We are back this month with our picks from the Melijoe summer sale. I love a great sale shop and get most of the boys clothes in the sale, so I am going to share my summer sale shopping tips and the boys picks
As a mum of two boys it sometimes feels like I am parenting aliens. My best friend has four boys aged between three and eleven. So my main experience is with boys they are different to how was as a child and they are different to the girls I know (I have two nieces).
Super easy DIY monster bookmarks. We share a step by step tutorial to make colourful big nose monster bookmarks for your readers. Mini is an avid reader. He devours books in no time and also reads before bed, so we decided to have a go at making some of our own bookmarks. We have seen the corner monster bookmarks everywhere and we wanted to try something different, so we decided to make Big Nose Monster Bookmarks, inspired by the “Wot no” Kilroy drawings I used to doodle as a youth!
Every wednesday morning after the boys have gone to school, I grab a pot of tea and log online and take a look at Design Mom’s living with kids post from the previous night. It is a regular treat for me, like getting a new magazine. I love looking at peoples homes round the world and how people uniquely live with kids. I know that my photo’s will never be good enough to feature on Design Mom, but as we were recently featured on At home with Hillary’s I thought I would share a glimpse in to our home with two boys aged 10 and 8!
These road trip printables are great for keeping the kids occupied when travelling. I have been thinking about half term and a weekend trip that we are taking. I know that lots of kids have tablets and electronics to keep them occupied in the car, but I like to mix things up a little and the boys loved the first set of road trip travel printables, so I have created another set this time in conjunction with webuyanycar.com.
Do your kids help with the cleaning? I hate cleaning up, but love a tidy house! So it is important to me that the boys know what is expected of them and one of those things to to be involved in cleaning. So yes my kids do the housework and no they do not moan about it all the time!
We are back this month with our summer picks from the fab Melijoe.com website. The Mini Mads have had a good browse of the website and here are their choices. The boys are ten and nearly nine and have distinct personalities, so see if you can tell who picked which sets!
We have had Netflix since just before Christmas and have been trying it out as a family before letting you know what is rocking our worlds. So here you have the first in our series, rocking kids series on Netflix according to a nine year old.
Oh I adore Spring. The lighter nights, the warmer days and the promise of things to come. We are a pretty active family and the boys take the opportunity of lighter night to play outside. In fact they don’t come home until we go find them and can often be found playing football under the light of a street lamp. But for those of you with kids that are reluctant to leave the warms and familiarity of the screen for outside play here are some great spring activities.
I can almost taste it, Spring is in the air and that means a whole new bored jar and a whole new list of low cost or no cost activities for Spring for kids and families. Sometimes we just need a nudge in the right direction, some inspiration to encourage our kids away from technology and that is what this fantastic list is. Not sure what a bored jar is, well here I tell you how to make your own bored jar. Our Spring Bored Jar has all the below activities in and a bunch of chores too. I hope that the added chores encourage the children to think twice before more »
Sensory tubs really are a delight for all the senses. You dont have to fill them with expensive materials or items and often you can repurpose things to make a fantastic thrifty Sensory tub. So I want to inspire you with these fab frugal sensory tub ideas. You really do not have to go out and buy expensive materials, you just need to take a different look at what you already have in your home and go from there.
So here is part 2 of our fab new series the A-Z of cooking with kids. You can find A is for Apple Muffins here. Today is B is for Banana Muffins. My kids have been know to allow bananas to turn so that they can make these as they are their favorite muffins in the whole wild world. These are simple to make, delicious, moreish and perfect for freezing.
Natwest Fairer Savings have asked me to share with you #MySaverStory past, present and future. The truth is I have never really been a saver, well not until my health scare. Before that I pretty much winged though life. Both the husbeast and I were in great jobs and we were off the mindset that credit was fine and we would be OK. Ha, ha, ha well we were wrong! Life stepped in and it was a big fat wet fish in the face and we got in a pickle that we are still working our way out of five years later!
We love making pieces of art that we can display seasonally in The Mad House. Last year we made a family fingerprint heart canvas and I have been thinking about making a family fingerprint relief heart art canvas since then. We finally got round to making it and it was so much fun to make and perfect for displaying in our home. How to make a family fingerprint relief heart art canvas
You may remember we have been working with Startrite on seeing how their boys school shoes hold up. Well they have been wearing them for eight weeks now and I thought I would share with you how they have been wearing. I am going to preface this by saying that the boys last pair of shoes didn’t last six weeks and they scoot, walk or bike to school. They play football with them on the MUGA (astroturf) at break time, so I didn’t hold out much hope for ANY shoes. So this is how the boys shoes looked at week two. And this is how they look after eight weeks of more »
We use a lot of technology in the Mad House and one thing that we have been trying to do more lately is less reliance on screens, so having the ability to print activities, colouring pages and papercrafts without even turning on the computer or tablet is amazing. For the last three months we have been using the Canon Pixma MG7150 for our printing requirements and one of the benefits of this printer is its LED screen and ability to print directly from the printer using a series of child friendly menus without even turning on the PC. The amazing thing is that this piece of technology has actually reduced the boys more »
We all know how mischievously messy kids can be, so why not share your experiences in your latest blog post and win some extra cash?
At eight and nine, my boys do not have mobile phones. I want to hold off on them getting them for as long as possible. But if they had mobile phones would I put a tracking app on them and use it as a parenting tool? I have to admit my first reaction is hell yes! What got me thinking about this, well Folr, is a location-tracking application which offers real-time information on the whereabouts of the device it is installed on from kids, elderly parents (with consent of course) or anyone who agrees to be tracked, quickly and easily.
According to a recent survey by Scottish Friendly UK disposable incomes on the rise, which can only be a good things after such a period of recession. (You can find Scottish Friendly on twitter) We were listening to the news on the radio whilst in the car at the weekend, when Mini asked “what is a recession?” This got me thinking that money really has a terminology and language of all it own and it is my responsibility as a parent to teach this to the boys and to make sure that they are money smart, but how do you do that?
Friday marked the last day of term for the minimas and I have been busy preparing for our summer. We are pretty freerange over the summer and I am a big believer in not over scheduling the boys or myself. But I find that the cleaning definitely takes a back seat, so I have been looking for cleaning hacks that can make our lives easier and get the boys involved more.
