Friday, February 24, 2012

2 years Two Months

In the space of three weeks we have packed up the cot and said goodbye to nappies with Miss M. The big girl bed was my decision, the toilet training was hers. She's taken to both like a duck to water, and left her mummy behind shaking her head and wondering where on earth her tiny baby has gone.


(constantly moving toddlers are super hard to take still pictures of!)

On the super plus side, her size one clothes will fit even longer now that she has no but to keep up her size two pants:)

Monday, February 13, 2012

Happy Hearts

I don't really do Valentines day as such, I've never really seen the need to go all out on one day. It's kind of wrong that a bunch of roses can cost $100 one day and $50 the next and I really don't need to feed my chocolate addiction any further. Having said that I love a good reason to do some celebratory crafting and why not teach my girls about giving and sharing while I'm at it, after all V day is certainly a good reminder to care for and appreciate our loved ones.

A few weeks ago we visited the Brighton Jetty Classic Sculptures by the Sea Sculpture exhibition on the foreshore at Brighton, Cabin453 had a free crafting sesion set up for kids on this particular day which the girls took part in, it involved decorating calico fish with textas and food colouring, it was a fantastic activity and one that I have been very keen to re-visit at home. So here it is, a borrowed idea, to make some happy hearts on a rainy day.

I started by roughly cutting some hearts of equal size out of white cotton drill and then sewing around the edge of two hearts on top of one another about 5mm in from the edge leaving a small gap at the top.


Miss D then filled the hearts with fibre fill via the little opening at the top (suprisingly she was faster at this than I often am, I suspect it's because her fingers are much smaller!). I then inserted a length of doubled over ribbon (seriously any length you like, it just depends how low you want it to hang)in to the opening and sewed the heart closed, completing the cleft at the top so the stitching emulated the cut heart shape.

Ta da! Blank canvases!


I then filled some containers with a little water and added food colouring to the depth of colour I desired.


The girls and I then went to town with the food colouring using cotton buds as applicators. The results were kind of tye-dye cool and it was an awesome activity for even 2 year old Miss M. Older kids might like to draw patterns with textas or pens first and then colour with food colouring to make the design a little more interesting.





The girls gave their Happy Hearts to their Daddy, along with handmade cards and drawings, when he got home from work tonight(I'm at work tomorrow night, and it was too hard for a 2 and 3 year old to keep it a secret until morning) it was gorgeous to see how proud they were. I can see so many other shapes coming in our future.


Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Big Girl

At 3 years and 9.5 months today was Delilah's first day of Kindergarten. It has sneaked up on us a bit, I guess that is what it is like for any of the little ones that start either school or Kindy in first term, there is such a long break between their visits and actually starting that you hope that they won't have forgotten what is coming.

D's been fine with it when ever we had talked about it, there was one falter earlier this week when I said " you are going to meet lots of new kids baby" and she replied with "That's ok mum, I'm going to play with Kenzie"..... Uh your little sister (and best friend) is not coming with you my chicken. Delilah accepted this after a bit more talking, Miss M did not (imagine "I kindy too! I kindy too!" yelled at the top of a two year old's range!). Anyway, because I had been so busy preparing Miss D with her new kindy paraphenalia and making sure she understood what was going to happen I kind of didn't think about how I might feel...... cue a bit of a melt down yesterday..... My baby was heading into the education system, time to cry.


Anyway, after a refreshing night's sleep we were all up and ready this morning, M and I walked D up the road (I've always wanted to be able to walk my kids to school, and I am thrilled that their kindy and primary school are just at the end of our street!), the little chick toting her back pack and buzzing with excitement. She walked straight through the doors ahead of me, found where to put her bag, settled her self with some arts and crafts and told me it was time for me to go.

Mackenzie cried, I didn't, I was so amazed and proud of my big girl. M and I then had a lovely morning doing all the things that I always wish I had more time to devote to, one on one with her, gardening, drawing, puzzles reading, 2hrs and 45 mins flew by.

When we walked back in to pick up my big girl she burst in to tears, she didn't want to leave. I had to assure her that she could go back again the following week. After assurances from the staff that she'd had a brilliant time I also got a reminder that it might be nice for her to have a jumper with her next time (it was a little windy this morning, but I was frantically making sure she had plenty of fruit and all her clothes were labled) Crap! Parenting fail already!

It never ceases to amaze me how well kids seem to take things in their stride, these milestones seem to be much harder on the parents because they remind us of how quickly time is marching on.... yet another reminder to enjoy every minute.