Day 2: School Holidays Cont’d

The latter part of the day, we tapped into our culinary skills – and in my case, this means taking out the box of cupcake pre-mix that I had bought to use the previous school holidays, hah!

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The best bit about baking chocolate cupcakes … licking the bowl afterwards.

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While we waited for the cupcakes to cook, Josh had a nice teeny-tiny babycinno

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And once the cupcakes cooled down, we decorated it with the icing that came along with the pack and some sprinkles we already had on hand.

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So we’ve enjoyed some of our cupcakes during afternoon tea and for dessert. Little Zach loved it and was singing “happy Birthday” as that’s what he associates with any chocolate cake – precious! 🙂

Tomorrow is a sewing day but will try to sneak in a “shopping” playdate with Josh as we’ve had to push that back today. Phew, hard work trying to work out activities with a 6-year-old, as it seems it’s not enough anymore to let them just play with their toys on their own.

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I’ve scheduled the next product release for this Friday 27th September 10am (AEST) and have started to upload My Teeny-Tiny Dolls® preview in the shop

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2 days in and I already need a holiday from the school holidays.

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Day 2: School Holidays

Yesterday Josh and I headed to Bondi Beach for the 1st day of the school holidays and enjoyed making sand castles and splashing in the water.

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We also passed a blue snail on the way there at the centre court of the World Square Shopping Centre

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Today we are spending the 2nd day by doing some arts and crafts. First on the list is to make a flying saucer from Mister Maker’s Make-It-in-a-Minute

We gathered all of our supplies and Josh even wrote out the instructions last night.

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So we’ve glued on all the bits and just waiting for the glue to dry ready to paint and decorate it later on.

I didn’t have coloured pom-poms, so we just painted some white ones. And I didn’t have any clear tubs for the top of the flying saucer, so I cut out some windows for the aliens to look out of from yoghurt tubs.

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Sunday Family Fun

It’s a beautiful sunny day here in Sydney and last night I did tell hubby that we should take advantage of it and have a day outside. However, I was enjoying the morning at home, and Josh has been “bugging” us to play with him at home and do things with him. So I made hubby in charge of that, so I could keep sewing – LOL!

Earlier today, Josh played dress-up as a dinosaur, danced to a dinosaur song on playschool and decided to draw a dinosaur on the computer … RAAAAR!

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He asked what else he should draw, so we suggested a tree, a volcano … then I said what about Dad being eaten by the dinosaur and he thought that was quite funny.

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Then Mister Maker was on ABC4KIDS and he made a space drawing with black paper and chalk. Here is Josh’s masterpiece.

After some lunch, I got the MakeDo Kit that I had bought from Lime Tree Kids the other day – I bought the Free Play Kit for One

Photo courtesy of Lime Tree Kids

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And here’s what the boys made with their Dad.

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BEEP, BEEP! Hope you’re all having a great Sunday too and see you later tonight for the Halloween Showcase.

Dining Table House

I was looking through an old IKEA catalogue earlier today when one of the pics inspired me to make a drop sheet for our dining table that I could put over the top when the boys are doing their painting and any other “messy” activities.

Photo courtesy of IKEA catalogue 2013

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So I got calico and proceeded to put together a table top cover. I finished it pretty quickly as I just sewed a rectangular piece of fabric in the corners for a good fit.

But then I thought, why not put sides/walls around it so it can be a little house for the boys (I made one for them a while back – post found here). So while I measured the sides, Josh took advantage of the top part and decorated it with some finger painting and hand prints.

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I also made some windows for one of the sides.

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And after pinning and sewing …

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… Josh and My Teeny-Tiny Doll® James love it!

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Along the way, we’ll decorate the sides of the wall. In the meantime, Josh got one of the boxes I’ve kept for recycling/re-purposing projects and turned it into a stove top, and now it’s ready to play house in.

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Funny outtakes

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Addition 5:43pm – Couldn’t have asked for a better outcome … Josh doing some educational stuff in his new playhouse

Family Fun

It’s been lovely just taking it easy and enjoying time with my boys 🙂

Playing drums with empty boxes and toy pots and pans

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Made some felt strawberries for our farmers’ market

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Educational fun with magnetic alphabets and numbers and a baking tray.

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And to top it off, Josh got a Certificate of Merit at school assembly for “his beautiful manners and kindness to all”

Hope you are all having a great weekend as we are here enjoying some much needed time off at CYSN

Quiet Time Tubs – Part 1

I first saw this great idea on Pinterest (where else?) “Quiet Time Bins” from Holistic Homemaking and I’ve pinned it in For My Boys board.

