mumma made it

daily life

2012-02-11T09:12:00.004+11:00

Finally the rain has let up :) Apparently its going to be short lived, but Im taking it whilst I can!

I had a whole heap of washing to do, but I wanted to find something that I could involve the other two in.
So, I set up an outdoor area that would include a few different areas for they to engage in.
Both were interested in what I was doing, and quickly came to help.
These are the areas I set up.

PAinting wasnt overly popular, and the boats were short lived, but the washing...BRILLIANT :)

The washing took ages and I kept having to find more and more things for them to wash. This is a brilliant activity for a heap of reasons..... self help skills, looking after your own things, working together ( making sure no one gets soaked) fine motor to squeeze out water, problem solving skills( when the line gets full or when clothes run out). But it also teaches a great life skill in a fun way. I HATE washing with a passion, but I dont know if I would hate it as much if it was as fun as this :)

Amahli spent the afternoon checking if it was dry, then pulled it all off and was ready to fold :)

getting ready for school

2012-02-08T21:56:00.005+11:00

As you can probably tell, life has still not got itself sorted enough for me not to feel dizzy everytime I turn around ;) I havent been in here much, I havent had time to sort through the few photos Ive been taking, Im still working around being exhausted and longing to return to school holidays where life seemed so much simpler! Im so behind on photos it just isnt funny....

This year, Jared is at preschool for two days a week. Im not really a big fan, but it will help in the transition to school next year ( dont even tell me how much worse next year is going to be!)
Whilst he is home with me the other three days in the week, Ive been trying to create a mix of school readiness stuff, combined with encouraging those wonderful self help skills that will aid him in not only surviving but thriving at school :) Things like problem solving, dealing with things when they dont go the way he wants, sharing, looking after your own things... all things that dont come as easily to him as it does his older sister ( and he really doesnt care much either).

So this week, I spent some time with just him, whilst little miss was asleep (another thing that isnt going to last much longer *sigh*). We did something simple to set up and not really involving anything too difficult.

I drew on a piece of paper all the numbers 1-10 and the letters of his name with dotted lines between each digit. He had to cut them all out, then sort them out in order, then glue them in order.

This is a great actvity that they can do whilst you help a younger child, or even whilst breast feeding a younger sibling as its something that requires a more verbal encouragement rather than a physical assistance. I used to do lots of these things whilst feeding Amahli for Jumeirah as it kept her busy but still gave me time to help her without using my hands.

Jared loved doing this and we chatted throughout his cutting, when he wasnt concentrating just like his mum does ;)

Once it was all cut he spent ages gluing each number and letter on it order ( I dont have a final photo of this but you get the idea) and was proud to show dad this arvo.
Im glad of this time with him. Jumeirah got two years at the beginning, Amahli gets two years at the end. But he doesnt get just him and me time so I am savouring every moment :)

the simple things

2012-02-03T23:06:00.005+11:00

Today was the last day of a very long, busy week. School is back in full force, with lunches having to be done everyday, preschool for Jared two days this week, a 5th birthday... I feel like Ive starting running on Monday and have only just stopped now.

This morning, I had absolutely nothing for breakfast, Im talking no bread, no cereal, and limited milk. At 7.30am, the last thing I felt like doing was traipsing off to the shop to find breakfast.....
But, with three hungry mouths to feed I didnt have a lot of choice. Until a brilliant 7 yr old came up with the idea of making our own pancakes.
Now, I have to admit, I dont realy make much from scratch. I love my packet mixes, premade sauces, anything that makes my life that little bit easier :) This stretches to even the shaka maker pancake mix.
But she was pretty determined we could work it out so we googled a recipe and searched for the ingredients. All that was needed was sugar, milk, self raising flour and and egg, all surprisingly, in my cupboards and fridge!

So with a recipe in hand, we began to make our first homemade-from-scratch pancakes.

Dont you love pancake bokeh?? ;)

When they were cooked, we also found a punnet of fresh blueberries to go with them.

I felt vey mother nature-ish as my little hungry hoard happily ate them all.
Its funny how the simple things can bring such easy pleasure :)

Happy weekend :)

Photo photos photos

2012-02-01T22:23:00.001+11:00

Today, my amazing sonshine turns 5. Again, I have no idea how they grow so fast, its just ridiculous. I swear I only had him not long ago and now hes 5!!
To celebrate, I wanted to take some photos of him and his lovely sisters.

Now, I take photos of other peoples kids. And mostly, they turn out beautifully. But stick a camera in front of my kids?? It quickly becomes a three ringed circus.

This is 8 from 35 photos I took today of the clowns I love so much. The whole process took less that 4 minutes.

Often, (so very very often) its Amahli whos the worst. She has no concept of " look at me!" and says " I am! Cant you see me?" when looking straight up at tree. Seriously, this little monkey is the hardest thing Ive ever had to work with.

So I do what I do a lot of when I shoot my kids. I SNAP. ALOT. As in, I snap alot of photos :) Normally, in a shoot with them, I have about 5 shots to get one good one.

But in doing this, you capture the moments in between. The tiny glimpse of love between them. A snort that sets them off again. The glint of mischief. I love these moments....

So when taking photos of your kids, take LOTS. And then take more. They'll get sick of you. But they will look back at those photos and laugh at how many there was, but also the ones they love will be the moments in between :)

Blob monsters

2012-01-30T19:30:00.000+11:00

We've done it a hundred times.... Jared never gets tired of it... Blob painting. I gives him such a delighted thrill to watch his blobs of paint turn into butterflies that when he asked to do it AGAIN, I couldnt say no. I tweaked it slightly which made it even more fun.

Instead of butterflies, I told him we were going to create blob monsters. Using black and white paint, and coloured paper, it was basically the same principle ( one spoon per colour of paint, try not to blob it too close the the edges or it comes out and goes everywhere) but hopefully using different colours we would see something different.

And away we went!
Very quickly the kitchen was covered in creations.

Everytime someone opened their painting up, the rest of us stopped to work out what sort of monster it was... was it scary? does it have sharp teeth? Big eyes?? A big nose?

SO much fun :)

After they had done about 15 each ( I kid you not) they encouraged me to do one.
I blobbed like I was told to, folded over, smooshed it around, and opened to reveal.........

A freakin tiger!! It was yelled by 4 excited people all at once. No mistaking, mummy had created a TIGER :)

Looks like Im hooked too :)

copy me castles

2012-01-26T21:33:00.006+11:00

Its raining. Its been raining for almost a whole week, I kid you not. This is the craziest,wettest, non-summer summer I think Ive ever had.
The school holidays are almost at an end and life as I knew it is about to change, AGAIN ( why does it keep doing that??). Jared will go to preschool this year, in preparation for school next year, oh heaven help me. So Im holding on to every moment of these holidays as its about to get really busy!

We did an activity earlier this week which was fun and also pretty productive. Now all of you out there that are against things like in sheets and stencils and things that "stiffle creativity", turn away now.
This craft was all about following instructions, and working to plans.
I really enjoyed it :)
I gave all three kids a piece of paper and told them we were going to draw a castle. Jared immediate response was " I cant draw a castle" but I told him he could and I would help him.

I started with " draw me a long rectangle" and Jumeirah and Jared did that. Amahli was not to be brought into doing this today ( "give me land lots of land in the country that I love.... Dont fence me in...") and did her own interpretation of a castle.

I then instructed the other two to draw another thinner rectangle on either side of the first one. Jumeirah used her own mind to work out what was desired, Jared copied mine a little bit.
We then drew two small rectangles, with two small triangles on top of the big rectangle.

Last we added flags.

I was totally surprised that Jared was absolutely able to do this task, pretty much exactly how I planned it. he was so incredibly proud of himself for creating a castle that we decided to paint them.

I told them to paint it however they liked.

Jumeirahs was a castle at night, Jared just made his colourful. He also added windows and a door to make it look like a real castle.

So would say it was too product focussed, but sometimes its ok to do it. He got such a buzz out of it I would definitely do it again.

fingerprinting

2012-01-24T21:13:00.000+11:00

Everyone was asking for something to do this morning, something "painty" and "fun" ( when do I ever not do anything fun, now really??) and so I got out some oil and acrylic pastels that are just about past their ability to be used and found a small tray to use for some finger painting. (to be honest, I didnt really think it through. Oil pastels are INCREDIBLY tricky to get off fingers/walls/ birdcages/ birds/ clothes/ faces).

Instead of doing to normal things for finger painting, I asked them if they wanted to do something a bit more special. Using some heavier paper, we cut out the shape of a heart for Jumeirah and the shape of a butterfly for Amahli ( do I even need to tell you Jared wasnt keen??) and we attached the outlines to a piece of white thicker paper using blue tac. Then, I gave the girls free reign to print fingers all over the centre cut out.

The beauty of an art like this, they can create from a really young age and it still looks amazing when its done. Sometimes little kids art can look beautiful only to a parent ;) But an art like this is a fantastic project to create to give away for birthday presents or for family gifts.

The girls really enjoyed doing this and both wanted to do more.
Once dried, you can peel off the outline and the beautiful fingerprint art are ready to be framed :)
Ill show you the framed results tomorrow :)

fire flies

2012-01-20T21:10:00.002+11:00

My kids are OBSESSED with Glo Sticks. We've had glow baths, dark parties ( Im never invited cos the dark freaks me out) and glo wars ( also not invited, it involves whacking each other in the head with them).

I found something on Pinterest last week that showed someone painting with the liquid inside and with a bit more searching ( pinterest is like that) I found something I KNEW they would love....

I cut off the top of three glo sticks and flicked the liquid inside three glass jars. They were involved in a foxy party ( again, I have no idea, Im really not included!) and I told them to quickly get ready, I had something to show them :)

And hiding behind my back was..........

Fireflies.

Now, Ive never seen a real firefly, we dont have them in Port Macquarie ( are they even in Australia?)

but the gasps and delight that came from these beautiful kids was so funny I struggled to keep a straight face.
Jumeirah eyes got even wider when she saw this photo...... I tried to get her to hold it but she moved but its given the effect of tiny things flying inside. ( yeah I totally meant to do that)

I told them I had found them in the garden, and that we had to be careful with them. We sat in the dark whilst Jumeirah chatted to them and made up stories about them. They glowed well for about an hour and then started to fade. I had a wonderful time, working with my lovely camera and trying to capture this cute little project :)

Its something I plan to do again..... I love creating wonder and magic whilst they still will believe in it :)

Anybody got real fireflies???

Letters to JJ

2012-01-17T20:09:00.003+11:00

The tiny toes I showed you last week belong to a precious new nephew of mine, Jack. He was born last week and has some very cute cousins who are simply besotted with him.
Before he was born, I helped to organise a baby shower for my sister in law. Something simple with some lovely friends and some fun games.

We had a great afternoon spoiling this first time mum to be.
One of the activities I had set up for the guests to do was something I called " Letters for you".
I placed an empty jar on the main table and beside it laid some pens and blue paper ( we knew he was going to be a boy). Each guest was asked at the start of the party to think about something they would like to write to the baby, to be placed in the jar until he was born, and then read with mummy once they were happily settled at home.

( I havent been able to post about it until now as it was going to be a surprise :))

The guests got busy and soon the jar had some lovely looking letters ready to be given to mum-to-be.
When I got home I asked my three if they wanted to do something too. We had taken to calling the baby "JJ" ( Jared Junior in the extended form, and no I didnt name him, Jared did)

Each of my gorgeous littles created a special letter for this baby they had never met, but already loved.

I folded them all up and added them to the jar.

I hope he enjoys reading these letters of love, all written before we even knew him :)

rock candy and patience

2012-01-12T22:40:00.002+11:00

Anyone who knows me knows I lack patience. And thats putting it mildly. I love to know, I love to know NOW. If its going to happen, it needs to happen TODAY, or even yesterday would be preferable.

So when Jumeirah told me she would love to make Rock Candy but it does take a week and we "have to leave it ALONE!" I wasnt sure I was going to be able to do that.
To make rock candy we needed a jar, food coluring a heck of a lot of sugar. I followed the recipe ( Im not giving you the one we used, it didnt work. That could be my fault)

We made it to the exact recipe and got the jars ready, At first, we used bamboo sticks rolled in sugar.

On Day 2 when nothing had happened ( see I told ya it could have been my fault), I changed it all over to use pipe cleaner sticks, cos that apparently works better. Most sites tell you you should see something happen by now.

