squeeze painting part 2

Busy Bees :)

Today has been just BEAUTIFUL. Blue skies, a smattering of white clouds... just gorgeous. Is it too much to think tomorrow will be the same??

Today we finished off the squeezee painting from yesterday.

The black glue paint had completely dried this morning so I gave Jumeirah some watercolours ( food colouring) to paint in all the sections of the picture.

She didnt want to do her owl but she did do the swirly painting.The is end result!It looks really cool. I didnt push her to do the background, she liked it just like this. Kinda looks like Christmas lights! Id love to do a really big one, just for myself. Its just the type of painting this shockingly non-able to paint person loves ;)

have a great sunny weekend! And pray for sunny days for me too!

squeezee painting

Yet another wet school holiday day here... Im having a little bit of a meltdown as Im shooting my first "official" non family wedding on Saturday and the forecast is 90% rain. Oh crap. So today I spent much of the day bargaining with God that it can pour the WHOLE of next week if it can just stay fine from now until saturday at 5pm ;) See how that goes....

Today I got out a special activity for Jumeirah. Just something crafty for her as she spends as much time as I do in the mornings helping me tidy up before we start the day.

So today I got out some black paint and white glue to make a cool picture.

All that had to be done was for her to draw a picture, then I made the mixture with about a quarter full container of white glue with a decent addition of black paint. She then traced the owl picture she drew and let it to dry. Tomorrow we'll be able to watercolour the background :)

She also did some beautiful swirl style art that can also be watercolour painted the same way so Im pretty excited to do that too!

On seeing the fun Jumeirah was having, two other little people wanted to squeeze too. So I got some sauce bottles and filled them with paint.

It began as just squeezee painting, and we very quickly went through a huge amount of paint and doznes of pieces of paper that would NEVER dry.

Jumeirah suggested we make butterfly paintings which was met with a very excited " YEAH!!!!" and so we scooped off some of the paint back into the bottles and did some beautiful black and red butterflies. The results were amazing but what was more photo worthy was the expressions on seeing the result of their squeezing and folding..... :)

One very busy day :)

Stay tuned for the second half of Jumeirahs art :)

face painting fun

Todays request was face painting :)

Jumeirah has been carting around one of my face painting books for weeks now and Ive successfully managed to put her off but today she would not be swayed.... so I got it all out and had the best time decorating these precious little faces. ( I actually had more fun than I expected! Its been AGES since we did face painting!)

I had a mouse " who wants to be a cat" ( I dont ask anymore, it hurts my brain to know what shes thinking), the sweetest little butterfly, and a hilarious serious robot.

They had a ball creating some strange game with all three of them completely in character, I could only stand and watch with utter love for these three beauties.

Sometime in the afternoon, we decided to take our crazy characters to the beach for some race around fun.

This time, I wasnt stupid enough to forget the camera :)

Oh school holidays, take your time....

Marshmallow sculptures

Today was the first day of school holidays :) Something feels so very right about having all three of my kids here with me.

I started the day with a very cool surprise, a trip to the movies to see The Smurfs. It was a fun morning and all three f them gushed over how fantastically "smurfy" I am. ( think that expression is going to last a few more days but for now it's worth it )
This afternoon, I set up a really fun activity that would not only continue my awesome mum status but is also secret learny stuff too!!

I had all three sitting up watching as soon as I pulled out the huge packet of mashmellows. We talked about how we were cutting the marshmellows into halves and then quarters. We then split it into three portions and added long skewers and short toothpicks to it and we began to create our sculptures.

I was totally surprised that no one wanted to eat them straight away, but they all began to thread to marshmallow pieces onto sticks. Admittedly, Amahli was working pretty quickly to get them onto the sticks.

Jared wasn't overly keen on touching them too much as they were quite sticky but he still used them to create "Daddy".

Jumeirah happily created a Teddy bear and then just as happily ate him :)

But nothing was more funny than watching the shock on their faces when I lit a candle and proceeded to melt my own marshmellow pieces into delicious gooey goodness. No one wanted to try it, which suited me just fine :)

Yum :) All in the name of learning :)

what to do when youve got too much to do

Ive had a week of it this week... I have run from Monday to Friday. Non. stop. With the Fairy tale ball, the Concert of Excellence, making 27 million plaster moulds for Jumeirahs teacher so she survives today ( yes Im an awesome parent to have) and a photo shoot to edit, as well as photographing the ball AND getting ready for my crazy one day hike to Sydney and back ( its a 3am -11pm day tomorrow) Im absolutely beat.
NEXT WEEK though, is SCHOOL HOLIDAYS!! And I cant wait. Lots of craft things, lots of adventures and lots and lots of TIME with just my gang at home.

But yesterday, we had the Fairy Tale Ball :) All of 1st class, dressed as princes and princesses ( mostly, the boys werent so keen) danced and danced whilst I clicked and clicked.
My girl, Oh my girl, took my breath away.

She was beautiful. Not only in looks but in her whole manner. The funny way she stands with shrunk shoulders cos shes still a bit shy for photos, the way she checked herself in the mirror like she was seeing herself for the first time,the grin from ear to ear that lasted till she fell asleep....

Yesterday was one of those " I need to clean the house and I still have two children to entertain" days and for some reason I nailed it :)
To begin with, a day like this is TOTALLY acheiveable for any of you. Im no super woman. I just got super organised in my head and it just worked.
And this is how its done:)
I set up a space outside for Jared and Amahli to start with. Its the two awesome cubbies I have but you can use sheets or whatever to create an inviting space for your kids.

