what should I buy?

I have a little friend who visits me with his gorgeous mum once a week. Shes a sanity saver for me, and so normally we just sit and chat away whilst the kids play. This week I thought I would do something a touch more productive with them around our chatting :)

Her little guy ( 2yr old) has one of the strangest obsessions Ive encountered. Hes totally obsessed with all things washing machine. He knows the name of EVERY SINGLE type of washing liquid and basically makes a beeline for my laundry most times he comes. He is always carrying around his own bottle of Cuddly. Im hoping to invite him over in a few years and he'll do mine laundry for me ;)

When they came over this week, I had planned an activity that was an easy but fun thing for little people to do. I cut up a magazine from the supermarket of all different types of food and things you find in a grocery shop. I had frozen food, fresh fruit and veggies, meats etc all sorted into different containers, as well as an " isle" of cleaning products. I printed them all off a trolley picture of their own and invited them to go shopping!!

They could pick what they wanted, and then glued them into the trolleys.

We talked about what they were all buying....

Jared bought fresh food and a coke for dad.

Amahli ( who obviously shops with her mother, who has to buy a whole meal most days because the food fairies steal whatever I buy from the freezer.. or maybe its because I shop with three kids I never buy what Im supposed to but always end up spend $200!!?? ) bought enough things to make a complete meal of sausages sambos ( or sausage in bread for those who have no idea. Its a very typical Australian BBQ thing to have)

And my little friend??

check out the trolley :)

I wish I could have filmed how excited he was over each product he could barely contain himself. Was very funny to watch and he thoroughly enjoyed it.

Once he had completely used up all the laundry things in one trolley ( and a random pizza) I gave him some more plain paper and he glued more food items on them too.

This activity is great for encouraging conversation, talking about cold things and things you cook, healthy food and "sometimes" food and also is lots of fun!

short simple easter cross

Easter weekend. The shops are full of people buying up ridiculous amounts of chocolate in the forms of eggs, chickens and bunnies.

Now, it only occurred to me the other day that I totally don't get the link between the Easter Bunny and Easter. Someone said to Jumeirah in the shops last week "I hope the Easter bunny is good to you!", and she turned to me and asked " How is there an Easter bunny in the REAL story, Mum?"
When I spoke to someone from work what they thought, she answered " the bunny is for kids! It's cute and fluffy and a fun time for them!"

For me, Easter is so far from cute and fluffy it made me squirm. For me, it's about a man, an amazing man who'd done some amazing things, who was then accused of lying about who He was, and then crucified for it, and then rose to prove it was true. ( in a nutshell ;) )

It's a really tough thing to grasp as an adult, I can't imagine how a child takes all that in.

Today, I did something with Amahli ( Jumeirah has something great to do tomorrow, Jareds cool Easter activity comes on Sunday :)) that would begin to allow her to understand a bit more about Easter.


While Jumeirah was doing her egg shell craft ( we broke the shells we dyed the other day into little pieces so she could do some mosaic art with them) Amahli wanted to collage too. Mum sent the kids some cute Easter glitter (compete with egg, chicks and bunny shapes) and so I set up a simple collage on a cross shape. With her and her sister sitting beside her, we talked about what the glitter shapes were about.

The hollow Easter egg represents the empty tomb, the chick means new life. We talked about the Cross as well, to which Amahli commented "Jesus would be sad" so she seemed to get that it was a pretty sad time. It's still some fairly big concepts for a 2 yr old, let alone a 6 yr old but it's a building block, and it's something they'll get more as they get older.
Amahli had a great time gluing and sticking lots of shapes to her cross :)

Its simple, easy activities like this that open lots of possibilities for chats.

I hope its something that sticks ;)

simple egg biscuits

This week is just flying past with visits from a gorgeous friend from sydney and another gorgeous one from Wingham... its made for a fun and busy week that I wish would just slow down!

Easter craft yesterday before my little friend left again for home was something really simple that pretty much any age can do from about 12 months to whatever! most kids will find something fun to do with this one. Arrowroot biscuits are the perfect egg shape and are easy to deocrate.
Now, you can be healthy and use a cheese spread and sultanas to decorate but I went for the sugar overload and made pink icing and mini marshmallows :)

The easiest way to contain really small kids in the activity is to strap them into a high chair. Its means the mess is contained but it also helps them to stay in one place with this activity. Give each child their own biscuit, younger children can have theirs pre spread with icing. Give each child a handful of their own marshmallows ( saves arguement) and allow them to decorate as they please. Pretty obviously, the littles are going to eat them as they stick, but they are using fine motor control to pick up tiny marshmallows so its good for working on those skills if no actual decorating gets done :)

Jared just wanted to see how many he could get on one biscuit...

Amahli was all colour co ordinated....

Jumeirah made faces :)

Older children tend to make patterns ( and in my house, faces!) and enjoy using sprinkles and other deocrations to complete this. Today I was going for simple simple so this was enough.

When they are done, pop them in the fridge for about half an hour so the icing can become firm.
Or eat them straight away if you cant wait ;)

Here are some of the beautiful moments I had with this precious little one and my gang on the beach :)

bath paints

Ive always considered myself a pretty cool mum.
I spend my life making the lives of my family easier, more enjoyable and fun. And mostly, its self rewarding. But today, its hit me that although Im a great mum, a fun mum, an amazing mum... I'll never be as great as daddy.
And to be honest, that kinda sucks.

