Textured color-in craft - Horses

 The Butterballs absolutely loved their pony ride at the Flag Farm.

When they got home, Ethan pretended to be the horse

 (named Sparky-after Sheriff Callie's horse - Disney Junior)

and Tamlyn rode about on his back.

So when I suggested a horse-themed activity - they were rearing to go!

Supplies: horse color-in page, sandpaper, crayons, googly eyes, glue and yarn

How to:
     Place the coloring page on top of the sandpaper and color in using the crayons. The rougher the sandpaper, the better the pattern on the horse.

Next apply glue to the neck - to create a mane and squeeze a blob of glue to stick on the eyes.

Finally, stick on the yarn and allow to dry.

All done!!!

Capturing Childhood - At the Hospital

Last week, the Butterballs were admitted in hospital for 5 days.

They both had bronchial pneumonia...

and those 5 days felt like the longest five days of my life!

After the night comes the morning...

and we are so glad to be back home.

The Butterballs are feeling much better 

and Calvin and I are sooo thankful for the support, assistance and prayers of our friends and family.

Capturing childhood is all about photographing the good, the bad and the reality of everyday life.

So despite my sleep deprivation and exhaustion and worry,

I pulled out my DSLR and snapped a few pics.

...the nurses probably thought that I was crazy!!!

Nutella Milkshake - Simply Sweet After School Treat

Nutella on bread is one of the Butterballs favourite sandwiches,

and ice-cream is their all time favourite dessert .

Nutella + ice cream = Nutella milkshake!

After seeing so many yummy-looking glasses of Nutella milkshake on Pinterest, 

I just had to give it a try!

I read quite a few delicious sounding recipes but decided to try out my own version.
I served this decadent treat in plastic shot glasses...just right for little Butterball fingers!
(and my waist-line!)

Nutella Milkshake

Ingredients:
2 scoops chocolate ice-cream
5 tbls nutella
100ml whipped cream
100ml chocolate dessert custard (from Woolies)

Blend well.
Pour into chocolate rimmed shot glasses and top with a Ferrero chocolate.

Yummy!!! Really yummy,
Only 3 of the 6 glasses of milkshake made,
 survived long enough to be photographed ;)

Pretend Play Tea Party

Good manners...please and thank you, excuse me, I'm sorry...

there are SO many little rules about polite behaviour

that we instill in our little ones.

Most of it is by example, so today, we hosted a pretend tea party.

'Yeah!!! Tea party!!' ... 

meanwhile, on mom's hidden agenda :

Teach your kid good hosting skills (and how to be a great guest)

Firstly, laying the table. 
Tamlyn helps lay the table for dinner, Ethan helps by laying out the cutlery.
And both Butterballs help clear their place once dinner is over,
(reminders are necessary!)

Tamlyn laid the table for today's tea party 
(while Ethan was in the bathroom...cos 'he will just mess it up')

She has my passion for pretty tablescapes 
and I think she did an awesome job, 
right down to the paper-doilie placemats.

Down to business... 

each Butterball had a turn to play host\hostess.

 We focused on just a few basic points:

• Please and thank you.
• The host serves the guests first and themselves last.
• The guest will take just one cupcake (the cute, plastic cupcakes are from Toys r Us) not the entire tray! 
• Ask for seconds politely, once you have finished what is on your plate (host must remember to offer seconds and refill empty cups)

My little hostess serving her brother!

Ethan remembered to ask 'his guest' 

how many lumps of sugar she would like...too cute!

The Butterballs love to clink their cups and shout 'Cheers' 

(or 'Muffin'...thanks to Aunty Debs!)

Dad dropped in for a cup of tea.

'No Dad, don't slurp your tea!' exclaimed Tamlyn

Both Butterballs helped clear the table.

Tamlyn had a sink full of washing up to do, 

while Ethan packed the cupcakes into the fridge!

The Butterballs loved their tea party.

We will definitely be doing this role play quite often.

 The Butterballs were so eager to 'do it right'

and they had so much fun!

It was much easier teaching them those little skills 

when there were no real sweet treats to distract and give them a sugar rush.

I would love to try this activity out again using my china tea set...one day ;)

On the Farm Kids Activities - Shaving foam Sheep

The Butterballs enjoyed feeding the sheep.

They learnt that not all sheep are white; 

sheep give us wool; 

a daddy sheep is a ram and has large horns;

the mama sheep is an ewe and the baby sheep is a lamb.

(They also found that Benny Sheep loves carrots

 more than the grassy sheep food that they tried to feed him!!)

Today we did 2 simple sheepy tasks.

* The cotton-ball Sheep

This task was really simple. I printed out a picture of a sheep and laid it out along with cotton balls and glue.

The Butterballs enjoyed pasting on the cotton-balls creating a fluffy white sheep.

Too cute!!

The next activity is a slightly different take on School Time Snippets amazing activity  - shaving foam dot to dots.
http://www.schooltimesnippets.com/2014/06/shaving-cream-connect-dots-messy.html 

Supplies : a join-the-dot sheep picture, plastic sleeve and shaving foam.

How to: Slide the picture into the plastic sleeve.

Spray tiny dots of shaving foam onto each of the number dots on the picture.

The shaving foam will be on the outside of the plastic jacket that the picture is in.

The Butterballs then joined the dots using their fingers.