Unfortunately by Day 4 still nothing had happened, so my sweetest 7 yr old told me not to worry, we would try again.... So it hasnt worked so far but we are determined!! Anyone actually done this and had it work??
The other thing Ive had to wait hard for actually did happen this week ( and thus the reason for lack of blog the last few days). My sister in law had her first baby :)

He took his sweet time, was induced last Tuesday and finally arrived in the very early hours of Sunday morning. But within 3 hours, I had 155 phoos of him :)

I cant show you much as yet ( until I get permission to) but here are some sweet baby toes that were so worth waiting for :)

What are you waiting for??

rainbow biscuits

2012-01-06T21:51:00.002+11:00

Yesterday, Jumeirah had a friend over for a play. They both wanted to cook something and Jumeirah had been looking through my blog for ideas ( !) ( I have to laugh at that... like my blog is the greatest for all things cooking! HA!) and found the rainbow biscuits we did sometime last year.
Recipe can be found here

They both really wanted to make them and so we did.

They measured out all the ingredients, mixed, stirred, combined and worked together to form the dough, which for some reason was no where near as sticky as last time and looked a lot nicer too!
They added the food colouring and combined it well and then set to task of outdoing each other in their creations ( as only 7yr old girls can do :) )

We had snails, flowers, rainbows, swirls and love hearts. I baked them for about 15 minutes and they were ready :)

Tasting just delicious, these little delights dissapeared in a matter of minutes. I told Jumeirah we might make some more next week and deliver them around the neighbourhood.

SO easy and fun :)

Rice paper rolls

2012-01-03T20:44:00.003+11:00

Today marked the first "official" school holiday day with daddy back at work :) Of course that meant that every craft thing Jumeirah was given for Christmas she wanted to do today, but I managed to hide a few things so it will last the four weeks she still has left!

One thing I wanted to do with them today was to make rice paper rolls, or Viatnamese Spring rolls. I made these a million years ago with a preschool group and have always wanted to do it with my kids.
So with all the things ready to go, we began.

I got Jumeirah to thinly slice all the beans, carrots and snow peas whilst Amahli helped with getting the rice paper ready and the glass noodles.

Once everything was cut up, it was simply a matter of placing a sheet of rice paper in the warm water for 30 seconds and then loading them up!

Jumeirah really got the hang of making these but I wasnt sure if she would be keen to eat it.

Amahli was keen to help, Jared was more keen to play cars ( what is it with this boy??) but happily tried it.
Jumeirah absolutely loved them and ate about 5. I had included ham as well so it became lunch. Amahli was ok with them but them did tend to fall apart but she was happy to still eat them.

I will thrilled to find something new that could be added to a lunch box or to be taken to the beach and it was also something they could pretty much do themselves :)

Healthy, easy and well recieved. Gotta be happy with that :)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

2012-01-02T21:50:00.006+11:00

Wow that was a break longer than expected!!!

I had all intentions of coming back last week, but with daddy still at home ( goes back to work tomorrow) we kinda chilled out and just didnt do a whole heap so I figured I would enjoy the time while it lasted :)

How was all your christmas/new years?? Did you miss me??

I spent Christmas with my family this year for the first time in a long time. My folks are finally retired from the Middle East so it was great to spend Christmas with them.

Some of us were still coping with being lethargic after being sick ( I caught something at the last moment, of course) but we still had a ball. My kids were totally awestruck by the Christmas windows in the city and the HUGE christmas tree and at one point Jumeirah even said " I wished we still lived here!" but away from the pretty lights and hustle and bustle, we spent this afternoon at the beach ( which took us less than 10 minutes to get to) and I realised that this is a perfect corner of the world for us right now :)

We did get to go to one park though, that I loved for many reasons, but the biggest one was it was a huge flash back to about 6 1/2 years ago... this is a photo of Jumeirah and I, in a tree at Fagan park, Dural. It was before I got myself together and became the mum I am today.

I was a new mum, one who thought it would be a piece of cake, but found it so very different to what I imagined. I wish I could go back and hug that self and let her know it would all be ok :)

This is that mum ( and now much bigger girl!) now :)

Still a mum learning, but one who loves this job more than anything Ive ever done.

The thing that this photo also makes me realise another sad truth.... I still hide behind my kids in photos. THIS year ( yes I have started every year for the last 10 years like this) I am getting rid of the excess baggage... from the mind and from the body.

Its a big year for our little family... new jobs, a new baby in the family ( I cant even tell you how excited I am to be an Aunty again!! Hopefully soon...) and new prospects for me too :)
I still will be at home with two cherubs for most of the week, Jared will start preschool this week for two days so its just me and the monkey for those two days, so I still aim to enlighten you with cool crafts and things. Maybe not everyday, but you'll cope with that :)

Id love to see your blogs too, if you have one!

Christmas :)

2011-12-21T22:01:00.005+11:00

So we are on Day 3 of crappy sickness... Jared has watched more tv than I have in years but hes too lathargic to do anything else... So today I sat with him, watching movies and snuggling :)

Unfortunately its made for a very non event for christmas craft. So today, Im signing off for awhile. Ill be back late next week with hopefully all well children!

WE took a trip last night to Sarahs Creek to see the lights on two houses... they are just amazing!

Wishing you a wonderful Christmas, full of lovely moments and happy memories :)

See you soon!!

try a little kindness

2011-12-19T21:23:00.005+11:00

I now have a housefull of ill children... croup, whooping cough ( almost back to normal thankfully) and two vomitrons does not a happy household make.... what a day!!
Over the weekend I travelled down to Sydney to be the photographer at a wedding :) It was a beautiful day.. and aside for the stupid amount of pressure I put on myself, it was loads of fun :)
I got to road test the most amazing piece of photography equipment whilst I was there... probably one of the most important pieces you'll ever own if you shoot for fun or for a living.
This :)

From the outside this looks like an ordinary ( well its more fabulous that ordinary) bag but its the most amazing camera bag you'll ever find, seriously!

I fitted three lenses, my full camera with the 24-70mm lens on it, an external flash, my ipad, phone and bits and pieces and it still looked like a normal bag. Its got lots of storage and zippered sections, padded all around plus two different length straps. PLUS ITS REALLY COMFORTABLE TO WEAR! I wore mine for just over 10 hours and it still wasnt killing me... such an awesome bag :)

I got mine from Camera Chick ( stockist for Australia) from Natalie who couldnt have been more helpful in our transaction :)

LOVE IT :)

If you want to see the wedding shots, head over to Karina Baker Photography and check them out! Like me while you are there and Id love to know what you think of them! ;)

On the way home yesterday, travelling for 6 hours on a train ( ugh) I had one of those lightbulb moments.

When I got on the train, exhausted after shooting all day the day before and not alot of sleep, I got to my chair to find two young boys mucking around in it. They moved to sit behind me and proceeded to start kicking the back of the chair in their rumbles.

Instantly I was annoyed and thought all sorts of mean things about young boys and (ashamedly) about the race of which the boys were. ( Im not saying what this is, it doesnt matter. In Australia though, its a race that is often thought bad of).

They continued to annoy the crap out of me and my chair and I realised they were going to be on the train for the same length of time as me. I couldnt see that they had anything to do, and their dad had already fallen asleep and was oblivious to the racket they were making and so I busied myself by watching a movie on my iPad and ignoring the boys.

Awhile later, I noticed that they had calmed down. I had a snack, I hadnt seen them with anything. I did a crossword puzzle, played angry birds, watched a movie. They walked up and down the aisles, and then sat and watched out the window.

A strange feeling washed over me as I peeked at one of them between the cracks in the chairs. Two of them had no fallen asleep, bored enough to let it take over. Dad was still asleep ( he slept for just over 5 hours) and there was one still awake, sitting there, doing nothing. I looked down at all the things I had for myself... sewing, a book, an ipad, and and iphone. I argued with myself to go and talk to him. For about 10 minutes Im afraid to say.

Until that voice inside continued to tell me that on my iPad was a kids movie. Give it to him to watch. DO IT. NOW.

I got up and went over to him, ( careful to to tread on the sleeping brothers on the floor) and asked him if he'd like to watch a movie. He looked nervously at his sleeping dad, I assured him it was ok, that dad would be fine with it. He took it from me, and looked up and said " Thankyou so much" and then settled down to watch a movie.

I sat down, shocked that I had been so quick to judge not only a race, but also a young kid with nothing to do. I smiled as I heard him quietly giggling at the movie being played. And as it finished, he asked him if he could show it to his brothers, and all three of them watched it again.

I was humbled, to be shown a simple yet incredibly powerful lesson on showing kindness. To be shown how wrong it is to judge without first seeing the whole picture.

I hope that lessons like this continue to come my way :)

bokeh

2011-12-15T21:10:00.005+11:00

Last year I discovered a love of Bokeh. I researched how to do it, and off I went in search of pretty Christmas lights :)

For hours I sat and tried to capture this beautiful effect with very little success. Throughout the year though, I have practised and learned this cool art and finally, with Christmas upon us, I have mastered the art of BOKEH.

Ok, so maybe you dont think its cool?? Well wait :) Cos now Im off on a christmas tree light hunt!

At the moment, my littlest angel is incredibly sick and so today swung from the tv, to curling up with her, to a movie, to a snooze.... much to Jumeirahs dismay it was fairly craft free.

Tomorrow I am off to Sydney to shoot a wedding ( I know, the butterflies are only just at bay but Im SO excited) so I wont be here until next week.... hopefully Ill have lots of Bokeh to show you ;) Oh, and some cool christmas craft :)

butterfly

2011-12-13T13:18:00.009+11:00

Last weekend we had a family adventure to Coffs Harbour. It rained most of the way up but the kids are really good travellers so it was all ok.

Once we got to our adventure destination ( the Butterfly House) they all were so excited... until we actually got into the enclosure....

30 seconds later I had Jared screaming and Amahli crying to go home as apparently butterflies are SCARY!! Not really but they do fly close to you and that was enough for them. Jumeirah was completely in her element and never wanted to leave. And me with my gorgeous camera?? Had a lovely time, in between the lens fogging up in the heat ;)

But we ended up having a great time, Jared and Amahli calmed down enough for us all the walk the whole way through and then they took off to the maze and I quietly turned around and walked back through... I took a whole stack of photos but this one is my favourite :)

Linking it up to Mom Tried Its linky!!

Ive also entered a competition to win a cool tamron lens ( I entered the wrong photo but I love the one I entered anyway ;) ) All I need is for you to click the link and click like and VOTE!! Please, go do it, Id do it for you ;)

Shoot to Thrill COMPETITION go click it. now :) thanks!

christmas cupcake art

2011-12-12T09:17:00.000+11:00

We have had some crazy weather lately... wet and cold, then hot, then full blown storms... we got stuck with one late last week and so I needed an indoor activity to amuse two littles.

The request was for cooking so we somehow found all the things to make cupcakes :)

Amahli was more than excited to help with pouring and even cracking the egg was fun this morning :)

Jared was keen to help but his role was more about making sure the oven was on, finding patty pans, fixing the timer. It was great to see them working together to get a job done.

Once the cupcakes were cooked, we let them cool and I had a great idea for decorating them. I iced them with white icing ( icing sugar and milk, I made it really thick) and let them go solid in the fridge for half and hour.

Once hardened, I gave them some food colouring and cotton buds so they could paint on the top! The idea was that they were going to paint Christmassy things but they were just more keen to paint :)

I left some for Jumeirah to do once she got home from school. She really enjoyed decorating them... but all three enjoyed eating them more.

Well, at least the icing anyways ;)

A new little friend/salt jars

2011-12-07T20:14:00.005+11:00

I spent way too long try to work out what to get Jumeirah this birthday... and everything from boogie board LCD tablets ( way cool especially for a techno savvy kid like mine) to theatre tickets, I just couldnt settle on one thing.
Then at music the week before her birthday, she rescued a baby bird that had fallen out of a tree. With such tenderness and concern she tried to help this tiny creature, until its mother came and helped it too.

She was pretty dissapointed when I told her we didnt need to take it home now that its mother was looking after it. I had a brewing thought that a pet bird would be a perfect gift for this little animal whisperer of mine :)
Daddy took a little bit of convincing but finally came around. After a very rude encounter with a pet shop (its a story for another time) I found myself out the back of nowhere looking for an aviary.

