Rainbow Friday: RICE

This morning I had breakfast with Batgirl....

There are days that no one likes. Days where nothing goes right, nothing feels right, its all just blah. I have had a few of these days hit in a row lately, I cant really see why, it just seems to be happening ( And it seems that there are a few of you out there going through the same thing!)

Well today, I am done with that :) Today is going to be a great day :)

With that mind set, I told my gang that today we were going to find us some rainbows. I love rainbows ( gee can you tell??) and they never fail to spark a bit of hope to the heart and a smile to the face. So I told them I HAD to clean the kitchen and do the floors and that would be it for today as we were going to find some fun.

Whilst I cleaned and tidied, they all busied themselves. Jared and Amahli raced around on bikes ( yup, not even that kinda craziness was going to get to me today!), Jumeirah sat up at the bench and told me " not to look". Once I had finished and told them we were going to the beach, she presented me with this.

Note that she signed it Batgirl?? Funny little one :)

I cant even put into words how incredibly thoughtful this little 5 yr old is. My heart aches to keep her exactly how she is right now, and I can only hope that this amazing love she has for making others feel better will stay with her forever and that she can see the difference she makes in her own beautiful ways.

Before we set out on our adventure, I got her to help me with a special fun thing I wanted to do with them in the afternoon. I found this great play box idea at Pink and Green Mama that used coloured rice to play in. So thats what we made. I made it much the same as she did, with food colouring and hand sanitiser to set the colour. ( I may have used slightly more food colouring but it made for some bright colours!) We left it in the sun to dry until we got back.

So we headed for the beach which was pure bliss. Super sunny winters day. We made sandcastles, chased, raced, climbed, discovered, tested mums " dont get wet" boundaries, chatted and played.

Photos taken on my mobile with the hipstamatic App. LOVE it.

When we came home, the littles went to bed and Jumeirah and I watched a movie. This afternoon, I set up the rice play box.


The colours were absolutely amazing, bright and vivid and very enticing ( yep I had a little play). I called them to see it and they all gasped. Jumeirah was first in, taking sections of colours and placing them on top of different colours...



Amahli was about 2 minutes behind her and got straight in. All three of them were mixing and sifting, finding things in the drawer to pour with, and also added spoons and measuring cups. They absolutely loved it. And surprisingly, about 10 grains in total ended up on the floor so I was pretty happy with that!

Have set it up for tomorrow as well :)




Happy Weekend!!!

Senses: eyes, look what I made!

My true beauty... yes the outside may be pretty but your gorgeous nature, your positive spin on absolutely everything, your need to make the world a happier place, your desire to make my life easier in everything you do.. thats what makes you beautiful :) xx


We had the most horrendous night the other night. The disaster happened when we had a simple blackout. Jumeirah, who has always slept with a hall light on, obviously woke up and found the room in complete darkness, then tried to get out of bed and come looking for me. I was catapulted from my bed to the scream " MUM! I NEED YOU YOU! RIGHT NOW! DONT YOU HEAR? I NEED YOU!!! NOW!!!!!" that sound more like she was being ripped limb from limb rather than lost in her own room. She was absolutely terrified. Coupled with that was the fact that she sleeps with head phones on so she couldnt hear me yelling back to say I was coming but was having my own 'cant find myself in the dark' issues. Finally we managed to find each other, clung for awhile and, thankfully, the lights returned. Three kids all were resettled in about an hour and sleep returned ( for all of another hour before Amahli announced she was done with bedtime).


The next day, I talked to her about what had happened and she commented on how she tried to find her way on the dark but couldnt see a thing. And so I thought of a fun thing to do that could show her how to get around if it happened again.
We talked about what it would be like to not be able to see at all, how would we be able to move around without running into anything? How would we know where we were? And I told her we were going on a walk.

I blindfolded her and took her hand and old her she had to trust me. Well she didnt. She absolutely did not want to move even with me holding her hand.


Finally, through much convincing, she did begin to let me lead her around the house, instructing her to use her other hand to feel her way around. I then got her into her bedroom and let her go, using verbal instructions to get around the walls. She thought this was pretty cool and eventually she got herself outside with my directions.
I told her next time we were in a black out, she just had to follow the wall to my room and she'd be ok. Her response? " Nah, I think I'll just scream again cos that worked faster". Yep good lesson that one :)



It took me ages to get her to stop doing this.. shes peeking out the bottom :)

I then left her blindfolded and got her to do a painting on the wall. She thought this was hilarious but did it anyway, trying to paint a person, a tree and her name. She was surprised that the tree actually looked like a tree.








Changing their perception of things ( like taking away a sense like sight) is a great way for them to learn about how life can be for some people. It allows them to practise using other senses ( like hearing and touching) to cope in the world and their own environment. It was also really fun!


Last week sometime, a blogger friend asked for volunteers to test a skirt pattern. Thinking this would be fun, I signed up :) And it was :)





The skirt will hopefully very soon be available from Treasures For Tots and was actually not as hard as I first thought ( luckily I did have my mum to help but it still wasnt that hard)


And even though I am not friends with ruffles, this little skirt turned out really really cute! And the best part? It fits both girls! Yes either my 5 yr old is really skinny, ot my 18 month old is a chubber... probably a bit of both :)



And its twirlability is really quite fantastic!





Will let you know when you can get this great pattern for your own little princesses :)

Trains/ simple small world play

Whilst we still have Ma here, I made the most of having an extra pair of arms and decided to take a trip to see the steam trains. This doesnt happen often, but they were advertising steam train rides up the coast and having a son who is just obsessed with trains I couldnt really NOT go!

