Christmas Card making in July!!??

                  Yes, you read it correctly. And this is my 4 year old Diva requesting to do this! I did not want to give her proper cards though, as she likes to make cards randomly throughout the year/day and give them to her toys or her friends as nursery. So I simply folder a sheet of A4 paper twice to make a simple card and gave her some Christmas stickers I found lying around....

                               


              Well she is making an early start I suppose! Lets hope her enthusiasm carries on right up till Christmas!

Mummy's Mad Monday!

               One thing from the Summer Bucket List that I did the other week....Mummy's Mad Monday!We were due to have 8 friends over plus my 3, however as it turned out, 2 of the friends could not come....one had a leaky house after all these heavy downpours we have been having and the other was late back from visiting a grandfather....so 6 friends and my 3.

              The older boys were happy playing on the Xbox, then having a game of football in the garden ( they even let my younger son and a girl his age play!!) Then in for icing biscuits and back on the Xbox till their parents came to get them....oh yes and lunch was provided in the middle!

The little ones also enjoyed icing their biscuits after lunch and a quick play in the garden while the sun came out (finally)

The state of the playroom with cars eveywhere, all the dressing up clothes all over the floor and 2 happy kids playing with the marble run! Always have a marble run up when you have visitors is my advise...they love it!

The younger ones enjoyed playing with the cars, the trainset, sticking, gluing and making a general mess. It was nice to be able to sit down with the mums of the younger two who stayed and have a chat. I tidied the kitchen as we went along so at the end of the day it was only the playroom that needed a  tidy. Happy Days.

Last day of School!

It's Wednesday and it is the last day of school before they break up for the summer!! YIPPEE!!!! I, for one can't wait...I think I may be even more excited than the kids. I think they are having a games day at school today...bring in your own games and play day. While the boys are at school, I will be going to the gym then taking the Diva horse riding. Then home for lunch and hoover the car out and get the boys and pop to Sainsburys (or ice cream van if its there) and get some Ice Creams or Ice Lollies of their choosing.

I have already been mad enough to arrange a Mummys' Mad Monday for the 28th July....9 children around to play plus my 3. Lets hope the sun shines on me then they can all play in the garden. Roll on this  afternoon!!!!!!SO EXCITED!!!!! love the holidays with my kids....yes they annoy the hell out of me sometimes but most of the time they are brilliant.

You will have to forgive me if I do not get to post on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays in the hols, what with days out etc I will be busier than usual!...however I will endeavor to post 3 times a week still!!!

MineCraft Hama Beads

So, we finally gave in and brought an X-Box 360, (we held out till eldest son nearly 8!) and Minecraft is THE game in this house and at school. Everyone is playing it that the kids know. I must say that when I have had a go on a couple of occasions, it makes me feel exceeding ill! Maybe I need to play more as my eldest says! I think I have better and more important things to do, like putting supper on the table and washing was my retort.
As most parents do, we have had to impose strict rules on the amount of time allowed (1 hour on school days,2 at weekends) and when it goes off (6pm) regardless. This seems to be working and now the weather is getting better they do seem to do inclined to venture into the garden. However they do like Hama Beads, even my boys. They have found that it is a very good way of replicating their Minecraft worlds!!!!

This love of Hama Beads extends not only to the whole 'Steve' family,(aren't the baby ones cute with their milkbottles and everything?) but they are making all the enemies too:

I am not sure what all the correct names for these players are but am sure that if you are a Minecraft player you will recognise them!

Loom Band Madness

It has finally hit our household....the madness that is tiny coloured elastic bands! They have already been banned from school, then suddenly my 8 year old son declared that he would quite like to try and make some....off I went to look on Ebay and brought a load very cheaply at £2.99 for 1800 bands+600 novelty ones free and the s clips and free post!!!!!

As soon as they arrived he promptly made a band for everyone in the house then a load more!

I think they are really quite nice actually! We have now looked on google and found so many more types of designs that we should look up on You Tube to see how to do them. 

