3/52 - White Space

So week three of the Let's Do 52 photography challenge has come and gone and here I am only just getting my photo up.  To be fair, I took it on Saturday, but have only just managed to find time to sit and edit (and see if I could snap one that I liked better - it's a constant issue... ;-))

The theme I chose this week (of the two available) was White Space, which means empty space, not necessarily coloured white and here is my contribution to the theme...

My big girl had a birthday party on the weekend, which left the small one and I to our own devices, so we headed over to Nanny and Poppop's for a swim.  On the way, I spied a big sign in the carpark of their local Bunnings store, announcing to the passing public that there was a bit of a fun weekend organised with a bouncy castle, baby animal farm and all the other stuff that gets the little ones all jumpy and excitable.

We quickly did a drive by to pick up Nanny and headed back to Bunnings, only to discover that the baby animal farm was scheduled for the following day, and the bouncy castle shenanigans weren't due to kick off for another hour...

Making the best of a less than ideal situation, we managed to scout out a face painter who had set up shop near the workshop area, so we jumped in line and waited our turn, only to be showered with gifts while we waited - a lolly bag and a t-shirt in the small girl's size proclaiming (truthfully or otherwise..) "My Dad's a Tradie".  Bonus!

Turns out that Lindy (ask for her by name ;-)) was the most awesome face painter in the known universe, and the resulting (politely requested) "rainbow butterfly" is what you can see in the picture above.  I positioned Soph in the stairwell of what seemed to be the staff room, judging by the handful of green-shirted folk that clambered past as I was snapping merrily away ;-)  A nice expanse of rustic white space was provided by the worn treads...

Just for fun, here is a progress pic...

..and another back in the cool shade of Nanny's back patio...

Next This week's choices of theme are Sparkle and Unexpected Perspective, and I may already have one under my belt for the second choice, will just have to see if I can manage one I like better... ;-)

2/52 - Open

It's week two of the Let's Do 52 photography challenge and I'm still on track.  Can I get a WOOHOO?!!

I have to admit that I struggled with the themes on offer this week - Open or Responsibility - as I couldn't get my head around how I would photograph either of those.  Honestly, I think I'm over-thinking things a tad, but I was a bit chuffed when an opportunity presented itself thanks to a cousin, a loose tooth and an errant towel.

Here is my entry for this week, with the theme of "Open"...

This is my big girl, who, at the ripe old age of eight and three quarters, has just lost her first front tooth - her fifth in all, thereby opening up a significant gap in her smile ;-)  She's a bit of a late bloomer where all things toothy-peg are concerned. She didn't even get a tooth in her head until 16 months - so a visit from the tooth fairy is quite the event in our house considering that visits have been so few and far between to date.

The reference to the cousin and the towel form the rest of the story as to how the tooth was actually lost, and I'm rather glad that I was off at the markers with my sister-in-law when it all went down, to be honest...

We got home from the markets with a bunch of fresh markety goodness to make a yummy summer holidays dinner, and were met excitedly at the front door with a gap toothed grin and a story of how, after splashing in the paddling pool for a while in the afternoon, the four cousins got out to get ready for bath time and cousin Ruby flicked her beach towel out to hang it on the airer, clipping Hannah's tooth in the process and flicking it right out of her head!

My stomach flipped over more than once during the telling of the story, not to mention the photographic evidence that daddy took and delighted in showing me afterwards, which I won't be sharing here.  You're welcome.

So now my big girl is left with a single, super wobbly snaggle tooth at the top and does a passable impression of Nanny McPhee with it.  I suspect that one will be out in the next week or so as well, with any luck, minus the drama and butchery of the last...

Saturday morning slavery

As much as my kids are pretty close to perfect ( no, really!), like most kids, they are much more inclined to spend a Saturday morning watching tv, playing and hanging around in their jammies than willingly tidying up around the house.

Which is fair enough at 4.5 and 8 years, really...

Trouble is, I woke up to a pig-style of a house due to having had an off week in terms of my health and didn't really want to look at it all weekend, or run around tidying it up when I'm still not feeling on top of the world.

Enter my idea for cheap child labour a super-fun tidy up the house game - the best way I know to get my kids on board doing something that would usually elicit groans of "do we HAVE to?" and "but I'm TIRED!"

While they were taking turns playing computer games, I ripped up some pieces of scrap paper and wrote small jobs on eight of them.  Things like "put away shoes", "take dirty clothes to the laundry" and "make Sophie's bed" with another eight pieces of paper bearing rewards that they could choose after each job was completed.  These consisted of things like "an m&m", "a BIG hug" and "a 20c piece".

