Small child + Stickers...

Well rather on her than on me as she decided to do yesterday whilst Phoebe was having her swimming lesson. She decided I needed a Waybuloo inspired make over, as did the glass display cabinet and the swimming pool (a hydrotherapy type one, not sunk into the floor). What inspires small children to stick stickers, well everywhere?

We are not dissing the wonder of stickers in our house though. 2 reward charts have proved very useful in this house. They only have 4 things they have to complete daily to get a gingerbread man before bed, they are to eat their breakfast nicely, eat their lunch nicely, eat their dinner nicely and then to help tidy up. Phoebe is a faddy eater, and on occasion a non eater. However blow me down with a feather but the threat of not getting a sticker has inspired her to eat 3 meals a day for the last week and a half and they positively LOVE helping to tidy up now! Now when I say "meals" what I actually mean is a very small limited variety of food. Dippy eggs, sausages, marmite sandwiches, peanut butter sandwiches, cheese on toast (only when microwaved as "it not right" if I do it in the grill), pizza, chicken nuggets, baked beans, toast, apples oh and of course any variety of pudding or sweet thing. The plan is once I have her eating meals then the sticker reward will graduate onto trying new foods, first off for "kissing" the food and then for eating it. Hopefully the slowly slowly routine will encourage her to widen her pallet without a full on battle of wills over food. Well that is the theory anyway!

Hopefully it will have the bonus side effect of getting Clara to eat nicely too, she has a wider pallet than her sister but she is a pest for food dodging (she tries to feed it to others instead with a very firm "EAT IT!"). She has been pretty well inspired by the sticker chart too, today she didn't eat her tea so Paul ended up being chased through the house with shrieks of "maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan", she was hideously over tired mind so we whipped her into bed as fast as we could. Poor love was excited after their bestest buds Rowan and Lexi came to play. Still they all had fun and it was fab to catch up with my friend too!

Samhain's a comin... the pumpkins getting carved!

We had a visit from Grannie today, I braved the outside world and met her in our local wagamamas with the girls. In a bid to stop Phoebe having the screaming abdabs I allowed her to take Glenda Rabbit in the toy Pushchair... never again, may I take this opportunity to publicly apologise for any ankle damage done today by Miss Phoebe. We all stuffed our faces on delicious noodles and chicken and rice and duck gyoza and edamame and then we decided to pop over the road to Waitrose to get some Pumpkins for carving. They picked their own, Phoebe picked a little one and Clara picked the biggest one she could see. Clara then insisted on walking home so we buckled the pumpkins in the to the pushchair for safe keeping and scored a few odd looks!

Grannie always brings a little something for the girls, usually magazines. And today was no different so when we got it in the got stuck into sticking whilst I got everything ready to gut, scrape and carve the pumpkins. One of the little toys in with the magazine was a cute caterpillar so I couldn't resist setting up this shot with Phoebe:

Hee hee! The fun you can have with children!  Anyway we (by which I mean Grannie and I) hollowed out the pumpkins (I now have a tonne of delicious pumpkin flesh to use... I will be abusing google looking for recipes later!) and I carved them with the faces the girls chose. I love carving pumpkins, it is really satisfying! Here is the finished result:

 

 

Not bad at all I thought! We surprised Daddy with them when he got home and he was suitably impressed with my efforts. I may even find it in my heart to forgive him for eating the stash of Iced Gems he got from a child's party yesterday without offering me a single one (and then to add insult to injury offering me the last one that was without the iced bit.... bah!).

A mouse in the house!

 I finished Clara's Samhain outfit last night. We managed to buy the dress in Next and it is just screaming to be transformed into a mouse outfit! I made the ears by cutting out the shapes from a baby's fleece and pink lined hat, sewing them into shape and inserting a piece of card. I then top stiched around them and sewed the card in place with a V shape. On her bottom she has a rather cute pink tail that I made with some pink satin scraps I had about, I sewed a long tapered tail, stuffed it and then attached it to the bottom area:

She looks SO cute! I have pink leggins for her to wear on the day and I am quite taken with this top for underneath!

The girls seem to be a fan of Method Acting and have been chasing each other around the house all morning to get into character. Although I did have to point out that it is usually the cat who plays with the ball of wool (bought to make pompoms) and not the mouse!

Fun with Friends.

I had a great afternoon today with our lovely friends Annabel and Peter and their two fab children Eliza and Hugo. Up until now Phoebe and Eliza have had a bit of a rough friendship, we suspect because we have met up after school so Phoebe is supertired and Eliza is superexcited, never the twain shall meet! However for the second time we had a lovely playdate from them both, minimal screaming and tears! They even sneaked upstairs to bounce like mad things on my bed. Hugo and Clara just get on with things generally. Clara is a bossy little whatsit who takes no prisoners and Hugo is Danger Boy (stairgate was erected in his honour and will make another appearance on Thursday!)