And did you hear about the dress someone actually made out of them! Apparently the bid on Ebay was £170,000!!!!!Why do I not think of doing these things???!!!!Mortgage paid off by elastic bands!!!HAHAHA

He made one for a mum at my daughters nursery too though and she gave him 50p for it!

At the moment the bands are all well contained! How long till they are everywhere???

In the garden

It's only July but already I have so much going on in the garden (for me its a lot anyway) The runner beans are producing masses of flowers and the beans are developing...the sweet peas are glorious...

I keep picking and they keep coming! Wonderful and the smell.....to die for!

I even found that the nectarine tree has produced this year..all be it only 3 fruit, but they are looking good. Will have to make sure the squirrel does not get them.

Also, I picked a handful of plums today. They are ripe already.   And this is from the one plum tree we have that has never fruited before!

This is going to be a lovely summer I can tell.

Lovely upgrade to local park!

 We went to a party held at the park at the weekend! What a brilliant idea, nothing to clean, kids entertainment is there, parents stay for  a natter, fantastic!
I have not been up to the park at Beechurst for about 2 years as I always felt that it did not cater very well for older kids and there was not much there....Well, they have changed a lot. All the little kids stuff is still there, but they have added a huge wooden frame for the older kids to climb and a giant web swing for them too!These are located just outside the little kids park so you can keep an eye on both at the same time. They have also done a few other bits and pieces!

Along with adult sized picnic benches there are little toadstool tables and chairs too! Various wooden animals were attached to walls and fences and there were several wooded crocodiles for the kid to climb on.

 

There was this lovely walkway they have made too, leading to.....

A wonderful willow 'house'. With a crocodile in the middle. I might well visit this park a little more now.

Summer Bucket List

                         30 Things To Do This Summer

A few weeks before every holiday I get the kids together and do a Bucket List. As summer is approaching at a light speed...I have not got enough time to do what I need to do....ie paint the hallway!, I thought I had better get into gear and sort out this years Summer Holiday Bucket List.

With 2 boys (8 and 5) and  a daughter (4), there has to be quite a wide range of things that they will all enjoy doing. I am not lucky enough to have family in the same town so we all have to muddle through and be together with whatever we decide to do. I hope that some of these will be inspiring for you to take away and do yourself, the thing is to not mind about mess, clutter or even tidying to a certain extent in the holidays....I always find if I get neurotic about the mess I cannot enjoy the holidays at all.

1- Another 'Mummy's Mad Monday'- A while ago I don't quite know what possessed me, but we invited 9 other children around to play one monday in the hols from 10am-2pm! They all had a fab time, and somehow it was quite easy?!?!?

2- Go to the cinema - A lot of cinemas do special discounts in the holidays. Check out your local cinema. At our local Cineworld cinema they do early morning (9.30-10.30 starts) kids films for £1.30 each!!! This is great when you have more than one child and the cost creeps up when you go and pay full rates!

3-Go to the Seaside - This is always enjoyed by everyone, sandy or stony they love it. Pick up shells and some pebbles to craft when you get home too.

4- Go to a Farm with a Drop Slide-  This was put in by my 5 year old who has discovered the thrill of the Drop Slide recently. I have researched and there 2 farms nearby that have drop slides, it is a fairly expensive day out though so will have to make the most of it, take a picnic and drinks and spend the whole day there. Will buy an ice-cream.

5- Make some garden stones- This is one of mine. I want to try and get the kids to make some garden stones out of cement and put coloured glass, beads etc in to decorate....if they turn out nicely we can do some to save for Christmas presents!!!

6- Go to the Park- This one is simple enough....lots of local parks....pack a drink, snack, picnic and head off. Maybe try to do 3 parks a week....will be a cheap day out. If I do this at the local park in town there is an Iceland nearby and I tend to spend £1.50 and buy a pack of ice creams or ice lollies. Doing it this way you get about 8 for your money and those we don't eat I give away to other kids at the park!

7- Go to the Library- They love going to the library and most libraries tend to have activities on throughout the summer holidays to encourage the children to read more. We will be doing this once a week.

8- Get the paddling pools out-  We have 2 medium sized paddling pools and I set them up with the toddler slide going into one, which they love, endless fun. Get out the water guns. Maybe have a friend or two around.

