Spring Bucket List Update

Hi everyone so the past two week we have been having lots of fun! You may of read my Spring bucket list post a few weeks ago, located here . Well this (and last) week we've manage to tick off some of those activities. 

1. learning all about buoyancy (well trying to)  

We did the activity about 2 weeks ago.  I laid out a towel and filled the washing up bowl with luck warm water.  I then got some tin foil and wrapped it in the shape of a boat as well as getting some stones and mega blocks to show David what would float and what would sink. It didn't work that well as athough he was interested at first he soon then had the idea to get his tea cup from his kitchen and started to transfer the water to his kitchen sink.  In a way when I think about it it's quite clever him realising that water needs to be in the sink.  It was however a bit of a pain to clean up thank god I have wooden floors eh?

happy chappy

After a while after that he decided to do something that I never thought he would do......sit in it.  Yep you heard me right....sit in it.  Thank god I put luke warm water in.  He then tried to get ME to sit in.  Nu-uh ain't happening, even if I was skinny as hell that I just had skin and bones I still wouldn't fit in there.

got to love how relaxed he looks lol

2. Feeding the birds

Now sadly I don't have a picture as I forgot to take one but we now have a bird feeder in the garden!  David actually found it one day and I checked it over and it was still in working order (aka it hadn't broken) I gave it a wash and it was good as new, yay recycling!  So after David found it I decided to get some bird seed balls for my local Asda.  I also picked up some Sunflower seeds but we can't plant them in the ground until end of April so I can't wait for that!

3. Making David his own garden

So one day it was really nice weather and I got my green fingers on.  There was a patch in the corner of my garden that the old tenants tried to do something with, it had large stones in it I really don't know what they were trying to achieve.  I decided to make this David's own garden,  I replaced the logs that were the barrier as I brought some last year which was handy.  I threw the old ones out and started to remove the big stones.  I then took out (nearly some are tiny and not worth pulling out just yet) weeds.

After that I dug out a small trench to semi burry the big stones that were already there.  The idea was then it would separate it against the patio. then after a bit more arrange of the hard soil it was finished.

On Thursday I brought David a welcome sign and a windmill for his garden.  I thought he'd pull the windmill out but actually he's just been spinning it which is good :D

4. Nature/bug hunt

During that same day we looked around our garden at nature.  David decided to pick the flower heads off of the yellow headed dandelions joy!  I didn't mind so much as they were weeds but once we've got proper flowers I'll make sure he understands the difference. We also blew a seed head dandelion together which was very cute.  We saw all different types of creatures, ants, spiders, woodlice, worms and a snail.  I only managed to take a picture of the snail as that's the only thing that would stay still for long enough haha.  I gave the snail to David on a leaf he picked it up looked at it then dropped it (poor thing).  He didn't seem that bothered but he seems to LOVE spiders and chasing after them just like mummy.

We've also been painting this week but no pictures of that and it's just a normal activity we do just like play dough nothing to do with our Spring wishlist.  Soon I'll be ordering David a birdhouse we can paint together as well as planting our sunflower seeds soon and baking flower pot cupcakes.  I can't wait!  We also still need to go on our nature collecting day out but we've either been busy or it's been raining.  We'll do it one day though still got lots of time left!

Until next week!  What have you been getting up to with your child during the weeks of Spring?

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Hello Spring/ Spring bucket list fun

Hi everyone so finally Spring is officially upon us however it doesn't men that the rain will stop sadly.  There will still be plenty of Spring showers we can't have sun all the time eh?  So David's now at 22 months and it's getting harder and harder to keep his attention on one thing.  He is distracted very easily so even messy play doesn't keep him entertained for long.  Hopefully this is just a phase which I'm pretty sure it is.  So to try and help keep me sane whilst trying to entertain my son I came across this "Spring bucket list" I thought it was such a great idea!  Some of the ideas are aimed more at girls/older children so I won't be doing all of them but I'm sure I will come up with my own version.  So what have we been getting up to this week well let me show you.

