I'm Back!!!!!

Hello!  It's been a while.  What can I say, life got busy and blogs were forgotten.  But I am in need of an outlet for the non stop random thoughts my brain is currently producing, so here I am again.

This week I enrolled my baby into a 3's Plus Kindy Program to start next year.  Yes, my baby is now 3, can you believe it!  I am happy with my decision to send him one day a week to socialise and learn in a play based environment without me but the entire prospect of him going and everything it entails has gotten me a little anxious.  I had zero qualms about sending my eldest three to day care when they were younger so why am I so reticent about sending my youngest?  He is less clingy and more social than my two middle children were so I feel he will transition easily into the routine of being without his Mamma for 7 hours once a week. But how will Mamma transition?  I'm not so sure!  

Maybe it's because he's my baby and I want as much time with him as I can before he heads off to full time school (the thought of that completely bowls me over).  I think a big part of it is also that it has made me have to start contemplating what I will do once all my kids are in full time school.  Do I re-enter the workforce?  And if so, do I go back to what I was doing or try to enter a new field?  Should I study and if so what?  I feel like a child again whose teacher is asking "What do you want to be when you grow up?" 

Too many thoughts, too many options and all just too overwhelming!  All because I enrolled my child in a Kindy Program once a week.  So I am going to stop putting so much pressure on myself and instead go and enjoy the company of my little man.  

If you are wondering who I have decided to entrust with my child's early education take a look at the following link.  http://www.evelynenrichmentfoundation.org

Supermum!!!!

Hello, I am Supermum!

Supermum, who can leap tall Lego buildings in a single bound, is faster than a speeding 20 month old, able to carry two children at once with her bare hands, fighting a never-ending battle for a tidy house and little peace and quiet.

But today this over worked Supermum will be over come by her arch nemesis!  Those four little faces, with their hand-made gifts will melt her heart as if it were the Wicked Witch of the West. Those beaming smiles will mercilessly distract her from her duties and send her into an avalanche of hugs and kisses completely disabling her.  For today is Mother's Day and her four little terrors will be in charge of looking after her for a change and insisting she puts her feet up, thereby ensuring absolutely nothing gets done (meaning Monday will be a horror of a day whilst she plays catch up!)

So, to all those Supermums out there - Have a relaxing Mothers Day, full of smiling faces and warm cuddles, and may your little angels spoil you rotten!

This supermum's reason for smiling!

Interview with an 8 year old!

I was reading a sensational blog the other day by Centsational Girl who had found a conversation starter on Pinterest which involved interviewing your child.  Reading the questions and the children's answers picqued my curiosity and I started to wonder how my two eldest would answer, so the next time I had a quiet moment with them we sat down and I interviewed them.

Some of their answers were extremely predictable, a few were very cute and others really surprised me.  For instance, I had no idea that Master 5 was interested in helicopters, that he appreciates me for my fantastic skills in the laundry or that he thinks I am 10 years old, but what surprised me most was Master 8's answer to the question - What was the happiest day of your life?  His answer was almost immediate so I know he didn't have time to contrive an answer that he knew would simply please me and the look on his face led me to believe he was completely genuine.  It certainly tugged at my heart strings and helped me remember what a kind, loving soul he really has, something that doesn't always shine through the typical 8 year old attitude.

So here are the questions and answers for you to peruse and then maybe you could give it a go with your kids, you never know, they might just surprise you too.  Enjoy!!!

