Elf on The Shelf Week One

An Elf on the Shelf was welcomed into our family on December 1st- here is what he has been up to for the first week of December!

When the boys came out to breakfast on Thursday morning, an elf was waiting for them! We read the book while waiting on breakfast, and the boys had a think about what to call our elf. The decision was made to call him Ralph the Elf, and so we made it official and then talked about why Ralph was here. Ralph will be in a different position each day, but he also has our advent activity tags.



When the boys woke up on day two, they found Ralph snuggled up on the couch wearing his pajamas as it was Pajama Day at school. Lucas thought this was pretty hilarious!



The boys caught Ralph sending emails to his elf friends on Saturday morning!



Ralph gave us a hint about what to make for Sunday morning breakfast, so we all enjoyed some delicious pancakes before a busy day.



My two can't wait to see what Ralph the Elf will get up to next week!

Dinosaur Week for preschoolers

Continuing on my weekly themes for my four year old, we recently spent a week looking at dinosaurs.

Adam loves art and craft activities, so we made our own triceratops. We started by painting a small egg carton piece with green sparkle paint.



We used a cupcake liner for the ruffle, googly eyes, and a popsicle stick cut into three pieces for the horns.



As you can see, green and dinosaurs are popular in this household!



We also excavated our own dinosaur from an egg (purchased here) and it took us a good hour to retrieve the dinosaur from within- a great way to keep the boys occupied although I had a go too!



We then washed the excavated dinosaur and talked about which species it could be.



Some dinosaur dot-to-dot printables were a fun activity for both boys to do after school.



I cut out some different shapes from green cardstock and we played dinosaur Tangrams.



My six year old really enjoyed this activity, and spent ages making different animals from the shapes. Yes, he has dinosaur pajamas too!



Our family movie night was The Good Dinosaur, and I had purchased a kid's magazine that luckily had this Dino-Flake activity included.



It also had a dinosaur Peppa Pig workbook, which came in very handy!



We read the Dinosaurumpus book together and played the Listen & Move game during a wet day.



Dinosaur week was a big success with both boys!

You are Four

Adam, you came into the world four years ago today with your eyes wide open and full of wonder.



With your blond hair and big blue eyes, you had such a calm vibe about you and were a definite mummy's boy! There were issues with reflux, feeding problems and sickness, but through it all you battled through and showed me what a fighter you were. Seeing your big blue eyes look up at me made the long days worth it.



As you got older, your cheeky personality began to shine through. You loved noise- squealing, banging, yelling and thumping the floor were your ways of showing joy.



You made me laugh with your little quirks such as wearing boxes for hats and clipping pegs on your clothes!



Your love for your big brother is obvious, even though at times you can fight and get on each other's nerves. Just like any brothers, you have your moments, but I know how much you look up to him and how much he adores you.



Superheroes rate high on your list of favourite things, and you love to gt your face painted like Spiderman at any opportunity. Hulk is also one of your preferred superheroes since your favourite colour is green, and you know all of their superpowers and real names.



One thing I love is our coffee dates- you always request a fluffy and an egg sandwich, plus the lolly on the side of my latte!



Happy fourth birthday to our sweet little boy.

A visit from the Tooth Fairy

My six year old recently lost his first tooth and was very excited about the Tooth Fairy coming to visit. His tooth was in a small green box, but this kept coming open and he was afraid of losing his tooth before the Tooth Fairy could take it away.

It was my Cricut machine to the rescue as I created a simple design in Design Space and cut using iron on vinyl. I then placed the design on a drawstring bag.

My son placed his tooth in the bag and closed it up tight.



Here you can see the design on the bag- it was very quick to create and I only had white iron-on, but it was enough for my son to feel that his tooth was secure and safe!



The Tooth Fairy bag went under his pillow, ready for the Tooth Fairy to collect during the night.



In the morning, the tooth had disappeared from the bag and in its place was a shiny coin!



This bag will be put to future use for subsequent teeth, and my younger son has requested one too.



Do you remember when you lost your first tooth?

Back To School Morning Routine Chart

I feel like I repeat myself at least five times every school morning, asking my son to do his jobs. I came up with the idea of creating a morning routine chart that would help him visualise his morning schedule, and also give him something tangible to use.

I started off by cutting a grid and some school morning related icons using my Cricut machine and the Chore Chart cartride. If you don't have a Cricut you can draw or cut out your own icons.



Then it was a matter of layering each image down the left hand side of the chart.



Once the images were layered and stuck down, I laminated the chart. This way, my son can tick off each colum for five days of the week. The last column will get a small sticker if he achieves the task for five days- and if each column has at least six stickers on each box at the end of the term he will earn a reward (of the Lego variety!). His jobs each morning are

• Have breakfast
• Get dressed
• Help to make lunch
• Brush teeth
• Pack backpack

As you can see, he has already gotten into the swing of things- this morning he still has to brush his teeth but he is on the right track to earning his Lego.