So on Monday I decide to literally paint the windows. I placed some paper infront of David so he could paint.  He didn't show much interest....that was until granddad came round.  Ah the magic of grandparents where a child changes their attitude and becomes a little angel ha ha. Whilst David was painting I painted the window.  I used normal poster paint as I already asked lots of people and they said it just comes out with warm soapy water yay!  On Tuesday after the picture David had made dried I cut out flower shapes and blue-tac them to the stalks. Now even on a rainy day I have a lovely Spring window!

Later on that day we did some play dough he's got quite good with it but still every now and then he will go to put it in his mouth. He'll learn the more we play with it.  I put this in his stocking at Christmas (I mean santa did) and this is only his third time playing with it so he'll get there.  At the moment we stamp numbers as he's learning numbers at the moment.  We do phonics in the bath.  I've started introducing colours slowly too saying for example "where's the blue playdough" he doesn't quite understand yet but I'm not going to push him into just teach him through play how it should be done.  Well that's how I feel anyway. Too many mums out there think it's a race to get their child to do this or that first but it really isn't and if you think like that well I believe your child will think like that too and it's unhealthy.  Which reminds me here is quote I found on Facebook which I think says a lot.

We also had some fun with magnets.  I normally have them in the easel board tray with the pens but I decided to get a baking tray and sit on the sofa with David.  We put them in number order from 0 - 9 and also put them in groups of colours explaining what colour each group was.  David noticed straight away and joined in with grouping them which I was very proud of.  He also pointed out numbers two being his favourite of course ha ha.

From Thursday morning to Saturday afternoon David his round his fathers but this means I have him on Sunday which means family time as it's Matthew's day off yay! I decided to tick off one of the Spring Bucket list ideas and go bird watching with David.  I needed to go out shopping anyway to get some crafty bits to make a mothers day present.  We headed to Hanningfield reservoir it's a great place to go for nature and it doesn't cost a penny not even parking yay!  I took some bread so we could feed the ducks.  

A pair of greylag and Canada Geese.

The ducks were on the green near the parking as it was really windy on the lake.  There were plenty of geese and we only saw two ducks which was a shame.  It was still lots of fun though and I kept pointing to them saying "Look David Geese" "look David ducks"  He didn't care much for talking he was far too intrigued in just looking at them.  He got a bit upset though when he threw the bread and it didn't go far so the geese wouldn't eat it ha ha.  We got quite close to them but not too close they seemed to be surprisingly friendly though which was good. 

After we were done I headed to Chelmer Village to go to Hobby Craft to pick up a few bits whilst we were inside it chucked it down with hailstones when we came out it looked like everyone had chucked slush puppies on the floor or something.  Was quite remarkable and very rare.  That didn't put us off though (well Matthew maybe a little bit) and we headed to Pets at Home.  We look at a few pets and David was really intrigued by these small rodents called Degu's.  I am thinking now of getting him 2 females (they have to be in pairs or groups to stay happy) after his birthday but it all depends.  I'd get them a tall standing cage much similar to what a bird or ferret has as they love lots of space and I can give them clean plain sticks (baking them after cleaning you also have to make sure you know what tree it's from) and give them hay for bedding and food.  I've researched it a lot and talked to one of my friends about it who actually knew someone who owned some.  She said I've done very good research and that I know a lot which makes me confident. That's for a different blog though hey.

Degu's!  Ironically Pets At Home didn't give them a lot
of space I wasn't impressed!

