1. Free Food?

Do you ever ‘glean’ food from secret spots? We have a secret apple tree that we visit each year on the side of a quiet country road. We pick apples till our arms hurt and then go home and make every apple recipe ever. This free food experiment in Seattle looks cool… I wonder if it will work?

2.Lucky

Have you signed up for My Poppet’s Lucky Draw Project? I am loving getting a little surprise each month in the form of a colouring page created by a cool Aussie illustrator. I have my eye on a few I particularly like to frame and hang, once my walls are finished!

3. Stuffed

I need to make these Nutella Stuffed Cinnamon Sugar Muffins from Sally’s Baking Addiction, except without the Nutella. Maybe I’ll try stuffing ours with raspberry jam?

4. Growing Up

My girls seem to be growing up before my eyes… and I don’t mean in a ‘aren’t they tall’ kind of way, but more of a ‘oh crap here comes the teenage years’ kind of way. I’m still trying to adjust my world view and get my head around the fact that one day I will be a parent of teenagers. I’ve already said I am not ready, but I am working on it and this post from The Natural Parents Network might help – 5 Easy Ways to Connect With Teens.

5. Artchoo! Bless You!

I’ve just discovered this beautiful blog fully of art inspiration and ideas for kids and adults. If you or your kids have a hankering to be creative pop over and check out Artchoo. Jeanette’s pinterest boards are gorgeous too!

6. Puppets

In the past I have had a bit of an obsession with making printable puppets for my kids, and, of course, sharing them with all of you. So far we’ve made six sets of puppets… and I think it’s time for a new set. Have you got any ideas? Any favorite kid songs or stories you’d love to see made into printable puppets?

Got some random thoughts to share? Perhaps you’ve come across a fab recipe online? Maybe you’ve written a blog post you’re particularly proud of? Please pop over to my facebook page or my google + profile and add your link to the Six on Saturday post!
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I want 4 more hours in the day. Just four more… I am not greedy.

I want to spend those four extra hours sleeping.

I want to get back into drinking water.

I want someone else to cook dinner every now and then.

I want less stuff, or for the stuff we have to magically put itself away.

I want to sew something.

I want to never do laundry again.

I want to laugh till I cry.

I want more hot chocolate.

I want that little hand to stop driving me bonkers… but to never, ever, stop driving me bonkers.

What do you want?

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It’s always the little things that make the biggest impact… and it’s always the little things that I neglect.

I often feel so caught up in the never ending cycles of laundry, homework and dinners that I forget to notice the small things. I often feel stretched so thin that I forget that pulling back a little is the best way to avoid a complete catastrophe. Life often whirrs past me so fast that I fail to notice the moments when something small could make a big difference.

I want to do better.

I want to notice, and take time, and help us all do better.

I want to…

Talk less.

Say yes.

What would you add to my list?

What do you want to do more of or be better at?

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He lost his mind this morning because his biscuit was not round enough.

Please tell me I am not alone.

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I was given a gift card to an office supplies store for Christmas. And if that wasn’t awesome enough, I was also given an hour to wander around that store… on my own!

I spent some of the gift card on practical, useful items that we actually needed, but I spend some of it on something I have always wanted but never really been able to justify – a laminator!

So the laminator has sat mostly unused since that Christmas purchase. It is such a cool toy but I am just not sure what I can use it for.

I got it out yesterday to laminate another set of play dough printables (more on that soon) and suddenly had an idea…

“Lets experiment!” I told the boys…. “I wonder if we can draw on the laminating sheets?”

We got out some pastels and I opened up a laminating pocket and taped it to the table, one for each of the boys.

You have to press down hard to get nice thick, vibrant, lines of colour on the laminating pocket and they are slippery so taping them was essential.

Morgan drew a picture of Nanny, and Noah just filled his sheet with lines, circles and lots of colour. Later the girls came and joined in and both drew rainbows and various other things.

Then it was time for the experiment… what would happen when we put the drawn on sheets through the laminator?

We poked in the pocket at one end and waited, not very patiently, for it to come out the other side… and it worked!

We discovered that lighter colours didn’t show up so well on the clear background, and the more colour you put the better it looked. Thickly drawn pastels, overlapping colours and big solid shapes turned out the best, but all the images were interested and look cool stuck up on the window.

Do you have a laminator? What do you use it for?

