Happy New Year!

Happy New year to you all! This new year, I have decided not to even attempt to stay up until midnight, so the closest I will get to seeing the new year in will be comforting the kids at midnight if the fireworks wake them up! A few years ago this would have been unthinkable, but then sleep deprivation kicked in!

I have made some new years resolutions, which are:

1. Eat mor fruit and less chocolate
2. Shout less
3. Stress less
4. Learn how to do DIY so I can get things done around the house (and not rely on other half to NOT do it!)

Have you made any resolutions this year and do you ever stick to them?

Hope you have a good one xx

Sand Art kit review

Princess was sent a Sand Art picture kit by the lovely people at Kids Bee Happy. She loves playing with sand and finds it really soothing and calming, so as our kit had a picture of Santa in, I thought the perfect time to try it out was Christmas Eve afternoon, in order to calm her excitement slighty!

She was very impressed when we opened the packet, and loved the sand in little bottles. The kit consisted of 2 pictures, lots of little bottles of sand in different colours, a little yellow stick for pulling back the paper, and some plastic wallets to display the finished art.
Princess chose the Santa picture and some pink sand and we got started. She needed some help peeling off the paper with the little stick but loved sprinkling on the sand. She went for slightly unconventional colour choices of pink beard and Santa suit!

Princess got more and more enthusiastic with her sprinkling as we went on, so it was definitely a good idea to use a tray so that we could just scoop up the excess sand and reuse it. When we had peeled off all the pieces and used all the colours of sand, we put it in the display pocket to protect it and hung it up. This is our finished picture.

Princess is so pleased with the finished product, and she enjoyed doing it a lot (even though her colour choices are slightly unconventional!) and I enjoyed doing it with her. I had been a little bit worried about how messy it might be, but all the mess was contained (mostly) within the tray so there was very little clearing up to do (less than painting!)

These Kids Bee Happy sand art kits are a great idea, really original and lots of fun. I loved the sensory element to it, and as an added bonus, when we had finished the picture, Princess used the sand left in the tray to practice drawing letters. We are looking forward to doing the next picture now!

Disclaimer: we were sent a sand art kit free of charge but all views are my own.

Elf Antics

Our elf Jingles has been with us for 2 weeks now and has been mainly good so far this year,  has brought a few gifts, but has still managed to get up to a few cheeky antics!

On her first morning she turned the milk pink (slightly more appealing on my porridge than last year when she turned it green!)

She set up an invitation to play with Christmas cloud dough one morning, which was lots of fun!

She brought Princess a countdown to Christmas advent calendar so that she can practice her bigger numbers

One morning we found Jingles had brought a new Christmas book and was reading it to the other toys

She brought everyone a Christmas jumper and hid in a basket with them for everyone to find

And she had another naughty night when she got out a packet of sweets from the kitchen cupboard and left a trail of wrappers round the house!

She has some fun planned for next week, especially as Princess will be finished in preschool for the holidays in a few days so the build up to Christmas can really begin!

Christmas snow cloud dough

This week we had some cloud dough as an invitation to play (it was actually left by our christmas elf, Jingles). It was peppermint scented and glittery, and it was almost like it had snowed inside by the time it had been sprinkled all over the floor! And the best part was that Grapie could join in and play too!

What you need
7 parts flour
1 part vegetable oil
Peppermint food flavour
Glitter (optional)

Put the flour in a bowl and stir in the oil and a few drops of the peppermint. I found it was best to start off using a spoon to stir then use my fingers to break up any lumps. Then mix in the glitter if using. I took a batch out for Grapie first before adfing glitter so it was safe for her.

I laid it out on a Christmas tray along with some Christmas shaped cookie cutters and some Christmas craft shapes. Princess was amazed when she saw it (especially as Jingles the elf made it herself!) Grapie was very pleased to be allowed to play with it too! We put the tray on the floor and let them get on with it.

Princess scooped the cloud dough out onto the floor, squashed it down and made shapes with the cookie cutters and decorated them first, then she discovered thst the cloud dough can be moulded into shape and made snowballs. That's when things got very messy as she started throwing them in the kitchen!

This was the state of the kitchen when they had finished, which of course Princess insisted on trying to clean up herself!

Grapie did exactly what I thought she would do to start, which was to put it in her mouth! (That's why hers had no glitter!) But she soon got the hang of it and tried making shapes and decorating it just like her sister!

Once we were finished playing, I scooped up most of the cloud dough and put it in a box to play with again, the rest just swept up easily (as soon as I was back in control of the broom!)

Christmas Elf

We are getting ready to welcome a very special guest to our home next week. Her name is Jingles and she is one of Santa's elves who has been sent out from Santa's workshop to stay with us to make sure that we are all being good.

It's a tradition that we started last Christmas, and that I think we will continue for many more Christmases to come. It is based on the Elf on the Shelf idea that has become so popular, but with fewer rules. Our elf is allowed to be touched and played with, and quite often is found doing funny things in the morning (because everybody knows toys only move when no one is around!)  

She is sometimes a bit naughty, last year she turned the milk green and wrapped the Christmas tree up in toilet paper. Sometimes she will bring treats like an advent calendar, a Christmas cd or book, or set up crafts or baking with a Christmas theme. This year she is planning on bringing Christmas jumpers all round!

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Last year, Jingles went down so well that we also had a summer elf to stay as well. It is so much fun to do and adds so much magic to the whole build up of Christmas, that it also has the added bonus of making Christmas about much more than just the presents. Here's some of the things that Jingles got up to last year.

If you are thinking of giving it a go this uear, I would definitely recommend it, we had lots of fun every evening planning where to put Jingles, my other half got really into it too, and Princess enjoyed it so much. Hopefully this year will be as much fun, I have some things planned and Pintrest is full of inspiration too.

Do you have an elf visitor coming this December? Have you got any ideas of some mischief  that she can get up to? Please let me know, I would love to hear from other elf hosts!

Fun in a box

Today I went shopping for a new set of saucepans. Nothing exciting there. Except that the saucepans came in a box. A big box. Also known as the most fun ever!

It started with Grapie locating a crayon under the sofa and practicing her 'drawing' on the box. I thought this showed a lot of initiative for a 14 month old baby!

Then of course Princess saw what was going on and wanted to be part of it, so she joined her in the box. Then they found the cardboard pieces that had protected the saucepans were perfect crowns, so had fun ' crowning' each other.

Then the box ripped and this became the door, then it became a car. Then Princess fetched her fuzzy felt game and sat in it to play, then made it into a bad. All while I made dinner. I wonder what the box will become tomorrow?

Autumn fun at the park

The weather has really turned cold now, and winter is really here, but we were lucky enough to have a lovely autumn day at the park before the cold weather set in. We are fortunate enough to live walking distance to an excellent park and we do go there most days.

 We had a great time stomping in the fallen leaves, then we found a big pile of acorns that had fallen. We played football with them first (or at least attempted to!), then we made them into the letters in Princesses name.

We then played with sticks, drawing in the ground with them, throwing and fetching, hockey and sword fighting.

After that, Princess fancied playing crazy golf, so we hired a golf club for her and had a go. We have never played it properly before and Princess wasn't too keen on playing by the rules but she did have a lot of fun!

All this time, Grapie was asleep in her pram (which is rare for her!) So Princess and I gor to spend some quality time together. Hopefully we will have lots of days if winter fun to look forward to soon.