This simple chart has definitely made our mornings run more smoothly, and now Lucas knows what is expected of him. He is eager to tick the items off, and his attitude in the mornings has become a lot more helpful.

How do you motivate your children on school mornings? I would love to know!

Superhero Family Fun Dinner

My boys are currently obsessed with superheroes- Marvel Avengers, Batman, comic books, anything will do! We decided to have a family fun night based on superheroes, thanks to the help of The Official Super Hero Cookbook. If you have boys in your house, you need this book! As well as everyday items, it has great ideas for birthday themes and jazzing up lunchboxes, and it even comes with stencils.

We looked through the cookbook and chose what we would like to eat, then I helped the boys write out the menu and a list of ingredients and supplies we would need.

Our main course was Holy Guacamole with Krypto Dogs, Wonder Woman Crudites and Superman Sauce. We also had Joker Juice as our drink.



Dessert was Plastic Man Pudding- this was absolutely delicious! I did change it to Batman Pudding and used a Bat cookie cutter to place some blue fondant on top, and we only needed small amounts of this sweet treat.



The boys both really enjoyed planning, cooking and eating our special superhero themed family fun dinner.

Playroom Planning- Part One

My boys decided over Christmas that sharing a room was much more fun than sleeping in separate bedrooms. Lucas started off in with Adam, who was still in the cot, but as Lucas' room is bigger we decided to move Adam into Lucas' room and also put him in a big boy bed at the same time. As you can see, it was a bit cramped with two beds in the smaller room!



This left Adam's room free- I had originally planned to turn it into a craft room but then we decided that a playroom would be much more practical.



This is how the room looked once we had put all the toys in- very messy and unorganised, but I had a plan.

I turned to Pinterest to get some ideas, using my Playroom Perfection board.

Today I am sharing the first part of the process, which was really just a tidy up of the areas and putting all the toys in their place.

The first thing we did was take down the cot, which took up most of the space in the room. Adam loved getting a new big boy bed and sleeping in the same room as his brother!



I used the toy storage along the left hand side of the wall, and the train table is now a Lego table. The brown drawers hold all of the craft supplies, and the Little Shop is at the end as the boys love to roleplay with this currently.

Now my living room is not covered in toys, and the boys will happily spend an hour in the playroom before dinner so that I can get ready for the feeding and bedtime stage of the day. It also means that friends have been able to come and play without having toys strewn in three different places, and I can keep the bedroom for sleep only.

Come back next Monday when I will be sharing the second part of the playroom makeover!

Childhood Christmas Memories

Every year since 2010 I have been arranging a day where my children see Santa. I dress them in their best, but unfortunately my husband and I have had to be in the photos too! This year we finally got a great one, with two big smiles and no parents.

I started thinking about my own Santa photos as I couldn't recall ever visiting Santa for photos as a child. However, a look through my family photo albums shows a love of Santa that started for me at an early age!

This photo is of me and my Dad- my fist time seeing Santa at the Plunket Christmas Party. I was 14 months old here, and obviously unsure of Santa! Plunket is a local organisation that looks after new mums and their babies, and is a huge part of growing up in New Zealand.



Santa features prominently at Plunket Christmas parties- here I am with my twin sister. We always had matching outfits growing up, and my mum sewed some amazing clothes for us to wear.



This photo made me smile when I saw it- this was taken again with my twin sister (I am wearing the blue headband) at the local supermarket. The reason I love this photo so much is that now my boys have had their photo taken with Santa at the exact same supermarket this year. I was hoping to post that photo but I have not received it yet, but will update when I do! It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to know that some of my experiences with Christmas will be replicated with my children.



This photo is another Santa in a shop with my twin sister- do you sense a theme here? While we may not have had many professional posed Santa photos, we did have a lot of opportunities to get Santa photos in our local community. That's what I love about living in my childhood town- the spirit of Christmas comes alive locally and all of our neighbours, teachers and friends come together to make sure the children have some amazing experiences.



It was so much fun to walk down memory lane and see how much of my love of Christmas came from my childhood. Now that I have children of my own, I want them to experience the magic of Christmas. We do fun things each year such as meeting Santa and choosing an ornament for the tree, and I recently came across a beautiful website called Patience Brewster. Her ornaments, paintings and handmade gifts are breathtaking, and have so much detail. This rooster ornament will look perfect on my tree as I love all things poultry related, and the Chicken Teapot is on my wishlist! My boys loved the Mini Candy Cane ornament, as my oldest son declared it was the coolest candy cane ever due to the glitter shoes! This website captures the magic of Christmas so well for both children and adults, and would be perfect for gift giving or as a feature for your own tree or holiday decorating.

Christmas for my children this year is quite bittersweet as my son turns five today, and already the magic of Christmas is being lost on him. Doing family and Christmas related activities is a great way to keep the excitement in December, as well as create my own family memories so that one day I can show them photos for them to also have fantastic Christmas memories. Local events, retailers in our area and beautiful Christmas themed items help me to bring Christmas into our lives each year.

Do you have any favourite Christmas memories? What type of things do you do with your children to create memories? I would love to know!