Gerbils

Well that's it for this weeks blog,  do you have any pets?  What are your children's favourite?  Until next time byeeeee

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A week full of fun [warning very long post]

Hey everyone,  So today's post was supposed to be a cooking week and whilst we did cook together we only did it for 2 days.  The rest of the time we were out!  This week has just been sooooo busy it's unreal.  You know what though? I have loved it, even got a few lay-ins because we wore David out so much woho.  Another thing that has been nice to see is how much my boyfriend has started to bond more with my son.  He's always been good with children considering his family is quite big so naturally there are lots of them.  However starting a new relationship with someone who has a toddler is slightly different and although Matthew was fine with this he obviously found it a bit hard to adapt as we all know toddlers aren't always little angels, as much as we'd love them to be of course.  Over the past week though I have seen a step up, if you want to call it of their bond.  Matthew will now come home from work and David is so excited to see him.  He turns into a ball of hyperness it's unreal.  Most of the time David will be in his highchair when Matthew arrives home so, Matthew will play peekaboo hiding behind him.  Obviously there are still things Matthew needs to get used to like understanding the way David thinks.  For example when David empties his plate and hands it over, Matthew thought this was bad, but infact it's David's way of saying "I'm done mummy".  So I explained this to Matthew and now when David does this, he takes the plate from David but asks David to put the food that he doesn't want back on the plate then takes it out to the kitchen.  I've seen David want to play with Matthew more too but I shall explain that later.

So what have we been up to?  Well on Wednesday evening I thought it would be a perfect time to make our very own pizza's for dinner.  As you can see from the picture above David helped me with the toppings we started off with cheese and you can probably notice in the background plenty of vegetables (olives for me ;)) this is what we ended up with before it went in the oven.  I was a bit nervous and it looked massive but thank god it shrunk in the oven ha ha.

The next day (Thursday) we painted David's nan's plant pot.  I decided to use the tray that the mushrooms came in as a paint tray.  I only had yellow, red (it actually looks more pink) and blue.  So it kind of looked like a hippy decorated it.  Nanny didn't care though she was just happy that we decorated it. David had lots of fun painting it and afterwards he did some finger prints on some paper.

That night we also made hot dogs on spaghetti.  I had only seen pictures of this so I just guessed really on how to do it as it didn't look like rocket science.  Only thing I will do differently next time, is only put one chunk of hot dog on one bit of spaghetti, so it doesn't weigh it down so much.  David tried to help bless him but each time he tried to do it.  The pasta snapped, I felt so sorry for him so I helped him a tad bit.  Cheeky little sod kept eating the hot dogs too!  Oh and with me watching very closing he even wanted to help me cut the hot dogs up (with a blunt knife of course).....though the hot dogs went flying because of the technique he was using. Still little man A+ for effort.

On Friday we went out in the evening for nanny's birthday.  We went to Grand Central in Basildon and the food was amazing.  It's made me want to go again for my birthday to be honest.  The kids meals were quite a good selection...even if the fish fingers were obviously just from Asda that is opposite though.  Sadly David didn't eat much and was in a terrible mood.  Due to him being tired though as it was late.  He loved seeing his grandparents though and we walked around the restaurant for a bit and there were other children there dressed as tinkerbell.  It made me giggle when they went "hey look it's Spiderman" due to David wearing his Spiderman attire. I don't have any pictures as nanny took them all that night.

Saturday we went to nannys again too see Matthew's auntie, uncle and children.  They are all so lovely and I'm so glad I have invited them to the party.  Malina absolutely adores David and is always playing with him and picking him up.  I have no idea where she gets the strength from she's only 11! Matthew showed off his flips on the trampoline which is always a joy to watch..not going to lie.

On Sunday we went swimming. We went to Maldon leisure centre as the swimming pool in my town is too cold.  Sod's law decided to play a part of Maldon have now got a separate baby pool (they used to just have a separate area in the main pool which was warmer) but it was under maintenance.  I thought it would be fine but the water in the main pool was really cold even in the shallow bit that beforehand was especially for children.  David even started to shiver.  So even though he was having a good time splashing everywhere, chasing after Matthew, trying to even swim, we didn't stay in there for long.  Which was obviously a shame,  me and Matthew both agreed to come back when the baby pool was re-opened.

So as you can see me and David have had a realllly packed week.  It's been great fun though and I don't regret anything.  Sorry that this blog was so long but it was hard to keep it short.  Fingers crossed it didn't bore you too much. How has your week been?  Any activities you've been up to?  Or just a lazy week in?