When are you (or have you been) most afraid?	Master 8		In a blackout when I was little and there was a big storm.
	Master 5		When I'm near dogs.
What was the happiest day of your life?	Master 8		When all my brothers were born.
	Master 5		Seeing Santa last time.
If you could change one thing in the world, what would it be?	Master 8		Master 5's behaviour.
	Master 5		I don't know.
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?	Master 8		Nothing.
	Master 5		My bad eye.
What is the one thing you could not live without?	Master 8		My Mum.
	Master 5		Nanna and Mummy.
What is your favorite movie?	Master 8		The Adventures of Tin Tin.
	Master 5		The Spy Next Door.
What cartoon character would you most like to be?	Master 8		Tassie Devil.
	Master 5		Ben 10.
What is the worst thing about being 8 (or 5) years old?	Master 8		Nothing.
	Master 5		Fighting.
What is the best thing about being 8 (or 5) years old?	Master 8		No Naplan this year at school.
	Master 5		School.
Describe your perfect day.	Master 8		Spending the day with Mum going bowling and swimming.
	Master 5		Going to the movies.
What job would you like to have when      you grow up?	Master 8		I don't know yet.
	Master 5		Fly helicopters.
Who are your best friends and why?	Master 8		Danial, Hayden, Jesse and Christian because they are really fun to hang out with and they're really funny.
	Master 5		Mark because we look for buses and Ethan and Shelton because they are fun.
What does Mom always say to you?	Master 8		Behave!
	Master 5		I love you!
What makes Mom happy?	Master 8		Not being naughty.
	Master 5		When we are nice.
What makes Mom sad?	Master 8		When the kids are naughty.
	Master 5		When we be naughty.
How does Mom make you laugh?	Master 8		When she's funny.
	Master 5		Tickles me.
What was Mom like as a child?	Master 8		Beautiful!
	Master 5		I don't know.
How old is Mom?	Master 8		34
	Master 5		10
How tall is Mom?	Master 8		I don't know.
	Master 5		Really tall.
What is Mom’s favorite thing to do?	Master 8		Cook.
	Master 5		Write.
What does Mom do when you’re not around?	Master 8		Cleans up, cooks, does washing, looks after my brothers and goes on her computer.
	Master 5		Go on the computer, clean and run.
What is Mom really good at?	Master 8		Cooking,
	Master 5		Washing.
What is Mom really bad at?	Master 8		Nothing.
	Master 5		Nothing.
What does Mom do for her job?	Master 8		Look after kids.
	Master 5		I don't know.
What is Mom’s favorite food?	Master 8		Salad.
	Master 5		Chicken.
If Mom was a cartoon character, who        would she be?	Master 8		Tassie Devil's Mum.
	Master 5		Sam Sam's Mum.
How are you and Mom the same?	Master 8		We have the same blood.
	Master 5		We have the same eyes and mouth.
How are you and Mom different?	Master 8		She's older than me.
	Master 5		Mummy is a women.
How do you know your Mom loves you?	Master 8		Because she's my Mum.
	Master 5		Because she says so.
Where is Mom’s favorite place to go?	Master 8		Home.
	Master 5		At home.

Dough!

This week has seen a few milestones for me and the kids.  Not only has Master 3 had his first two days of Kindy but Master 16 months and I have had our first two days alone together EVER....  And it has been fantastic!!!!  I had been so looking forward to having time alone with him so we could do activities that were age appropriate for him as normally he just has to sit on the side line while I do activities with his older brothers. 

The first day, we spent many hours dancing and singing along to the Wiggles - Master 16 months loooovvves to dance!!!  The second day it suddenly dawned on me that he is actually a lot more capable than I had given him credit for.  He is very much able to do the activities I have been forcing him to watch his brothers do.  All he needed to shine was my 100% attention.  Well, now he has it.

Frogs and Snails gave him an outstanding Christmas present of a home made play dough kit.  It came in its very own basket with fantastic utensils that lend themselves to the developing imaginations of little ones and grown ups alike.  I laid out our plastic table cloth and showed him how to roll the dough out and he had at it, enjoying himself immensely.  

Eventually, a routine built up and I could see I would have to, unfortunately, put a stop to it.  You see, he would roll, cut and eat, roll, cut and eat.  The rolling and cutting I could handle but the eating of the dough was getting to me.  Not because I was worried by what he was ingesting, it was home made play dough, all natural ingredients.  No, I worried because he was eating all the dough and soon there would be nothing left to play with (plus the salt content is rather high!).

                                         

                                                                                                               



















                Rolling                                                                                                     Cutting

             

     

                 Eating                                                                                                   Rolling

             Cutting                                                                                                    Eating

So, with my new Thermomix at hand (another story) I decided we would whip up another batch of dough that I didn't mind him eating in the slightest.  Having just bought a bag of almond kernels that morning I ground them down to almond meal in 5 seconds (God, I love my Thermomix) and added a few other ingredients and within 1 minute of starting I had a lovely biscuit dough ready for Master 16 months to roll, cut and eat!

Here he is helping me with the biscuit mixture.  Adding the vanilla essence to the mix. 

Taking a swig of the vanilla essence (just kidding, the lid was firmly on).

Carrying the tray to his rolling, cutting and eating table.  

Cutting out snowman and reindeer shapes with the play dough/cookie cutters.  I assure you I washed all the play dough off first!

Not a lot of biscuits here is there!  That is because he ate so much of the dough.  

   

What a good little helper he is!  He's such a big boy now!  When did my baby grow up?

The how to's of our Christmas gifts!

Well, now that Frogs and Snails has enlightened you all to our children's Christmas gifts and our little plan to encourage their sense of giving rather than receiving I thought I'd give you a run down on how I made some of their handmade gifts.  

First off, let's get the girly dress out of the way.  This was the easy one.  A plain pink long sleeve top from Best and Less for $4 and a beautiful Fat Quarter I got off Etsy for $3.  So excluding my time this dress was made for the bargain price of $7.  All I did was hem two thirds of the fat quarter, stitch the sides together and then gather the top hem before sewing it to the shirt. 