9- Junk Modelling-  Looks like I had better start saving some 'junk' now! Last year we made a fab Aquarium using a large box and filled it with tissue paper and cut out fish and seaweed, put pebbles we had collected at the beach in it....was great...what to model this year???

10- Have a boot fair- My kids love coming to the local car boot fair with me on a Sunday morning. We always come home with bags full...almost all of their toys have come from Boot fairs, and their clothes! If we have a big sort out we could go and sell at one too.

11- Sleepover at Grandmas- we have started to do this every year now....great fun and share the kids!

12- Make Foam Water Bombs ....and have a fight in the garden

13- Wash the Car- get them in the swimwear and have a bucket of water ready to splash the car and hose off after.

14- Go to the Swimming Pool- ideally a different one each time we go to keep it interesting

15- Stay at Nana and Pops- we haven't stayed at their house for a while so would be nice

16- Do some work towards Beaver/ Cub badges- keep records and print things out to see what we need to do....Even if your kids don't go to beavers they have some fun things to do...check out the Scout website!

17- Make some ice cubes to go in the paddling pool when it gets really hot ( here's hoping!)

18- Try to make different flavours of ice lollies...let the kids come up with their own ideas here and go with them....no matter what.

19- Go on a train ride- somewhere, anywhere...we don't normally go by train in term time so this is a holiday treat and they love it....even if its just to a different park!

20- Go to a play center...one for a rainy day!

21- Visit a Castle- pack a picnic, get in the car and visit a castle....at school the house teams and named after castles so we could visit all four maybe!

22- 'Sleepover'- put sleeping bags out and they can sleep downstairs...exciting!

23- Go Bowling- the local bowling center in Crawley often has deals in the holidays.

24- Party Games- my middle son (aged 5) loves party games and suggested an afternoon of party games....will have to get my thinking cap on...maybe find some little prizes too.

25- Make Sponge Water Bombs- so cool and better than those plastic ones that burst and you spend hours after the fun looking for the exploded parts in the garden after.....make them instead out of sponge washing up cloths...will have to do a post on this later.

26- Home Cinema- Get some popcorn kernals to make our own popcorn, and rent a movie for the whole family, close the curtains, put the surround speakers on loud....cinema!

27- Horses- The princess has started horse riding and is desperate to show the boys....find your local stables and give it a go....at ours they charge £5 for a 15 minute walk around the fields so its not as expensive as I thought it might be.

28- Throw stones in the sea- The princess suggested this one....nice and simple

29- Go to a theme park-mmmm this will be an expensive one...still they have come up with some excellent cheaper ones.

30- Sort out the play room- they like helping with this as they uncover all those missing toys or parts.


I have just realised there are ONLY 41 days in the summer break!!!!!!

A mirror for the Princess's bedroom

After she has asked me goodness knows how many times, I have finally started making the little one a mirror for her bedroom! She does not know this yet!!! Being a rather girly girl, and not being allowed pink walls in her bedroom I decided that I would sparkle the mirror up lot and lots.
I managed to find a simple mirror from the 99p shop. I know! I could hardly believe it...mirrors are SO expensive. It has a kind of laminate sort of a frame...definately not real wood anyway, but the frame is also quite nice and big for 'doing'something on. The first step was to paint it up. I decided on off white as I think you CAN have too much pink!

Then I found an old bag of sparkly flowers in my cupboard. They were flat backed so quite easy to stick on. I used superglue to stick them. 

I also had a couple of large purple and pink flowers that I stuck at the bottom of the frame...not really sure if they 'go'. But that is not finished....I thought it needed a little more sparkle. So I got more of those really pretty flowers and stuck them on. I think I got them from Yellow Moon which is a kids crafting site that you can order from. 

And that is it finished, I think. Not sure whether to do some colouring or green behind the flowers. The other half thinks she will love it though as it is and so do the boys! Very sparkly and what a big girl to have a mirror in her bedroom.

