Eric Carle : : Lacing cards

My daughter is born in June . So Christmas a birthdays I try and buy things , to Test her .
 She loves puzzles and any things crafty .

So I thought I'd try some lacing cards . I was going to go for lacing beads but I knew that once she figured it out who to do it wouldn't be much of a Taxing task .

So I went onto amazon and found http://www.amazon.co.uk/Eric-Carle-Animal-Lacing-Cards/dp/0811860019.

They were a last minute present a few days before Christmas . My daughter loves the books ' brown bear , brown bear what do you see' , and most other titles from Eric carle . So went for it !

Upon opening them on Christmas Day , she asked us to open them straight away .

I picked out the easiest card for her to do , and with a tiny bit of help at first . Completed it in minutes . She was so proud of herself !!


When we returned home we got them out again , insisting she did it on her own !

I can see many more hours of threading ahead . I like that there are lots of cards to keep her interested , the are beautiful to look at too .

Slient Sunday

Nomore nighttime nappies !

We started are potty training journey in May of 2013, at 20 months old. 

Well that's when we took the nappies away . We had introduced her to the potty around 9 months .  

It took about a week/two weeks but she got it :-) . 

My daughter has always been a rubbish sleeper , so I never planned in taking nighttime nappies till she was much older . 

We made piddle pads for the car seat , in case of accidents . They have worked well and we are yet to have to wash the car seat . 

So the other week we made a piddle pad for the bed . 

They have two layers of absorbent fleece and one waterproof layer :-). 

Last night I run out of nappies in this house . So we went nappy free :-). 

She went to bed at 6 pm and I lifted her out of bed at 9 pm for a wee and she got up at 1.40 am for wee.  Then woke up at 6.30 :-).   Sucess !!!! 

No more nappies ! 

Nearly a month since my last post !

I haven't written a blog post in over a month . I almost felt no need to too .

I think in the last month I have had to be very honest to myself . Allowing myself to think of myself first and allowing myself to be selfish .

We got struck by that vile cold that went around , wiping us out and leaving us grumpy .

So we hibernated . If the day was grey and miserable outside . We chilled in our flat . We went to playgroup 1/2 times a week instead of 4/5.  We saw my mum and dad 1/2 instead of everyday .

It's exactly what we needed . We watched movies together . We baked . We cooked . We tidied . We played lots of games . We did puzzles . We made Christmas crafts . We sang songs under the duvet . We looked at decorations at garden centres .



Now I say we were lazy . But in actually fact the above list is what we did on our down days .
We managed to fit in a weekend away to London .
Family visiting .
A visit to Santa .
Meeting our friends new baby .
Lots of play dates .
Little miss learnt to write ( toddler style).

It allowed me to take time to play and try new ideas . Lots of new ideas for my crafty adventures :-).


Ill be honest when I look back on how I felt a year ago , it scares me a lot ! I was so sad , down and didn't wana get out of bed .

Now a year on Christmas , the month of December was mine and my daughters :-).

We were happy and we enjoyed every second of our time :-).

Attempting to make a gluten free gingerbread house !

I have a lovely friend Claire who along side helping set up run the single parent group , has hundreds of other talents . Her baking skills are amazing !!!

Having seen her attempt at making a gingerbread house , I thought I'd give it ago ! The recent co-op magazine had a simple recipe . So I replaced the gluten contains ingredients with gluten free .

It was so much fun , little miss really enjoyed mixing , stirring , trying , rolling and asking questions !!

We even had most of the things to make the recipe already in the cupboard , which was a bonus !!

Mixing and rubbing the butter into the flour ! 

So many questions !! Why is it black , it very sticking ! Mummy I need wipes my fingers are sticky!! 

Stir stir stir !! 

Mummy

I'm hiding in my bed

Oh baby girl , please can we go back to 7am wake up calls . Please .

Before 6am is to early for mummy . I know you don't understand time and your just learning how to use you groclock. But when mummy says don't get up till the sun comes up , could we make it when the sun outside the window gets up please .

You've never been a good sleeper , unlike some of your friends who have a regularly 12 hours sleep !

Winter and cold dark mornings, are yucky to wake up early too . Mummy dosent want to watch ceebies for hours till the rest of the world wakes up !

I would much rather you wake at 7 am and have the energy to run around the park with friends . We could make things , jump , dance play puzzles . You wouldn't get tired so quickly , I promise you'd enjoy it more .


I'm hiding in my bed right now,n whilst you watch telly in the lounge with your breakfast . The fact were in a flat means , I can hear everything your doing ( and ceebies). But baby girl mummy needed 30 minutes more !

I love you baby girl , but mummy's not getting up to play before 7 am , especially when it took over 2 hours for you to go to sleep last night .

Salt dough Christmas decorations Part 1.

I kept seeing this recipe and instructions for Father Christmas handprint salt dough decorations appearing on my timeline .
 I nought I would give it a go , as we had all the things needed in the cupboard .  We made some star salt dough decorations last year aswell . Although little miss wasn't as involved last year .

So off we set making them !

We had great fun , little miss loved pouring and mixing !  I found it difficulty to apply the right amount of pressure to get the handprint . As didn't wana hurt little miss and out her off !

We also made some star decorations with the left over dough .

They were only on the oven an hour , I think I must have had it too hot as they went brown . But we are going to try painting them anyways . Then try another batch another day :-).

Look out for blog post two , which will include the painting of our decorations !