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Valentines activity week

Hi there everyone,  So last Friday was Valentines day.  I hope you all had a wonderful day, I myself love Valentines day as I think it's a day that people who have busy lives can concentrate on just themselves.  I wanted to share this week with my son doing valentine activities. The first thing we did was Actually the Saturday before the week had started.  But to be fair between Sunday and Tuesday he is at his father.  So you could say I was making up for lost time.

Valentine Chocolates

So I've now subscribed to this magazine called Something Sweet.  I don't normally subscribe to magazines as my mother made the great mistake of doing that when I was young and it was a lesson well learnt.  However I couldn't help but subscribe to this magazine as it was such a great bargain at only £2.99 per issue.  Anyway, in the first issue I got I received some heart molds which was perfect timing.  (it also came with a box and some gold foil you could wrap them in, how cute!)

So first things first I melted the chocolate away from David.  As the hob was on I didn't want to risk David getting hurt, which is why I have a stairgate on my kitchen.  After I melted the chocolate I brang it over to the counter and got the mold ready.  This was when David joined in,  I was a bit worried that he would just eat the chocolate from the bowl,  however my son did me proud and actually wanted to help!

So you can see why they were a bit messy but no problem as I scraped the remains off.  I did this with David before bed so that in the morning they would be set and he could have them the next day as a treat.  I remember getting them out was a pain as I had to rinse my hands with cold water several times to get them out. but this was the finished product and I can safely say David enjoyed at least one :).

Making the card

So the next thing me and David did was make Matthews card. I wanted David to be a part of this as he loves Matthew too and it shouldn't just be about me and Matthew souly. I started off by making his foot prints into a V shape.  Though when i painted his feet he got all ticklish so it was a bit wonky ha ha

Instead of having just white card inside I decided to cut out some red card to glue in place.  I was a bit unsure if I should let David try and glue it at first, but I thought I should give him the benefit of the doubt.  I showed him first and he indeed did copy.  After we did that I try showing him how to glue heart felts on but he wasn't really feeling it.  Probably because they were quite small.

Heart Biscuits (well most of them)

So I got talking to the lovely Rachel (snap!) over at Activites 4 kidz , about doing themed weekly activities with our children.  Her blog is brilliant but I haven't had much time to read blogs recently (you believe how much I am behind on!) I decided to have a quick nose and saw a brilliant biscuit recipe, it reminded me of how I used to make them with my mum.  I thought it would be the perfect excuse to do some more baking with David and try out our new shape cutters that I had brought a while ago.  Considering he was good with chocolate I let David join in straight away.  I asked him nicely to wait while I put the flour in and we talked about measurements and numbers.  Surprisingly yet again he wanted to help, this time to put the butter in.  So I started cutting the butter up for him (with a spoon just incase) and he placed in the bowl.  Soon enough HE wanted to do that too.

Not a very good picture but you get the idea

 Next it was time to turn the butter and flour into bread crumbs.  David was trying to make hand prints bless him.  I think he thought it was salt dough or something.  Let me tell you it was very hard to get a picture and it took a long time to turn it into the "bread crumbs".  David kept pushing my hands out as he wanted the bowl all to himself! Ha ha, he is so independent now it's getting quite scary.

Next thing on our list was to roll out the dough.  David soon wan't to join in so after we had cut out a few I let him roll some.  He was quite good at it rolling it back on forth, however slightly put too much pressure on the roller ha ha.  Still A for effort.  I didn't get any pictures of us actually cutting them out, but I got the finished product which is pretty much the same thing.  You can probably tell what heart David did all on his own without mummies help.  They were really yummy David kept going back for more the cheeky monkey.  He did share a biscuit with me bless him, I didn't even ask, he's getting so much better with his sharing which I'm proud of.

oh my look at all that flour

Valentine sensory and craft

So I made this little sensory box a while back, but kept it hidden from David until Valentines day.  In it I put fake rose petals, cut out hearts from felt, pink and red ribbon, toilet roll tube that I painted red and then made into heart shapes.  I was going to add some red rice on the day but during the day I noticed David was yet again trying to eat again which is a common sign of him teething.  I decided to opt out due to this reason. I gave the sensory box to David and he seemed quite interested at first.  That soon ended with him throwing everything about. I didn't mind so much but he was becoming violent with it in his actions, it wasn't playful throwing if that makes sense?  So it didn't last very long. 