What finally happened was we introduced this beautiful boy into our fold :)

His name is Thomas and Jumeirah is absolutely besotted with him, teaching him to talk, eat from her hand, and he spends most of his days perched on either hers or my shoulder.
Hes really very sweet!

So we had her party on the weekend which was incredibly stress free and easy. 8 little friends, an easy beach location, simple party food ( outdoors and not at home means no hot food!), 8 water pistols and a blow up boat made for fantastic fun for such a lovely group of girls.
I had a few backup plans incase of rain but we were incredibly blessed with a brilliant afternoon.

After a swim and food, they asked if I had a cool craft to do ( some of them know me well) and of course I did!

I set them up with a jar each, a piece of carboard, chalk and salt. I showed them how to tint the salt with the chalk by rubbing it. The more you rub it, the darker the colour becomes. Its really very cool :)

For each section of chalk they coloured, we then poured it into their jars. They then repeated the process with another colour and another lump of salt.
Its takes a little while to do which was perfect for me. But they could see how awesome the colours looked layered up in the jar that it kept them working on it till it was done.

Currently Im still trying to find a way to seal the jars so the salt doesnt come out when "encouraged"... think a trip to the hardware shop might be in order tomorrow :)

the beginnings of Christmas

2011-12-06T20:20:00.007+11:00

I worked it out :)

That weird, disconnected feeling?? Its because I TOTALLY was. I was fussing most of the day with washing, tidying, cleaning, retidying.. never really getting anything done and not spending any time at all with the littles I love.

When I fixed that ( clean only for an hour in the morning) by settling with them by 10am and playing until we had finished ( anywhere from half and hour to 2 hours) I felt so much better in myself and was able to clean with a purpose instead of just filling time.

So to fix it, I started by setting up the tables the night before with some activities that they could sit and do with me.

Yesterdays activities looked like this:

Letter boards and story stones

Marble transfering

And we began our Christmas craft :)

The christmas tree shape activity I designed myself in about 2 minutes in a word doc, printed it out, cut the triangles out and we were ready to start.

Amahli and our little Monday friend really enjoyed sitting and working out how the triangles went. Jared flew through his with minimal help, and he didnt even really flinch at the glue :)

I love a productive morning.

Stay tuned tomorrow when I show you our new addition to the Mumma Made It clan.... ;)

taking the time

2011-12-01T22:08:00.006+11:00

It was happening again.. that yuck feeling of not really achieving anything in my day, spending bits and pieces of time with my precious littles, half finishing lots of things.... when it happens, nothing seems to flow, nothing seems to work, and NOTHING seems quite right.

So I recentred, refocused, got OFF the computer, and played with the two people who needed me most, Amahli and Jared.

I set up the table with a few different things to do... some candle painting, a simple Christmas threading, and the letter boards, and invited them to join me. Both were really keen, which goes to show that I have been a bit absent of late.

Amahli was straight into the threading, not really wanting to do the Christmas colours, but to make a rainbow. I was happy to oblige and she was more than keen to sit and chat whilst she threaded.

Jared wanted to have a go at the candles but wanted me to light them. After creating a dripping picture, he painted over the raised wax dots on the paper. This he did alot! He then wanted me to paint a "J" for him to drip down. All these ideas I was totally shocked at.... he had heaps of different ways to use the paint and candles and I just tried to keep up!

40 minutes later, both had finished and wanted to build a cubby so we grabbed some sheets and got to work. They told me to go clean the kitchen, so I left them to create, feeling so much more connected and focused and able to actually get things done :)

I love that in making time for them, I had time for me too. Time to reconnect, to take those few precious moments to bond, but also that in doing that I was able to stop the rush of " doing" to just be :)

the beginnings of christmas craft

2011-11-29T22:04:00.003+11:00

CRAZY! This week has had so many twists and turns Im feeling rather giddy.... coupled with the fact that Big Miss is having a birthday this week and yesterday told me she would LOVE something handmade ( a cat, no less) Im racing against absolutely everything to keep my head above water...
so instead of just ignoring you for another day, Im reposting the beginnings of Christmas craft :)

Paper towel dipping

Now this craft can be messy. But if you do it in an organised ( read anal) way, it does work really well for kids of all ages from about 3 up ( unless you are really game).
To start with, you need the best paper towel money can buy. In Australia, its VIVA. If you cant find a really absorbent paper towel, dont do this craft as its really dissapointing when it doesnt work.
So, not really listening to my own advice, I bought a generic brand of paper towel. And whilst I did manage to do this craft, it didnt work as well as I wanted it to.

You also need food colouring or waterclour ink. (food colouring is what we used)
Each colour we put into the paint tray, ready to be dipped into. I only added a little bit of water as I wanted the colours really vibrant.

As this was going to be a Christmas craft, I cut the paper towel into tree shapes before we folded it. ( See here for another version of this paper dipping craft without the christmas bit)
Then, I got Jumeirah to fold the tree as best she could into a square shape and then dip each corner into a different colour ink.

Once dipped, turn the square around so that the ink runs all over the paper. Once this is done, carefully open the paper towel up. ( this is probably an adult part, especially if you didnt listen and bought cheap paper towel :). This is where you need to be strong)

And there you have a gorgeous tree!
Lay it on some old paper, ( newspaper will do) to dry completely. Then, you can hang them, use them as wrapping paper decorations.. whatever you like :)

foto friday: puddles

2011-11-25T22:00:00.005+11:00

Friday. A wet friday. Its been raining non stop ( I kid you not) since wednesday.

On wednesday, when it was still kinda sorta raining, my mum rang me to tell me of some awesome Canon competition ( for australian residents only, sorry!) that could win me a new camera ( yes I do need a new one) but it had to include an umbrella, I said to her " I need it to rain more". Obviously this was the wrong thing to say as now it hasnt stopped....

But it did mean that I was able to get some photos of an umbrella :) My ever helpful Amahli suggested she jump in muddy puddles whilst I took the photo. 20 photos later and with one very wet but happy child, this is the ones I liked :)

I sent one in, then asked Tim which one he liked. Of course he liked the one I didnt send in..... but hopefully, HOPEFULLY, ( but really thinking it will happen because some of the photos are amazing!) I might just win something :)

Voting will start soon so Ill let you know! Theres a viewers choice so I need lots of you to vote for me!!

Baby props

2011-11-24T21:40:00.006+11:00

In just 7 weeks I will be (hopefully) taking the first of many newborn shots of my little nephew :) Im a touch excited as I havent done newborn photos before and so I have been madly trying to find some props that work with the style of photos I want to take. I have seen all over the place these awesome posing pillows... huge circular bean bag style cushions that can be molded to fit a baby perfectly and makes for great photos.
Unfortunately I cant find ANY in Australia, let alone Port Macquarie. And the international ones I found are over $300 without the beans or postage. So I thought Id have a go at making one :)

I cut two circles out using a hula hoop for the shape and then a long strip to go in the middle, between the two circles ( this is actually my second attempt.. the first one was so big I would have never filled it and probably lost the baby in the middle of it!). With much difficulty I managed to sew this whole heap of fabric together and have spent part of every day filling it with beans, much to my childrens delight. We have had about 4 "snow storms" in the process as the beans are polystyrene and fly really well....

But finally tonight its finished!!

Its been teddy tested for safety and is going to work a treat. I just need some fabric to go over the top of it... some brown furry stuff will look awesome :)

I CANT WAIT!!

2011-11-22T22:27:00.001+11:00

As you may ( or may not) have noticed, Im not blogging everyday anymore. Ive changed that for a few reasons... one being that it takes time to do it everyday, time is not something I have alot of anymore with working two little businesses of my own! The other reasons are my gang are not as crafty as Jumeirah was at their age and are happy with a sheet and some cushions to build cubbies.. and writing about that every day will get boring :)
So I hope you dont mind, but it wont be an everyday blog anymore. Id still love to hear from those of you who read this ( the easiest way is to choose the profile "anonymous" at the bottom of the comments section) and let me know that Im still loved ;)

Over the last few days though, I have increased my status as "awesome mum" to "amazingly fantastical mum" with a very simple ( and possibly was a bit stupid) idea that was right up the alley of my little guy.

Over the weekend, Tim went to Sydney, leaving me to my own devices and with the three treasures. I told them on saturday that it was "Yes Day". Yes day is something I heard about ages ago from another blog who allows their kids a day when they cant be said no to. It filled me with a bit of dread over what could come of it but apparently it would all work out well and my kids would have a brilliant day.
So I told them what was happening, and that they had the run of the day. I was told not to use the computer but asked to come outside and sit and watch them perform tricks on the trampoline. Of course, I said Yes :)

The day progressed quite well, we had chip sandwiches for lunch, a play with the hose, and a trip to Lake Cathie ( which I REALLY did not want to do but followed the rules and was completely surprised by how wonderful it was to spend time there), and a last quick play outside ( even after a bath). I was proud that we had had such a lovely day and was given permission to take some photos whilst they played..... which is when it happened.

Jared came up to me, looked at me straight in the eye and said " Can I have a go of your camera Mum?"
Gulp. My very expensive, pretty irreplaceable camera with a brand new lens on the front. Um. No. Heck. I have to.

And so, I did. I explained that it was important to me ( "I know Mum!") and that it would break if he dropped it, showed him how to hold it, and then let it go.

And to my absolute shock, he came up close and took this photo.

I was surprised that it looks ok, surprised that he seemed to really enjoy being behind the lens, amazed at his careful handling and the way he knew how to how it properly and shut one eye, and humbled by the fact that his little face was glowing knowing he had been allowed to do something I would never have thought to let him do. ( he also has a natural eye for not shooting dead centre!! fluke?? maybe. But just maybe he got that from me )
Time to have more "yes" days :)

2011-11-18T22:06:00.000+11:00

For Amahlis birthday recently, my dad constructed her a clear easel. Ive wanted one for awhile, instead of having to use the glass door, and we used one all the time and preschool many moons ago. So I casually mentioned it to dad who was keen to have a go at making one. I gave him some basic instructions on how I wanted it to look... and this is what he did!The kids loved it today. I just let them paint on it but on opposite sides so pretty quickly they were chasing each others paint brush around the screen :)

Ive never seen Jared paint for so long!

Does anyone else use an easel like this? What else do you use it for?

all about the feets

2011-11-16T21:50:00.009+11:00

Yesterday I spent much of the day making cute little baby shower cards for my Sister in law. Shes giving me a new nephew in about 2 months :) So I obliged and make these gorgeous little feet cards to invite her friends to celebrate this little boy whos almost here.

After making them, Amahli was keen to make her own footprints with her hand like I did and so I set it up for her and Jared to have a turn.
He would have none of it, but he humoured me with this awesome picture of a dinosaur. Sometimes he shocks me in his able-ness. I think sometimes he acts like he cant do anything cos I get off his back... hmmmm.....

But Amahli was well keen so I showed her how to make a fist, then print that fist on the paper to make the foot. then using a little finger, make the toes! She loved it and soon I had a table full of tiny footprints.

We talked about what feet do, how they help us, and how we look after them. She then wanted her toes painted to celebrate them :)

So it was pink piggies all round :)

self portrait

2011-11-14T21:34:00.006+11:00

For the next 30 days, Im taking part in a 30 day photography project ( that totally sounds stupid but Im too tired to redo that sentence). It began on Saturday with a self portrait.

This is me. Just me.

I dont like photos of myself, theres too many things I wish I could change. But I kinda like this photo :) At least now my kids will have something to remember me by :)

Want to join our 30 day fun?? Click here to go to the facebook page! Or you can just go there and see the other photos too! And whilst you are clicking all over facebook, why not head over to my other facebook page Karina Baker Photography and give me some love ( or likes) there too!

Go on, take a photo of yourself. Look at it. No, REALLY look at it. Know that the person you see looking back is an awesome piece of marvellousness.... something the world would be lost without. Like it. Love it :)

flower stacking toy

2011-11-10T13:26:00.005+11:00

I think I made mention last week sometime that I have fallen in love.... with a scroll saw. Now, really, I dont need ANOTHER craft to do... I have 4 unfinished quilts, two shoots to edit, The Body Shop, scrapping, as well as whatever else Im halfway through... but I saw this awesome idea off Made By Joel and knew I wanted to have a go :)

So I was lucky enough to find out my father in law owns a scroll saw, and was happy enough to let me have a go. I was instantly hooked by how fun it was turning wood and creating something awesome.

