paper plane fun

At the library last week, my kids had lots of fun, more so than usual, because I told them they could borrow ABSOLUTELY anything they wanted to ( they had a limit of 4 things so it wasnt totally crazy!)

Amahli heads straight to the foreign section and pulls out " teach your kids French in the car!" ( I swear that she totally knows what this is and that this will drive me insane in the car even if she is only 2yrs old) and is blissfully happy with the ghastly looking cover on it.
Jared, in his usual style, takes FOREVER to find anything he is remotely interested in, he would rather be playing the library computers than find a book.
But finally his face lights up as side by side he finds a pirate book and a paper plane book.

Perfect :)

So we head home ( all the way singing " the snail goes slow, the ant goes fast, and into your belly.. or something like that I think. Really I could be reciting some terrible words and Id have no idea) to check out our finds.
This morning, I set up the table so as soon as we dropped Jumeirah off we could get stuck into the paper plane book. It looks great. The pictures are clear, instructions are in English and understandable and so we begin.



He, of course, picks the two hardest planes in the book. But not to be defeated, we began. Me, folding, unfolding, trying not to swear, Him, encouraging, laughing when I growl, and helping me fold parts. He is also following the steps so he can see what we are up to.

More than once, the plane ends up like this.

And then the steps start matching up to where they are supposed to be...


More than once, he says "Ok good work. I'll be just a sec and I check on you" and races out the door to play with Amahli.

But finally, we have two almost to the pattern, planes :)


He had such fun flying them. We raced them in the hallway. He flew around with great sound effects and diving bombing the dog.


And Amahli?? Her favourite bit was finding all the disaster efforts and throwing them around the place :)

Win Win :)

Check out your local library for great books like this! Im off to find some more ( maybe easier version next time)

Clouds

The other day I was blissfully in my own little world, deep inside my head, contemplating the things of life ( whats for dinner/what will I do tomorrow/ how can I win a million dollars...) when Jumeirah gave an almighty yell from the backseat that sent my foot flying for the brake.

"Check that out!!" was the yell and to be honest, Im glad she did :) ( well I was after my heart returned to normal pace...

This is what she saw....

The most beautiful display of clouds Ive seen. Now, my kids are forever screaming random things from the backseat like: " Crocodile!" "aeroplane!" and "icecream!!"... often its what they have seen in the clouds. Sometimes Jared just does it for the shock factor but thats becoming less as he realises how close we have come to ramming up someones car butt....

So today we did a fun arty project were we made our own clouds.All that was needed was white paint and blue paper and we were good to go.

These paintings are made the same way you make a butterfly painting... fold the paper in half, blob paint down the middle and fold over. Press the paint down and then open to reveal a print.

I had Amahli straight over as soon as she saw paint, Jared came once he saw we were making clouds.

I loved watching their faces as they opened up the paper, and then trying to guess what each cloud shape was to them.

"The Penis Cloud"

" a body"

We had a bee, a butterfly, and Jared's very proud " penis cloud".

I love cloud watching.. and I love even more when my bench is covered in the happy art of two busy cloud creators :)

* Down here Im going to ask you for help. Actually no, Im going to beg. Its not something I do very often if at all, but Im a bit desperate. You see, All of my photos are good and all, but not one contains me. Im always the photographer, never the photographed. I can probably count on my hands the number of photos of me with my kids.
BUT!
Theres a local photographer whos quite awesome and shes giving away a $200 gift voucher to have some photos done by her. And I want to win. BAD.
All you need to do to help me out is to go to Renee Bell Studios on facebook, click "like", and write on her wall " karina baker referred me". Thats all! No biggie, but it will hopefully give me a chance to get me in the picture for once :)

Thanks :)

Window painting and marble ramps

Day 4 ( or is it 5??) of rain... and this is no ordinary rain.. this is thump the life outta ya grass/washing/anything left outside kinda rain. I have always said to my mum " It rains the ocean in Port" and currently Im waiting for the octopus to fall for the sky. Seriously!

So it was yet another day indoors and a day to keep my littles happy.
To start with, I set up Amahli with some simple, window painting ( can you see a theme here with the simple stuff? Really, they are so much happier when they can just enjoy a craft rather than it being so complex that I am carrying on for them to do it longer cos it took so long to set up!) where I stuck 6 A4 sheets of paper in two sections, one for her, one for him.

I gave her water colour paint ( made from food colouring) and tiny brushes. Each container of paint had a sponge in the bottom to soak up most of the liquid so to save us from spills ( we are doing this on carpet) and it also prevents drips from paint pot to page.
Tiny brushes encouraged finer detail to work, and it would also take her longer to fill up her pages :)






Jared hid in his room until he realised it wasnt messy, then came to paint too. Starting with spots he told me he'd finished after 30 seconds. I told him "ok" and went back to concentrating on praising Amahlis efforts. He watched for a bit, then decided he wasnt quite finished and continued to paint, which I encouraged. He then had a go at painting his name which he was very pleased about and ended up staying here for about 25 minutes!


Wonders will never cease.



Amahli showing me where she had painting "fire".



Later in the morning, I needed something fun for them to do whilst I began a new project for Jared. Hes desperate for an over the shoulder bag and I never have any time to do it so I thought if I could set them up with something busy, I could have maybe, 15 minutes?? Maybe???