They loved this activity.

I had to wipe the plastic sleeve off and respray the shaving foam a couple of times.

And of course, they had to 'color-in' the sheep using the shaving foam

Messy but lots of fun...and they got to work on their counting skills!!

On the Farm Kids Activities - DIY Butter

During our visit to the farm,

 the Butterballs learnt that a baby cow is called a calf 

and it drinks milk from 'the mama's unders' as Ethan puts it!

They were totally fascinated by the cow milking demo!

We talked about how cow milk is drank by the calf and by humans.

We also discussed the many dairy products we make from cow milk.

I decided to give them a simple first-hand experience of butter-making.

Supplies: small glass bottle and fresh cream

The Butterballs helped me to carefully pour the cream into the bottles 

and I closed each bottle tightly, then the fun began!

The Butterballs shook the bottles for as long as they could, 

eventually we turned it into a dancing game.

It certainly got all the wiggles out of the Butterballs!

After about 15 minutes of shaking, we opened the jar to find a creamy little pat of butter. 

The Butterballs were ecstatic!

We poured away the liquid and the Butterballs spread the butter onto slices of toast.

'Best butter ever!' was the verdict!

Frugal Family Fun - Glowstick Party

For this months Frugal Family Fun Activity,

we had an awesome Glowstick Party!!!

This post is really image heavy...

there were so many special moments - I just couldn't choose which ones to share!

We started off with a few Glowstick Games (I love Pinterest!!)

Glowstick Hopscotch

We used a 3 inch Glowstick as our marker. 

This activity was not only fun, the Butterballs got to practice their shape recognition too!

Glowstick Ring Toss

The center pole was a ruler stuck into a blob of playdough. 

I used sticky tape to attach a few glowsticks to the ruler.

Glowstick Catch

Using the connectors that were part of the glowstick set, I assembled a glowstick orb.

The Butterballs tossed, rolled and spun the orb (which created an amazing rainbow effect!)

We also played Glowstick Treasure Hunt. 

I hid 10 glowsticks all over the lounge and the Butterballs had to find each one.

Loads of fun and great for practicing counting skills!

Glowstick Stars

 The Butterballs loved spinning the stars around while they sang 'Twinkle, twinkle, little star'

at the top of their voices!

Dinner time!!

I placed glowstick rings under the dinner plates and around the glasses.

The centerpiece was an old LED fountain light that I found at the back of the closet.

On the menu:

Crumbed chicken.

Roast butternut

Cream-style sweetcorn

mashed potatoes

and garlic bread

peaches and cream for dessert

After dinner, we had a Glowstick Dance Party!!!

But first, Glowstick Dress Up

I found this cool glowstick cap kit and couldn't resist buying it.

It was too large for Ethan's head
(although that didn't stop him from wearing it)
It fitted Dad perfectly!!

Ethan LOVED the Finger Flashlights that he got to wear!

I made a Glowstick Tutu for Tamlyn.
The first tutu was made using the method from Mericherry.com.
She used duct tape to create a ballerina skirt. Really clever.
Click on the link below for her tutorial.
http://www.mericherry.com/2014/02/11/glow-in-the-dark-dancing-ballerina-skirt/

I don't think my duct tape is as strong as hers because after a few minutes of dancing,
 I had to repair Tamlyn's skirt.
Stopping in the middle of a Dance Party?....Not Good!

So I tried a different approach.
I stuck individual Glowsticks onto Tamlyn's ballerina tutu, using masking tape.

Next time, I'll use washi tape to make it look prettier.
This skirt held up really well, even with the energetic dance moves!!

I added glowsticks to a few balloons
and threaded glowsticks between the Butterballs shoestrings
for some extra glowing fun!

What an amazing  fun-filled evening!!

Visting the Blue Flag Farm

'Mickey and Donald have a farm, Meska, Mouseka too... '

This song is ringing in my head!

The Butterball have watched this DVD every. single. day. this past week!!!

On the bright side, they learnt a lot about the different farm animals 

and the sounds that they make as well as some of the foods that we get from them.

I figured, if they love watching the farm animals on DVD,

they would LOVE seeing them in real life.

So off to The Blue Flag Farm, we went.

This place is truly amazing!

No stinky paddocks with sad looking animals!

The animals were well-kept and extremely friendly...it was more like a petting zoo.

There were many animals roaming freely about the farm and the Butterballs got to feed them!!!

 There was a good variety of farm animals, even a tortoise and peacock!

The beautiful playground and quaint farm-style cafe was an added bonus.

I got the Butterballs to stand still for a moment, close their eyes and just listen.

(this was pretty hard to do as they were super hyped about being surrounded by farm animals!)

For the first part of their listening skills activity,
I asked the Butterballs to tell me what animals they could hear.

The Butterballs were able to identify quite a few animals just by the sounds that those animals were making.

They were soooo excited!!!

Part 2 of the listening skills activity required the Butterballs to guess the direction of the sounds,
for example, Tamlyn closed her eyes and after listening carefully to the roosters crowing,
said that the rooster was on the left-side of the farm.
Great for practising left-and-right direction skills. 
Then we set of in that direction to find those animals...and feed them!!!

Feeding the animals was an amazing experience- the Butterballs loved every minute of it!

The Butterballs crowed and lowed and bleated all the way home!