You know, super motivational type stuff.

I called them out to the loungeroom and explained the rules...

• they would take turns pulling a random job out of a bowl
• they had to do the jobs together
• the didn't have to do them quickly (I was timing them for an added element of fun), but they had to do them well
• at the completion of each job, they had to bring the slip of paper to me and I would check on their work
• once it was deemed to have been done properly, they could choose a reward slip that they each would receive before pulling another job out of the bowl

They were excited to get started, and during the entire process, Sophie was heard to utter several exclamations of "this is FUN!".  She did fall in a heap after a little while, but Hannah was totally into it, so kept motivating her little sis to keep her eyes on the prize.

At the completion of the entire exercise only about half an hour later, I had finished my coffee (and most of my scrapbooking magazine!), and the girls had:

• made both of their beds (beautifully :-))
• put their dirty clothes in the laundry
• hung up their clean clothes
• put their shoes away
• removed the toys from the loungeroom
• tidied the toy area
• tidied the kitchen table of their colouring in stuff

All of this for the royal sum of three m&m's each, a BIG hug, a high five and 80c each for their money boxes.

The bonus reward (for getting dressed and brushing their teeth and hair) was an outing with daddy for a Bunnings hot dog and to spend their money, which has since morphed into a trip to the movies, as it turns out.

Happily, this leaves mummy at home with a tidy house and some time to finish my scrapbooking magazine  while away some hours on Pinterest catch up on the work I didn't manage to get to during the week.

I'd love to hear your ideas for motivating your poppets around the house...

The Easter Hat - a fairytale

Once upon a time, a four and a half year old girl brought a note home from Kindy advising her parents that she would need an Easter hat to wear in the parade a couple of weeks later.

The mummy was always under the impression that the Easter hat was to be constructed during class time, so was happily surprised that she would have the opportunity to take part in the creation of said Easter hat.

The Kindy teachers meanwhile, were unaware of the monster they had unleashed in the mummy, whose main purpose in having children was to enable her to do school twice over again, having enjoyed it so much the first time around.

The mummy happened to be in possession of a vast array of crafting equipment and she immediately set about thinking up a prototype, a design which was to be brought to life by pastel coloured felt and an interactive element too...

With the design finalised, the children set to work cutting out felt egg shapes, happy to be included in the grand vision of the Easter hat.

Being well versed in the operation of the equipment required, and having seen the mummy use it in almost every crafting creation since its acquisition a year ago, the girls worked quickly and efficiently to create an assortment of different coloured and sized felt "eggs".

 

At the time of the commencement of the construction phase, the big girl was at school, and the small girl - aside from allowing the mummy to measure her head for size - was more interested in her Polly Pocket and Barbie collection, leaving the mummy to complete her vision virtually unassisted.

The mummy worked happily, cutting and sticking, assembling and building with (sporadic interested assistance from the small girl) until the final product was ready to be tried on.

 

The small girl was delighted with her hat, in particular the little bunny that bounced when she walked as a result of being attached by clear plastic strips to a band spanning the crown section...

With a whole week to go until the Easter hat parade (and being one of the few times in her life the mummy was organised for something so far in advance) the hat itself had to be put away safely so that the small girl didn't subject it to numerous exuberant trying on sessions and ultimately trash it in the lead up to the parade.

When the day dawned, the small girl was excited to finally put on her hat. She and the big girl also had little baskets of Easter treats each to hand out to their friends.

Once at school the mummy stood misty-eyed with the other mummies and daddies as the precious array of Kindy kids marched past proudly wearing their various creations.

And now they're all on school holidays after a really long and tiring school term and are heading off for a long weekend on the south coast of WA where they will chill out blissfully and hope that the Easter Bunny knows where to find them.

The End.

Thelma the playdough machine!

Towards the end of last year, having coveted one for a very long time, I joined the ranks of "Owners of a Thermomix" and while I'm still learning to drive it to a certain extent, crikey I'm having fun doing it!

This morning, having found the last batch of (very purple!) playdough in the toy room all crusty and dried out with the lid left off, I thought my small girl and I would try out the Thermo version of playdough, and what a treat it was!

Super easy to do, with a Polly Pocket recess in the middle while we waited for the first part of the process to cool, a few drops of pink food colouring later, and we had a fabbo batch of the pinkest pink playdough you ever did see!

Hours of fun ensued, and provided that the lid stays on this batch for a while, I'm sure there will be many more such hours to come :-)