It turned out really well and its a toy she has played with alot since I gave it to her. She talks to herself whilst she stacks, sorts colours, and imagines a real garden.

Now what else can I cut?? :)

easy party fun

2011-11-08T18:29:00.008+11:00

This weekend I lost my little 2 yr old... and gained a great big 3YR OLD :)

A party was needed to celebrate this little one and so preparations began. The thing Ive found with parties though, is that so often we go to HUGE lengths only to have them not go to plan, or end up costing a fortune. This party I was all about easy cheap fun that would entertain whatever age of child I had come to her party ( they ranged from 2-12 yrs).

So we made our bubble wands last week and they were a ridiculous hit with not only all the children, but the neighbours kids too, plus all the adults as well.

Here are some of the awesome photos from it :)

One of the other cool things I had easily prepared for her party was the decorate some "ninjabread men". I bought the coolest cookie cutters awhile ago in the shape of ninjas and made a butter biscuit base the night before and it was ready!

You obviously dont have to get ninjas cutters to do this you can use whatever you have.

At the party, I set up the ninja biscuits with pink icing and things to decorate. We started with the youngest child and I thought it would just be the littler kids that would do it but soon I had all the other kids ( up to the 12 yr old) wanting to decorate!

Such an easy party activity!

What do you do to make party life easier for yourself?

bubble awesomeness

2011-11-04T21:14:00.005+11:00

This weekend, my littlest sprite turns 3. Yes she actually made it ;)

And to celebrate we are having a little party on the beach for us and a few of her friends. Today, and actually over the past few days, I have been busy planning, preparing and creating masterpieces.... in the form of bubble wands. What more fun could you ask for than giant bubbles on a beach??!! I mean really...

This is the final result after much tweaking, refining, and a heck of a lot of dishwashing liquid.

The wands themselves are really easy, the mixture is not.

But here are some photos from this afternoon to show it totally worked and our beach bubble party is going to ROCK :)

Ill give you the tute next week!

( or you can google giant bubble wands, its everywhere really!)

paper dipping...again

2011-11-02T12:51:00.008+11:00

Ummm WHAT!?! How did it get to November?? And how the heck did I miss my bloggy birthday almost two months ago!! :( happy birthday, blog. :)

Yesterday, as I was quietly contemplating the day, Jared came and almost literally knocked me off my chair. He wanted to do dipping painting and he wanted to do it now! ( he came barrelling around the corner which is why I fell off my chair figuratively but also literally).

So I jumped to action and got out some absorbent paper and food colouring. Now we have done this craft ALOT but I was keen to do it again considering he was so keen.

He knew exactly what to do and we soon had a table full of amazing colours, shapes and designs.

Take a piece of absorbent paper, fold it into quarters.

Carefull, dip each corner in ink or food colouring. Dip it quickly or the whole square will soak up too much colour.

Once dipped, turn the square around and watch the colour run..

Then carefully open it ( making sure you dont rip it!)

And....TA DA!!

We even had painty fingers!! And he didnt care!!!!!

The addictive thing about this craft is that you never know quite how your pattern will turn out.
He totally loves doing this. I think its the surprise element at the end. By the time he had finished, we had nearly 40 pieces of gorgeous absorbent paper... now trying to work out what to do with it! I think I will try and turn it into a banner... stay tuned :)

Salt painting

2011-10-31T20:40:00.009+11:00

A different sort of art today but something that was really effective and both kids loved it. It started with some paper and a kitchen accident but ended up being a great experience.

Amahli, in her usual gung ho attitude, was attempting to find morning tea, 5 minutes after breakfast. I asked her to wait but its kinda like asking a stampede to turn around. She's a man on mission.

So I'd said no, but she continued her task of getting it herself. In the process, she knocked the full salt shaker over and then watched in fascination at the waterfall she had created. Quickly realizing she would be in trouble, she began trying to collect it in a container. So craft today was going to include salt :)

I got out glue and card stock and sat them up at the table. I showed them how to make patterns with the glue and then we sprinkled salt over the wet glue.

I then got out some watercolour paint as I'd seen wet salt paintings that had then painted them for a cool effect. So very carefully, we touched the wet salt with bright colours.

The results were awesome, the colour bleeds and runs along the salt line. Jared was totally fascinated by this and the excitement on his face was priceless. We talked about colour mixing too as the blue and yellow and made green.

I loved that this was something that he was interested in, he seems to be getting more interested n craft as I try to find new things for him to do.

what should I buy?

2011-10-26T16:39:00.007+11:00

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!

credit card painting

2011-10-25T21:56:00.006+11:00

Lately Ive noticed a slight but decent move on Jareds part.... hes starting to become more involved in crafty things. Especially if it looks interesting and he hasnt done it before, he seems much more keen.

So I have been racking my brains to try and find new ways to do the simple stuff.

Today we used credit cards to paint :)

( well theres no money in them so they might as well be used for something!!)

It didnt quite work to plan but he still really enjoyed it.

You need:

some old cards ( probably one per child)

some paint and some paper

Allow the child to squeeze a small blob of paint onto the paper. We tried a few different things from ordered lines, to trying to create rainbows, but it seems to work best in the blobs are in a line.

Then, holding the card on an angle, drag it through the paint blobs.

The aim is to blend the colours together which kind of worked.

The other aim was for him to enjoy a new paint experience which was successful :)

Anybody got any other non messy looking paint fun I can do??

jellyfish in a bottle

2011-10-21T12:44:00.008+11:00

The last few nights I have been going to bed ridiculously late... I keep getting off the computer only to find yet another blog I havent seen or something I think my kids would like, or something else... crazy really!

But something I did find the other day was this blog Bhoom Play, and more particularly, this awesome little activity to create jellyfish in a bottle.

This morning, I showed Jared a cool thing they had done by making a jellyfish out of a plastic bag. we set to work... me snipping, tying, filling with water, retying, more snipping, slight cursing, more tweaking and then finally success!!, him encouraging, quick jump on the trampoline, back to encourage some more, a few snips, back outside for a hit with the ball, and then finally back to watch and beg for food... when I first saw this site I though it looked easy but I read under one of her photos " With some trials and errors" and realised that it was a bit tricky.. but like them, we got it finally!

And no one has let them go since :)

They are hard to take photos of but heres a few of our jellyfish in a bottle.

And a video:)

happy weekend!!!

the invites

2011-10-19T21:01:00.004+11:00

So after much talking and decision making between me and Jumeirah, we finally came up with a great idea for Amahlis birthday invite ( really it should never have been that hard to decide!) and so I sat down and began to cut it all out.

Jumeirah, in her usual way, gets on the computer and then yells " NO WAIT! I found something better!" and shows me a invite that totally suits my little gal down to the ground. Found on an image search in google, we found the cutest little ladybird cards, and before I could protest she had dragged Amahli in to show her. Of course she loved it immediately and so my wonderful idea was lost and I began creating ladybird cards :)

They are very cute and very easy to make, plus it saves you in having to by invites. And really, its waaaay more fun to do it yourself too ( YEAH! It totally is!!)

Luckily I have three Glee episodes to watch.. this is going to take awhile....

I also got to starting something else for this little beautys birthday and fell in love with an awesome new machine... the Scroll Saw. Fortunately my father in law had one and for the time being, I used that. ( oh I want one... yes yes I do).

I found a great idea on Made By Joel ( yup his whole site is fantastic) called a flower stacker and begun to make my own for her birthday... stay tuned, I'll show you how it goes!

Smartie Maths

2011-10-17T21:12:00.007+11:00

Ive been trying to find some more cool things for Jared to do.. something that is fun but also stretches that awesome brain of his. He tends to wander, the girls are totally content with a set of blocks or mobilo, Jared seems to need a bit more direction.

So I created this cool early maths page for him to do and he loved it. Of course Little Miss wanted one too but hers was more about just eating the Smarties rather than the maths behind it.

Basically, he had to start with counting how many he had, then sorting them into colours and working out how many was in each colour, then showing what colours he had by colouring a small section.

He actually got really into it, asking me to stop helping him so he could work it out.

Once he was done, he also thoroughly enjoyed eating them.

And again, asking me not to help him ;)

No blog tomorrow as I racing to sydney and back. Back on wednesday to show you what happened with Amahlis invites....

shaving cream marbling

2011-10-13T19:59:00.007+11:00

It hit me today that we are no longer in September.... strange I know, I but somehow October creapt up on me and it wasnt until I was pasting photos in a folder in the computer when Jumeirah says " Mum why are you putting them there? " To which I responded " Cos thats where they belong!". She quickly replied, " Oh. But its not September anymore." Bam. Oh. ok then!

So apparently its October and also, its now 3 weeks until that nutcracker of a cherub of mine turns 3. How did she do that???

And so today was a mad rush of working out whether to have a party, and then quick! we should invite some people.

So Jared, Amahli and I decided we would do some marbling to become butterflies for the front of the invite.

Both were really keen, even when I got the shaving cream and food colouring down!

( I think Ive posted this before but oh well, lucky you, you get to see it again!)

In a tray, squirt a fair amount of shaving cream, enough to cover the bottom. you will need to smooth it out with your hands so its an even layer.

Carefully, ( we used a medicine dropper) drop in either ink or food colouring in lots of spots over the shaving cream.

Using a skewer, carefully run the shewer through the coloured spots in large circles. I encouraged mine to do this slowly so it doesnt all become a big mess quickly. They did really well!

Once the patterns have been created, lay a piece of paper on the top and press down gently, you will see the pattern starting to show through the paper.

Lift off the paper, and using a ruler or carboard strip, gently scrape off the excess shaving cream.

You can then use your skewer again to make circles and patterns! You dont need new ink everytime, only once it starts to get really mixed up and loses the swirly patterns.

This is how it turned out! I love this art, its pretty, its easy and it smells great!

NOTE:This is where I should have taken the tray away instead of leaving it on the table. Mostly my kids are brilliant at not touching things cos they dont like it anyways but it obviously was appealing to Amahli. I watched as she pushed her hands through the swirly foam, excited at the fact that she did it on her own without me prompting her.... for exactly 4 seconds before she realised it was sticking in her and began to shake it off..... so now I smell nice and shaving creamy too ;)

Will turn it into butterflies tomorrow :)

getting kids invovled in the boring and tedious

2011-10-11T21:46:00.004+11:00

I came into the lounge room this morning to hear the delighted squeals of three children playing in "SNOW!"... on closer inspection I realised that the 9 loads of washing I had accumulated in there was now raining on my kids in a new spectacularly fun game :)

It was time. Laundry tackling time.

But this time I wanted to get my kids involved... one, because I HATE doing it with a passion, two, because I figured another life skill to master early wont hurt, and three, cos I knew it would be super fun!!! ( hahahaha yeah right its sorting washing!)

So I sat down and explained to them how it would work, sort of. We designated spots for each of us and I just started throwing clothes at them whilst yelling a family member name.....

Dont think Ive ever had so much fun sorting through copious amounts of clothes and they begged me for more at the end.
Might try and make it a saturday morning routine!!
Do you have ways to get through the chores you hate doing? Do you include your kids?? You should try it!!
this is the sock frenzy :)

"SHUSHI!!"

2011-10-10T22:30:00.005+11:00

End of school holidays :( back to reality today and boy did she hit me hard! Its ok though, Its only 12 weeks or something crazy till christmas when I get to have it my way for 6 WHOLE weeks!!!Bring it ON :)

Today was spent mostly cleaning around the two little cyclones ( Why does a mother clean up at all?? I mean really??) and trying to sort myself out a bit.

I did have another request for Sushi from the littlest whirlwind so I got it out and began. We did sushi last week in the holidays which went down quite well and they also really enjoyed making it. It didnt taste as good as "shop" sushi, but still, not bad for a first effort!

Amahli today, enjoyed helping me crate the carrots ( no photos, I need and value my fingers whilst my child tried to grate them. I had buckleys chance of holding a camera too!) whilst Jared monitored the rice cooking. Unfortunately I used the wrong rice and its a bit funny bit but no one really cared. we also included chicken shredded, ham and cheese.

I really wanted them to have things I knew they'd eat so it was a weird combination but it worked :)

Now, all goes well with Sushi until it comes time for me to roll it. Seriously, I cannot get this bit right! Might have to watch a few more You tube clips to get it right. But with some lovely encouragement from my gang, we had it working and cut up and looking vaguely like " real" sushi :)

Jared wasnt overly keen, but Amahli loved it. Especially when I let her dip in BBQ sauce ;)

Think Im going to stretch these little palettes a little further, it was really fun to talk about where sushi comes from, how its eaten... I just really more enjoyed listening to Amahli call it "shushi!"

