What Iz loved - December 2014

Here is what Iz loved this month…

1. Tummy time

2. Playing with lights

3. Making new friends  

4. Kisses with her monkey

5. Sitting up (with a little Bumbo help!)

6. Chriiiiiistmas!

7. Being a reindeer

8. Presents

9. First food- yum yum yum

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If you want to do your own "What baby/toddler loved" then link up with Rachel @dinkythinks - you can see her latest post here :)

Homemade Christmas cards

So here is the penultimate post in my Christmas series - homemade Christmas cards (although we are actually using ours as thank you letters for afterwards :)

You can see my previous posts in the series here:

Our Christmas traditions 

Salt dough rainbow glitter ornaments 

How to make a Christmas Den in 4 easy steps
Cutest snowmen and reindeer doughnuts

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I love making things with D and Iz (although Iz can be slightly uncooperative at times!!). Think my creative side definitely comes out when I'm doing stuff with them, and is pretty dormant the rest of the time! Last year D made reindeer and Father Christmas cards:

D's cards last year

So this year we wanted to try something different.

D's fairy light fingerprints

D loves painting and is happy to get his hands messy - something I'm very proud of :) I can't remember where I first saw the idea for this card but I thought it was great and so we tried it this year.

First I put dollops of our Neon paints (same ones we used for our blacklight bath painting - love these paints from Rainbow Creations online shop) in D's paint tray and then let him put his index finger in one colour at a time. He then 'finger-printed' the card with a whole mix of colours. 

A trial run just playing with the paints

The fingerprint "lights"

Once they'd dried I added on a string to make them look more like fairy lights - don't they look cute?!

 

The finished cards :)

And if you're wondering - yes these also glowed under our blacklight :)

You could use this for any occasion or holiday - use blue or pink fingerprints for a new baby card, yellow for Easter, green for St Patrick's day, red/white/blue for July 4th. The possibilities are endless. We will definitely be doing it again!

Iz's Christmas tree footprints

Being only 4 months, Iz isn't really into arts and crafts like D so I had to help a fair bit ;)

First I painted her feet with glittery green paint and them put two footprints close together on some orange card. This was quite fiddly to do on my own so no photos I'm afraid! But here is what they looked like afterwards:

Drying on top of the fish tank...

Once they were dry I added a yellow star, tree trunk and coloured stickers as baubles. I experimented with random baubles or a string of baubles - which do you prefer? We decided randomness looked better.

The finished cards :)

Random baubles rather than chains won our vote!

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I'm really happy with how they both turned out and as with all the cards we ever make I always make sure we do an extra one so we can keep one too :)

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Have you made any homemade cards this year? I'd love to hear any other ideas or leave a link in the comments if you've blogged about it too.

 

Cutest doughnuts ever?

So next up in my Christmas series is some festive food :)

You can check out the other posts in the series here:

Our Christmas traditions 

Salt dough rainbow glitter ornaments 

How to make a Christmas Den in 4 easy steps

But back to the food. I saw these ridiculously cute reindeer and snowmen doughnuts on LoveFromTheOven’s blog and having just bought a 3-in-1 donut/cake/cake pop machine knew I had to give them a go.

I pretty much followed exactly what she recommended – you can read her whole post with step-by-step instructions here.

 

If you compare my photos next to hers mine are definitely much more amateur looking but I am still really pleased with how they turned out. They were also the first doughnuts I’ve ever made so I was doubly pleased!

Here are a few pictures of the making process:

Naked doughnuts ready for decorating :)

All the decorations ready to go...

First step in creating Rudolph and friends

Finished reindeer :)

Oops white chocolate is a lot harder to melt than milk chocolate... Had to improvise with sugar glaze instead!

The first 2 snowmen finished

Snowmen cuteness :)

How crazily cute are they?! I took them along to Doof’s nursery Christmas party and am now just waiting for another excuse to make them again...

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Have you made any festive-themed food? I’d love to hear about it :)

What Iz loved - November 2014

Here is what Iz loved this month… (well technically it's last month now as I'm a little bit behind!)

1 - Being a duck

2 - Her massive playmat

3 - Starting babycademy music "classes"
4 - Her Christmas Den

5 - Getting kisses from her brother

6 - Sleeping through the night (think Mummy loved that more!)

7 - Bathtime

 

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If you want to do your own "What baby/toddler loved" then link up with Rachel @dinkythinks - you can see her latest post here :)

How to make a Christmas Den in 4 easy steps (and for £4)

This is the thrid in my series of Christmas posts, after our Christmas traditions (see here) and our homemade glitter ornaments (see here). Sometimes the most fun is the simplest :)

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1. Get a big cardboard box (thanks LoveKeepCreate for ours)

Just practising to assess for comfiness...