In one, I had books, the other I put blocks. And whilst they began exploring, I tackled the kitchen.



(And just so you can see how bad it was, heres a before and after)

Once the kitchen was done, I prepared morning tea as a platter with the teaset and took it out to them. ( Which they loved)
I added phones to their play space which gave them some more things to pretend play with and gave me a time extension of at least half an hour. ( I got two loads of washing on the line and vacuumed the carpet)

Once I had vacuumed the carpet, I grabbed the box of dress ups and soon had two dancing princesses... happily twirling away. I put on some music and all three of us were bopping away to the sounds of Mama Mia ( yup it works for me!)

Leaving them happily playing, I did both bathrooms and our bedroom.

By lunchtime, the house resembled some kind of normal where I would open the door if somebody knocked. I also had two kids who'd had a great time playing without really noticing I wasnt there for all of it.

It doesnt always happen like this. I struggle to find balance alot, but when it works, Im happy :)

in the moment

I really wanted to start "Top tip tuesday" today with some great tips for taking great photos... but its just the craziest week and Im beat already so you may have to wait for it :)

But I did steal a shot of this moment between these two little lovelies, chatting together but holding two totally different coversations, totally wrapped up in each other :)

I love them to bits.

the practical side of fun learning

Today I took tweedle dee and tweedle dum to Super Amart ( bad move really, but I had to. Super Amart is a huge home wares shop full of jump-on-me beds, sit-on-me chairs... you know the one) to find a new stool for our bench. I have two the are fought over on a daily basis so it was time to get another one.

On arriving back home, I was keen to try out my skills at chair building ( dont laugh, I suck at putting things together) and sent them scurrying to find something else to do. Jared came back 30 seconds later with his tool kit, ready to help. It was then that I realised what a great activity this would be for him to be involved but also all the learny stuff he would get out of it!

And so we began....

( all the learny stuff Ive highlighted so you can see just how much was done in such a short activity)

First things first, we had to open the box ( problem solving) and he ran to find scissors to cut the box open.

We then had to make sure all the parts were there and lay them out.

I then gave him the instructions to have a look at ( map reading, essential for man skills seeing as his mothers suck so badly) and to work out. All the instructions were in pictures so it was pretty easy for him to work some of it out.

We then had to sort the screws into large and small ( sorting and classifying) and we started with putting Step one together.

He had a big of a bang to "help" the pieces stay together ( pretend play, Role play).

We then used the Allan key to get the screws in place ( fine motor skills, hand eye co ordination) ( and for me, perseverance and brute strength)

We kept going, step by step, a quick hammer, a short burst of a drill, and slowly but surely, we had a stool :)

Amahli put the final plugs in the holes ( fine motor and hand eye coordination) and we tested out our awesomeness. ( Self esteem, acknowledging self and sense of accomplishment).

Its funny that something so simple was able to teach and show them so many things, without it being a real in your face learning experience.

I was pretty proud of myself as well! Ok, so it wasnt EXACTLY perfect, but it proves I can do it too :)

Hubbin just had to "tweak " it a little bit ;)

foto friday

This weeks photo is nothing overly spectacular. Its just a gorgeous photo of my girl.
The thing is, shes wearing my wedding tiara, which exactly 8 years ago this week I wore. And I realised, right before my eyes, this beautiful girl is growing up.
Yeah I know, kids have a tendency to do that, but seriously, I WATCHED her get older as she put it on. I kid you not.



This is her first portrait in this blog.. so many posts ago...



Scary really! Theres been so many times when I have wanted to stop, but this is such a great way to remember my kids and I know they'll thank me for it someday!

This week is her last week of school before holidays and in this week shes performing for the very first time at the Glasshouse ( big entertainment centre in Port) and going to her first fairytale ball.
Somehow I managed to wangle my way into doing photos for it :) I cant WAIT :)
Will I cry? More than likely. But can you imagine a hall filled with about 200 princes and princesses????
Oh, be still, my fluttery camera finger!
Happy weekend :)

matching opposites

Another thing just for Jared today... after spending the WHOLE day watching an athletics carnival I needed something for him to say thanks for not making life any trickier whilst we were stuck at school :)

I am slowly working on skills that he'll need further down the track. Most of them Jumeirah had down pat well before this age but hes a totally different kid. And you know what? I TOTALLY underestimate him :) Every. single. time.

Today, I made him some cards with opposites on it. There were 12 sets in the end, hot/cold, fast/slow, high/low, big/ little, dark/light, full/empty, happy/sad, inside/outside, up/down, on top/under, girl/boy and wet/dry. I found the pictures in google and printed and laminated them.

( I have only one photo of this one!! We got too involved to get a camera out)

I explained what "opposites" meant and we talked one or two examples. I then asked him to match up the cards. And within doing two cards sets with me, he did the rest himself. So then we playefd memory but with opposites and he beat me (without me letting him, mind you) three times in a row.

Such a great little game that I can whip out at anytime, and can be used for a few different games. So now we get in the car and I will say a word and I get three little responses....this afternoon I asked:

"Whats the opposite of sad?"

And the responses? " Joyful!", " Happy" and "Me!" you can put the response to the kid ;)