Have been thinking about doing some other cultural food.. anyone got some simple ideas??

water beads

2011-10-06T22:52:00.010+11:00

Its been a massive week this week... things are changing. Im trying to work it out but you'll have to be patient if I disappear occasionally until my head stops spinning....

All over the blog world I kept seeing these "water beads" .. they were being used on light tables, in sensory buckets and to me they looked totally cool for a great tactile experience. I had bought some quite awhile ago now and they were really popular with my kids, so bought a few more packets on ebay ( cheap!) and set it up for my trio.

Only problem with them is, it takes ages for them to blow up full of water. So we emptied three packets into water and then spent the morning trashing the house ( well, not me exactly, its not my thing seeing as I am the one who has to then clean it up)

By the afternoon, these little orbs of beauty had swollen to a beautiful,round, squeezable ball and I added some sea animals to it and all three were totally hooked. Ahem, I should say all 4 of us. Its totally irristable to run your fingers through them.

The next day, ( they last for ages, and then slowly diminish in size) it was Jumeirahs idea to add a few more packets to them, to increase the amount to play in and to " make it really pretty!" and so we did. They arent expensive so it wasnt something I was worried about wasting.

She added pink, purple and light blue to our already green, clear and dark blue beads.

OH. MY. GOSH. Was she ever right. The colours were amazing. The feel of them was totally addictiave, I couldnt stop playing in them. And then I noticed my camera nearby and then couldnt stop clicking at how pretty they looked :)

About 400 photos later, I noticed my children had left me to play all myself ;)

So I got up and added some scoops and spoons from the kitchen and moved away and they quickly returned. Its totally therapeutic, running your hands through such a pretty sensory thing :) Think I'll have to get some more....

Later in the afternoon, I set up a little imaginative play thing I printed of the Made By Joel Blog ( if you havent seen it, GO. GO NOW. And then come back. Hes amazing)

Jumeirah played with this little paper play cat set for ages, using different voices and all sorts of things, totally engrossed in such a simple play scene.

When I had chucked her in the bath, I came out to find littlest Miss also having a lovely time. I managed to catch this video hiding half under the cupboards in the kitchen...

So cute and such an easy thing to print and play :)

quick break

2011-10-04T21:59:00.002+11:00

Sorry guys I have a few days of full on loveliness ( but serious craziness!!) whilst the sun is shining.... Ill be back on thursday!

squeeze painting part 2

2011-09-30T16:21:00.004+10:00

Busy Bees :)

Today has been just BEAUTIFUL. Blue skies, a smattering of white clouds... just gorgeous. Is it too much to think tomorrow will be the same??

Today we finished off the squeezee painting from yesterday.

The black glue paint had completely dried this morning so I gave Jumeirah some watercolours ( food colouring) to paint in all the sections of the picture.

She didnt want to do her owl but she did do the swirly painting.The is end result!It looks really cool. I didnt push her to do the background, she liked it just like this. Kinda looks like Christmas lights! Id love to do a really big one, just for myself. Its just the type of painting this shockingly non-able to paint person loves ;)

have a great sunny weekend! And pray for sunny days for me too!

squeezee painting

2011-09-29T19:59:00.006+10:00

Yet another wet school holiday day here... Im having a little bit of a meltdown as Im shooting my first "official" non family wedding on Saturday and the forecast is 90% rain. Oh crap. So today I spent much of the day bargaining with God that it can pour the WHOLE of next week if it can just stay fine from now until saturday at 5pm ;) See how that goes....

Today I got out a special activity for Jumeirah. Just something crafty for her as she spends as much time as I do in the mornings helping me tidy up before we start the day.

So today I got out some black paint and white glue to make a cool picture.

All that had to be done was for her to draw a picture, then I made the mixture with about a quarter full container of white glue with a decent addition of black paint. She then traced the owl picture she drew and let it to dry. Tomorrow we'll be able to watercolour the background :)

She also did some beautiful swirl style art that can also be watercolour painted the same way so Im pretty excited to do that too!

On seeing the fun Jumeirah was having, two other little people wanted to squeeze too. So I got some sauce bottles and filled them with paint.

It began as just squeezee painting, and we very quickly went through a huge amount of paint and doznes of pieces of paper that would NEVER dry.

Jumeirah suggested we make butterfly paintings which was met with a very excited " YEAH!!!!" and so we scooped off some of the paint back into the bottles and did some beautiful black and red butterflies. The results were amazing but what was more photo worthy was the expressions on seeing the result of their squeezing and folding..... :)

One very busy day :)

Stay tuned for the second half of Jumeirahs art :)

face painting fun

2011-09-27T21:29:00.006+10:00

Todays request was face painting :)

Jumeirah has been carting around one of my face painting books for weeks now and Ive successfully managed to put her off but today she would not be swayed.... so I got it all out and had the best time decorating these precious little faces. ( I actually had more fun than I expected! Its been AGES since we did face painting!)

I had a mouse " who wants to be a cat" ( I dont ask anymore, it hurts my brain to know what shes thinking), the sweetest little butterfly, and a hilarious serious robot.

They had a ball creating some strange game with all three of them completely in character, I could only stand and watch with utter love for these three beauties.

Sometime in the afternoon, we decided to take our crazy characters to the beach for some race around fun.

This time, I wasnt stupid enough to forget the camera :)

Oh school holidays, take your time....

Marshmallow sculptures

2011-09-26T22:18:00.008+10:00

Today was the first day of school holidays :) Something feels so very right about having all three of my kids here with me.

I started the day with a very cool surprise, a trip to the movies to see The Smurfs. It was a fun morning and all three f them gushed over how fantastically "smurfy" I am. ( think that expression is going to last a few more days but for now it's worth it )
This afternoon, I set up a really fun activity that would not only continue my awesome mum status but is also secret learny stuff too!!

I had all three sitting up watching as soon as I pulled out the huge packet of mashmellows. We talked about how we were cutting the marshmellows into halves and then quarters. We then split it into three portions and added long skewers and short toothpicks to it and we began to create our sculptures.

I was totally surprised that no one wanted to eat them straight away, but they all began to thread to marshmallow pieces onto sticks. Admittedly, Amahli was working pretty quickly to get them onto the sticks.

Jared wasn't overly keen on touching them too much as they were quite sticky but he still used them to create "Daddy".

Jumeirah happily created a Teddy bear and then just as happily ate him :)

But nothing was more funny than watching the shock on their faces when I lit a candle and proceeded to melt my own marshmellow pieces into delicious gooey goodness. No one wanted to try it, which suited me just fine :)

Yum :) All in the name of learning :)

what to do when youve got too much to do

2011-09-23T10:52:00.009+10:00

Ive had a week of it this week... I have run from Monday to Friday. Non. stop. With the Fairy tale ball, the Concert of Excellence, making 27 million plaster moulds for Jumeirahs teacher so she survives today ( yes Im an awesome parent to have) and a photo shoot to edit, as well as photographing the ball AND getting ready for my crazy one day hike to Sydney and back ( its a 3am -11pm day tomorrow) Im absolutely beat.
NEXT WEEK though, is SCHOOL HOLIDAYS!! And I cant wait. Lots of craft things, lots of adventures and lots and lots of TIME with just my gang at home.

But yesterday, we had the Fairy Tale Ball :) All of 1st class, dressed as princes and princesses ( mostly, the boys werent so keen) danced and danced whilst I clicked and clicked.
My girl, Oh my girl, took my breath away.

She was beautiful. Not only in looks but in her whole manner. The funny way she stands with shrunk shoulders cos shes still a bit shy for photos, the way she checked herself in the mirror like she was seeing herself for the first time,the grin from ear to ear that lasted till she fell asleep....

Yesterday was one of those " I need to clean the house and I still have two children to entertain" days and for some reason I nailed it :)
To begin with, a day like this is TOTALLY acheiveable for any of you. Im no super woman. I just got super organised in my head and it just worked.
And this is how its done:)
I set up a space outside for Jared and Amahli to start with. Its the two awesome cubbies I have but you can use sheets or whatever to create an inviting space for your kids.

In one, I had books, the other I put blocks. And whilst they began exploring, I tackled the kitchen.

(And just so you can see how bad it was, heres a before and after)

Once the kitchen was done, I prepared morning tea as a platter with the teaset and took it out to them. ( Which they loved)
I added phones to their play space which gave them some more things to pretend play with and gave me a time extension of at least half an hour. ( I got two loads of washing on the line and vacuumed the carpet)

Once I had vacuumed the carpet, I grabbed the box of dress ups and soon had two dancing princesses... happily twirling away. I put on some music and all three of us were bopping away to the sounds of Mama Mia ( yup it works for me!)

Leaving them happily playing, I did both bathrooms and our bedroom.

By lunchtime, the house resembled some kind of normal where I would open the door if somebody knocked. I also had two kids who'd had a great time playing without really noticing I wasnt there for all of it.

It doesnt always happen like this. I struggle to find balance alot, but when it works, Im happy :)

in the moment

2011-09-20T21:49:00.002+10:00

I really wanted to start "Top tip tuesday" today with some great tips for taking great photos... but its just the craziest week and Im beat already so you may have to wait for it :)

But I did steal a shot of this moment between these two little lovelies, chatting together but holding two totally different coversations, totally wrapped up in each other :)

I love them to bits.

the practical side of fun learning

2011-09-19T20:33:00.009+10:00

Today I took tweedle dee and tweedle dum to Super Amart ( bad move really, but I had to. Super Amart is a huge home wares shop full of jump-on-me beds, sit-on-me chairs... you know the one) to find a new stool for our bench. I have two the are fought over on a daily basis so it was time to get another one.

On arriving back home, I was keen to try out my skills at chair building ( dont laugh, I suck at putting things together) and sent them scurrying to find something else to do. Jared came back 30 seconds later with his tool kit, ready to help. It was then that I realised what a great activity this would be for him to be involved but also all the learny stuff he would get out of it!

And so we began....

( all the learny stuff Ive highlighted so you can see just how much was done in such a short activity)

First things first, we had to open the box ( problem solving) and he ran to find scissors to cut the box open.

We then had to make sure all the parts were there and lay them out.

I then gave him the instructions to have a look at ( map reading, essential for man skills seeing as his mothers suck so badly) and to work out. All the instructions were in pictures so it was pretty easy for him to work some of it out.

We then had to sort the screws into large and small ( sorting and classifying) and we started with putting Step one together.

He had a big of a bang to "help" the pieces stay together ( pretend play, Role play).

We then used the Allan key to get the screws in place ( fine motor skills, hand eye co ordination) ( and for me, perseverance and brute strength)

We kept going, step by step, a quick hammer, a short burst of a drill, and slowly but surely, we had a stool :)

Amahli put the final plugs in the holes ( fine motor and hand eye coordination) and we tested out our awesomeness. ( Self esteem, acknowledging self and sense of accomplishment).

Its funny that something so simple was able to teach and show them so many things, without it being a real in your face learning experience.

I was pretty proud of myself as well! Ok, so it wasnt EXACTLY perfect, but it proves I can do it too :)

Hubbin just had to "tweak " it a little bit ;)

foto friday

2011-09-16T21:46:00.005+10:00

This weeks photo is nothing overly spectacular. Its just a gorgeous photo of my girl.
The thing is, shes wearing my wedding tiara, which exactly 8 years ago this week I wore. And I realised, right before my eyes, this beautiful girl is growing up.
Yeah I know, kids have a tendency to do that, but seriously, I WATCHED her get older as she put it on. I kid you not.

This is her first portrait in this blog.. so many posts ago...

Scary really! Theres been so many times when I have wanted to stop, but this is such a great way to remember my kids and I know they'll thank me for it someday!

This week is her last week of school before holidays and in this week shes performing for the very first time at the Glasshouse ( big entertainment centre in Port) and going to her first fairytale ball.
Somehow I managed to wangle my way into doing photos for it :) I cant WAIT :)
Will I cry? More than likely. But can you imagine a hall filled with about 200 princes and princesses????
Oh, be still, my fluttery camera finger!
Happy weekend :)

matching opposites

2011-09-15T21:41:00.006+10:00

Another thing just for Jared today... after spending the WHOLE day watching an athletics carnival I needed something for him to say thanks for not making life any trickier whilst we were stuck at school :)

I am slowly working on skills that he'll need further down the track. Most of them Jumeirah had down pat well before this age but hes a totally different kid. And you know what? I TOTALLY underestimate him :) Every. single. time.

