There is nothing better than receiving a homemade christmas card, even more so in today’s technological times. My boys run to the door at Christmas time to collect the cards and they get so much joy in opening them. So we love making our own cards and we hope that this years kid made fingerprint wreath Christmas card brings joy to others.
One of the most monotonous and challenging parts of motherhood for me is feeding. Not the feeding per say, but thinking about meals, shopping for them, preparing them and all the rigmarole that comes with being a parent. It is the everyday NEED that can get me down, it is a thankless task, bit one that I take seriously as a Mum.
I am a BIG fan of Christmas traditions. I have been wittering on about therem here for the last seven years. I believe that you shouldn’t feel that you HAVE to keep up with traditions, but that when they work for your family they are a great way of anchoring memories for years to come. So in collaboration with Littlewoods and their #MakeTheirChristmas campaign I want to share with you five Christmas traditions that you need to start now.
Are you in the festive mood yet? We certainly are and these delicious melting snowmen cookies are going to become a festive family favorite here in The Mad House. They were super fun to make and are great for cooking with kids.
Do you have an ideal night in? Velvet Facial Tissues wanted to know about our perfect night in as part of their competition to win an ultimate night in package worth £1500. As our boys are growing, up our idea of a great family night in are changing. We love spending quality time together as a family and as the darker nights are here we tend to spend more time indoors with our family and friends. I love that we can have fun at home and really enjoy their company.
If you have been following our blog for any length of time then you will know that we LOVE recycling glass jars and turning them into tealight holders. I love being able to bring them out each season and use them to decorate our home and the boys love giving them as gifts. Now that Halloween is over and we haven’t yet decorated for Christmas we had a need for something to fill the gap and we came up with a winter snowflake jar luminary.
I have lots of fond memories of playing with Barbie and the now defunct Sindy when I was growing up. I adored my Barbie star traveller motor home and used to imagine that my Barbie was a doctor to my brothers Action Men when they were injured. I didn’t need a Ken as my dolls had an army of Action Men!
What child doesn’t love a snow globe? My boys are obsessed with them and no matter where we go they shake them, which leaves me fearful of the dropping them as glass, water and my boys is not a great mixture. Anyway a plastic bowl snow globe is super fun to make and there is no glass involved.
Cooking with children need not be difficult. Sometimes you need a simple recipe that you can return to again and again and this super gingerbread recipe from Flora is perfect for kids, especially as there is no melting of butter or heat involved and it makes perfect Gingerbread Christmas Tree Cookies.
Make the party amazing with these christmas games for kids. This selection of ten fun kids christmas party games that are simple to plan and prepare and are perfect for kids of all ages and adults too.
We first learned about Snowman Soup from our friends at Diary of a Frugal Family a long, long, time ago and it has been part of our Christmas Eve Traditions and annual teacher gifts since then. It is super simple to make and tastes delicious.
We love giving gifts and every year we make our own homemade gift wrap. We often use kraft paper or the big rolls of paper that you can get from Ikea. However this time we decided to use a large roll of black paper we had and that our homemade gift wrap would be gold stars and trees potato printed on to it.
I have mentioned before that I am a great believer that experiences bring more happiness than things and this year we are going to be giving our boys a year of experiences. This will be a great alternative christmas gift for us all as a family and I have been thinking of a special way to do this.
Having a newborn baby means every trip needs to be planned with military precision – no more nipping out to the shops, or round to your mum’s house as each journey, no matter how small, sees you packing enough bags and bottles for a trip across the Great Plains.
I love where we live and our home. It really is a family home and I can not quite believe what started off as a stop gap eight years ago (we were going to build our own home) has become a house filled with love, laughter and memories. But I am going to admit that we have become stuck in a rut when it comes to decorating. So when Dulux offered me three free Dulux Amazing Space consultations I jumped at it, but had not idea that we would love what they came up with and find myself convincing the husbeast to put some of the ideas in to practice.
How often do you let your kids loose in the kitchen? How often do you cook with them? I am under no illusion that cooking with kids isnt always the easy option, hell it is NEVER the easy options. It takes longer, is messier and can often be a real challenge. But the rewards of getting your kids cooking at an early age are amazing, firstly they can cook for you, but it is much more than that. You are teaching them invaluable skills that will last a lifetime.
As you have probably guessed we LOVE advent and Christmas here in The Mad House. Last year we provided you with two sets of advent acts of kindness free printables. One Christmas tree shaped and the other in a tag style. This year we have a real treat for you with our advent acts of kindness free printables. These are perfect for using in conjunction with The Kindness Elves.
Advent is the perfect for focusing on the joy of the season, but it can also seem really commerical. last year we started our Advent acts of kindness, an alternative advent for kids to try and refocus this time away from receiving to giving. We do our acts of kindness in addition to our other advent activities.
Does anyone else get stressed over the festive period? I try hard not to and it has been proven that colouring for adults is great to helping us to switch off and wind down. So here I am with some exclusive free Christmas colouring pages for adults.
This year like last year we are working in acts of kindness for advent and one of them is to donate to a foodbank. Donating to a foodbank is a really visual activity to do with children and it can make a massive difference to families and people in need. However, if you are anything like me you will always wonder what to give. So I put a shout of to one of my friends who actually knows about this. Let me introduce you to Kate. “Do you want to actually help or do you just want to try and impress the other mums?” Ouch. That was me about two weeks […]