Today I found myself in a conversation with Jumeirah about the fact that I didnt come and look at a game she and daddy were playing ( whilst I cooked dinner and cleaned the carpet from Amahlis unfortunate accident AND kept her happy while she begged for daddy time too) and therefore I must not really care.

It hurt.. alot.

How do you find balance? How do you get to be the fun one but also make sure the house doesnt fall apart and that kids are still fed and watered and that the day continues to move forward as its supposed to??

Life has gotten very busy for us with school and preschool and swimming and jazz and goodness knows what else fills up our days and a few children ( well really, its all three of them) are bucking the system. I have tears in the afternoon if something goes missing, there are "friends" no longer being "friendly", and I seem to argue over stupid things when I havent had to before.

Today it was Amahlis turn to REALLY let me know she wasnt pleased with how the day was going ( understatement as you'll see for the photos) ( NO Im not a bad parent for taking photos of her upset, she didnt want me to but I want to show her them later in the week)

Tired and out of ideas, I threw her in the bath I calmly ran her a lovely warm bath and put her in. To keep her happy and entertained, I made her up some bath paint.

Using Shaving cream ( the cheap stuff from Coles works a treat) I added a few drops of food colouring to it and mixed it in. I then added a paint brush and gave it to her. She had an absolute ball.. painting the bath tub and herself mostly ( I would recommend that you encourage ONLY painting these areas as the tiles and grout might not like the food colouring) and spent a good 20 minutes creating and painting.

Once she as clean, calm and happy to get out, we snuggled up on her bed an read for about 10 minutes and then she told me it was time for milk and dummy and " you go out now".

*sigh* *sit* *breathe* .... and then its time to get the circus back up and running to do the school pick up :)

When are school holidays??????

scissor play

When Jared came to me yesterday brandishing a pair of scissors and saying " I just cut a bit, ok Mum?" I knew it was time to either do some scissor activities or risk losing a mop of blonde hair with the potential of losing TWO lots of curly mops... And so I grabbed out some paper and the playdough and we set to work :)

I set Amahli up first with some simple playdough cutting. Using no blade scissors ( trust me, they will still cut hair) sh got to practising using them, holding them so they would cut through the dough, and also making tiny cut pieces of playdough. Its great for general scissor pratice but its also great for strengthening little muscles and helps prevent the frustration that comes with not being about to cut through paper just yet.

For Jared, I did something a bit harder to challenge him. I folded up a square of coloured paper, drew some shapes on the folded piece, and got hinm to cut the lines. This was pretty tricky to do, first to manipulate the scissors onto the line but also to work them to only cut along the lines. He did really well, only needing some verbal encouragement and help in turning the paper.

Once unfolded, he was surprised to see a cool pattern emerge from the cut paper.

It was then that Amahli wanted a turn and so we swapped activities and she began ( with a little bit of help) to cut her own piece of paper. I didnt fold hers the same, just allowed her to snip around the edge.

Understandly, this is the only photo I took at this point. I value the use of all ten fingers and both eyes ;)

She was pretty proud of herself once she had finished and wanted to do more.

I was happy to oblige, and after 25 minutes both of their hands were sore enough from holding scissors that neither of them were keen on moving onto hairdressing.

For today at least ;)

threading and gluing for little fingers

I have been a bit floaty floaty after having such a lovely long school holiday break but last night I got my creative butt into gear and began to plan some arty crafty activities for my littles to help us through the days....

Today was simply a weaving and gluing activity, very easily made with things we found around the house.

This activity is great for: fine motor skills, learning opposites ( in and out), patience and hand eye coordination.

I began by hole punch some thick cardboard ( its actually a box I got deliveries in last week) right around the edge. The cardboard needs to be thick as little fingers are rough with pulling wool through the holes and they break easily if the card board is too thin. Its also easier to hold if its more sturdy. I then gave them each a long strand of wool that I had stickytaped around the end for easy threading. I then let them thread it in and out the holes as they pleased.

Look at that concentration :)

Amahli threaded about half of hers ( which was a mighty fine effort for a 2 yr old!) and then wanted to paste. Jared did his the whole way around until he had no wool left and then wasnt sure about the paste bit, but I did the glue bit, he did the collage bit.

I was well impressed with these gorgeous creations, as was a big sister when she came home.
Art like this is great displayed for a week or so. It is easy to make a loop of wool to hang it on a door handle or picture hook, and it gives my littles a great sense of achievement to see their art on the wall :)

How do you display art??

Anyone got some photos of art display ideas?

butterfly painting

With yesterdays beautiful paintings from Jumeirah, I wanted to do something for Amahli so she too could give her paintings away at Christmas. She loves to paint and is becoming quite particular in her use of colour and brushes, much like her older sister was at the same age. ( Boy, am I in for trouble)
Jared too, seemed keen so I wanted something he would enjoy as well.

So I set up a really simple painting experience that has brilliant results, butterfly painting.
Instead of using spoons to dollop out the paint, I made it less messy and gave them the whole tube of paint to squeeze out. This paint is really thick so it worked their muscles in their fingers really well.

I got them to squeeze paint down the centre of the page ( I folded it in half first so it was easy to see) and then to fold it over and squish the paint in between the layers.
No matter how many times you do this, its always different in the end.





Then they got to open them up for the big reveal.
You should have seen these little faces absolutely light up when they could see how beautiful their butterflies were :)





We will use our butterflies as gorgeous wrapping paper this year. So much cheaper and nicer to recieve than shop bought paper :)
Make some for yourself!