Spring time Kindness

Late Winter and Spring are truly beautiful in the Cape. With our wet Winter, there is simply an abundance of green and fields of wild flowers all over. I am in awe of God's incredible gifts to us in this beautiful place. 

I do the school run three times a day. Each drive takes me past our local garden Centre and they often have trays of flowers right on the road, encouraging the passersby to come in and shop. At this time of year it's usually Petunias and Pansies... I love Petunias and Pansies.

 

For this little project I collected as many small plastic pots as I could (people seem to be happy to part with these) and I painted them white. The boys and I planted Petunias and I then gave them to anybody that I thought would enjoy them - just as a random act of kindness. I mostly gave them to people I know well, but want to do this again and bless some unsuspecting neighbours. Just leave one on their doorstep with a sweet note. That would be fun to do with the children. :)

One six pack of Petunias is very inexpensive and can bring six smiles... six different smiles. :)

Is it Spring time where you live? What kind of Spring time fun do you get up to?

Cowboy Fun {Part 2}

 Cowboy fun continues here...

 Cowboy pages from Making Learning Fun. (love this website!)

Desert Diamond Back Snake craft also from Making Learning Fun. This is a great fine motor activity - lots of cutting and sticking.

Found these customizable worksheets at twistynoodle.

And we read about the spiny giants of the desert (saguaros) and did this fun cactus craft  (Idea via Pinterest). Little One really enjoyed this activity.

For more Cowboy fun, here are some great links:

Cowboy cut-outs by made by joel
The windowsill desert from Spoonful

Tiny teepees from youaremyfave

Cowboy Party

  

I promised you part 2 of our Cowboy fun and it's still coming, but today I'm sharing this Cowboy themed party we attended in July. It was hosted by my lovely friend Grietjie for her son's 4th birthday. The details were fantastic and the games so much fun. Don't you love the cake? It was baked by a friend and I think it's too cute.

The decor was super - Oh how I love those cow-hide balloons :).

 Love the popcorn bags.

Grietjie is a very gifted artist and she drew these designs on simple paper plates - so clever and very effective.

Oh and these boot shaped biscuits (sigh). Hand-painted by the hostess - I kid you not.

 This mama always has the best ideas and she created lots of birthday fun for her guests. There was "Pin the moustache". 

Aim for the cans and knock 'em down.

Shoot that flame out.

Taking a look at these two rather forlorn cowboys, all I can think is, "Gosh darn it, those wily bandits sure are difficult to pin down."  (The one on the left is the birthday boy. The one on the right is Little One.)

And Grietjie also made these super hobby horses (pattern via dandee)

Super party hey? Till next time, heeehaaa! 

Cowboy Fun {Part 1}

Earlier this year, Little One was into cowboys, so I created some fun activities around the theme. Here are some of the things we got up to. 

Cowboy paper doll via MakingFriends.com.

 

Cowboy memory match game via Homeschool Creations.

A sequencing game. Spot the sequence and then continue it. 

A memory game. Show the items for 15/20 seconds, then cover. What can he remember?

Another fun idea with these little plastic toys is to hide duplicates around the room and send the kiddos to find them. This is a fun way to teach new words like wigwam/cactus/camp fire etc. 

And we made a WANTED poster-  although little one doesn't like being a baddie :)

Books we read:

Cowboy Small - Lois Lenski

The Big Golden Book of the Wild West - Gene Biggs

The Lone Ranger (Little Golden Book) - Steffi Fletcher 

B is for Buckaroo: A Cowboy Alphabet - Louise Doak Whitney

(This last one we haven't read ourselves, but it comes highly recommended.)

Part 2, coming soon.

Puzzle Superhero Craft

I have been rather absent here on the blog and to my regular readers, I do apologise. Life happens and honestly when you stop posting regularly, it's easy to just put it off longer and longer. So in the hope of getting back into the swing of things, this is a post of few words. 

Don't throw away old puzzles (especially those with missing pieces) - make some puzzle people or superheroes, like Big One did. :)

Chat soon...

Star Wars Birthday Party

We very recently celebrated Little One's 5th birthday! The party was discussed for months ahead of time and I must tell you, turning 5 was a really big deal for my little guy.

When Little One told me that he wanted a Star Wars party, I must be honest, I wasn't too thrilled. For most of the year he had been talking about an army party and I was quite excited and inspired by that theme. But then one day, out of the blue, he changed his mind. Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti Star Wars, but somehow this theme just didn't get me very excited. But what's a Momma to do?

So I spent many hours (tooo many hours) searching and pinning Star Wars and lego ideas. Do you follow me on Pinterest? - well then, you may have noticed :). I was looking for inspiration and finally I found it in some of the coolest retro Star Wars posters. (Google "Retro Star Wars Posters Images" and you will see what I mean)

So here are the details: 

I was told that this had to be a "Human Star Wars Party", not a lego one, but I couldn't resist these from Kiki's Craft Corner, and so used them to decorate the party boxes.

For the cupcake toppers, I used some awesome scrapbooking freebies from Laura Kate and combined it with free scrapbooking paper from Free Vintage Digital Stamps.

The banner was made by printing out colouring-in pages and painting them with a sponge roller and craft paint.

The venue was Party Playhouse. I was able to do my own decor for the party room, which suited me well, and I also booked the party on a week day, so that we could possibly be the only party at the time in the venue. As a party venue, I can highly recommend Party Playhouse  - they were very professional and helpful and the party guests all had a blast.

A sherbet stick made to look like a light saber was a small party favour.

I also wanted to share with you the T-Shirt I made. Using a template of Yoda's face, I cut out the face in green felt and glued it to a rectangular piece of black felt. I used my glue gun, so am not sure how many washes it will survive, but Little One loved wearing it on the day.

Shame the birthday boy was quite ill on his party day, but he made it through the day with lots of prayer and Panado.

And last, but certainly not least, the cake was baked by my cake lady, the very talented Marleen. I call her my cake lady, because she has baked so many lovely cakes for me over the years.  If you live close by and want her number, just drop me a line.  

As Yoda would say,  "Great readers you are; Happy you be till next time we meet" - or something like that :).

making soup

Jenga Block Play

 I apologise in advance for this photo heavy post...

 

On a recent Friday afternoon I took out the two boxes of jenga and added a jumbo sized pack of playing cards. I opened the boxes and said to the boys: "How about creating some structures using the cards and blocks". Well, that pretty much set the tone for the next 24 hours. Did I say 24 hours? - 48 easily.

 

I really love blocks. I love that they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and that they are so open-ended, leaving much to the imaginations of young and old alike.

Big One built his first few structures with the cards, but thereafter simply created beautiful "architectural structures" (if I may call them that) with the blocks. Little One seemed to enjoy the block and card combo and continued to create designs using both. Little One was a bit envious of the fact that his brother could make "much cooler" (as he put it) creations. 

Eying his brother's creation...

Little One made these - I think they are super :) 

 

   

And of course, these blocks lend themselves to making tracks...

and to writing your name...

and to making domino effects...

and to making these.

  

It gave me so much joy watching them play and even I was taken by surprise at how this "simple play" held their attention for so long.

Do your children play with blocks? Do you ever add something to the blocks to extend or expand their play? I'd love to hear about it. 

For more fun block ideas and inspiration, check out my Pinterest Blocks Board.

Till next time, happy playing :) 

PS. Sharing our fun at The Weekly Kids Co-Op.