2. Go to Poundland

Embarrassingly we're regulars...

3. Assemble purchases

Sellotape red fairy lights around the top

Have some green fairy lights free-styling on the floor

Decorate with festive stickers

 

Maybe even yourself a little...

4. Add some books and cuddly animals

Just like home...

Throw in a cushion too if you haven't quite mastered sitting yet

Total cost = £4 (£2 for lights, £1 for batteries, £1 for stickers) 

And ready from conception to completion (including shopping trip!) in under 30 minutes...

Enjoy :)

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PS not promising it'll work for you but the above den has rapidly become somewhere that the toddler goes for (self-imposed!) quiet time. He crawls in, turns the lights on and "reads" a book to himself. What more could we ask?! 

What Iz loved - October 2014

[These posts are a bit late, but better late than never and I think they make a lovely summary of the month...] 

Here is what Iz loved this month…

1 - Being snug-as-a-bug-in-a-super-large-cosy-pink-hat

2 - Attending her first wedding
3 - Celebrating her first Halloween American-style
4 - Learning how to properly laugh
5 - Having fun posing for photos

6 - Travelling with her brother

7 - Being a ladybird

 

You can see what her brother liked doing here :)

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If you want to do your own "What baby/toddler loved" then link up with Rachel @dinkythinks - you can see her latest post here :)

What Doofy loved - October 2014

[These posts are a bit late, but better late than never and I think they make a lovely summary of the month...]  

Here is what Doofy loved this month…

 

1 - First visit to Legoland

2 - Baking dinosaur cookies

3 - Meeting his shadow

4 - Turning 2!

5 - Eating muffins as big as his head (we were in America...)

6 - Visiting the Crayola museum (if you're ever in Easton, PA it is a MUST visit)

7 - Exploring his first pumpkin patch
8 - Playing on the beach
  

You can see what his sister liked doing here :)

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If you want to do your own "What baby/toddler loved" then link up with Rachel @dinkythinks - you can see her latest post here :)

What Iz loved - September 2014

[These posts are a bit late, but better late than never and I think they make a lovely summary of the month...]  
 
Here is what Iz loved this month…

1 - Finally getting a coke bottle with her name on!

2 - Going to the Baby Spa
3 - Being a little sister ;)

4 - Participating in research

5 - Getting colourful at Colourscape Clapham

6 - Streeeeeeetching

7 - Being snug in her carrier
8 - Cuddles (Mummy loved that bit too)

You can see what her brother liked doing here :)

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If you want to do your own "What baby/toddler loved" then link up with Rachel @dinkythinks - you can see her latest post here :)

What Doofy loved - September 2014

[These posts are a bit late, but better late than never and I think they make a lovely summary of the month...]

Here is what Doofy loved this month…

1 - Getting colourful at Colourscape Clapham

2 - Making friends with a rabbit at the petting zoo

3 - Playing table football

4 - Feeding the ducks
5 - Cooking the easiest (and healthiest!) pancakes in the world
6 - Getting *very* messy 

7 - Toddlebiking
8 - Sliding (how cool is the reflection in that photo?!)

You can see what his sister liked doing here :)

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If you want to do your own "What baby/toddler loved" then link up with Rachel @dinkythinks - you can see her latest post here :)

Salt dough ornaments - rainbow glitter style

(Aka lovely homemade presents)

When I first saw this post I knew we would have to try it. I love rainbow activities. I think it's the mix of vibrant colours. Post anything rainbow-related and that's it, I'm suckered in :)

I wanted to make some nice homemade Christmas decorations with Doof - both for our tree and also as presents for his nursery teachers. This was our first foray into the world of salt dough but I'm really pleased with the results. I've blogged before about my love of food colouring gels and they came into their own again in this activity.

Recipe:

2 cups flour

1 cup salt

3/4-1 cup warm water

Glitter

Gel food colourings 

Follow D step-by-step:

Measure out a cup of salt

Add to flour

Mix in glitter

Add the water and mix to a dough

Divide into 6 portions and add the colour gels

Pose proudly with your coloured balls

Play with them a bit :)

Then start making shapes!

Rainbow-tastic

The last step I did (so no photo, lol) - if you want to hang them as ornaments then poke a hole in the desired place with a skewer or thin straw. Make sure you turn them over and skewer from both sides so to be sure the hole has gone all the way through.