Today, I made him some cards with opposites on it. There were 12 sets in the end, hot/cold, fast/slow, high/low, big/ little, dark/light, full/empty, happy/sad, inside/outside, up/down, on top/under, girl/boy and wet/dry. I found the pictures in google and printed and laminated them.

( I have only one photo of this one!! We got too involved to get a camera out)

I explained what "opposites" meant and we talked one or two examples. I then asked him to match up the cards. And within doing two cards sets with me, he did the rest himself. So then we playefd memory but with opposites and he beat me (without me letting him, mind you) three times in a row.

Such a great little game that I can whip out at anytime, and can be used for a few different games. So now we get in the car and I will say a word and I get three little responses....this afternoon I asked:

"Whats the opposite of sad?"

And the responses? " Joyful!", " Happy" and "Me!" you can put the response to the kid ;)

Cranes

2011-09-14T20:22:00.006+10:00

My family came for a fly by visit yesterday... fell into bed and didnt resurface until morning...

Today was another awesome family morning spent leaping off sand dunes and having the first swim of the spring season. Cold much?? Heck yes. My my little icebergs werent worried :) I took loads of gorgeous snaps so stay tuned, just need to fine tune them :)

Yesterday, in a lull in madness, Jared came and asked me to build him something. Something quite specific actually. " A crane, please", and so we had a quick google search and came up with nothing and so we created our own.

Using a few cardboard rolls, a heap of sticky tape, the end of a coat hanger, some wool, and a chunk of imagination, my little guy and I created this fully working ( sort of) masterpiece.

It helped that he is the best motivator and encourager BAR NONE. Truly, you want to achieve something?? I'll send him to you :) He spent the whole time saying " Mum, thats perfect!" "Mum you are AWESOME!" " Oh Mum, keep going! I love it, love it!"

So for the afternoon, before the troops arrived again, he had a blast moving animals to a safer spot.

And I basked in the glory of his love :)

story rocks

2011-09-12T21:28:00.006+10:00

Its short and sweet tonight.. I have my family here for a fly by visit, plus an anniversary tomorrow so today has been a bit mad with tidying and running around like a headless chook....

I did get time, though, to put out these amazing rocks I made over the weekend. Quite some time ago, I made story blocks which were a huge hit. Looking through a whole of blogs last week I found a similar idea with stones. Seeing as I spend quite a fair bit of time of the beach which is covered in gorgeous, smooth rocks, I collected some and made some story stones.

Amahli thought they were brilliant, lining them all up first, then making some stories, having the rocks then interact with each other. Such a multi use thing that was so easy to make!

I cut up an old sticker book mostly and used mod podge to seal them in. These will come with us on trips to the drs, church, or nannas Im sure!

pay it forward

2011-09-08T20:51:00.007+10:00

Miss Mother Nature found a rather large, rather unwell cicada at our back door this afternoon. I told her to leave it alone but she insisted in moving out of the dogs way and to make it " more comfortable.
This guy died in peace and comfort :) Complete with a pillow for his head. ( Actually he was dead before she rescued him.)

Yesterday, I got a well timed surprise in my letterbox. A package from a friend which totally made my day. Not just because it was a package addressed to me ( Although that does rather float my boat) but what it contained actually made me gasp with the surprise that someone had gone out of their way to think of me.

Inside was some stickers for the kids, a mag she knew Id like, a disc to create all sorts of cool things, but the thing that got me most was this blank diary-like book. A week or so ago I posted something on facebook. It was mini rant and not something I normally do because, well, its Facebook! But it was a particularly shocking day and I didnt think anyone would read it.

I wrote: "I would love to have a rant and rave without the fear of repercussion". Nothing overlly incriminating. Just a bit of a blah.

When I opened the diary from my surprise package this is what it said inside:

I was quite gobsmacked at the thoughtfuless of this lovely friend, who I dont see much at all, and we dont speak much either.
So it got me thinking, I need to find a way to pay it forward too.
So tomorrow, Im going to find a way to do something for two people to make their day, without the need or want for them to pay it back, only foward.

Want to join me??

friday foto: on wednesday

2011-09-07T22:47:00.003+10:00

Ive grown something... from a tiny bulb, to a magnificent REAL tulip. Admittedly, out of 12 bulbs this is the only one that is doing what its supposed to do and look like its supposed to... but! At least its one :) Jumeirah came tearing around the side of the house to come and see it and I raced back with her, not realising that this gorgeous flower must have sprung up over night.

I sat for ages and stared at it. The tiny fine detail of pink along the tips, the cream that blends to green.

Its truly an amazing piece of work :)

sticky paintings

2011-09-06T16:43:00.004+10:00

Wanted to shout out to those new people ( and old people!) who have been showing me comment love :) THANKYOU it totally makes my day :)

This last weekend I hit Sydney for a photography course with my dad. Id bought him a voucher to go do it seeing as he has just recently bought a new camera, I thought that would be a great way to learn the basics with a heap of practical on the side.Then I decided I would go too ;)

It great course and over the next few weeks or whatever Id love to share a few thinsg I learnt. Is anyone ( aside from Kim ;) ) keen to know how to take better photos??

Todays art was a cool one that I had planned for last week and it never happened. Last week I made lemon meringue pies to take to a meeting and had some sweetened condensed milk left over ( yes I did try very hard NOT to eat it, that stuff is GOOD!) And so today we did sweetened condensed milk painting :)

I added a little bit of food colouring to this stuff and it makes the most beautiful,glidy, shiny paint ever. It looks so pretty and is really fun to paint with. But WARNING, IT WILL NOT DRY. It will always be a bit tacky so its one we chuck out once we've finished. But both babes were keen on doing it ( which is nice for a change!). Amahli only used pink and Jared only used blue.

Jared used his to paint the Sea. Amahli just loved the sensation of this cool paint. Its one of those mixtures that is more about the process and the feel rather than the final result.

Go try it!

My new friend

2011-09-02T12:39:00.004+10:00

I have a new friend.. and I mean REALLY new. Like a week old :)

His gorgeous mum and I have been friends for awhile, we were pregnant with our thirds at the same time and her little blessing was born two days before Amahli.

But this little person, who wasnt entirely planned ( by mum that is) was thought to be following the trail of THREE girls... and turned out to be a boy :)

I tried to stay away, give mum space, really I did. But she was keen and happy for visitors so I raced over to take my first "real" baby shoot.

The thing with hospitals is the lighting is really bad. But some gentle editing, this little guy turned out just perfect :)

things are growing!!

2011-09-01T20:55:00.006+10:00

Things Ive planted ( and promptly forgot about) are GROWING :)
Im no gardener. Id love to be, but I lack interest and patience mostly. But things are growing....

Strawberries actually look like real strawberries ( these ones arent rip yet. They need to turn dark red. But we have had some that look great. Jared eats them before I get the camera...)

Carrot seeds ( ok can someone explain to me how a carrot grows from a seed? Wheres the seed in a carrot?!)

I walked up the back a few weeks ago and saw this great pile of "weeds". I then remembered we had put the seeds of carrots in here cos I had no where else to put them! I was so excited, we thought we should pull one up...

Not ready yet I dont think.

This is what it looks like this morning :)

Jared was shocked at the size of this carrot " its so big I can eat it!"

Amahlis comment was " I want to eat the shop ones."

And my beautiful tulips I bought for myself for Mothers day :)

They were bulbs, then shoots...
And now COLOUR!!

I need a natural spray to protect my strawberries though.. anyone got any ideas??

Taking Time

2011-08-30T22:13:00.009+10:00

"In a minute!" "Hang on a sec!" "Just a moment more..... "

How many times do your kids hear these words?? Mine?? All the time :) Mostly, they have no concept of time, they know that if I say "in a minute", its usually longer than " just a sec". And thats about as far as it goes.

Today, I wanted them to see time "move" so to speak. And so I gathered the things I would need to make a sand timer.

To begin with, Amahli and I had to sift the sand to rid it of the big lumps.

Jared then helped the thump holes in two lids, making them match over each other.

We filled one jar with sand and sealed the lids to the jars. We added glue gun to seal. (NOTE: THIS IS NOT A PERMANENT SOLUTION. Dont ask me how I know. Just trust me. You need a really stong gorilla grip glue to hold these jars together)

We then wrapped them in ribbon (Also should have been a more secure twine maybe)
I then let him turn it over... and we watched the sand trickle through the glass.

They thought this was so cool! We talked about how long it took to all pass through the holes, the patterns the sand made, that we couldnt really speed it up, that it flowed at the same pace every time.

I then used it to time things around the house... it takes Jared 6 laps of the backyard for one sand cycle. It takes Amahli two sand cycles to go to the toilet and get dressed ( it would have taken one cycle but she panicked at being timed and thus chucked a wobbly mid cycle which lasted half a sand cycle).

But mostly, they just enjoyed watching time pass :)

Winter :)

2011-08-29T21:48:00.006+10:00

Lately, its seems, I am having a season of quiet nothingness.. days seem to be packed full of busy stuff but the times that are normally crafty have been filled with either two little people not wanting my input ( *sad face*) or kids busy racing around outside... the last few days have been beautiful and obviously calling to them to run, jump and be free :)
So I harnessed them for long enough to drive them to the beach and then unleashed them to do exactly as they wanted...

Port Macquarie Winter :)

Dont get me wrong, its freeeeeezing in the mornings still.. but the last few days have been absolute bliss :)

Amahli the clown

Amahli and her " it is my real cheese face!" ( as in smile face)

Running and stopping game.. run as fast as you can and then I yell STOP! and they have to stop. This is a great game to teach a child who runs away from you in shopping centres. Mine never did but maybe because this is one of our favourite games :)

Mid jump

COLD!

Where are places you go to de stress, re centre, be calm with your kids??

mixed media free for all

2011-08-25T20:20:00.007+10:00

Desperate for a better day than yesterday, I decided today would include a craft free-for-all. This was for a few reasons, A) I am totally out of ideas at the moment, and B) having a whole heap of things ready to go means I dont have to leave the table to get something and thus giving Jared the chance to escape ;)

This is how it looked.

I was even tempted by it! Amahli, drawn by the mere smell of fresh paper and paint, was totally in. I called hers " mixed media art" as she pretty much had to use a bit of everything on the one page. She was in pure paradise :) And the best thing about her being so completely occupied was that I could work with Jared and encourage him to join in too.

He was happy to start, we talked about what he thought he might like to do first which surprisingly, was to draw. He started to draw and it quickly became a rocket, with windows, flames, stars and a moon.

He then wanted to use paint ( *gasp!* I know!) to colour in the rocket, which he did and was really proud of it.

Precisely 4 minutes after starting he was ready to stop but I gently encouraged him with scissors. He got pretty excited over these too as he realised that he was able to cut different shapes on.

We then glued them onto another page. Whilst he was gluing, I suggested one more thing we could do was something for daddy for Fathers Day.
And so he agreed and drew a picture of himself and daddy ( with only a small amount of encouragement.)

The thing about having everything was that he could leave paint if he wanted to and draw instead, or completely change and cut. He seemed much more willing to sit and do more than a few minutes which was great. Its also meant that I was able to sit and be with him instead of running back and forth with more supplies and things. I could sit and relax and enjoy watching them create.

The funniest thing was though, when he had finished his drawing of himself, I encouraged him by saying, " Now, where are you and dad in the picture?"

His response was " we are in the forest on the top of a mountain."

Me:" Why dont you draw some of the things in the forest? Or the mountain?"

His very quick response: " No Mum. We are covered in fog. Thats the white bit."

I guess he was done :)

red riding hood costume

2011-08-23T22:01:00.006+10:00

Tomorrow is the book parade. A day I both look forward to and dread. You see, I love watching my happy princess parade in a gorgeous costume,... but dread the fact that it is I that has to see that costume come to fruition.

Last year, we did the butterfly from the Hungry caterpillar and I spent forever on it, only to watch her try to hide the wings because in actual fact shes really shy and 5 foot wings dont really do so well on a shy child.

This year, with more confidence and more ideas, she came to me and asked to be Little Red Riding Hood. Seemed simple enough. A hooded cape, white shirt, cute skirt... simple yes??

