Playing Along - Continuing Our Spring Mural

The girls and I are playing along with everyone over at Childhood 101 We Play.

I promised you I'd give you a look at our spring mural as we continue to work on it, adding things here and there. We've had two more days creating and glueing since my last spring mural blog post .

Yesterday Miss M was in the mood for creative arty fun so she spent the afternoon making various spring things to stick on our mural. The fun did start though with Miss H and I working on the rainbow together, which Miss M then finished off. We just had to add a spring rainbow after seeing a most beautiful rainbow follow a spring shower of rain the other day.

Miss H added the simple things to our mural, like centres to her gorgeous patty pan flowers while Miss M thought to create the clouds, insects, a bird and a bird's nest.

So here it is so far....

The new things we added are...

• tissues for the clouds
• a pom pom for the centre of a flower
• tissue paper + paper for a rainbow
• yellow feather for a bird
• crepe paper + pipe cleaners twisted to make butterflies
• Easter stuffing (paper) to make a bird's nest
• felt for the centre of a flower
• google eyes to add to the mouse

Our mural continues to be a work in progress because we're still keen to add more animals and water life. It's going to be one very full picture when it's done. Spring has definitely sprung here in our play/ art room!

Come play at the Childhood 1o1 We Play link up.

Our Toys Keep Going Round and Round

A few things have changed around here lately and it's been for the better so I'm loving it. (Look out for that blog post coming soon!) This particular change has come about because I want to keep the girl's activities fresh and interesting. I want them to be able to tidy up easily after play and I want to keep the place tidy as well. I needed to de-clutter and reorganise the toys.

The solution - a toy rotation has been put in to place and it's working a treat.

We've gone from this....(and it could look worse!)

To various combinations!

How is our toy rotation working?

Our cube shelving unit has been attached to the wall of the play room. It has been there for quite some time but it once housed most of the toys and activities. This made it tricky for the girls to get things down without letting other things topple.

Every second Sunday (or so) while the girls are asleep I display a new lot of toys/ activities on the shelves and I pack the other toys away in five coloured boxes. They get stored out of sight. I love to see the girl's faces as they discover what's new in the play room when they wake up.

I try and accommodate both girls in the activities that are put out however Miss H likes to give most of Miss M's activities a go anyway so it doesn't let me off the hook with watching her. I do try to put the more involved or smaller piece activities higher up the shelves so she often asks me (or daddy) if we can "play game" together and we help get one down for her and play. With the rotation in place we are trying to encourage them to choose something to play with, have fun with it, then return it to the place it came from. Toys also get rotated through the different rooms in the house, the play room, the girls room and the "quiet room". (Miss H's old room)

Just secretly, I like to be able put away games into the coloured boxes that Miss H has become obsessed with. We have a break for two weeks and then they reappear for another two weeks of play.

Having a toy rotation has made a great difference to the play in this house and for the most part changed how clean and tidy the house (particularly the toy room!) can be. I can be quite messy (I blame my creative brain) but this toy rotation speaks to my creative side so I find it fun to do.

How do you store the toys and activities in your house? Do you have a toy rotation system in place or something else that works?

Five for Friday - 5 Things That Made Me Smile This Week

Here are my 5 smiley things to join in the Five for Friday fun over at Aspiring Mum.

Family Fun...

Miss M's Charlie and Lola party was great but it was especially so because of time with our close family and a special family we do life with. It makes me smile to have such special people around us. Here's a picture Miss M drew after the party. It's her "whole family". She loves them dearly.

Hilarious Colin...

On Monday the girls and I went to the Colin Buchanan concert. (ex-Playschool presenter) He is such a funny entertainer. We had a hoot seeing him play all his different characters on stage and sing the songs we know so well. This concert gave me more than one reason to smile. It was great!

Blessing of a Friend...

I have a special friend who I have known for many many years now. We had our first girls 10 days apart and now they share a friendship too. This friend and I love to do crafty things and talk about anything and everything. We took our girls to the Colin Concert together and then afterwards they came back here for a play date. It was just lovely to spend extra time together, sharing lunch and chatting while the kids played.

Another Treasure Found...

Finding "treasures" at Op Shops always make me smile (as you probably know by now). This was what we found on a treasure hunt yesterday - a beaded maze. It will be great for some quiet play.

Girls in Boxes...

We like to use different spaces in the house for play, quiet time, reading etc. Today the girls opted to sit in boxes while I read them their stories before rest time. It was something different and it made me smile that they thought of it.

