colour hunting

Jumeirahs quote of the day:

" God is awesome! If I was God, I would be awesome. I'm not God, but I am pretty awesome".

You, my precious girl, are a whole lotta awesome :)

We went on a colour hunt yesterday!

The colour we picked was Blue. Blue is everywhere in our house. Its one of my favourites :) And so manned with the camera, we set off in search of things of blue.

Jared really enjoyed this and became more and more wild with each discovery of something blue. "MUM MUM QUICK! Its Blue!" I heard being yelled from all over the house and yard. Amahli too got into the giggly yelling of "BOO!" and finding things that were blue.

After school, I sent Jumeirah on her own hunt for blue things. She of course, was more into little things, hidden blues and different shades of blue.

Me? Not content with just one colour, I searched for Rainbows :)

"The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain." (Dolly Parton)

pool noodle marble run/ wicked brews

Vacuuming. Its has to be done. I doesnt take long, normally. But when you have "helpers" like my little guy who holds the hose whilst I try to move it back and forward, it takes a good deal longer. But he came up to me today and said " Mum, I be your hero" and took the vacuum cleaner hose and helped me the best way he could. And my heart exploded into a million pieces and I looked down at my little "hero". Hes exactly the hero I needed.


Outdoorsy day. Love them :) Its a happy, relaxed, fun time. My kids are content to play together without arguing and tormenting each other. I dont notice the noise level so much. And everyone is happy just to enjoy the sunshine and cooler weather.

We have officially hit a change in the weather, its cooler at night and hard to get out of bed in the mornings. My early morning walks have become a bit non existent, which unfortunately I cant say for the middle I was supposed to be losing....

Jumeirah was off school today, head cold and achey body today. She was more than content to flop on the lounge and spend the day there, but I figured a few hours in the fresh air would be great for her.
I found this awesome idea from the same blog I mentioned yesterday,
Serving Pink Lemonade. Its got some great ideas and I knew my little gang would love this simple fun activity.
Its a marble run made from a pool noodle. Cut in half and pinned together, we made a long race track which was the perfect size for marbles. We have a great hill in our back yard and it was the perfect set up for this.

All three we instantly on this activity and worked out how to use this so everyone got a turn. 20 minutes later, Jared and Jumeirah found something else to do. Amahli, absolutely captivated with rolling marbles down, then trotting down the hill to scoop them all back into the jar, take them back to the top of the hill and begin all over again, did this activity for for almost an hour this morning. She was back out in the afternoon and began again. She just loved it :)

This afternoon, Jumeirah asked for a bucket of water and asked whether she could make a concoction. She found sand and collected grass, dirt, cars, leaves and whatever else she could find to add to it.Jared and Amahli were quick to follow, asking for their own buckets of water, and setting up next to each other.





I loved watching how careful they all were at making their owns mixtures, carefully sprinkling sand, gently stirring..... each in their own little world but also happy to chat and share to each other. Jumeirah also was very encouraging to the others, commenting on how lovely it smelt, how wonderful it looked.

How I love days like this :) Simple, happy, fun.

aeroplane activities

I love these little fingers... oh so carefully placing each block upon another.. pinky and pointer finger out so straight so as not to knock over what shes already built up.... shes only 17 months old but wow is she amazing to watch

We had a day off yesterday... its an Anzac Day holiday ( to honour the men and women how have fought in war for our country) plus it was also daddys birthday :) And so we spent the long weekend playing, beaching, and time with some lovely extended family who came to visit for the weekend...such a great time.

The end of last week so a few new firsts for our little pod. Jumeirah earnt her first Bronze Award ( after collecting 10 normal awards, she was now entitled to a bronze award which she recieved in a big assembly.

Made for one very excited little girl) and Amahli made her first ever jelly from start to finish! I was amazed at how much she really wanted to be part of it when Jared made his, and so I thought she could make her own.
She tasted the crystals, poured the water, Told me it was "too hot" and stirred it carefully, then she and jared proceeded to eat the "soup" until I told them there would be none left to go hard!



So we all put our jelly in the fridge to set. I know its not technically a cooking experience, but it has so many concepts and steps that its wonderful for little ones to begin with in the joys of cooking.


And there is always the fun of licking out the undissolved crystals at the end :)



Finally, my lovely friend and her little family managed to fly away to Ireland... it almost didnt happen due to that little volcano that coughed but at the last minute they upped and awayed :) Luckily I had just finished my "things to do on a plane" kit for him. Of course, absolutely NOTHING went as it should have, but still, he was happy with it, and so was mum :)

Heres what I made:
A peek a boo bag ( awesome toy, will have some to sell very soon!)

Beads on a string ( made from Fimo, these can be attached to to sides of a pram or plane seat or even two fingers and can be moved back and forth along the string. its great for younger children)

sultanas ( good for little ones as it takes them ages to pick each one up :) )



A soft book ( I made this from a gorgeous panel I found)




A pack of stickers ( I never go ANYWHERE without stickers. Children as young as 9 months can grasp and help stick or what you stick them onto things. it fascinates them)

Some picture cards ( this was my biggest and most dissapointing disaster. I really wanted to make this into a soft book but for some reason the photos wouldnt print onto the fabric paper... very sad)



and some little transport books




Lots of things to look at, lots of things to touch, not alot of things to lose :) And also, things that are easy to use.