Whilst they were here I had a few things to do like making bread and a Piñata for the Halloween party next week. As I do my dough in a breadmaker (small children + messy ingredients + no patience = breadmaker for first step) I had to knock back the dough and make a loaf so I got the 3 girls involved and they made hedgehog bread rolls (Ok so Phoebe was difficult and wanted to make a penguin...). They lined the 3 little chairs up against the counter and got stuck in with their dough and had a marvellous time kneading and shaping (I use the term loosely) their hedgehogs before putting them down for a snooze on the baking tray to prove. We even got told off by Eliza for talking to loud as the hedgehogs (and penguin) were trying to sleep!

Whilst we waited for them to prove I made up some wall paper paste, we put a mat down on the living room floor and started on the next layers of the Pinata. Phoebe, Clara and I had already done one layer of thick white paper to start it off. Today we did lots of layers of newspaper. Remarkably (especially given Clara's tendancy towards mess of the highest order) it was a remarkably calm and un messy affair. We think it is because they had something to focus on. I would also confess to them getting a bit bored after a while and Annabel and I reclaiming our youth and bulking out the layers, well if you can't use your children as an excuse to do silly things when can you?! I just need to finish it off with some kitchen towel to give it a nice white finish so that it paints easily. Once the piñata was done I shoved the bread in the oven and once it was baked the children ate their rolls as snacks!

I should also add that whilst all this was going on Hugo was merrily playing with magnets and watching. We weren't leaving him out he is just a wee bit too young to get fully stuck in with wall paper paste we thought (that song "When Father Painted the Parlour" comes to mind when considering any 1 year old, two ice cream tubs of wallpaper paste and a shed load of ripped up newspaper!).

The plan with the piñata is to paint it on Thursday whilst we have a Mummy-needs-to-survive-halfterm party. I think mat down again and a shed load of orange paint and a load of brushes and hope the kids all stay focused on the large round papier-mache thing and don't get distracted by, oh I don't know, the lovely blank walls lol! I am also planning on making biscuit dough in advance and let them loose with the cutters. I will probably also shove some bread dough in to brew as that went down so well today and is so much fun for them, it really is nearly impossible to muck up bread making!

Happiness is....

Happiness is....
Originally uploaded by *Puss*

Two small girls and a washing up bowls full of soapy water...

it was necessary to wash them after starting on our papier mache Pumpkin Piñata... then I just left them to it, well I have to mop later anyway lol!

Productive Morning!

Miaow!
Originally uploaded by *Puss*

This morning as both girls were at preschool I got down to work and made Mum's birthday gift (would show pics but she reads this blog!) and I finished Phoebe's Samhain outfit. She is delighted and better yet I was spared having to make the ears as Mybecky came to the rescue and dug some out of her girls' dressing up box! It was simple enough to do, I got a black polo neck jumper from Tesco, trimmed the arms and sewed a thumb hole in, then I used a blanket I had to cut out a white tummy. The tag is just cardboard covered in tinfoil (I may also add a bell). For the tail I took a pair of leggins we had about the house that are too small for Phoebe and had a hole in so I cut one leg off (leaving the waist band intact) and sewed the other up (smaller than a whole leg) and stuffed it (I am now being informed that it needs some white on the end too but she can whistle for that as it means handsewing and is a PITA). I have promised she can have violet nails on Samhain for the party and I will do her nose and whiskers with my eyeliner!

Now I have to do Clara's Mouse outfit but I need to send Paul on a mission to go and find a cheap grey hooded jumper dress (or just jumper) and some baby pink leggings, any ideas?. We also need some black plimsolls for Phoebe.

So Proud Of My Big Girl!

Phoebe is very much a 0 - 100 % kind of girl. She stores all the information she learns until she suddenly just gets it. It was like this with crawling, walking, swimming & her speech! Anyway, today I got to preschool and Mybecky (as named by Phoebe) called me over to see her, normally as it is a Clara day this isn't a good thing (glue eating, wall decorating, other child decorating...) however I was presented with the above! My girl wrote her name :D. She actually did it twice but the better version went in her folder, she is sooo proud of herself! She also drew a fab picture of her family, all with smiley faces.

Clara isn't doing too badly either, she can already draw a C and is working on the rest. Not to mention she spelled her sisters name in the pool yesterday whilst we were trying to swim! Oh and she hasn't tried to kill herself in a while which is always a welcome change! I am still trying to teach her to shout Banzaaaaaaaaaaai before she does anything silly but what is silly to us (like jumping off things, balancing on things etc) isn't silly to a 2yr old with no fear I think!