And so last weekend ( yup I work well under pressure) I began my project. After spending over two hours on the net trying to find a simple enough pattern, I gave up and decided I could wing it myself.

I bought red fabric for the cape and a white with red pattern fabric for a skirt.

And so it began.

Already, with laying the red fabric out, I realised I really didnt have enough. *sigh*

So I changed the idea a bit and began to measure a hula hoop to use as the cape part.

Cutting a hole in the centre using a plate I had the beginnings of a cape.

For the hood, I planned to have it look similar to the one in the movie "Red" ( a scary version of little red riding hood) that was quite a billowy hood and looked great.
I cut two semi circles out, and sewed along the curved part, thinking that the straight part would be the part that connected to the neck of the cape. Along the curved stitched line, I snipped for easy turning and a nice edge.

Once turned right way out, it became totally clear that this was NOT how to make a hood. It barely covered her head, and where it did cover, it flopped over one eye.
Somehow, and I still dont know how, at this point I folded it so the seam went down the middle of her head, and all of a sudden, I had a cape hood :) I then made a hem for it, and stitched half of the semi circle the to neck of the cape.
Really, these instructions wont get you anywhere but seriously lost. But Im sharing my pain because it turned out in the end :)

The skirt was the most brilliant part and I will make HEAPS of this style for both girls for summer. Using the hull hoop again, trace a circle and then cut it out. Using the plate ( again) cut a circle in the centre of the fabric. ( see the photos above) Now from the centre, cut one straight line to the edge of the fabric.
I then made a seperate casing for an elastic waist as the skirt was going to be a bit short for Jumeirah, made the casing and attached it to the inner circle. Stitch a hem and stitch the side seam together and its done! It sits beautiful and twirls even better :)

So this is Little Red Riding Hood. Done :) Its too short for her liking ( and mine too actually., it doesnt quite sit the way it did in my head) although because daddy said it was awesome, she now thinks it is too.

Im pleased with the final result, and I have a happy little girl who will no doubt hide in her costume tomorrow but she'll look fantastic anyway :)

Mondrian art

2011-08-22T20:52:00.006+10:00

Today I had all three cherubs at home... ear aches, runny noses, normal, neverending winter stuff which I am truly over...I think for the first time in my life I am longing for warmer weather.

Watch me complain in a few months time :)

This week I am changing things. Last week I was so unorganised that they week past in a slow boring blur. I didnt really have any rhyme or reason to anything and it left me feeling Blah. So I stepped it up, got myself sorted for some fun activities and began the day with a sunrise walk to clear my head.

Twas perfect :)

At home, I got out some pencils, paint and paper and asked them to come create with me. Jared beelined for the mobilo but I let him go today, if he was going to create with something else, I was happy. The girls were up at the table faster than I could get the invitation to create out :)

Amahli, wanting no direction, was straight into it. Painting and chatting about what she was doing, being or so meticulous with her brush strokes, shes just so entertaining to watch.

I had something different for Jumeirah to do and she was keen to see what it was.

A friend of mine, who is a Kindy teacher, showed us his classes work recently that was inspired by the artist Piet Mondrian. I showed Jumeirah their work and asked if she wanted to give it a go.
We started by drawing straight lines on the paper with a ruler, both horizontally and vertically, making squares and rectangles.

Once drawn, she began to fill in different squares with colour. Its something that had to be done carefully, she took her time and did really well.

Once that stage was dry, each line is then painted in black paint. Another part that takes a steady hand and careful painting, she did get a bit frustrated by it but worked through it with me to complete what turned out to be a masterpiece.

The result is really striking and looks fantastic on the wall.

Im hoping she'll do one on a canvas for me :)

Thanks for the idea Mr Scott!!!

friday photo :Be still

2011-08-19T23:33:00.003+10:00

Had one of those moments this week, just between me and God.

Its been a crazy week, one where I have been lost inside my own head, thoughts whirling through and out again, nothing really staying still, nothing really getting done, everything just all up in the air....

Yesterday I got up and went for a walk, mostly because I was awake and couldnt get back to sleep but also because I knew it would still my mind. ( Its funny that the one time of day I can be alone with my thoughts and more often than not, my mind goes blank :) )

As I arrived at the beach on the grey and stormy looking morning, I watched in awe at the sun, powering through the clouds at every possible hole it could. I was blown away by the quiet but awesome power it seemed to show in this beautiful display.
And I was stopped, the problems and things I had to sort out left as I just let the moment BE.

And how thankful for that moment I was. Remembering that though at times everything seems out of control, out of focus, off course, with no direction, God knows EXACTLY whats is, what has been, and whats going to be.

So I let go and was still, and enjoyed this moment of clarity when the worries drift away, even for a little while, and I can just enjoy the sunrise and a calm heart :)

from the achives: make a meal

2011-08-18T22:03:00.004+10:00

Another archived craft today.. this week is crazy with sick kids and me in training I havent been able to do anything that I wanted to do..but trying hard not to beat myself up for it. The kids have been ok, happily playing whilst I try and deal with stupid mother guilt.
This was another really fun activity to do and we do it quite frequently.

Jared just comes in from the loungeroom where he is having "rest time" ( or quality spongebob squarepants time really) whilst Amahli is asleep, and says

"Mum, theres a Koala in the tree."

To which I reply, " ok mate I will come and sit with you in a minute".

His response: " No Mum, theres a Koala in the tree"

And what do you know?? There actually is :)

Well I can never be sure with him... yesterday it was a crocodile being chased by a dragon so do you blame me for being a little suspicious???

Today I have a little sick chick. I hate it when they arent well, she just wants to play, then dissolves in tears and curls up on my lap.... and there isnt much I can do....but after a dose of Nurofen she was ok for a bit and so I got out stuff for her to do really quickly.

I had cut up a whole heap of junk mail from Coles of different foods that we eat. I gave them both a paper plate and glue and off them went!

This was such a fun and simple activity. We talked about the foods we eat, what we like, what we dont like, the colours of food, things that go together ( Amahli, the clever thing that she is, found sausages, bread and sauce to glue on her plate) ( I dont recall allowing her to grow up faster than I am ready for!) and things we should try. Jared wanted scissors to trim down his apples which I let him do as well. Amahli did have a go but needs some spring loaded scissors to practise with first..

Amahlis favourite: bread, sausages and sauce. Actually if its got sauce, she'll give anything a go :)

Jared would be happy with noodles and prawns, and kiwi fruit for dessert.

Both of them did about 4 plates of food each and spent ages playing in the cut outs and making meals.
You could use the activity for so many things: cutting practise, counting, colours, pretend play.. its really limitless and loads of fun!

designer fabric: from the archives

2011-08-16T21:23:00.003+10:00

I took a trip to the beach with my littles today... WITHOUT the camera. I know, stupid huh. But I thought they deserved some full mummy time instead of trying to capture every moment on film.. or whatever it is today ;)
So I pulled a moment from the archive from this time last year.
It was a good one! I may just do it again this week :)

Yesterday was a bit if a funny day.. not so much funny "haha" but funny "hmmmm grrrr"....

I had Jumeirah home from school with green gunk oozing from her nose, and Amahli and Jared were a bit "off", and I seem to have somehow got some random head cold/ gunk thing too. So I didnt get a chance to blog BUT! I did get to do some fun stuff anyway!

I told them about the things I had planned to do: the changing the world part anyway, and how Daddy had printed off some cards for us to drop off for people we dont know. Jumeirah thought this was a bit funny but still was more than happy to go along and wants to help too. I also told them I wanted them to think about something they could do for someone else to make them feel happy too. I didnt push it, I want them to think of it themselves.
And so we began our day: A bit oozy, a bit grizzly but hopeful of a good day :)

I wanted to do something special with Jumeirah today, knowing she wasnt all that well and needed a bit of Mumma TLC ( the best kind, really!). I found a piece of white cotton fabric and took the idea I found at Filth Wizardry we got started in making some kid designer fabric to turn into a skirt. I gave Jumeirah a black permanent marker and she got to work.

I asked her to draw some flowers ( yeah I know, I shoulda just let her do it... sorry it was one of those days) and she did a brilliant job. I then watered down some acrylic paint and she painted them. I absolutely loved how this turned out!!

We hung it up to dry and then I had to convince myself that we had intended to make a skirt from it... I really didnt want to cut it or sew it, but want it for a hanging or something.. but I proceeded.

It turned out really well, although its a little stiff. But the colours and design is just gorgeous. As I was sewing it together, three cherubs were playing on the trampoline. Just as I turned to corner, I watched Jumeirah throw a soccer ball at point blank range at the back of Jareds head. I yelled ( yes yes I shouldnt have done that either) for her to get off and that she was banned from the trampoline for two days. "Its not fair!" I got yelled back and she flounced away. I made her come out and try on her new skirt.
As you can see she was well impressed, NOT.

As she took it off though, Jared came up and said "I do it for you, Mum" and he put it on and raced to the fence for a photo. I stopped and thanked this little guy for helping me. I tiold him that what he had done made my heart happy and that he was such a thoughtful person. And then I got these pics that really made me melt and realise yet again, how blessed I am with great kids.

Jumeirah watched all this, then came outside and asked to go on the trampoline. I said no, she was banned. I told her that she could see what it felt like by him throwing it at her, but she didnt like that idea either ( the third thing I shouldnt have done but it turns out well...).
Thinking of my resolutions, I told her there was one other thing she could do... do something kind for him that would make him feel happy.
And off she raced with a big grin.

After about 20 minutes she presented him with this.

He loved it and hugged her, and she turned to me and said this little piece of gold:

" Hey MUM! It worked! But guess what else?? I feel happy too so it REALLY worked!"

And so today, my work is done. And no matter how many times I stuffed up the little things, I know that I made a difference to them, even if it was only for today.

Kids dont have to be picassos for this to work out well. Its just great to have as a skirt or a pillow or anything! to keep as a momento of their young artworks :)

painting with a twist

2011-08-15T12:42:00.003+10:00

Last week got a bit busy towards the end am I found myself slipping from sanity to stress.
I have found that the best way to deal with t his is to drop everything and just spend time with my kids. I am quickly recentered, my breathing calms down, crazy thoughts are stilled.

So when this began to happen I grabbed an art activity I had in my head for a few days and headed outside to join the nutbags :)

Whilst in Sydney, Jared found some water pistols and was desperate to buy them. We had rules about not pointing them at anyone and all the rest and hes had a ball with them, shooting only the wall and occasionally the poor dog.
Today though, instead of filling them with water, I filled them with food colouring, hoping to encourage him to want to use them to paint with!

I set it up, showed them what it was, and then stood well back and watched. We had lined the retaining wall with paper so they were all set. Jared was in straight away, careful not to get it on himself but enjoying shooting at the wall. Amahli was also quick to start, and with only a few reminders, managed to get it on the wall ( mostly).

They enjoyed doing this until the paint ran out so I refilled them but this time just with water and showed them they could still " paint" but the paint the wood of the fence with just water, which had a similar effect.

Its not an activity that had a lot of point, which is half the fun sometimes. Open ended, no instructions (except not to squirt anyone) no way in which its "supposed" to turn out, no time frame. Just the joy of colour and experimentation.

Cute fun and easy painty fun :) I just had to make sure I didnt turn my back for too long.... ;)

paper plane fun

2011-08-11T20:17:00.006+10:00

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)

sorting money

2011-08-09T21:05:00.007+10:00

Money seems to be a big thing in our house at the moment... at any one time the sound of clinking coins can be heard from any number of pockets or falling through the holes in the car seats. And Im always having my wallet raided for coins, it seems that 5c pieces wont do either. It has to be " a big one Mum!" or " A gold one for pirates!" which I would love to oblige but I barely ever have two to clink together myself!!

So, to encourage this love of coins, I created Jared in particular (but all can use it) a page of coin matching.

It was pretty easy, find the coin pictures on the computer, print them off.

The hard part was finding enough coins :)

I did it so it became a counting game too, not all coins had the same amount.

He spent quite a lot of time on this, first getting it wrong as he was rushing but once he took the time to look at the coins and discover the symbols and numbers on them he was able to match it easy.

He did it again this afternoon and did it first go :)

These type of activities can be adjusted for so many ages. Younger kids can just match one coin of varying amounts, older children ( 5-10) can begin to add the lines of coins together to work out how much it adds up to.Its got so many ways to be extended.