Lastly,  I cut a strip from the remaining fabric, doubled it over and hemmed it before sewing a loose stitch straight down the middle.  I then carefully pulled the cotton so the material gathered and then sewed it on the neckline to make a lovely ruffle.  Easy peasy!  

I was rather pleased with the end result.  What do you think?  It looks even better on and although a little big on our petite Miss Two it is a dress she will most likely fit into for a few years to come.

Little Miss Two has a name beginning with E and although she is very little she has a tendency to be rather clumsy and heavy handed.  Despite her tiny frame she seems to bump into everything as if she were a huge elephant so we call her E... the Elephant.  I was looking through some blogs one day and came upon a photo of an elephant cushion which I thought was very clever.  I saved a copy of the picture but didn't think at the time to save a copy of the instructions so when the idea of hand made Christmas gifts came up and I wanted to make this cushion I had to come up with a method myself based on one photo.  

I took a trip to the local Salvation Army Store and found myself a $6 woollen jumper.  It was perfect, beautiful colours and oh so soft.  I couldn't wait to get to work on it.  I started by cutting off the neck and removing the sleeves.   I stitched the top together and then hand stitched on one side and gathered the cotton to create the ear.  I stuffed it with some cushion stuffing I had left over from another project (below) hand stitched again to create the other ear and finally sewed the bottom of the jumper together.  It looked more like a lolly in a wrapper at this point but I could see it's potential for being an elephant so I continued on.  Taking one of the sleeves I sewed one end together, filled it with stuffing and then sewed it to the lolly wrapper shaped cushion and TA-DA, my elephant had a trunk.  I added a couple of buttons as eyes and she was done.  

The stripes of the jumper were horizontal so you can see that it was made by turning the jumper on it's side.

I can't express enough how happy I was with the end product.  My elephant was so soft and comfy to lean against, I kept finding my boys cuddling up with it on the sofa and had to wrap it up ready for Christmas just to stop them from taking it.  

 Next up I moved onto matching travel mats for Little D and Little F.  I found this fantastic fabric from a Japanese supplier on Etsy.  Half a yard of this gem of a find delivered to my door from Japan for the bargain price of $8.  Another trip to the Salvo's produced two lovely, green, as new cushion covers for just $2 each.  So, doing the maths that makes two travel mats for only $5 each.  

I cut the fabric in half, retaining a small strip off the side for some ties and sewed in onto the cushion cover, tucking in the hemmed tie as I sewed over the final edge.  The beauty of using a cushion cover as a base meant it has in built storage. Master 8 rummaged through his collection of Matchbox cars to find a couple of cars to zip up into the cushions and the whole thing rolled up, sides folded in and secured with the ties would only take up a small amount of room in Mumma's bag when needing to keep the boys entertained whilst out.   Perfect!

Love it!  On the back I used some fabric markers to write each boys names so there would be no arguments over whose was whose.  

The last one I'll show you for today is Little F's fire engine.  This was the most time consuming gift of all.  Mostly because I started it before I bought my sewing machine so it was all hand stitched.  It started it's life as a red, square cushion, probably taking pride of place on somebodies sofa before being tossed into a Salvo's bin.  One man's trash is another man's treasure!  It was absolutely perfect for my little project at at only $3 for the cushion, 20 cents for a half a metre of yellow fabric (crazy, I know) and 50 cents for a metre of blue fabric with a few buttons I already had I created this!

Yes!  You read right!  One cuddly, soft fire engine for only $3.70 - say it with me.  BARGAIN!!!!

I love the SALVO's!!!!

I took the cushion and drew the basic shape on it, cut it out and then hand stitched it all together.  I stitched and stitched and stitched some more.  I then cut out the head lights and ladder, applied some heat and bond and then applique stitched around the edges (it's a kids toy, heat and bond alone just wouldn't cut it.)  I did the same for the light blue window.  The tyres were just a square of fabric with a bit a stuffing placed on top.  I gathered up the sides and shaped it in a sphere and secured to the engine with the button and a few stitches around the edges to ensure those blue tyres weren't going anywhere.  

Little F better look after his fire engine or my poor fingers will never forgive him.  Hours and hours of sewing this took but I think it was worth it. But in hindsight, I really should have invested in a thimble!

Handmade Gifts for Boys (and a Girl)

For Christmas last year my sisters and I agreed that the next generation was expanding a little too quickly for us to purchase Christmas presents for all the nephews and niece (yes there is a girl in there.) We've had three new additions in the last eighteen months alone (all male, of course). We also agreed that Christmas was getting a little too commercial for our liking, where the children were spending most of the day opening gifts and not really focusing on what they were receiving or who they were receiving it from. The solution we came up with was a type of Kris Kringle with a twist. We put all the kids names in a hat then each Aunty drew out as many names as she had children. The twist... we were going to make the gifts ourselves, with a $20 limit on supplies needed.
So, I, having two children with me for Christmas, would be making two gifts as would our younger sister who also has two children (one of which is the rarest of the rare in our family... a daughter). Our youngest sister having no children got off scot free. Lucky Sonshine and Lollypops, having four kids would have to provide four presents (that's what you get for your dedication to expanding the male population.)