Photo courtesy of Holistic Homemaking

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So while out at the shops on Wednesday after a post run, went to the Reject Shop and bought these 2.5L Freezer tubs (lovingly looked after by My Teeny-Tiny Doll® Mei) for $2 each.

(Had to quickly double check I had spelt all the days correctly … all good!)

As you can see there is something in them already. I bought these activity cards from K-mart for $4 for the pack of 3.

Then I searched Pinterest for more ideas to place in the Quiet Time tubs.

First one is this Duplo Blocks Counting & Tower Matching Busy Bag by All Our Days who has a free download printable busy bag file.

Photo courtesy of All Our Days

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Which I printed off and laminated.

Then today, while working on stuffing My Teeny-Tiny Dolls®, I was multi-tasking and “researching” on Pinterest. Here are 2 more ideas that caught my eye.

Clothesline Busy Bag idea from Money Saving Mom. I cut up these dresses, t-shirts, shorts and pants from a template provided here

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And a quick and easy one, Bead Stringing with pony beads and pipe cleaners – idea from Motherhood on a Dime.

I also want to make this one next – Button Snake

Photo courtesy of Motherhood on a Dime

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So raiding the kids toy boxes for toys they haven’t looked at for a while and small books and slowly but surely, I’m filling up each day with at the least, a good half hours worth of “quiet time” activities..

ADDITION: Here’s the Clothes Line Busy Bag idea in action (Friday 10/5/13 4:11pm)

MTTD Reversible Hooded Capes

Working on some MTTD Reversible Hooded Capes.

2 of them are to go with a couple of My Teeny-Tiny Dolls® yet to be made, while the 3rd one is for a set to go with a reversible A-Line Dress.

In the meantime, having fun with my little guy. Here’s Josh the other day very proud of putting together this puzzle all by himself – oh my funny little man.

I then stumbled upon this old pic of him modelling one of my pre-MTTD creations on etsy

So cute!

Marbles Race Track

I’ve seen this great idea for a marbles rack track using a pool noodle posted in different Facebook posts, which linked it back to a Pinterest picture, which I had re-pinned awhile back, with good intentions of making it for the boys – original source from HomeSpun Threads: Marbles Racetrack

Photo courtesy of HomeSpun Threads

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So with first day of school holidays here in NSW, Australia it was the best time to finally get it made. We got the pool noodle (an orange one, as per Josh’s instruction) from Target and I got a box of marbles from K-mart for only $5 (it has 151 assorted marbles, but really to keep in line with my own OH&S, I’ll only use 2 at a time LOL)

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Then I got to cutting the pool noodle (men, look away *tee-hee*)

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While I was tidying up the raw edges of one side, Josh was giving the other half a test run.

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Then I made start & finish line flags (just through PowerPoint Presentation) and taped it to craft dowels.

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So far, so good. Hopefully, that’ll keep Josh occupied even for a teeny-tiny portion of the school holidays.

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Lazy Susan Art Caddy

I saw this pic in Pininterest (too scared to join – I already have lost so much time in it) and wanted to make it for the boys.

Photo courtesy of The Crafter’s File Box

 

I also thought this would be a good alternative to fresh flowers as centrepiece on our dinning table.

 

You can find the tutorial here from The Crafter’s file Box.

 

So went to IKEA the other day (fave place) and bought a lazy susan. They had the right small tin buckets there but it was either in just silver or green, but I wanted different colours.

 

I then went to the local “dollar” shop and bought 6 plastic tubs and glued them down to the lazy susan.

 

 And here’s our version.

 

 

 

Now Josh gets to keep all his art stuff in one place and Zach gets a “new” spinning toy.

Woo hoo! I Won!

I’ve never won anything in a blog post giveaway before, and it’s the coolest thing eva!

I entered {KID} independent’s Who For You – Super Cool Art Giveaway and I was one of the winners.

I picked out this one  – no doubt that it was going to be the train one.

Photo courtesy of Who For You on Made It

 

{KID} independent has featured me twice in the past.

My Little Dress-Up Dolly here on one of their “Wednesday Whip Around”

Photo courtesy of {KID} independent

And my Baby Mary Jane Moccasins on their “You’re Marvelous, Mary Jane”

Photo from {KID} independent

Along the way, I googled “cookyousomenoodles” and found a couple of sites I’ve been featured in.

My Cowboy and Mild Mannered Baby Bibs

Giddy Up Bibs! from "Boys Germs"

My Counting Bean Bags in Handmade Kids’ Fabulous Friday Finds

Photo courtesy of Handmade Kids

So, so lovely to be featured in these wonderful sites – off to search for them on Facebook now. Good night all!