So we dragged an old pool noodle, cut it in half long ways, pinned it together with skewers, and made a cool marble run. We have done this before but somehow the noodle went missing ( possibly thrown out by a husband who may have mistaken it for rubbish. Hhmmm) but it was a favourite then and it was a favourite today too.





I gave them each about 20 marbles to race down the track and into the box. I was quickly told " good bye Mum, you can clean now" which was que to run to my craft room for a few minutes. I got about 40 minutes in total... bag will be finished tomorrow :)

recycling crayons

For Christmas, Jared got a really cool ice cube tray of robots and I decided I wanted to make something from it today.
Seeing as it would take too long to make ice cubes or coloured ice to paint with, I told Jumeirah I was going to teach her how to make some thing old new again.
We gathered all the crayons we could find in the house ( some werent even that old but we needed lots) and then we spent some time peeling the paper off them all.

Then, under my watchful eye, I showed Jumeirah how to melt them using a double boiler method (boiling water in the pot, cup with crayons in the water)and she watched the crayon turn to liquid.

Once it had fully melted, we poured the liquid crayon into the robot mould. Now, most normal people would be able to walk away and let it cool. But no, I kept checking it and after about an hour, got impatient and turned them out. They were ok except the legs hadnt hardened properly and he was soon legless.

But they were such fun to draw with!! Amahli and Jared had a ball and Jumeirah now wants to go find more crayons to melt :)

Easy, fun and cheap recycling and science experiment in one!

Anyone else got some fun easy recycling ideas??

Christmas tree decorating ( a mini version)

Why is it always the simplest things I set up in a moments notice that my kids love so much more than the craft I slave over????

Yesterday, we took a trip to the craft shop, just Jared, Amahli and me. We had to get some things to make Jumeirahs teacher a Christmas pressie and it had to be done by Wednesday ( thus the lack of blog yesterday.. sorry). The materials for the angel were all on special so it didnt cost me much at all but some time and patience. ( both of which I am lacking but dug deep to complete the mission :) )

On the way out of the craft shop, Jared stopped at the mini Christmas trees and asked if we could have one for our table. Sadly, the big one isnt up yet.. we normally wait until after Jumeirahs birthday, then wait a bit more, a bit more, then panic cos its not up still, then do it. Think we are about half way through this process currently. And so, seeing they were half price, I was struck with an idea.
Amahli had gotten stuck way back in the christmas decorations and came finally down to meet me with her own basket someone had kindly given her( thanks very much) full of christmas things.
And so, I culled some and bought half of them, all at half price, plus Jareds tree. It cost my a total of $5.25.
And we took it home and set up this little table activity.




Half done angel...
Now, I dont know about you, but the tree is one of the most exciting things about getting ready for Christmas. Until you have kids. Then it becomes one of the biggest annual disasters you'll ever have.
Tree: notorious for eye gouging, leg scratching and is generally taller than your living room roof.
Christmas decos: often are a hundred years old, made of fine glass and shatter when squeezed by chubby 2 yr old hands.
Tinsel: shreds itself all over the floor even before its made it to the tree. Also makes a great pulley for a quick 4 yr old christmas tree dismantle. And dont even get me started on lights......
Today, I had one tiny tree, NO tinsel, NO lights, 30 decorations all made from felt or plastic, and TWO very happy children.

They spent ages tressing that little tree, discussing what should go where, how to hang things, working together. Jared was so proud of himself for completing it. Amahli was more content in DE tressing it and was just as proud when she had finished.

It made no mess, caused no fights and took me less than 5 minutes to set and and pack away...think I can get away with only having this one up this year????? Lets see :)

Kool Aid painting.. what works and what doesnt

Earlier this week, my lovely friend at Mom Tried It, Kim, sent me MORE Kool Aid after I lost the first lot. ( I know it will turn up, someday). So, today, I was busting to try it out :) It smells incredibly sweet, even in an unopened packet. So we decided to do some simple water painting with it that would give us lovely smelling paintings.

So Amahli and I sat up and began to make a simple concoction of water and Kool Aid. Both of us wanted to try the powder. Neither of us had any idea how incredibly SOUR this stuff is!! Amahli didnt get it the first time, and had to try again. Me? Umm.. well... lets just say it took me longer ;) ( I had to try ever single one, believing for just a moment, that one of them would taste like it smells. I can see why you have to add copious amounts of sugar to it!!)

This is the faces when trying Lemon...

But quite obviously, Blueberry was worse ;)

And so, we began our paintings. And they smelt beautiful. Which, of course, put Jared right off :) But the colours are vibrant and it was fun to paint with.

I then thought I would have a go at making finger paint from it. I made a cornflour and water paste with two flavours ( lemon and blueberry) and the result was truly )almost) edible. I reckon if I put that in a pastry case it could SO pass as a lemon tart ;) An incredibly tart tart.

And so, I put the mixture on the table, encouraging both of them to come and feel it. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. Amahli stuck one finger and and declared " ITS GROSS!" so it was up to me to test it out. Whilst the consistency is great and smooth, the colour was lacking. Next time, I'll add more ;)