Advent Calender

I'm not sure when my mum first made this advent calender, but it's been used every year since and I love that it's now a tradition for my boys! I'm doing it a bit differently this year, as well as the obligatory chocolate coin there will be some stickers from the Christmas story. I'm hoping they'll work together to complete the story and also learn the art of taking it in turns!

Sensory Bottles

I mad some sensory bottles last night for our baby area at work. It took a bit of experimenting to find out what worked best. I used the following things:
- plastic bottles with screw on lids
- hair gel
- glitter
- string of beads
- ribbons
- sequins
- shells
- small shark toys
- beads

Some of them worked better than others, my favourite by far is the one with te beads in one part water and one part hair gel. Love the way the beads swirl around!

Pom Pom hats!

I was gifted with two fantastic pom pom makers for my birthday this year and promptly set about making hundreds of pompoms with no real idea of what on earth I was going to do with them. I made so many I got repetitive strain injury in my wrist. Oh crumbs!

Anyway I found a use for two lovely red ones. I have sewn them to the top of my boys woolly hats. Just in time for bonfire night this weekend. They will sure be easy to spot in the crowd, I wonder if the husband would be fussed if I sew one to his hat too?

No plastic Christmas

Yes I'm aware it's still September but this one is going to take some extra thought and time. So we have noticed that somehow our house is full of plastic tat. I'm not sure how we've acquired so much since I'm so against plastic toys!

So far I've thought of some ideas for the children but I'm getting a bit stuck:

Books- famous five for Barnaby?
Dressing up clothes
Musical instruments
Art and craft supplies

And that's where I get stuck!
I think I need to extend the gesture to everyone else we buy for and id love to hand make some presents too.

My other plan is to make some new Christmas decorations from natural materials, I think I should've already started!!!

Count down to 33...

If I live to be 99 then I'm nearly a third of the way through my time on planet earth, (that might be inaccurate my mathematical skills are diabolical). Anyhow I like to make lists so I thought I should make two list. One of the things I would like to do before I'm 33 and one of all the things I would like you all to buy me. Mwah ha ha.

1) finish reading my book
2) ride Kia out of the farm
3) tidy my bedroom
4) sort out my craft stash
5) do at least on of my Pinterest craft projects!


Now for the important stuff...
1) new jodhpurs
2) a basket for my bike
3) a facial or back massage
4) something from Rob Ryan
5) a nice Aztec print cardigan
6) a Pom Pom maker
7) a high viz hat silk
8) argon oil for my hair
9) plectrums!!!

Bathroom make over

I was a bit fed up of the bathroom, we had not decorated since we moved in, the bath panel was looking a bit grubby and the shower curtain covered in mould.
Ideally I'd like to replace the tiles with brick shaped ones but seeing as 90% of the bathroom is tiled it would be an expensive and mammoth task.
Instead I've painted the bathroom a very girly shade of pink (not deterred by the 3 men in my life) and replaced the shower curtain with a biscuity floral design.

It's looking much nicer now! Just need to sort out the ridiculous amounts of bath toys and it'll look fancy!

Mark Making- Fine motor skills part 2

Its tricky thinking of new ways to encourage the boys to do drawing and mark making. Both of them get a little tired of being sat in front of a plain get of paper. One day I decided to let them be really naughty and draw under the table. The only rules were they were not to draw on the legs and no one was to tell Nanny! They loved the novelty of this and stayed under there for the best part of 20 minutes in utter silence, I used this time to clean the kitchen.

A few weeks later the boys were getting a bit disruptive again and needed something fresh to keep them amused, we found an empty cardboard box and set to work creating a little world inside. Afterwards they played with small cars and characters.

Other ideas we've tried include-
- drawing on the sand at the beach
- drawing on steamed up windows in the car
- drawing round hands and feet
- using pencils to trace around maps

Are we nearly there yet?

I've put together some bits and bobs to entertain the tiddlypeeps on our 6 hour car journey tomorrow. I've drawn a eye spy sheet of things the boys can spot, they can also colour them in too. They have sticker books, colouring books and maps. I wonder if we'll get out of the village before they get bored?

Summer holidays!

1- library reading challenge
2- swimming
3- horse riding
4- fishing with grandad
5- weekend at the beach
6- fruit picking
7- rock pools
8- Cheddar Gorge
9- Longleat
10- evening picnic
11- cuckoo woods
12- make cheese scones
13- sort out toys
14- go for a long bike ride
15- make a magic portal
16- build a spaceship
17- finishing reading the BFG
18- Petworth Park
19- keep a holiday diary
20- Classic Car Show

Mario 6th Birthday Party

I have just about survived having 16 6 year olds round for Barnabys Mario Party!