I also had all intentions of packing a few balloons for him to chase around the airport in stop overs but ran out of time. Airports may thank me for that :)

And just to show you how cool they would have been, here are the picture card photos. Jumeirah and I had a lot of fun working out how to do this after we saw something similiar on the blog Serving Pink Lemonade.It still worked ok as cards, but I think the book idea would have been better. I will still ( one day one day) turn this into a book for my own kids as they loved looking at the pictures :)

Arent they cute??

Doctors play

Friday, finally we made it :)
Its been a long week.. one I am kinda glad to see the back of!

Today, I got out the doctors kit, to encourage some fun and dramatic play. I havent done alot of this style of play with Amahli, Jumeirah and Jared are always pretending some sort of play whether it be dogs ( Jareds favourite) or "escape from the lava!" ( Jumeirahs favourite for over 12 months now). I love to watch them work out scenes, gather necessary props and immerse themselves in it.
I set up the doctors kit and fell to the ground "sobbing" and with a sore arm. Jared got straight in, calmly telling me it was alright, kissing my arm and then taking my vitals ( pulse, ears, sole of my foot) (?). He then bandaged me up and sent me on my way.

He was next and it was a very sad scene, he was really ill.

I was totally amazed at how involved he became. Amahli stroked his head saying " dont cry" and busied herself finding the instruments so I could check him. Then she took over and looked after him herself :)

Hes healed!!

This kind of play is wonderful for some many reasons: its open ended so they can play however they like and it can be quickly changed, its great for developing their imaginations, but its also great to get them used to situations they may face in life. We played Doctors so much when Jumeirah was little that when she ended up in hospital and had to have a drip, she told the Doctor what he needed to do. She knew the instruments, got to use his stethescope, the torch and had a wonderful time being a "real" patient.

This afternoon, I encouraged Jared to do some drawing with me. He wasnt that interested so I left him to it. When I came back this is what he drew:

"Its a bottom, Mum. Doing a poo. And its got eyes!"


Wonderful my gorgeous boy, just wonderful.

At least hes creative :)

alphabet mat/ orbs of delight

I found this little fairy this morning.... doing quiet jobs for me. She cleaned up Jareds room, she set all the dolls house in order. She even entertained a small munchkin who was intrigued by her wings. She was wonderful :) I think I may just keep her.

Lately in my slump, I havent really felt like doing a whole lot of crafty things, its acutally quite annoying and I am working at getting back out of this rut. But for today, I am still in it. But this morning I found something new and fun to do that wasnt messy but would challenge my littles and also be a fun game.
For christmas, Ma made this little alphabet quilt.

I think its actually a wall hanging but it hasnt quite gotten there yet. I set it up on the table and Jared and I talked about all that we could see on it. Amahli was also in on this action, pointing out the animals she knew. I showed them the letters of the alphabet and told them we were going to have a treasure hunt. Jared loves treasure hunts so he was really keen.
The aim was to find things that began with the letters we could see on the quilt. Now he isnt quite up to doing this on his own, so we did it as a team. I raced through the house, finding little things. I over emphasised the beginning letter of items ( ccccc car or rrrrr remote!) and he started to work out some of the beginning sounds. Then we raced them back to the quilt to place the item on the letter. Although he wasnt really able to tell me many of the letters, its something that we will repeat alot which will help him in identifying letters and sounds. It was also something he really enjoyed and got us all involved. We didnt do all the letters but he did quite a few and really had fun.

Over the weekend, we took a day trip to Laurieton. Its not that far, but theres also not much there.. normally. On sunday though, we stumbled upon the most amazing markets! Unfortunately I didnt take the camera as the sights were great, smells and sounds were amazing. Next time...
But I did find these little treasures. I am ALWAYS on the lookout for tactile experiences as tow of my kids are not overly keen on touching things or getting messy ( the other makes up for all of them and another 50 untactile children). These little orbs were used for flowers in vases and give great colour to a room but also they retain a heck of amount of water. They had a little sample bowl of them and all three kids went for it, rolling their hands in these pretty things. So I bought some of our own to put into a container for play :)

What I didnt realise was quite how fascinating they would be! Jumeirah wasnt sure that they would work so we set to finding out. I put only a few in a container of water and waited to see what happened....



















It took hours to get to the full size, and we just HAD to check what they felt like at each stage. For the past 4 days, these orbs have been played in, bounced, had ocean animals added to it, squashed ( yeah you cant really do that too much, they crumble into a billion pieces) and thoroughly enjoyed. No one can walk past them without touching them. Apparently they will last for years ( although at our squeeze rate they wont) and will become hydrated again in 6 months if we leave them out of water. Not only were they fun to play in, I found them totally therapeutic as well.. something about pretty, glass looking balls was totally relaxing to run your fingers through... I reckon I could get in a whole bath of these :)





Pretty good for $5 a the local fair, hey?? Going to get some more next month at the next market! Anybody else want some??



They finally got to live out there intended use :) For today :) Tomorrow they will be back in action.