The Diva is 4

Birthday day today! The lil diva was sooooo excited yeserday that she could not get to sleep till 9! Then she woke in a daze at 5am and asked if she could get up yet....NO..give her dues...she did go back to sleep and woke at 7.15 again. She had a few of her friends around, and it rained....yes...it RAINED! So, the fantastic castle I had planned had to be made in the playroom and I stuck loads of balloons from the ceiling to make it pretty. I blew up 59 balloons in 20minutes!

The castle even had 2 rooms in it! My eldest son set up a brilliant marble run ( these are always a hit at my kids parties) and I had Lego out for them to play with. I also printed out some castles and cakes for them to colour as we waited for the guests. 

After a couple of games, which the diva refused to join in with...the excitement got too much for her...the sun finally came out and following a decorate your crown session and a birthday parade to the food we were able to go outside to have some free play and birthday cake in the garden. The diva does not like to be sung Happy Birthday though, we had to sing Baa Baa Black Sheep!!!!

Princess (or Diva!) is 4 tomorrow!

Yes, she is actually turning into a little bit of a Diva, I think I may have to change her nickname! And it is her birthday tomorrow....as of now we still do not know what the weather is doing.....as it is a party at home this is rather inconsiderate of him upstairs....will we be indoors for party games etc or able to enjoy the paddling pools and my castle that I have been making (more at a later date on this)? I really hope we can be outside, indoors with 15 kids for 2 hours will NOT be fun.....will post on monday with what happens....

Kids cooking! - stuffed peppers

My eldest son does cookery at school on a Wednesday afternoon and made delicious stuffed peppers for his tea one Wednesday. When he heard that lots of relatives were coming around that weekend he volunteered to cook for the grown ups!!!! He wanted to show off his stuffed peppers. He spent ages cutting the tops off of 9 peppers and deseeding them. Meanwhile the Princess was mixing up some Dream Topping for the top of the flan I was making for desert.

Having chopped the peppers he also chopped and cut up Olives, tomatoes, mushrooms and then grated some cheese. He made up some Moroccan Couscous and mixed all that together.

Then stuffed the peppers!

All that was left was to cook them for about 20 minutes. Everyone tried and loved his stuffed peppers, and what a proud boy he was! Happy days....is it good to let the kids learn to cook a little even at the age of only 8. The little princess always loves to help me out in the kitchen, whisking is one of her jobs, as is grating...she is only 3!

Aquarium

Last summer holidays we decided to make our own giant aquarium. We saved a huge box...I cannot remember for the life of me what came in it....and got out all our crafty bits.

First off we painted the interior of the box in blue, then we used greens and blues mostly for the sea background. The kids all designed their own fish and the boys cut their own out too. We stuck sequin 'jewels'  onto some bits of card and they were our rocks. Pipecleaners were used for bits of seaweed coming out of the edges and hanging down. We stuck the fish in with wool so that they could swing them around. For a finishing touch,we gathered some of the stones that we had collected on our last visit to the seaside, painted them and out them in front of the aquarium. Needless to say this took a good 4 hours to complete, waiting for all the paint to dry etc. The kids all loved doing it and then spent hours (literally) in front of it for the rest of the holidays swinging the fish around and adding more stones and shells that they found. We kept it up in our family room (we do not have a television in there) and it was admired by all who visited. It was a sad day when the end of the holidays came and mummy took it down and it got recycled...thats why we have photographs though.

Ice melting and Play

When a friend of the Princess came around the other day I had made a large block of ice in an icecream tub, and put a few toys in it for them to dig out. As it turns out, the ice was too hard for them to break up so I got htem some food colouring and salt and let them loose.....

They mostly stuck to girly pink and purple colours but did add some black eventually. This was good for learning what colours do when they are mixed together. They also decided to put bits of the melted ice colours into the bowl of salt ...

They loved how the salt went a different texture and the Princesses friend kept putting her hands into it and saying how strange it felt.

They noticed that as the ice melts it creates little rivers of colour running down onto the table.

Eventually they simply emptied the entire bowl of salt all over the ice cube....

They were fascinated that the black food colouring turned the ice a green colour! Very pretty melting puddle! So easy to wash down with the hose after too...if you try this activity don't put it on the grass....the salt will kill it!