We started preparing way back in October. I started keeping an eye out for supplies in early November but I must say I was still frantically working away at my sewing machine two days before Christmas.

On the day we handed out the presents to each child in ascending age order. We all watched as each child opened their very own, handmade gift before moving on to the next recipient.

Master 7 months received a beautiful handmade animal picture book with each of his and his cousin's animal motifs in it.






















Master 15 months (Little F) received a fire engine cushion(one of his many nick names is Little F the Fire Engine.) He also recieved a car track roll (not pictured) because as if Sonshine didn't have her work cut out for her making gifts for FOUR nephews and niece (yes, still only one), she had to make them TWO EACH! I don't know how she does it.






















Master 15 months received an 'op-shopped' playdough kit with homemade playdough. Little D and I really enjoyed making this together and I loved the utensils we chose so much that I want to make another for our house. Garlic presses, potato mashers and playdough were made for each other.























Young Miss 2 and a bit received a lovely cushion in the shape of an elephant (another nick name nod).It was made from an upcycled jumper found at the op-shop. I love the colours. She also recieved one of the beautiful dresses that Sonshine has been working on. On a side note, between you and me, I think our Sonshine was absolutely thrilled to have picked our only niece's name out of the Kris Kringle hat and with all those boys it is great that she does have one little girl in the mix to give her a little XX chromosome fix every now and then.






















Master 2 and a half received the same car track roll as his brother which is a blessing for me. Having two boys with similar interests so close together in age means duplicates of everything is an absolute must in the Frogs and Snails household.
I love the photo on the right. Master 8 is showing Little D the car he personally chose for his track. It was so beautiful seeing his pride and joy in giving a gift to another.
Little D also received a handmade t'shirt (not pictured) made by Master 8 with an orange and red print on it. He calls it his sunset shirt.






















Master 3 received a personalised alphabet book. I just love that cheeky face.






















Master 5 received a letter writing kit in a handmade bag. This is the piece that I left until the very last minute but I was super pleased with the final result.






















Master 8 received every 8 year old's dream, a huge bag of slimey slime! He also received some yummy homemade macaroons (his favourite gluten free treat)

The great thing about opening one handmade present each, one at a time is that even a month later, the kids still know where their gifts came from and who made some of their cousins gifts too. Another great thing (for my boys at least) is that these lovely individual gifts, made for them by people who know and love them, are shaping up to be some of their favourite possessions of 2012 and possibly of all time.

More little girl dresses from the woman with 4 boys!

Well, I thought I was so organised this year.  I'd done all my Christmas shopping before November and even bought everything I needed for the many handmade gifts I was giving.  I had a total of 10 handmade gifts I planned on making and having bought all the supplies I made a start back in October.   By the end of November I was half way done.  By mid December I was still only half way done.  Four days until Christmas and I still had four to do, three of which I hadn't even started.  Needless to say, I have had a few marathon nights at the sewing machine and I am exhausted!  

Surviving on four hours of sleep a night when you have four boys to deal with in the day, a house to clean and food to prepare for the 28 people coming for dinner on Christmas Eve makes for a rather grumpy Mamma!  But, I am happy to say I have finally finished.  YAY!!!!  This morning I started and finished my final gift and everything is now wrapped - All with one day to spare! 

I can't share eight of the gifts with you yet as I don't want to spoil the surprise for the recipients but I can show you the matching little dresses I did for a good friend's two gorgeous girls.  A pretty ruffle dress for her 5 year old and a pillowcase dress for her 8 month old.  I finished the ruffle dress at 1am this morning and, although incredibly tired, I found it hard to fall asleep as I was so excited by how it turned out.  

Here are the shot's I took in my sleepy haze at 1am.

And here are some more shot's on my helpful little models taken at the more respectable time of 1 pm. 

You can see that Master 15 months does not feel the same as Master 5 when it comes to modelling girls dresses but doesn't he look so cute!!!  (It's a little small on him as it is made for someone almost half his age but it goes to show the versatility of a pillowcase dress.  Once the dress is too short she can easily wear it as a tunic and then a top.  It should do her for quite a few years.)

In hind sight I do think I over-extended myself this year, perhaps I should have started in June instead or maybe just not have left so much to the last minute.  I am very happy with all my end results though and I do hope the little kiddies all love their gifts as much time and love has gone into them.  

I am looking forward to sharing the rest of the pressies with you all next week but for now it is back to cleaning the house after a much needed computer and cuppa break!  Merry Christmas to everyone, keep safe and enjoy this special time of year with your friends or family!  Best Wishes to All!!!