Ah the weekend is almost upon us. I'm sure I could fill a blog post and more with things that make me smile on a weekend. Family time is so precious.

Do you have some things that made you smile this past week? Why not share them by linking in to Debbie's Five for Friday at Aspiring Mum. And, while you are there, check out her amazing giveaway.

Tracing and Painting

I thought the girls and I could give some tracing a go after being inspired by a blog post I read here at The Artful Parent and after enjoying our body tracing activity so much but instead of making this a one off project, we worked on it over two days. It was great to turn it into something more than just tracing, even though the tracing part was super fun.

Yesterday afternoon we traced around interesting objects we found around the home. This was great fun, finding and tracing. There was an endless amount of objects that we could use. Some we found were scissors, a balloon pump, the k-beater from the Kenwood mixer, a whisk, tongs, a mixing spoon, a spatula, a rubber toy dinosaur, a stool and a wooden toy knife.

We finished our project this morning by using colourful acrylic paints to fill the pictures in. Now to hang our bright artwork up!

This Absolutely Was an Extremely Special Party

We don't do big parties every year in our family and really we are trying to work out how often we do have them. We do however work to a theme most years and we do have family and one special friend over for a little party/ get together for afternoon tea. Seeing family makes for a lovely time celebrating together.

From my last blog post you would know that Miss M turned 4 on Friday so yesterday we had her Charlie and Lola afternoon tea party. This was a great theme to work with as everything to do with Charlie and Lola is so cute. (My favourite and my best!) I researched the books and came up with a list of foods Charlie and Lola eat. We had donuts, triangle sandwiches, pink milk and choc chip biscuits and of course a Charlie and Lola cake.

We played totem tennis like they play in 'My Picnic Sticker Book' and the kids all took home party bags made to look like the ones Lola makes in 'It's Actually My Party'. They were filled with marbles, toy dinosaurs and other fun things found in 'My Collecting Sticker Book'.

All the Charlie and Lola goodies such as the table cloths, napkins, cups, balloons and bubbles came from Pink Milk in the UK but I actually had the extremely good idea to cut the side off one of the table cloths (where it overlapped) to decorate the cake board and make some bunting.

It was actually an extremely lovely afternoon.

My Big 4 Year Old Girl

As I sit here to type I think about where the last four years has taken me. This time 4 years ago I held my own tiny baby girl in my arms for the very first time. She was such a precious little bundle and I'm so glad she came into our lives. We now have one very lively, confident and fun loving 4 year old girl!

To celebrate we (the E girls) went to Nourish cupcake shop for morning tea (just so beautiful and yummy!) followed by a play at Portside Reserve Park so Miss M could try out her brand new "big girl bike"! It's only what she's wanted since..... FOREVER!!

What a special day. Happy Birthday my beautiful Miss M! You really are a "big girl" now!

xxoo

Table Drawing - 1,2,3

You know what they say about the simple things in life, well table drawing is one of them and it is often the best in our house.

1 Cover the table in paper.

2 Draw all over the paper.

3 Hang it up or toss it away later.

It doesn't get much simpler or cleaner than that.

You could try....

• using butcher's paper, easel paper or backs of old posters. We found our butcher's paper at Riot.
• covering the dining table, the computer desk, the art/ play table or the outside table. Any table, anywhere can be an art space.
• putting out pencils, lead pencils (depending on the age), felt pens, crayons, highlighters, chalk (wet or dry)....any type of drawing or writing implement. Go crazy - you could use them all at once! I like to use Crayola Washable Markers (thanks Steph!). Try using markers with varying widths or shapes of tips.

This activity is set up for my girls to do after rest time. It's a space to let them create whatever they would like to this afternoon. Ah the simplicity - I really like it!

Our Spring Mural - A Work in Progress

Spring arrived here in Australia on the first of September and Miss M was really keen to find out all about it. (I also think she was very keen to find out when the swimmers could come back out!) Together we decided that it would be fun to make a spring mural which could be made of anything and everything we had but showing things that might be found outside in spring.

This has been a great project to work on each afternoon as we add a few more details to our mural. I've kinda had to do what my good friend talks about and "sit on my hands". I have plenty of ideas I'd like to use but I'd prefer to see Miss M thinking about how things could be made. Miss H hasn't missed out on the fun either. She has been happy to go along with the blue painting, adding glue everywhere and putting all the flowers on. It's been a great activity for her language development.

