Getting better...

Right so after two and a half almost three weeks of illness we are back! It has been a lot harder than before as it was both He-Man and myself who were sick. We ended up using the tried and true stack of DVDs for the kids and Take-aways for dinner a lot more often than we wanted, but we got there in the end. Now we are out the other side of the worst of it we are trying to catch up on sleep and return some normality to the kids lives. This is easier said than done as I'm now finding getting around even harder. (I will not end up on crutches!!!!) We are also counting down to the arrival of Granny and then baby.. Only 5 weeks to go!!!!

 

Miss Boos new favorite piece of playground equipment - see-saw!

While today started badly in terms of how I felt, but it has definitely picked up. The sun is shinning and its not too hot and so the kids have been outside almost all day.

Monkey has been wanting to do more of his alphabet learning stuff with me so while Miss Boo was down for a nap we pulled out some of the activities we had stored for a while. I am going to keep doing a bit of the alphabet stuff but to be honest Monkey knows all the sounds pretty well now so I am starting to little mini themes as well. As it is spring we started today on some spring activities. Talking about plants groaning and doing some line tracing. This follows on nicely from what he has been doing at kindy where he sprouted some pea seeds which are now groaning apply in our garden.

I have been wanting to done of these sensory tubs for a while. Now is the perfect opportunity as Miss Boo is needing to feel like she is just like her brother and wants to be doing "work" to.

First to dye the pasta shapes, using hand sanitizer and food coloring - they are really green and pink, I promise!

Ready for Miss Boo

So using stuff I had around the house I made a mini version of one. I hope I'll be able to get a bigger container soon as that one is just not big enough. Especially as I have two sets of hands trying to get to everything. Monkey was more taken with this activity than I expected. He did love helping to put it together and was so excited it was al he could do to wait until Miss Boo woke up from her nap.
Dying the pasta was super easy, Im going to us the same pasta (even though its pink and green, not red and green) for a christmas box.

Filling the cups

Picking the flowers

Both have loved scooping and pouring the pasta more than anything else today but we will see what else they do as time goes on. Monkey is already talking about using it to tell stories.

Now its time for more play outside and a little nana nap for me I think....

"Hey baby you in there?"

Cloud spotting!

Another first..

Monday was Miss Boos first swimming lesson. I think I have breed two little fish. She took to it like a duck to water to say the least.

On our way... 

all dressed and ready to get going in her cool togs from Granny and Pop!

Hurry up and let me get in!

Monkey playing while waiting for his lesson after Miss Boos.

Such clever and big girl!

Oh those summer nights...

Since daylight savings started here just over a week ago we have been fortunate enough to enjoy some balmy (20+ degree days) evenings. Warm evenings/afternoons combined with school holidays have meant spending lots of time outside for the kids and I.

He-Man was late home one evening so after dinner we decided to have a little play outside while we waited for his return. It was a wonderful relaxing time together.

Time spent climbing...

Removing more sand from our sand pit...

And playing with the sand no longer in the sandpit.. I think there is now so little in there I dont think it can be classed as a sand pit but rather a sand puddle.

We also took time one day to work on our treasure boxes. Sequins, glitter, buttons and glue what more can I say!

I might add that this activity was followed by a dip in our paddling pool (filled with warm water, its not that warm yet!) to remove most of the glitter and things stuck to hands and feet.

I am longing for more evenings and afternoons like these, they have lovely side effect of rejuvenating us all by allowing us the time, or space to slow down and just enjoy each other -

BRING ON SUMMER!!!

Watch this space...

Over the last little while we have begun some cool new projects around here.

What do you think these will be?

This is a Monkey and Mummy only project I just hope they work out. We'll be doing some more work on them on Friday I hope so stay tuned!

As for this.... Well as many know I love scrap booking my kids lives, but I am always finding there are little mementos that I just don't want to get rid of which don't fit int the scrapbook and I have no way of easily storing them. 

I decided the kids could make memory treasure boxes to store all those trinkets in. We started with plain papermachie boxes and painted them white. Then the following sunny day we headed outside for a little art time (as we are renting Im a little paranoid about paint in the house with Miss Boo). I did help Miss Boo a bit, but boy did she have fun mixing the colours and trying all the different brushes. She didn't even eat too much of it. 

As for Monkey this is the first time we have done painting together where he has been totally adamant about where each color was to go, and the fact that the bottom had to be yellow all over. I was amazed when he drew a Sun in the pink bit cause it was coming up and then a Moon and some stars in the blue bit for night time. He was very precise. I always love seeing how his creativity is developing.

We have also found two new awesome playgrounds.. particularly awesome for their fenced in qualities!   We have yet to find a slide that Miss Boo can ignore. She views each as a challenge, gaining confidence to go faster each time. She's even started doing tricks... rolling over towards the bottom so she comes off the end standing ready to run!