Recent events...

Here are some recent events at our place...

Lego is still a winner, though the interest is waning. We have only pulled out a few handfuls from Mike's massive stash, but that hasn't stopped the odd Lego man appearing under furniture and usually under my foot!

We painted some cardboard yesterday to create some cool dinoasurs for Alex's Dinosaur Party in a few weeks. Alex's interest was held for about 15 minutes, Megan's was much longer. Surprise, surprise!

 

 

These are our completed Dinosaurs, except Mr T-Rex is now extinct because the dogs chewed him up. Not happy Jan!!!!



Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer Chocolate Crackles have been a hit too. Mike made these for work, but we got to eat some...and there are ingredients left over. SCORE!!!!!

Toilet training with Alex has been going really well. Amazingly so. And apparently it's ok to let little boys have a wee in the garden. I'm not quite sure, but it has made much less washing for me coz he doesn't have to race inside, so I'll put up with it.....for now.

 

Slime...

Inspiration struck after reading this blog about Slime from Picklebums. Its seemed easy enough, fun and messy...the kids would love it!!

Lux soap flakes, hot water, a bucket, and a whisk....really easy. Let it sit for an hour and then viola!!

Hubby and I even had fun with it. I have to admit, I really begrudged cleaning my hands to run and grab the camera!

The soapy slime get everywhere, and as the clever Kate from Picklebums says- throw it straight in the wash, no soap required! That didn't stop them going back to play again though :)

So now I have a naked and semi-naked kid playing outside in the Winter sunshine with slime and having a blast!!!!!

The Great Buzzy-Bee Party!

Megan turned 4 last week. Her birthday itself was rather low key. I was devastated that we both had to work on her special day. But it meant she got to have a birthday cake at creche with her day care friends, Nana and Grandpa picked her up so that they could give her some gifts before we took her out for tea for her dinner of choice....SAUSAGES!

and jelly thrown in too!

About 3 months ago, Megan decided that she wanted a Buzby (a cartoon bee) birthday cake and therefore a Buzby party. And so started the months of planning!

Don't get me wrong...I LOVE planning these kinds of things. Our error, I think, was that we started too early. For months I have had bee themes running through my head, sights of costumes and glimpses of various types of honey has set my brain ticking. We could do this...and this...and....

I liked the idea of having a pinata. The family kids were old enough to manage it without being too little or too grown up to be silly. Of course there would be no bumble bee pinatas around so I was happy to make one. Over about 5 weeks, we (mainly I) paper mache'd and painted 2 Buzby bee pinatas, the spare being in case I somehow stuffed the first one up! In the end it was great to have 2 so that the kids had twice as much fun whacking the c*** out of it!!

Our ideas for the cake were not as lavish as usual. Either that, or a bumble bee just fitted nicely into a round cake and simple design!

Naturally at a 4yr old birthday party, there had to be costumes. Again, I broke out my creative juices and make Megan a costume. Not my finest effort, but she was happy and that was all that mattered! Even hubby, myself  and grandpa had a bit of fun dressing up!

The Queen Bee!

The Bee Keeper!

Grandpa Bee!

And in typical fashion, after (most of) the food had been eaten, the games had been played and the presents opened, the guest of honour fell asleep on the couch very soon after the last party-bee had left!

An art book...

Megan loves all things crafy. We have loads of pictures, glue-ings, paintings that we had previously not know what to do with. Now with her wardrobe display area, we dont have to change things around so often.

I made a scrapbook of the kids' first crafty attempts- annotated with whatever was exciting about it. Though I haven't kept them up as much as I had hoped, and Alex is SOOOOO not crafty that there is almost nothing to put in his!

But still, what to do with all those other pictures? What about the good ones that are actually cute to look at? I've kept most of them (and there's lots!) just in case...of something...but dont know what.

One friends suggested that I take photos of them and make a photo book as a Christmas present for the kids. Not a bad idea, so I've started taking photos...again...just in case!

I guess this is what it could look like.

If I am organised enough, I'll give it a go this year. Might just hold onto the pictures though...just until I'm sure I can throw them away!

Crafty Mumma's...eat your heart out!!!

I love reading blogs of mums' out there with so much time and patience that they do wonderfully crafty things with their kids and awesome home reno stuff during their other spare time. I am immensley jealous of their time and creativity...but I think I may hold my own today!!

The kids are starting to produce more and more art work at creche (and Kinder for Megan) and our display space is limited. Our current set up is a space for a single piece of art or a few very small ones. I stole this idea from a craft market that wanted to charge big bucks for something quite simple.

 

Simple craft board from Bunnings with pegs on the front, picture hooks added to the back and then decorated.

I read (in a blog) about using the space on the back of the kids' bedroom doors for display, which is also a delicate way of hiding the pieces that don't quite cut the muster for the family room! We decided to use the doors of the kids wardrobes, but found they kept playing with the bluetack and the art work would then fall down.

So, here lies my brilliance!!

Ribbon Picture Rails with pegs!!!

Simple huh? So many more pieces can fit without the mess of pulled off bluetack and less of a picture turn over...and I also don't get in trouble for "filing" the older peices.

To make me feel more like those "crafty mumma's", I'll give you a step-by-step guide to how I did it. (dont worry you wont read any more blogs like this, it's a once off! I'm just a bit proud :) )

Bare wardrobe doors

Wrap the ribbon around the door, straight on the front, angled at the back (or however you want, really!)
Cut off the excess ribbon

Secure with a pin at both ends of the door. Our doors still close easily.

Hang your art work with little craft pegs.

I am very happy with the result and the kids love seeing their art hanging in their room. It cost about $6 in ribbon and possibly a few dollars more for pins and pegs (but we had these floating around already). Once you are done with the ribbon rails, there should only be a few holes in the ends of the doors that you wont really see.

So, this is "wannabe-crafty-mumma" signing off and going back to craft mediocrity!!

Fun things we've done this week

The school holidays are nearing the end, and so to go out with a bit of a bang, we've been doing some extra fun things lately (mainly to stop Megan from being glued to ABC kids all day long!). Some ideas I got from a blog called Planning with Kids by a super organised mum with 5 kids (yes you heard right... organised with 5 kids!!).

We've made Grass Heads...no hair yet but hopefully soon!

... Bird feeders...no birds yet, but still fun...

Played with birdseed and then cleaned up afterwards...

Cooked and hung out the washing...

Gardening (aka playing with the water crystals) and shopping at Bunnings...

(and please don't go all gender stereotyping on me...

Alex and Megan both did all of these activities...I just didn't get photos!)

We also had a major clean out of toys, got rid of loads of plastic pieces that got used for 2 mins and then discarded and kept the ones that are played with over and over again. These tended to be the dress ups, play food and cooking, drawing boards (magnadoodle style), etc. We also kept most of the outside toys coz that's the focus I want my kids to have...fun outdoors AWAY FROM TV as much as possible.

So that's been the events of our family lately :)