The materials we've used so far are...

• roller painting blue and white acrylic paint for the sky background
• blue crepe paper for the water/ pond
• small patty pans for flowers
• green paddle pops for flower stems
• paper bark - we found this on one of our walks
• scrunched up paper for the tree leaves
• brown toweling for the mouse body + coloured wool for the tail

There's still lots we could add to our mural over time so we'll call it a work in progress. It would be good to collage/draw/ paint some animals to add to Miss M's mouse. It also needs some animal and plant life in the water and some things in the sky but then again, they are just my ideas. Time to talk it over with the girls again! We'll give you another peek at our spring mural soon.

Are you doing any activities to celebrate spring with your kids?

Five For Friday - 5 Things That Made Me Smile This Week

Once again I'm joining in with Aspring Mum for her Friday fun. It's great to end the week with some grateful, smiley thoughts. Here are my five smiley things....

Cute as a Button....


I love to cover buttons to make clips and hair ties for my girls and friend's girls. This lovely little package was ordered by my friend who also enjoys this addictive crafty activity. I can't wait to get stuck into making them look cute and pretty, particularly the very tiny ones which I haven't tried before. There may be a girly crafty afternoon coming up which will make me smile even more!

It's All in the Routine...

Our afternoon/ evening routine has been quite difficult for months now and recently I was inspired by one of my Mums on the GO mummy friends to change things. I've gone from feeling like I'm a stressed out and tired mummy to being a lot more stress-free and happy. So far the new routine seems to be working. I am grateful for a group of wonderful mummies who inspire me.

Stepping Out...

Oh how wonderful it felt to go on an outing to Queen's Park, Ipswich yesterday! We are finally getting back out and about after weeks of sickness. Queen's Park has so much to offer. The girls and I had a lovely morning tea at the cafe followed by a play in the amazing playground. Animals next time! I enjoyed seeing the girls go down the huge (but very tame) slides, especially since Miss H was daring enough to give them a go. All of a sudden she's not seeming so little anymore.

Mums on the GO...

Mums on the GO is our usual weekly Wednesday outing that we look forward to and it was just so nice to see everyone and enjoy the group fun again.

Birthday Fun...

Miss M's special friend had a birthday on Tuesday so she gave her a call to sing "Happy Birthday" and have a chat. This made me smile so much as the two little girls tried to make conversation. So cute.....and a little awkward.

Do you have five things that made you smile this past week? Why not take the trip over to Aspring Mum to see her list and link in with your own.

Playing Along - Wash the Dishes, Dry the Dishes....

The girls and I are playing along with everyone over at Childhood 101 We Play this week.

Washing up...

always seems fun...

when you're little!

*****

You could extend this activity by...

• Singing and playing 'Wash the Dishes, Dry the Dishes'
• Singing and dancing to 'Mrs Knife and Mr Fork' - Justine Clarke

Come play at the Childhood 101 Link up.

Wood Work With Littlies

A few week ago we excitedly purchased two little hammers (from Bunnings), one for each of the girls. We anticipated some hammering fun to happen during that week but it took some time to organise our supplies. As it turns out, leaving our hammering for a few weeks gave us the opportunity to make some lovely gifts for daddy for Father's Day.

Feeling inspired by some blogs I have read recently I wanted to set this activity up with as many unused items we had around the house. This table (kept under the house) was the perfect table for a work bench for the girls and it gave me great joy to see it being used in a different way. Daddy just had to add a few bolts to return it to its once sturdy state. Apparently one of daddy's old housemates owned it and kindly left it behind for him to enjoy. Hmmm....

It was surprising that our reno house didn't have any old bits of timber lying around so I asked friends and family if they had some soft (ish), smooth off-cuts of timber we could collect from them. People are so generous. We picked up a crate full of timber which daddy cut to different lengths for us to use. Thank you Mr Matt and Mrs Susan for the timber!

I figured hammering pieces of wood onto wood might prove to be a bit tricky for my girls at this stage so we started with something very simple. The collage tray was filled with interesting textured items to hammer on to the wood and this seemed to work well to get us started.

Standing up would have helped to put more strength into the hammering.

The hammering was a bit tricky. It took concentration, determination and a fair bit of help from mummy but we got some things onto the wood in the end. Miss M suggested to add painting to their hammering work which seemed to be the perfect idea. Here are the finished products!

You could extend this activity by....

• Singing 'Johnny Works with One Hammer'