Two and a half hours seemed like it would go on for an eternity but the children loved decorating their mario karts and racing round the garden track in their teams.

By the time they'd eaten their pizzas an watched the popcorn machine there was some time left to run around like escapees from the zoo and then mummies and daddies came to collect.

So exhausting but worth it to see the big smiles!

Tin Foil Painting

The boys liked the effect of painting on the foil, Samuel was practicing his 's' for Samuel.
In the end they painted their arms and crumpled up the foil, but had the best fun doing it.

Lentil play...Fine motor skills-part 1

The littlest boy seems to have developed really strong fine motor movements. I wanted to look at ways to help develop this even more and also help his big brother whose pencil control still needs a bit of refinement!

The first activity we tried at home was a bit of lentil play. I got a couple of containers together and filled one with some green lentils. They only cost 75p from the coop so its a real bargain to use them at home. Any that weren't used today we will save to make musical instruments with.

Sammy quickly decided that the lentils were rubble and moved them between each container with a truck. I sat with him for 10 minutes while he used his pincer grip to transfer the lentils and chatted to himself about what he was doing. He ended up playing for 45 mins!

When we collected Barnaby from school I hoped that they could play with the lentils happily together. Unfortunately world war 3 broke out over who would get to use the biggest truck!

I'm planning on doing some scissor activities, cornflour gloop, weaving and some mark making over the next few weeks so keep an eye out for more posts soon.

Meal times top tips!

Stressful mealtimes? Welcome to my world. This is what I have learnt:

1) Child sized portions- this will stop the fussiest of eaters from feeling overwhelmed.
2) A little of what they like! Include a fool proof favourite of theirs when introducing a new food.
3) Pay attention to the good, ignore the bad. Even if your little one takes a bite of something- praise goes a long way.
4) Set a good example- share mealtimes with your little ones and show them how it's done.
5) Clear expectations- so that you are all reading off the same page, parents need to be united.
6) Let your children find out where their food came from, grow your own veggies, involve them in the supermarket shop, let them help with the cooking.
7) Make meal times fun- recreate meals from your favourite restaurants, invite friends around, make your own menus, let your children make their own place mats and lay the table.
8) Reward with favourite foods. When a child eats something new without a fuss, let them choose the pudding.
9) Be realistic- even as adults there's food we don't all like. Not everyone has to like all food. But expect your child to give it a go. We have one rule, just give it your best try and don't make a fuss!

Even after all this I think we'll forever have tears from my eldest when I serve up a roast dinner or when his food touches on the plate!

Easter gifts

I wanted to do something a bit different for the boys this year instead of the usual shop bought Easter Eggs. I filled egg boxes with some chocolate treats, fluffy chicks and a lego movie keyring and decorated them with some wrapping paper.
I hope they go down well with the little ones but I'm sure they'll get spoilt by the grandparents with copious amounts of chocolate anyway.

Peter Rabbits Garden

The boys new obsession seems to be Peter Rabbit. Barns dressed as him in a rather fetching bunny onesie door world book day and now they are watching the show on cbeebies religiously.
Today they used their pocket money to invest in some figurines so we built them a garden to play in.

Sweet peas

After digging the new flower bed in the front garden last week, I've decided to try growing some sweet peas from seed. The garden is a cottage garden theme but it looks a bit sad and bare at the moment :-(

I've planted some delphinium and herbs to start me off and a couple of lavender plants, also I've scattered some yellow poppy seeds in the bed but not sure what will come of them.

Mothering Sunday

Had a lovely breakfast in bed and a biscuit brought to me by my eldest.
Been wrapping presents for the 'Nanny's' my wrapping is always style per substance!

Baby shoes

There seems to be an impending baby boom, so I've dusted off the sewing machine to make some cute little baby shoes. Baby girl shoes to be precise

Magnets

I borrowed our magnets set from work and filled a small shoe box with various objects for Barns to decide which was magnetic and which wasn't. He insists he's never done this before but managed to get every object correct before he tested it.

He's now asking for more activities and experiments, considering I normally have no success getting him involved in my activities, I'm quite impressed.

Play dough cup cakes

No Sammy we can't eat them!

To read...

Starting my reading list small. Must turn off the tv before my brain turns to mush.