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You know those ‘never ending renovations’ I used to bang on about? Well they are still going, they are just at a somewhat less interesting and exciting stage at the moment so I’ve not bothered to bore you all with them… until today.

Today I need your help. I need your ideas and inspiration and general wisdom. I need to know what on earth to do with our fireplace.

So far we have (thankfully) a working wood burning fireplace which has a lovely grey tile hearth and has been plastered in… and that’s it. We need to do something about a surround and a mantel shelf.

This house is an old California Bungalow which was moved here from the suburbs before we bought the property. We’ve tried to make sure our addition and renovation were sympathetic to the original features of the house and we’ve also reused or kept as many original features as possible. But the original fireplace was removed from the house before it was transported (I guess it’s tricky to move a brick chimney intact!) and was never replaced. So we don’t know what the original fireplace looked like and I suspect our new one is not wide enough for a traditional surround anyway, but we’d still like to do something that is at least sympathetic to the old house… but what?

We could do all wood and paint it to match the house, or we could do a painted surround with a recycled stained wood mantel that would match our awesome wood slab kitchen bench. We could do make the surround ornate with scrolls or carved wood, or we could keep it really simple.

I just can’t decide which way to go, and given it is in the middle of our lounge room with the TV beside it and the couch in front of it, we are going to be starting at it a lot, so I kinda want to get it right.

And once we decided on mantel and surround then we need to figure out what to put on the mantel shelf? I think we have decided against hanging the TV above the fire place, so how to ‘style’ the mantel shelf is a whole other challenge!

So, oh wise blog readers, what do you think?
How should we style our fireplace?

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1. If This Then That

If This Then That seems like a really useful thing… but I can’t quite figure out how to use it! Thoughts anyone?

2. One Second

I think I’ve found a new photo project… The One Second a Day Video Project. But as usual anything that runs for a whole year scares me, so maybe I’ll start with a month, or even a week. Who’s in?

3. Rough Day?

Have you had a hard day with the kids? Feeling like you totally suck at this parenting gig? Here… read this: Prayer for a Mother Becoming (but it works equally well for a father I think)

4. Easy!

Doing something creative with your kids shouldn’t be difficult, or expensive. Try these 20 Art activities Using Just The Basics from Creative With Kids

5. Crazy Paper Thing

Anything that is called a ‘thing’ has to be cool right? I’m going to attempt to make this ‘thing’….

6. Rainy Days Are the Best

Well ok perhaps not in real life, but Rainy Day Mum is certainly an awesome blog, and not just because I am guest posting over there today and sharing 7 Days of Imaginative Play. You’ll find loads of great ideas and activities to do with the kids, I loved her recent post about gardening activities for little people.

Got some random thoughts to share? Perhaps you’ve come across a fab recipe online? Maybe you’ve written a blog post you’re particularly proud of? Please pop over to my facebook page or my google + profile and add your link to the Six on Saturday post!
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Why does everything always have to happen all at once?

Sandwiched between two busy weekends we have two medical appointments, an all day meeting I have to attend, and a special school event, as well as the usual work, school, activities and commitments we already cram into a week.

None of these are things we can reschedule, none of them are things we can miss, so I am living in the middle of a scheduling nightmare and wondering how on earth we are going to juggle everything.

I am paranoid I will forget something, or muck up a time. I am worried that just one little thing could go awry and our precariously balanced plans will come toppling down around us. All it would take would be some traffic, or a sick kid, or my head exploding….

I am tempted to just stick my head in the sand, cancel everything and stay in bed for the week. But instead I’ll just keep going, and cross my fingers that it all works out in the end.

How do you manage when things get busy?Follow me on facebook and pinterest for lots more great ideas and shared links.

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As I look out the window I can see my three big kids mucking about outside.

Izzy is up a tree, Zoe is dancing around without shoes on, and Morgan has a long stick in each hand, waiving them around madly.

I want to fling open the window and tell Izzy to be careful. I want to remind Zoe to put her shoes on (we have a boots on outside rule due to snakes in the warmer months). I want screech at Morgan to put the sticks down before someone gets hurt… but I don’t.

I squash the urges because, for a fleeting moment, I see my childhood reflected in theirs.

