little things

Gosh.


2013 is BIG. And hard. And CRAZY.


I have been completely turned on my head. Jumeirah is now in 3rd class ( which Im kinda sorta ok with), Jared has now begun Kindergarten ( which he is TOTALLY blissed out with and I am trying hard to be ok with ) and Amahli is now at preschool two days a week ( which is where I fall apart juts a bit more).

I have two days to myself and its something I dont like.... yet. I walk around feeling very lonely, cleaning the house which makes me feel so housewifey and I HATE that feeling, wondering how each of my cherubs are doing and who's looking out for them. Its an unerving feeling, to not know if they are ok.
But Im getting there :)

At the beginning of the year I kind of decided  that I would no longer blog, seeing as I only have a child at home for two days ( one other day is swimming/library/ run around like a crazy person day)
and it didnt seem worth it.
But today, we were at  home and she asked me " Mum when will it be my turn to do something fun and crafty?" and I realised that whilst Ive had two days so far with just her and me, we havent been all that productive and more shoppy which  I also hate. ( one 4 year old and just and hour in the shops can be REALLY expensive!!!!)
So I got some things sorted for her and realised that it was probably time to let her have some more moments by herself on this little blog of mine before I finally finish it when I lose her to school too ( its ok, I have a year to prepare for that one :) )

And so we had a great day, and I photographed it. Admittedly, its all on the iphone, its quick and easy and less invasive, and its also nothing overly new. But it wasnt until I was reading over some old posts that I realised I have so much in here that shes never  done and so its time I actually used some of these activities for myself!!

and so this is today :)

And this is all the things I gave this gorgeous kid in doing these activities.....

1. Threading. Its a piece of plastic canvas ( find it at spotlight or other crafty shops) and a blunt big needle and thread. Encourages hand/ eye coordination, patience, creativity. Theres no end to this, its an open ended fun thing to do.

2. walking the dog. Encourages looking after something other that herself ( a BIG skill to learn) healthy living, and exploring our world. It also works of directions ( we do heaps of left/ right turns) road safety, and builds muscles.


3. Hanging out her own washing. One of her most favourite things to do as she can do it completely without my help. Im blessed to have two clotheslines and both lay flat on the wall so she can pretty much hang a full load out! We work together, I do my line she does hers. Its awesome for learning a life skill, hand eye co ordination, conversation and helping someone else.

4.walking in the rain. I love to walk in the rain. Lots of parents I know dont let their kids do it but hte world is SO different if you step outside like this.... we talked about what happens to puddles and creeks when it rains ( fills up more, makes beautiful sounds, makes patterns in the puddles) and the sounds you can hear when it rains... water running down the road, the steam hissing from hotter parts of the road, the LOUD crickets and frogs who love the rain. We talked about how the colours are brighter and how leaves collect water for the birds... I love walking with kids in the rain :)


So Im back, sort of, I think. I hope to be able to still share some things to do with your kids and I hope you are still inspired to go try something new.

Id love to hear about it if you do!!

icecream/cake shop: sand play

For Christmas this year I made something for Amahli I knew she'd love.

We are often at the beach. The two bigs are ALWAYS in the water but littlest Miss likes to sand play too. I wanted to make her a beach set a little different from just the usual bucket and spade and so I started looking around for something different...

I came across some cheap icecream scoops in Spotlight and it kinda took off from there!

The kit contained : ( sorry I havent taken a photo of it un-sandy yet!)

three icecream scoops

one waffle cone

3 other style cones

and about 16 little patty pans... ( some flexible plastic from Go lo)

All three absolutely LOVE it. And late yesterday arvo when it was gloomy and overcast and no one wanted to swim, all of them sat together for over an hour creating a gourmet cake and icecream shop :)

not an overly expensive kit, but something so different we had half the kids at the beach wanting to play!!

3d drawings

Today I had a serious flush of mum goodness ( thinks its because all the cleaning was done yesterday!!! for the moment...) and all three wanted to do "Something!". I had found all over Pinterest a idea Ive wanted to try for awhile.. 3D hand drawings.

Simple enough idea, but something that looked cool as well.

Jared was happy to watch and pick colours, Amahli wanted to practise writing her name, so it was just me and Jumeirah.

Start by tracing your hand and wrist in pencil.

from one side to  the other, draw straight lines on the paper. If you come to part of your wrist or hand, draw an arc or rainbow as we called it.

continue up the hand. you then can add more colours into it.
Here is a better vision of an explanation on Pinterest ;)

Turned out pretty good!! We both did two each, finding that some textas were too thin to make it stand out properly, but a fun arty idea to do with an older child... or yourself :)

happy new year!!!

Happy New Year! my goodness didnt 2012 just race by?? Normally at the end of every year I think "Ive really seen enough of that year"this time around I feel like Ive barely written 2012 at all and now its gone!!

2013 is a year of big changes for me... none of which Im thrilled about as yet.