And so we took off, despite the bleak weather, to join the masses and have their first steam train ride.

Hot Fire! Was amazing to feel the amount of heat that comes out of this!

We watched it come into the station, it was very busy with lots of people and incredibly LOUD. Man do those things make the most incredible sound! Well, all three kids freaked out, but we pressed on and found seats and waited. We were right at the front of the train which I thought would be a good thing, but turned out the be the loudest point of the train. Oopps.

Jumeirah does a quick dash to see if its coming...

Amahli and Jumeirah settled pretty quick and started to enjoy the ride. Jared, on the other hand, was terrified and absolutely HATED it. ( sorry kiddo, I had to take this photo of you, you looks so very cute and worried).

On arriving in Telegraph Point, the train stopped. The engine had to detach and makes it way to the other end for the return trip. Once this noisy part made its way down the other end, Jared took his fingernails out of my skin and began to move around the cabin. Within minutes he was pointing things out to other passengers ( COWS! HORSES! and and other fun country stuff) and began to enjoy himself. He hung out the window for most of the trip back :)

I tried to take as many photos as I could, trouble is, that big black noisy engine spurts out a heck of a lot of grit and soot and I ended up with it up my nose, in my eyes and covered in it, so I took what I could but enjoyed watching without the use of a lens for most of the trip :)

"I cannot see, Mum!"

Happy at last :)

Well worth it really, it was such a different thing to do. And by the end, all three had really enjoyed it :)

We came home and read all the train books we own and talked about what we had seen.

In the afternoon, I got out a few new sea animals I found on special in Coles the other day. And, not wanting to make too much of a mess with sand and water inside, I set up three individual mini play worlds with my three.

Amahli ended up with all her animals in a huge pile, but she enjoyed counting them as they got piled up on each other.Jared, of course, didnt want the sand as it looked messy with Amahli in it, so he used his animals for sorting and then they had a play together.

Jumeirah set hers up to be a land vs sea play, all the jellyfish went into the water, starfish baked on land.

Then she took them all out to give the penguins some play time :)

I ended up giving Amahli a larger tub and she had a great time transfering them for one bowl to another.




Even though these worlds were so much smaller to play in, all three kids really enjoyed them. I thought it might restrict their play but it didnt much at all!

What do you use for small world play?

Ice Treasures

An oldie but a goodie :)

Not much to report today... bit of a sleep deprived rut has crashed into me today.. but heres a brilliant idea for school holidays and summer that is just too much fun :) I am actually planning to repeat it here next week even though it is the middle of winter....

Ice Treasures

This activity takes a bit of preparation but its so worth it.. my kids have spent hours doing this during the week..

Start by finding a large container that will fit in the freezer.. icecream container is a good size.

Put in about a quarter full of water. Into this water the first layer of treasures : I had coins, buttons, plastic dinosaurs, marbles, shells... anything I could find on the floor ;) obviously it will have to be larger items for smaller children. You wont need heaps of things in each layer you freeze so start with about 5 to 10 items.
Put in the freezer for a few hours.. I am shockingly impatient and kept trying to freeze more layers too fast and everything kept falling to the bottom.. it really is much more fun if you let it completely freeze.
When its frozen, add your second layer of water, about half way and 5-10 more treasures.

Again into the freezer.
Third layer of water and final layer of treasures... let freeze. NOW THE FUN PART! trying to release the treasures!






I gave my kids some spoons, a bowl of warm water, syringes, and then left them to it :) They started in the shade so it wouldnt melt too fast, then moved it out into the sun to see how fast it would melt. Takes ages in winter :)







Great for exploring water, cause and effect, fine motor and patience.

things Im thankful for

Thought I might change my Friday, instead of just having a photo of a moment in the week, I'm going to have something I am thankful for.

I always try to find something in each day that Im thankful for, its something I started with Jumeirah a little while ago to help her to see that everyday has something special in it. It took awhile to see it everyday but now its a common thing to get excited about thinking what we were thankful for each day.

So thats what my Fridays will now be :)

Today I am thankful for this picture from Jumeirah, its was just what I needed. I asked her to draw me something while I cooked dinner and this is what she did.

" Its a happy place Mum, its got a waterfall and fairies in a lovely garden. Its just for you cos I know you like happy places."

My cute little cat :) (Had to be bribed to get it washed later)


Its seems the world is against me blogging at the moment... a variety of things stopped me getting here again yesterday! Add to that, Ma has come for a visit so things get a bit busier :) May not be in here very much till mid next week but will do what I can!

The other day, I found this great little website called Muffin Tin Mom. As well as having some great activities and fun stuff, she does a thing called Muffin Tin Monday, which had heaps of other peoples ideas ( as well as her own) for a cool way to present snack time in muffin tins! I instantly loved so many of the things shown and found some new ways to get my gang to try some different things as well as looking at a new way to serve them so its fun as well!!
So, for morning tea, I did this for my two littles.



It was simple ( we have NOTHING in the cupboard) but it was fantastic! Not only was it recieved with a "WOW MUM!" but Jared and I talked about the patterns I had made, Amahli and I counted how many containers held sultanas and how many had cheerios in it, plus Jared then went and made similar sequences with his dinosaurs. So this got a massive tick from me :) Just need a few more things to add to it.




In the afternoon, I did it again but added a few more things and a bigger tin which Jumeirah described as " the best afternoon tea I never had!!!"



She got right into the sorting with Amahli, and sorted on the mat together. A BIG hit :)






Go check out the ideas! And when you make your own, ( trust me, you WILL want to) link up here so I can see too!