I remember hours spent in the back yard making precarious cubby houses out of dangerous objects. I remember digging in the dirt and picking my Mum’s prized plants to make potions. I remember doing things I knew I really shouldn’t be doing. I remember the joy and freedom of just mucking about.

As I sit here watching my own kids, I wonder if my mother knew about some of the not so great things I got up to, and let them slide. I wonder if she looked out her window and decided not to intervene, to just let me play.

Then Zoe dances too close and Morgan accidentally whacks her with a stick. I see her stop and say something with a cross face and I resign myself to getting up and dealing with the argument and tears that are sure to follow.

But it doesn’t happen.

I see Morgan throw his arms around his sister, he is obviously saying sorry. I see Zoe hug him back, despite the fact that she is obviously still cross. Then she points and I assume she is telling him to stick twirl somewhere he is less likely to hit anyone. They go back to what they were doing, but this time a lot further apart. They worked it out, on their own.

Zoe still has no shoes on, and I debate internally whether I should remind her of the rule. But it is a cold day, the grass is short, the likelihood of a snake being anywhere in her immediate area is pretty slim. So I ignore the fact that my mind is filling with images of an evil black snake sinking it’s fangs into my precious child’s unprotected foot, and I look away. I let them be for a little while longer.

I hear a lot about ‘helicopter parenting’ and now ‘lawnmower parents’ (who always smooth the way for their children) and I know I don’t want to be that kind of Mum. I do think there are times when hovering is totally warranted, even needed – even my five year old still needs me within ear shot at the park to help him deal appropriately with tricky social situations, and my two year old needs me even closer – but at home, with their siblings, in the (relative) safety of our own yard, this is the time to park the helicopter in the hanger, squash my own anxiety and let my kids be free to play crazy games, learn about taking risks and sort out their own problems.

For once… sitting on my backside doing nothing is being a good parent.

How do you decide when to intervene and when to let them be?
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We have a longstanding love affair with foil in our house. We’ve painted on it, drawn on it, made Christmas decorations out of it, and today we got out the shiny roll of goodness once again. Today it was time for finger painting on foil!

You’ll Need…

Something to cover your work surface – we used a big sheet of paper.
Paints – we used these fluro paints given to us by Micador, but you could use specific finger paint if you like, or make your own.
Dish Detergent – squirt a little into your paints to help it stick to the foil and make for easy clean up
Foil
Some tape to help the foil stay put
A warm wet cloth to help keep the mess under control
A smock, or apron, or old clothes, or no clothes at all.

You’ll Do…

Cover your work surface and tape down a nice big bit of foil so it doesn’t slide around while you work.

I put the paints into small containers, mixed in the dish washing detergent and offered Noah a spoon to dollop the paint onto the foil, but you could just squirt a bit of paint along with a bit of detergent directly onto the foil and mix with your fingers!

Noah was new to finger painting and as I set it up he asked me a few times where the brushes were and seemed bemused when I told him he could paint with his fingers. He loved looking at the reflections in the shiny foil and dropping the paint in big dollops across the surface.

At first he began with just one finger, swirling and pushing the paint around, mixing the colours just a little. Then slowly he used more and more of his hand, then added his other hand and was soon smooshing and sliding his hands all over the smooth surface of the foil.

Noah is two and a half and this activity was all about the sensory experience in the beginning. He rubbed his hands together, added more paint, swirled his fingers over the surface and said ‘oooh messy’ quite a bit!

After a little while he began ‘drawing’ in the paint with his fingers, making patterns, then ‘rubbing them out’ and starting again. Occasionally he would describe or label his pictures as this or that, but none of them stayed on the surface for more than a moment when he declared them done, smooshing and swiping the surface clear was just as important as creating the pictures.

For Noah, this activity was all about the process, and not at all about a product. When he was done he simply walked away. He didn’t ask me to hang up his painting to dry, he didn’t ask for another piece of foil to do another picture, his focus was entirely on exploring and enjoying, not ‘making’. He had played with the slippy slidey paint on the smooth shiny foil for about an hour and loved every moment of it, and reminded me once again that art with little kids doesn’t have to be fancy, because it is about the ‘doing’.

Linking up with Tuesday Tots at Learn With Play At Home.

{disclosure – We were given a variety of Micador art supplies, including those mentioned in this post. There was no obligation to blog about them, no other compensation was received and the opinions expressed in this post are purely my own.}

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