My eldest is now about the enter primary school.
My middle is about to start KINDERGARTEN ( Yikes)
And my baby is about to start preschool!! This I thought maybe Id wait awhile ( every body in my family  goes to preschool only the year before they go to school) but I CANT BECAUSE APPARENTLY SHES GOING TO SCHOOL NEXT YEAR!! help!!


So this year I will have two days with about 4 hours each to myself. And I have no idea what to do....

So Im trying to sit calmly, wait, and be patient. Cos this year is already faster than the last one...

As for this little blog... I dont know what I will do with it. Im currently in the process of sorting to be able to print it so Ill have it forever. I know  there wont be as many posts because I only have one child and I have her only 3 days a week and two of those days we are going to be out! But for now, Ill show you some things we do over the school holidays :)

simple today...

I made the cutest little tent for Amahli for Christmas after not being about to find her something "plastic" and not wanting to spend heaps on something that wouldnt get played with and today I set it up for them in her room :)


Id so spend hours in here... if only they would stop finding me ;)

Tent idea came from here.  I changed it a little bit and also added velcro along the bottom to hold the fabric in place. Think the whole thing cost me less that $20 and about an hour to make.



Simple easy fun :)

christmas trees

Gosh its been ages since Ive been in here.... with having a massive few weekends, preschool ending and nearly the end of school, orientation for someone whos going to school next year ( but we arent talking about that) and someone else that starts preschool! ( but we arent talking about that either!), massive amounts of work editing photo shoots and then to top it off, a broken computer.... Ive not had a chance to do ANYTHING!

But we have still been crafting sometimes, and Ive a couple of cool things to show still... I have no idea what will happen next year so I cant promise Ill be in here forever but it seems strange to think I may ned up stopping it. Its been such a huge chunk of our lives, its almost all of Amahlis life, and its been wonderful to connect with others who've gone out and done lots of the craft Ive shown!

Something cool we did the other day when I had 5 seconds to do an activity was to make christmas trees. Originally it was going to be to make some christmas cards but it does take a little while to do so we jut made one each :)


I gave each of them a slightly different method, to match skill level and ability. For Amahli, I drew three triangles for her to cut out, arrange in size order and then glue to make a tree. She loves to cut paper but needed a bit of encouragement to actually cut the triangle and not do too much free form.

Jared had strips to cut up, then had to arrange in size order, then glue. His took a bit longer but Im finding that hes really enjoying spending time instead of racing through things... must be a sign bes ready for school ( NOOOOOO!!!)

They both were really proud of the efforts and result of this cute little christmas craft :)

what are you making these days ???

fun and games

Through the last few months Jared and I have steadily been working our way through and awesome "learn your letters"style book. To start with, he totally didnt get it and I worked really hard to not get frustrated with him. Then all of a sudden, it began to click. Everywhere we went, he was identifying them, from signs in shops, to squealing on the highway for me to pull over cos he'd spotted a "t", to finding them just about everywhere and being so excited by that.

Today I played a game with them that encouraged that letter recognition but also secretly rewarded him for being able to learn so many so quickly :)

"Dont eat Pete!" is a game Ive seen all over the web and I may have even blogged about it before but I couldnt find my original board for it. So a quick google image search found me one and I printed it off to start playing.

The original version has nine people in squares. The way to play is each square has an M & M ( or smartie or whatever) on it. One person goes out of the room, the others quietly decide which person is called Pete. First person comes back into the room and has to try and guess which one is Pete. If they guess wrong, they get to eat the chocolate from the square they picked. They guess until they find him :)

both kids couldnt quite believe I was playing with chocolate but were also very keen.
After a few rounds, I changed it and quickly drew a new board with 9 letters. The same rules applied and I sent Jared out of the room.
He grinned when he came back and saw the new board and then happily and correctly, tried to find Pete.

Looking for a cute quick fun game to play?

This one is perfect :)

balloon popping fun

I was struggling to find something cool to do on a monday morning but to my absolute surprise, Jared came up with something all on his own ( with help from playschool).

Apparently on playschool they had done an activity that involved paint in balloons being popped over paper to make cool patterns. Jared was veyr keen to give it a go and there was no way I was going to disagree with my little paint a phobic child!!

And so we started :)

I got 4 balloons and filled them a little bit with of paint ( probably more than I should have but Meh!) and then tied them up.

We had to work out how to attach them so they would hang and Jared thought that using a chair would be the way to go, tying the balloons with wool and a slight distance apart.

We placed paper underneath to catch the gently falling art as it hit the ground. I gave him a sharp skewer and stood back to take photos ( turns out it wasnt far back enough... I ended up covered too)

And this is what happened.

It sprayed everywhere. Oh, everywhere EXCEPT the paper underneath it ;)

His first comment was "I need a shower, NOW"but I encouraged him  to finish the other balloons before we did that so he tentatively popped the other three.

So wish Id had a white background to shoot with but you get the idea of how it went down.. or up as the case was.

So much fun, I dont think Ive laughed that much in ages, his face was priceless but it was a good fun activity that Id happily do again :)

Going to try it with mini balloons next time and less paint!!