volcanoes!

Didnt get a blog up yesterday.. battery in the camera was flat and I didnt get home till late so I went to bed soaking in the great memories from a wonderful day :) Soon I will post about our great day at Cresent Head but I havent been through the 6 million photos I took so you'll just have to wait! But today... today was another sciencey day. Yesterday, I set up a really simple sensory tub for Jared containing dinosaurs and sand. Lately Jared has been completely taken with all things dinosaurs and volcanoes. Yes I know, the two dont naturally go together but anytime we play with dinosaurs I need to make a volcano and vice versa. So today, I told him we were going to make a real dinosaur island with a REAL volcano :)

Its pretty simple to do.

You need: a small container ( we used an old dishwashing bottle but a coke bottle would do great too)

Warm water ( about enough to fill half the bottle 6 or so drops of dishwashing soap

about 4 tablespoons Bi carb soda

1/2 cup of vinegar

a tub to stand it in and sand to hold it in place and to make the volcano.

Dinosaurs to make it look authentic ( although not really needed)

I got my 4 kids ( yes I gained an extra for today) to create the volcano, being careful not to get sand in the top of the bottle. Once it was in place and looking volcanoish, I filled the bottle with the warm water, drops of dishwashing liquid, and bi carb soda. I also red food colouring to make it looks really lava-ish.

Then, pour in the vinegar quickly and and watch it work!!

Ok, our first attempt was a dismal failure. Not enough vinegar, not enough bi carb, kids thought it was hilarious that I had been so excited and all I got was a tiny bit of froth.

So, with each time we tried it ( and believe me, we went through a whole bottle of vinegar!) we got more game with the amount of bi carb and the amount of vinegar till we got it to properly explode ( its not too high, dont worry) and then run down and cover the dinosaurs below. Jared absolutely screamed with laughter at this experiment. In fact, everytime he told someone about it, he got the giggles and his little face lit up :)

I enlisted daddys help cos it was impossible to pour vinegar, squeal at the result and take photos all at the same time :)

We ran out of food colouring but white lava is jsut as good, so Im told..

Jumeirah and I talked about how things react, different chemicals cause different things to happen. The soap in the water didnt do much. The bi carb reacted with the vinegar. Its simple stuff but as she gets older we can really get into it. In the meantime, its a really fun thing to make your sensory tubs "come alive!!!"

tie dyed milk

Ok Im going to start by apolgising for the amount of photos.. this activity really is photo addictive :)

Today began the first official day of the school holidays and I woke up with such an enthusiastic bunch of little people who were just as excited as I was.

I have been collecting ideas and supplies for over a month now... of cool things I'd love to do with this gang of mine. I wrote out the list and put it on the fridge this morning and it was all I could do to stop myself from trying to do it all on the first day!

Now, dont get me wrong, I dont have things planned for every minute of every day. A "friend" ( I'll use that term loosely cos anyone who hassles my parenting style cant really be a friend, can they?!?) told me I over parent my kids and I should let them do whatever they want all day long. But for me, if Ive got something planned that takes up to an hour for each day, then they can spend the rest of the day doing as they please. It means that I feel like Ive done something good by them by having something creative to do. If they dont want to do it, they dont have to. If they want to do more, thats all good too :) Its all about balance, and I know that at the end of the holidays I wont be busting to get them back to school cos we have had fun through the holidays :)

So today, I had an experiment planned. Probably more so because the milk was out of date, but also because its a cool thing to do. Starting with a shallow plate of milk and food colouring, we dropped a few drops of colour into the milk and began to swirl it around.

Now, we have done the experiment using washing liquid as well, this was just simply milk and food colouring. I have seen the most amazing pictures of beautiful swirly colours, worthy of being framed on a wall. Ours? Not so much. The first attempt was pretty dismal...didnt swirl, just made muddy brown milk. maybe because we used lite milk?? And so we tried again... second attempt wasnt much better....

hmm not quite what I wanted...

At this point Amahli was done swirling and went off in search of Jared. Jumeirah and I, not to be defeated on day 1 of holiday fun, persevered with just one more plate of full fat milk. She swirled, and streaked, and zigzagged.. and suddenly the most amazing swirly effect began to happen. Who know how this happened, all I know is we were totally captivated, dropping more colour in, swirling just so, watching beautiful patterns emerge from increasingly darkening milk.

See these swirls? The colours are more seperated, giving a beautiful effect..

Nothing much in this milk activity, just an experience that was a lot of fun and strangely addictive.

