What can I say, my boys are nine and ten now and they are both gaming obsessed. They love their Xbox and also saved up this year for a Wii U. So I have to make it my business to keep up to date on what is going on in their gaming worlds! GAME are aware that parents can get confused about all things gaming, so they have asked Gamer Claus to help out parents this Christmas.
We love Bonfire night and fireworks and I need little excuse to get the paint out! So we have had a go at pipe cleaner printing and making fireworks on black paper as they look so effective. These Pipe cleaner firework prints are easy to do and look great too.
These poppies are made from plastic bottles – Yes right. A fab way of using plastic bottles. We love making flowers here in The Mad House and at this time of the year, our minds turn to the poppy and remembrance. I love to use the time that we craft as a family to talk about things and making a poppy craft with the boys always gives me the opportunity to discuss the need for remembrance day and this year Maxi has been studying world war one, so was really interested. We really enjoyed making these DIY recycled plastic bottle poppy flowers.
This is one of those recipes, that isnt really a recipe as much as the fact we had grown tomatoes and yellow courgettes this h=year in our garden and wanted to use them up before we went on holiday. So we experimented and it turned out amazingly well.
From the moment my babies were born the first question I was asked was “Are they sleeping through the night?”. Well the fact was my boys never slept for more than 4 hours at a time until they were eleven months old and I thought that I was the exception and that babies were supposed to sleep, you must have heard the sleep like a baby quote and thought that is was a good thing! So at what age should kids be sleeping though the night?
Have you come across Bulletproof® Coffee yet? It is the new craze, which has been around quite a while in the fitness arena. Apparently it can aid with weight loss, aid fatigue, speed up your metabolism and contains anti oxidants. Are you intrigued? I certainly was.
Are you feeling all autumnal yet? We certainly are. We picked the last two butternut squash from our garden this week and are enjoying lots of pumpkin soup. We are also still in the mood for pumpkin craft and I had some orange yarn left over from our pumpkin paper plate lacing craft, so we came up with a variation on our Sunflower paper plate weaving, Pumpkin paper plate weaving.
I love decorating seasonally and also with the dark nights, I am a big fan of using light to decorate too. Last year we made some super simple jar lanterns for Halloween and we decided to add to them this year. These Halloween lanterns are really easy to make Look great too and are a fantastic way to reuse any old jars that you may have.
One of our annual traditions is making a Gingerbread House at Christmas and decorating it. It is such a fun activity and we decided that doing it only once a year was not on and a poor use of our mould, so we decided that for the next year we are going to make a seasonal house and this is our haunted gingerbread house. We had so much fun making and decorating it.
I have talked before that it can sometimes be frustrating as a parent when you want to instil a love of books and reading in your kids and they are reluctant readers. Over my years as a parent I have struggled to reconcile the fact that Maxi is not a book worm like I am and that Mini has become. However, that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t read, just that he reads in different ways. I have also learned that I need to find something that engages him and with the new Star Wars movie coming out later this year these Star Wars books really did.
I love baking and cooking with the boys. It is something I did with my Mum and I am sure that she did with hers too. I have had them in the kitchen with me since they could sit in a high chair and we always have lots of fun baking. I especially love baking and making with them at Christmas. Just take a look at these fabulous Christmas tree cupcakes that Mini made and decorated. Another one of our annual traditions is making our not to gingery gingerbread, which we use to make Gingerbread houses and reindeer cookies.
I love introducing the boys to simple, but delicious meals that they can add to their homemade cookbooks and cod and potato hash ticks all our boxes and it is ridiculously tasty for something that only includes three main ingredients! Plus it does you that potatoes are more than a bit on the side.
Do you love fireworks? I have such fond memories of the annual firework displays that used to take place on the stray each November 5th when I was growing up. Cold toes, hot chocolate from the flask and sparklers in gloved hands. I remember looking at the sky in awe at the beautiful bright bursts of colour and them making the fact that I was cold so worthwhile. We loved making these zip tie (cable tie) firework sculptures, just look how beautiful they are and they were super fun to make too.
One of the great things about children is their imagination. How stones become treasure, dandelion clocks are fairy wishes and every rainbow has a pot of cold at the end. So we decided to make some craft stick fairy doors to welcome the fairies in to our garden this summer.
We first made hairy hot dogs or scary spaghetti back in 2009 (just look at how cute and small Maxi was back in 2009) and they have become an annual Halloween tradition here in The Mad House. They are super fun to make and something that the boys can make on their own now they are older. Making these is great fine motor skills for children of all ages too.
I love creating and decorating seasonally and I also like a little of the unexpected in my home. So I have created this fab toilet monster for halloween.
Can you feel the change of season in the air. Autumn is certainly upon us and this fab pumpkin paper plate lacing craft is a great way to celebrate the season and decorate for Halloween too. A craft like this is perfect for working on fine motor skills.
I am really lucky that I have two boys that take no encouragement to be sporty and active. They love being out playing with their friends and often only return home if they are hungry or it is dark! For the last three weeks the MiniMads have been testing out the Yvolution Y Fliker Lift. Want to know what they thought of it? Read on…
We love baking and these vampire bite cupcakes are perfect for Halloween and super simple to decorate (I feel a little embarrassed even doing a tutorial for them), but they are perfect for baking with kids and you can let them take over.
Parenting is the hardest job I have ever had. In fact it isn’t really a job as I can not resign, can I? So anything I can do to make it easier is great by me. In the past I think parenting hacks were often just called tips, but no matter what they are called I totally dig finding new ones. I used to think that some of these hacks were just old wives tales (like the vapour rub on feet), but when you have a child coughing at 3am, you will try anything!
