Publisher: Danya Banya | Playing, creating, laughing and loving through these adorable toddler and preschooler years

“Hi, I’m Danya. I live in Sydney, Australia with Mr Banya, our two daughters JJ (three and a half years old) and Bee (one and a quarter years old), our cat Charli (twenty-eight cat-years old), our three goldfish (who reincarnate from time to time) and the possum that lives in the roof.” Danya Banya is a blog about everyday life as an Australian mum and her family doing their best to bring up two kids and learning along the way. There is a focus on parenting (both the ups and the downs), frugal living, activities for children, kids art and craft, healthy(ish) food, amateur sewing and a bit of this and that (because life is a bit random sometimes.) This is my blog. It’s about everything and nothing. It’s about people and things that I love. It’s about things that interest me. It provides me with a creative outlet. I hope that when my children are older, they will enjoy looking back over these fun memories from when they were too little to remember. And I hope that you will enjoy reading my ramblings. You are what makes this a blog instead of a diary. I love seeing the stats of who is reading my little blog, from all over the world. I love reading your comments, hearing your feedback, being a part of a community. Can I contact you? Absolutely! For general enquiries, please send me an email at danyabanya@gmail.com. I’m also on - Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/DanyaBanyaBlog) - Google + (https://plus.google.com/+DanyaBanya) - Twitter (https://twitter.com/Danya_Banya) - Instagram (http://instagram.com/DanyaBanya) - Pinterest (http://pinterest.com/DanyaBanya) Or, if you prefer, you could add a comment at the bottom of a specific post. How did you come up with the name Danya Banya? My name is Danya. My parents made it up – a bit of a combination between Denia and Tanya. I often explain it is like Tanya with a D – I find this helps people to remember how to pronounce it. Anyway, as I was growing up, my brother used to affectionately call me Danya Banya. He still does sometimes! When I was deciding a name for my blog, it seemed a good choice because it was vague enough to cover my broad topic range, hopefully easy to remember, and unique enough that it wasn’t already in use. And so now somehow my husband has become Mr Banya (to his delight), and my family has become the Banya household. Why did you start writing a blog? Its rather repetitive being a stay at home mum. Don’t get me wrong, I love that I have this opportunity. But I find that in social circumstances, my side of the conversation was rather dull, especially with friends who don’t have children. I don’t mind turning the focus of the conversation onto the other person, but it is also nice to be able to contribute something topical back. I started to read a lot of blogs, on parenting, sewing, crafting, cooking, photography and and started to play around with creating a few crafty things, but it wasn’t enough. I toyed with the idea of creating a blog for about 6 months before I actually started this. I would lay awake at night thinking of different blog posts. So I thought, I need to give this a go! This is a personal rather than financial venture, so I can blog about things I want to blog about, without having to focus on reader numbers, ads and click through rates. Whilst I would like to post a few times a week, I have allowed myself the flexibility to not blog for a few days (or weeks) if / when there are times when it all becomes too difficult. The contents of this blog are meant to be light-hearted and entertaining. I might say that I made Muesli Bar Cakes this morning, but really I made them last week and hadn’t posted about it until now. Or I might mesh a couple of different conversations into one because it reads better that way. And sometimes I exaggerate. (And by sometimes, I mean A LOT). So please don’t take things too literally. Also, please don’t think that I am judging you if I do things differently than you. I respect your right to make your own decisions; to do what you feel is best (or easiest or whatever). We don’t have to agree. We can still be friends. :)