Going to set Amahli up with it tomorrow and see how she goes :)

the prince and the princess

2011-08-08T13:20:00.005+10:00

Last week I went to Education Week at school with Jumeirah. Its was fun to see her in action at school and the things shes been doing. I do hear alot about different things but its totally different to see her in a classroom setting.

Their theme this term is "Fairy Tales" and so lots of things have been coming home to do with all things fairytaleish. Hanging on the wall in their room is one such thing they did which was to colour in a prince or princess picture and then stick their face on the top. So so cute and as soon as Amahli saw it she started begging me to do it with her too.

So I drew ( read: copied) an outline of a prince and a princess, found a photo of both her and Jared and printed it out, and they both had a lovely time colouring their royal selves in. Whilst colouring in has had a bad rap for being ' creative squashing" and "useless" I find it has its good points too. Jared needs to do more practise with holding a pencil and being able to control and colouring helps that. I loved to colour in as a child as I wasnt the best drawer. Its also great for strengthening muscles in their fingers which they need to be able to hold a pencil or pen in later life too.

Once they were finished, we stuck their heads on. Both absolutely loved looking at the royal versions of themselves :)

So now I spend my day getting ignore unless I refer to them as Prince Jared and Princess Amahli.

Jared even said to me: " I told you who I am. If you dont call it to me, Im not listening anymore".

Turns out he's not just royal, hes a royal pain in the butt ;)

photo friday

2011-08-06T08:14:00.007+10:00

Ive started walking again :) My mornings begin early, on a beach, ALL BY MYSELF. And my brain, which is noisier than my three children put together, but at least it doesnt stop me from taking photos :)

I saw this little flower and totally could see how I wanted it to turn out once Id edited it.

Its almost perfect ;) Its tweaked with a little vintage denim which brought out the blues in it. The background is untouched.

Happy weekend!

straw blow painting

2011-08-04T16:44:00.007+10:00

Recently, Jared has had an obsession with playing with straws. All day. Everyday. Which is fine, for the first 10 minutes, then they get full of condensation and boy slober that it drips out then end. Which is when I start gagging.
He bought a pack of curly straws whilst we were in Sydney which has only flamed the love for straws. So today, I decided to let him play with straws provided he did my straw painting. ( No, its compromising, not bribing ;) )

So I set up straw blowing painting today. When we used to do this at preschool, I seriously could not watch. The amount of dribble that ended up on the page just was about the only preschool thing I could not handle. ( That and clay. But thats a whole nother issue) So I was a bit worried at how it would have changed seeing as its my kids and their dribble which I am covered with most days anyway....

He was keen as soon as he saw the straws. And he didnt even baulk when he saw that paint was involved! He got straight in and asked me how to do it.

I showed him once and away he went.

He loved making "Fireworks" and spent a good 10 minutes ( a record for him Im sure!) blowing happily through his straw, moving it around to make the paint spray out into fireworks and "fingers".

Amahli had a go but couldnt quite get the coordination to move the paint around. With a bit of help, she was able to do it too :)

And Im happy to say, not one painting had spit bubbles on it!

Anyone else got some cool things to do with straws??

pattern following

2011-08-02T12:16:00.001+10:00

Yet another resolution to do more things with Jazzy whilst Amahli is asleep.. its such a tricky time of day for both of us... he likes to chill and so do I but I feel time is slipping away from me. Being the middle kid, he wont get time on his own with me whilst the others are at school ( Jumeirah got 2 years before the others came and Amahli will get a year to herself when he goes to preschool and then school..) and I really want to spend more time with him helping him develop those skills he needs without him really knowing hes learning ;) He really is such a cruisy kid though and really he'd reather be snuggled up but I compromised with him today to do a little bit of fun stuff before we flaked out on the lounge.

I set up a simple pattern copying activity. ( Yes the skewers are stuck in a toilet roll. It proved to be the perfect way to keep them still!) ( Im very creative that way ;) )

I made a pattern and asked if he could copy it. With only a little bit of encouragement, he was quite able to do this. Its tricky to do, work out the pattern from the bottom up, then use really little fingers to carefully thread the bead on. I made one a bit harder which is started but didnt want to finish. I was impressed I had him for that long :)

Its something thats easy to pull out and set up and can be used for not only threading and patterns but counting and sorting as well!

Im going to set it up for Amahli tomorrow for some threading fun :)

Make your own floating candles

2011-08-01T20:10:00.006+10:00

Wow is it Monday already?? How a week flies when you are having fun :)
And boy did we have fun last week. Finally (!!!) we were able to take a trip to Sydney to see Ma and Pa and to enjoy some family time. We actually came home tired so not much relaxing to be done but we had a blast and Amahli is already asking when we are going again.
The craft Im posting about today is one I managed to sneak in the day before heading to Sydney after Jumeirah had begged for a week to do it... its fairly easy but takes a bit to do but I had promised so it was time to deliver :)

Make your own candles

Yet another craft that didnt get done in the holidays, I had bought the wax and candle wick beforehand but was too sick to actually do it.
You also need the ability to double boil ( we used an electric fry pan and a cup), and some kind of mould to pour the candle into. We went for something a bit different and made our moulds using wet sand in a paint container. It worked well and was something Jumeirah was able to shape herself. We also tied pieces of wick string to a skewer to hang into the wax to keep it sort of centred in the middle of the candle.

Our double boiler

The sand moulds

To start with, you need to melt the wax. We did ours outside, and added a piece of pastel crayon to colour it. ( you can leave it white but we wanted to see if pastels would work.
Wax melting with piece of pastel

Skewers and wick

Once melted, carefully pour the wax into the sand mould. This then needs to be left to dry for a few hours ( we left ours over night). Once dry you can gently take the candle out, dust off the sand and untie the skewer and you are left with a few cute floating candle :)

I think this would make a really cute gift for a teacher or Mothers Day!

Hot rocks

2011-07-22T20:33:00.010+10:00

Yet another day of rainy weather... It's getting ridiculous really!! My washing has been in the line for 4 days now and getting wetter rather than drier... But my two little lovelies were far from swayed from going outside,and manned with brand new $4 umbrellas and cool boots, they had an absolute ball rain birding it :) Sometimes you just have to throw the mum idea of staying inside and staying dry out the window and let them enjoy the moment...

20 minutes later, both decided to come in for a bath and they were happy at my suggestion of some craft.
We had collected large flat rocks awhile ago ( when we did rock mobiles) and I really wanted to do something with them. Hot rocks was something that I wanted to do with Jumeirah in the holidays but never got the chance. I figured with very close supervision and clear guidance it would be something they would enjoy.
Whilst I got them sorted into warm clothes, I put the flat rocks on a tray in the oven at 200 degrees. 10 minutes later, we got them out and I showed them what we were going to do. I explained that the rocks were very hot ( even gave them a quick burn lesson.... Ow) and they couldn't touch them. Surprisingly, they totally got that bit and got straight into using pastels on them.

This craft is incredibly soothing and therapeutic to do. The pastels melt and glide so beautifully across the hot rock, colours blending and running together to create such lovely patterns. Amahli spent ages on her rock, layering colours, enjoying watching the melty wax. Jared wasn't keen on blending colours but he loved holding the pastel and having it slide on the rock.

I was surprised that I didn't have to keep reminding them that the rocks were hot and that there wasnt any problems with using something that could have potentially been quite dangerous with young children. Being organised and keeping a close eye meant that they got to have a fun and new art experience.

Next week we are going to try again for our family time away :) Please send me sunshiny thoughts for a fun and sickness free break. I'll be back soon!

Clouds

2011-07-21T19:54:00.012+10:00

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 :)

encouraging independence

2011-07-19T12:43:00.011+10:00

First day back at school today... and I was nervous. School holidays are brilliant, for some reason my children have taught themselves to sleep in. Late. Im talking 9am wake up for a two yr old, 8.30am for the 4 yr old and sometime around 8am for the 6 yr old. Its unheard of, I know. And so, when the holidays come to an end and I know I have to have all three kids in the car at 8.30am ( clothes are optional for two of them) I am filled with dread at having to get back into the routine that is SCHOOL. Im not a fan, can you tell???

So this morning, I was determined to be not only organised, but calm and flowy so that the school term can start happily and without my voice ringing in her ears to get ready/brush your teeth/ get your socks on...

Last night, I made the lunches. I hate doing it at 11pm at night but really, it does work to have it done. I set out her clothes ready to go, right in front of the tv so it would automatically happen. It did.

And to help with the breakfast routine I decided to try something different. My kids are shockers at breakfast, take ages to sit up to have it, then demand I do it right then and there, then promptly leave if Im doing something. We then have tears in car cos its been forgotten.

I want them to be more independent, but I get that 2ltr milk is heavy and scary to pour, and that a WHOLE box of rice bubbles will almost definitely end up on the floor if not assisted.

So, when I got up to go out to take some photos this morning of the sunrise ( YES! finally I got up early too) I set this up for her.

Its simple, and makes her life easy too. And it gives her just enough help to not need me right there hovering. She loved it, I loved it :)

So she was dressed, and breakfasted, all in 25 minutes, give her enough time to chill and watch tv and begin her day calmly. I had barely had to remind her to anything.

How long it will last I dont know. But with a morning that works, Im keen to keep it going :)

Not only that, Im going to start letting all three do their own breakfast this way. Its a great step to doing things for themselves and gives them a great sense of accomplishment.

Having a great start to the day meant the whole day just flowed. I set up some simple outdoor areas for the other two, the dolls house and little people, which I had hidden away for some time. I love doing things like this... hiding toys away for a few months and then pulling it out for them to play with. Its like they have new toys!

The other cool area I set up today was a really easy fishing activity that I collected things from Big W. Two packets of plastic fish, two fish nets, one tub and some food colouring and I had a really cool fishing game that Jared just loved.

Simple things make life easy, fun and breathable.

Do you guys have any tricks for simplifying life??

Jam drops

2011-07-18T21:48:00.006+10:00

I cut rapunzels hair in the holidays... its so freakin long and curly and gets impossible to do... then I cut it and forget that curly hair shrinks...

And I regret it :( Only the second time shes ever had it cut and she loves it :) Hopefully the curls will come back after the shock...

Im back :)

Actually the sad thing is... I never left :(
We were all too sick to travel to Sydney to see my folks so we lay around the house and didnt really do much of anything. Quite possibly the worst two weeks of my life... and definitely the worst school holidays.. I had so many cool things to do!

Luckily enough though, we have been well for a few days now and so we have had a little bit of family time which was great. We took a few mini road trips on little adventures which was a nice break from being stuck inside. I love exploring our world here and havent really done much of it since we moved here 6 years ago. But we got out and day tripped to Camden Haven ( for bacon and egg rolls and a Geocache) and also to North Brother Mountain ( in the pouring rain which my gang though was hilarious) and got some gorgeous fresh air into stuffy lungs.
Makes such a difference :)
I left the camera at home for this last week... something about spending time without the need to click the whole time was good for a break ( plus most of our trips involved very wet weather!) but has left me with a bit of a yearning to get back behind the black mask ( otherwise known as my camera). Hopefully tomorrow I can get up early for sunrise :)

So, today, on our very last day of holidays, we got to baking. Jumeirah had a whole list of things she wanted to cook during the holidays but we didnt get much of it done so we will try and do a new recipe once a week after school.
Today though, she wanted to make Jam Drops. Easy recipe, great results!

What you need:

225g (8oz) self raising flour
100g (4 oz) butter
100g ( 4oz) caster sugar
1 medium egg
1 tablespoon milk
50g (2oz) jam

Start by turning the oven on to 200c ( 400f) and grease a baking tray.

Rub the butter through the flour, then stir in the sugar.

Break the egg in another bowl and add milk. Whisk together and then combine in the flour mixture. Sprinkle flour on a clean work surface. Press the mixture together to form a ball and then put it on your work surface.
Cut the ball in half.Then cut each half into three pieces Then, cut each of the pieces in half. You should end up with 12 even sized pieces ( We didnt. It took me three attempts to read the instructions and get this bit right).

Squeeze each piece into a round shape and place on the baking tray. Make a dent in each piece with your finger and fill it with a teaspoon of jam.

Bake for ten minutes.
DONT eat them straight away as the jam is HOT!!!

These turned out really cute and pretty tasty too. I will probably add a tiny bit of vanilla next time but for our first attempt, all were eaten and enjoyed. ( Even if half of them were enjoyed my me).

What have you baked lately?? Any good easy recipes out there??