And to top off today, we somehow ended up going down to town ( why you'd do that on day 1 of a wet school holiday) and watched in awe as THE REAL JIMMY GIGGLE ( ABC for kids host) walked on stage to sign DVD's! First time my kids have seen someone "famous" in real life. Jumeirahs comment: "Hes actually really real life real!"

Good Day :)

project 52 week 12

This weeks project 52 photo and link up to Mom Tried It was to be under the theme of "texture".
I struggled a bit with this one, not really quite getting the idea of it and not wanting to "paint" as I hadnt done that before.
So Im posting two photos tonight, one is from the beach last week, and shows water texture....



This other one is a photo of an amazing leaf skeleton that I have spent most of the week trying to capture in a photo. Its just beautiful, intricate and delicat but I cant get it right.
This one is the best of a not great bunch... its shot into the sky with the clouds as a background.





Happy weekend to you and HAPPY SCHOOL HOLIDAYS TO US!!!! HOORAY!! stay tuned for lots of fun adventures :)

This time last year: egg shell mosaic

I pulled this one from the " This time last year" archives as we spent most of the day at school painting plaster moulds ( what parent in their right mind offers to make 26 plaster moulds and then has to get up every hour all night long to make a ANOTHER two as only two can be made at a time??? A stupid one, thats who!!) and running around like headless chooks... now I feel an egg blowing session coming on :)


After spending so much time blowing yesterdays eggs, I must admit had some trouble in destroying them. I had seen a few different things to do with the shells once you had finished admiring them, but the one that stood out to me was egg shell mosaics. And then funnily enough, on Paintcutpaste they had done the same craft and had made the most beautiful dragonfly and so thats what we set out to do. I crushed the egg shells into smallish pieces, and had each colour in seperate containers. We didnt have the whole rainbow spectrum but I was impressed at the two tones of green that one egg had, light green on the inside and dark green on the outside ( yeah of course I did it on purpose! ;)) We also had black and blue as well. Jumeirah and I drew the designs we wanted on a piece of paper, hers a butterfly, mine a dragonfly. ( I already told you I am not completely creative, sometimes its easier to copy) And very slowly, we worked together, piece by tiny piece, to create the most amazing little pictures.

They took a long time as each piece has to be placed just so. After almost an hour, Jumeirah had had enough and started sprinkling the last of her egg shell onto her butterfly but she did really well.

I just love how these turned out! Am now looking for some frames to put them into... how awesomea re they going to look on the wall :)

What arty things do your kids do that you cant resist doing yourself ;) ??

lets go fly a kite!

Recently we have had a run of beautiful days.. days filled with family, love, laughter and cruisy cruisy chill-outed-ness. My mum ( and nephew, sister and brother in law) came for a few days, unfortunately some ended up pretty sick and had to go home early, but it was still a great time to let the cousins play :) Since then, we have had to say goodbye to Ma again, and also say goodbye to hubbins sister and brother in law as they begin the next chapter of their lives. So I have been making sure that all these goodbyes are surrounded by happy fun memories for all involved. I took my crew for a last play with a loved aunty and uncle to Lake Cathie on a coolish Autumn day. Coolish meaning my kids didnt have to wear a rash suit to go swimming ;) ( nothing will stop them) We had a great time, and even managed to get Jareds kite flying. And yes the clouds really were that colour! Taken with my phone so the quality isnt great but you get the idea

I also took them to the beach to escape the household that seemed to be getting sick ( Ma and hubbin went downhill with sore throats and whatever bugs were flying around) to enjoy some simple beach time and some lovely fresh air. Unfortunately for them, I took my camera :)

They can be impossible to capture... being clowns or being serious or just plain being themselves and NOT wanting another photo, I waited patiently to catch one of each of them, just in that "moment". We built castles, fished for treasures, watched the waves...

Cant really explain this one except I had to take it if I wanted her to smile :) Apprently its giving her face a chance to "get ready"

And whilst I did feel a little guilty at not having a "proper" crafty post to show you today, I feel calm and relaxed. My kids are learning about balance, to be busy and to slow down, to create happy memories in whatever they are doing.

And I am learning to be patient behind a lens :) Because when I do, and they think Im not happily clicking away ( and I use an awesome lens that looks like Im closer than I really am)I get these.

Love :)xxxx

Short break

Just having a short break today and tomorrow with some family stuff going on.... Will be back on Wednesday :)

projecgt 52 week 11

This weeks theme for Foto Friday with Mom Tried It was laughter. I struggled to take a photo of my gang laughing... anad then I took this one. I havent stopped laughing yet :)