team to deliver as children have also a limited concentration span, and won’t perform as we want.  Alex and his team were extremely patient with the children and he exceeded my expectations capturing some moments that I will always treasure as a mother and wife.

To read more about Alex Jeffries, click on the link.

To find out more or to book a photoshoot with Barefoot Photography www.barefootdubai.com