After playing for a while and David going down for a nap I thought he might wake up in a better mood.  I decided to set up in his high chair some crafting bits.  I cut out a heart from the cardboard box that his new carseat came in, after all it was massive and I'm all for recycling.  I then put his sensory box on the high chair table along with some pink finger paint and glue.  I joined in with him hoping to give him some encouragement and for a while it worked.  I painted whilst David decided what to glue down.  It wasn't long though until he started throwing things again so I took it off him to let it dry and but it on the windowsill along with the other decorations for V-day I had.

So there you have it, all the activities we did during Valentines week.  Gosh it's a long one but I hope it was worth it, and I hope you enjoyed reading it.  Please comment and let me know what you think.  Did you do anything with your child for Valentines?  Until next week my fellow fluffy clouds, big hugs from me x

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Sensory Activites with my son

 So this week was all about sensory play.  I really want to start doing more activities with my son that promote learning through play.  Although this can be achieved by simply playing with him with his toys I want him to experience new things. There will be times where he will want to play on his own of course.  For the times where he doesn't though I want to be able to do activities with him.

So this was the first sensory "activity" we did.  It wasn't really an activity I suppose but it was still fun to do with David.  As this was a chocking hazard for David I put it in a sandwich bag so he could still feel them to an extent and see them but it was much safer.  We talked about the different colours and how they felt.  He wasn't really interested at first but after a while his interest peaked.

The balls can be found on ebay.  I got 2 for 99p here just soak them in water for 24 hours and wash and drain :D

Next up was his bath,  I normally fill up his bath with lots of bubbles but sadly we had run out and I needed to buy some more (don't worry I've topped up now!).  I got this little dude from Lush it was really cheap too.  can't remember the exact price but around about £1.50

It was quite fun to watch it fizz but sadly it wasn't that blue as I would of liked.  I recommend if you are going to do this add some neon blue food colouring to add to the colour.  It won't stain your bath and is safe for your children :).

Talking about blue food colouring, I decided to make some icecubes for some ice sensory.  I did half white and just a little bit less than half with blue food colouring.  I did this as we STILL haven't had any snow.  This makes me sad as I brought David a sled this year and we haven't been able to use it at all.

Not only did David touch it but he tasted it and we did a bit of colour separation too. Separating the blues from the whites into two different containers.

This next one a lot of parents should be able to do as I'm sure 9/10 of you have megablocks or lego.  What I did was empty the whole carton of Megablocks on the floor and got 4 separate containers.  I then showed David the different colours and put each colour into a different container.

He soon got the idea and was placing only green megablocks into one container.  It didn't last very long as he soon got bored and filled them up and emptied them.  Still I think this a very good way of introducing colours to your toddler.  After he helped me build and clear them up.  All good fun.

The final thing we did was red spaghetti.  I made it red for valentines day.  I didn't think David would like it that much but he loved it!

He put his hands in it and played with it and even took it over to his kitchen to "cook it" and stir it....and put it in his tea cup...odd child ha ha. I definitely think this is one I will be doing again.  maybe green and blue and orange for Halloween :D

 So there you have it my sensory week.  I do apologise for some camera quality issues.  Some where taken on my phone as I lost my camera (turns out it was hiding in my make-up bag *facepalm*).  I will hopefully be doing a food week with David soon.  I'm planning on making lots of things with him from pizza's to chocolate hearts and more.  I shall take pictures (when my hands are free) and tell you how they went. :)  please feel free to comment with similar blog posts and tell me if you are going to do any of these activities with your child .:)



 

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