So voila - all our masterpieces:

Before baking

We then baked them in the oven on "low" (can't give you an exact temperature as all the numbers have worn off the dial but it was warm/hot rather than hot/hot!) for about 4 hours til they felt hard. I turned them over every hour or so and "re-skewered" the holes. Then I left them for another 2 days to make sure they were fully dried out.

After baking

After this some of the colours had faded slightly and I was a bit worried they weren't going to look good. Someone suggested coating them in PVA glue to protect them and brighten up the colours, but that did not work well (luckily I only tried it on one!). The glue went all gloopy and boobly on the surface so that idea was quickly shelved. So instead I bought some see-through glaze which is pretty multi-purpose and we can use in future crafting too :)

Subsequently I have been told that if you use "professional" PVA rather than kid's craft stuff then it works better. Another thing that was suggested to me was acrylic wax - but when I tried to buy some in our local art shop the owner was so snotty and off-putting at me wanting to buy some for a child's project that she put me off! Maybe next time...

And the final step - thread them on some festive silver string and hang them on the Christmas tree :)

A selection of our creations

One finished star garland

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This is the second of my "Christmas countdown" posts - you can read the first one about our Christmas traditions here. And over the next few weeks I'll be posting more :)

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Christmas traditions

Wahoo it's finally December and what better way to celebrate than with a series of Christmas-themed posts :)

Christmas traditions, dens and homemade presents and cards will all be blogged about in the next two weeks, so enjoy!

First up it's our Christmas traditions. Every family has different ones and this is what we're doing this year, and hopefully every year going forwards. They are a mixture of things that either I grew up doing, I've heard about from other bloggers (thanks guys!) or just thought would be nice.

Book-a-night

This is something I had never heard of before but lots of bloggers were talking about it on twitter and I think it is a lovely thing. The idea is you wrap up 24 books (either old or new or a mixture) and open one a night in December. We are doing a slight variation as Doof is still too young to properly understand about a “countdown” or 24 days etc – so instead I have got 11 books (thank you Poundland for your awesome selection of kids books!) which I will supplement with books we already have and will start doing it from the day we put our tree up :)

Each kid having a mini tree

I loved having my own mini Christmas tree when I was younger so we are going to carry on that tradition too. I’ll get a mini tree for each of the kids and a few small decorations and they can decorate it as much or as little as they like, adding things on during December as we make more homemade decorations etc.

Three ornaments

I bought these beautiful handmade felt figures from Knitty knotty crafts and each child will be given one on Christmas Eve to hang on the tree wherever they like. Iz will obviously need a bit of help this year…

 

Exchange handmade cards on 24th

Doof and Iz are a bit young to properly do this on their own yet but I think this is a nice idea. So we’re going to start it this year with me just helping! Each child chooses who they want to make a card for and then spends Christmas Eve afternoon making it. Keeps them out of trouble while you’re doing last minute Christmas prep and someone in the family gets a lovely card out of it :)

  

Watch “The Snowman” on 25th 

This must be a staple in most people’s houses? I always watched this as a child and think it is a beautifully soft and gentle cartoon – unlike lots of others around today – and will be a welcome respite from Peppa! So on Christmas Day afternoon we will all snuggle down on the sofa and watch it together.

So these are our traditions :) what are yours?

Remembering granny

So this summer was a bit of a crazy time. My mum, who been battling cancer for many years, died only 3 weeks before Iz was born. 

As anyone who has lost a parent knows, it is hard without them, no matter how old you are. There are little things you want to ask them or share - how do you test a mango to decide if its ripe? How old was I when I had chickenpox? Look at my baby's gorgeous smile. Etc etc. it's often the mundane things that make you miss them the most. 

I'll always be so grateful for the time she had with D

But this week was my mum's birthday. To be honest beforehand I hadn't thought it would affect me much. I was more worried about my dad. But the evening before I suddenly realised I wanted to do something nice and special with D and Iz and enjoy remembering my mum.

It is only now I have my children that I really realise just how much my mum did for me.

So in the morning we went to their usual swim classes (back-to-back lessons with a baby and then toddler are quite tricky!!) and when they were napping afterwards I made some fairy cakes. When D woke up he helped decorate them. Then we put in two candles and I explained it was for Granny's birthday. The best bit from his point of view was next - blowing out the candles and eating the cakes!!

My little helper :)

It wasn't an amazing cake - far from it. It came from a packet Peppa Pig mix! But for me it was the perfect relaxed way to think about my mum and celebrate her existence whilst spending precious time with my babies. And isn't celebrating on their birthday nicer than on the anniversary of their 'death day'?

So this is going to be our new tradition - to have a slice of birthday cake every year on my mum's birthday. I doubt Doof will complain ;)

Caaaaaaaaaake!