Wheat free/Egg free Crunchies

Do you have one of those recipe files? Those big thick stuffed ones...that can't even close? You go somewhere, eat something delicious and ask the hostess for the recipe. I mean, you have to have that recipe. Then you get home and you file it safely away in that nice big recipe file, for one day when you 're going to remake that awesome yummy thing...mmm, only one day never comes. Well, today I made one of those recipes :).

Recipe:

Place the following ingredients in a pot and heat and stir on the stove.

4 oz of marge (115 grams)
2 tbsp of syrup
1 tsp of bicarb

Add the bicarb when the margarine has melted.

Add one cup of sugar to the melted mixture, keeping it on the stove for a little while longer.

Remove from the stove and add the following:

1 cup of flour (I used Orgran Gluten Free Plain Flour)
2 cups of oats
1 cup of coconut (If you can, try to buy unsulphured coconut)
1 tsp of ginger

Spread it on a greased tray. This part is a little tricky.

Bake in the oven at 140°C for 10 minutes (approximately).

Yum Yum...enjoy! 

Body Parts and Stickers

heehee, no, this is not an episode of CSI. Body parts and stickers make for great fun and a great teaching opportunity. You can play this game with babies from about 9 months, but it's still fun when you're much older and need to know those more unusual parts, like ankles and heels and wrists and earlobes...

All age groups love it when you stick a sticker on your nose or anywhere and say, "I don't have a sticker on my nose? Do I?" Pulling off stickers from a silly Mommy will get great laughs. Or, put a sticker somewhere on toddler and say "Where did I put that sticker?" If they don't answer, say the wrong body part name (Is it on your _____?). That usually gets a giggle and if you're lucky, a correction. You can really have fun with this and follow your child's lead.

And for another sticker idea...lying on the table in front of Little One in the picture below is a piece of orange felt. He really enjoys sticking stickers onto felt - it has for some reason always held more appeal to him than sticking onto paper. I got this felt idea from The Imagination Tree, a wonderful blog filled with many baby and child activities. 

Little One is 2 years old in these pictures.  

Till next time, happy playing.

Orange and Blue Vintage Truck and Tractor Party

Little One recently turned four and as promised here are some pictures of his birthday celebration that we held at home.  We invited three little friends and truthfully, after years of "bigger" parties, I can now really vouch for keeping the numbers small. The children played, the Mommies chatted...it was a whole day affair.

I had so much fun making the celebration special with lots of personal touches.

The details:   

The theme evolved as I worked on the details of the party, but the colours were very much inspired by a wonderful orange and blue party I saw at On to Baby.

The cake, a red velvet cake, was kindly baked by a friend of mine (thank you Julia!) and I made the bunting. It was made from paper (a printable I found at a lovely blog called Allsorts), glued onto some white string and then attached to skewer sticks. The marshmallow treats were also very easy to make. I melted chocolate and dipped marshmallows into it and then into sprinkles. Big One loved helping me make these.

I was very lucky to find the blue Chevy truck a few weeks before the party. I had wanted to put it on the cake but decided on the simplicity of the bunting and candles. All the wooden blocks were part of our collection and I simply repainted them blue and orange. I also stamped the letters of little one's name onto them with dark blue paint. This idea was inspired by some blocks I saw at a party at The Dorsey Life.

I made a traditional pin the tail on the donkey game, which I downloaded (for free) and printed from Family Games Treasurehouse.  I was really thrilled to find this and all the children, the older ones too, enjoyed the game. 

The very cool tractor - we hired it from Kiddie Rides, who are based in Cape Town. Little One has already placed an order for a vintage motor bike for next year :).  

In the very last picture you may have spotted bigger bunting hanging on my cabinet. That was thanks to a really nice tutorial at Odessa May Society. I think smaller pegs would have looked nicer, but I used what I had.

I hope you enjoyed sharing these memories of a special day. Take care, till next time.

lego head cup cake toppers

Inspired by lots of lego party ideas on Pinterest, I decided to make lego head cupcake toppers for Little One's birthday ring at school. 

I kept this very simple, as I had to make sixteen of these. I used a square punch to cut the squares quickly and a special little punch that rounds the corners. I added a long toothpick (not the usual short type) with sticky tape to each one.

I love how a simple decoration takes an ordinary cupcake and turns it into something quite special :).

PS. Yes, we have had a birthday! I'll be sharing our at home celebration with you in the next post. 

Play Dough Cookies (made with bottle tops)

You do know how I love bottle tops... :)

When we went away for a few days in the holidays, I knew it being Winter, that  we would possibly be spending a fair amount of time indoors. I packed the play dough (as I usually do), as I knew that this could entertain both kiddos if need be. I also packed an ocean themed bottle top memory match game I had made awhile back. 

Little One and I got stuck into the play dough one afternoon and I realized that we could stamp some sea creatures with our bottle tops. As we got stamping, the idea of cookies evolved. Make a small round ball (quite tricky for Little One to do and good for those hands) and then stamp it. Voila! A plate of sea creature cookies. They are pretty don't you think?

PS. Link to the bottle top memory match here and to the play dough recipe here.

Nature Colour Match

We were very lucky to go away for a few days during these past winter school holidays and I prepared this activity before we left. I first saw this super idea for an outdoor colour match at the wonderful Inner Child Fun. I collected paint-chips in a variety of colours and then using a square punch I created the cards. One lovely sunny morning , I sent the children on a colour hunt. I think these photos tell the story nicely.

(mmm...just checking...orange or yellow...or a bit of both?)

 

Till next time...

Get Well Soon Robots

I recently saw these wonderful CD case robots over at The Art Annex and thought that they would make great Get Well Soon cards for a few family members and friends who have been ill.

The robot holds the card in his (peg) hand and it reads :

 " Here's hoping that all your parts will soon be in perfect working order."

To make these you need some cardboard, pegs for the arms, odds and ends to decorate and a CD case to stick all the parts in. The little parts have to be fairly flat so that the CD case can close properly.

This was the last of our Robot Fun. Onto some new activities from the next post. Take care :)

Mommy Made Moon Sand

A long while back, I raved about how much we like the real Moon Sand. What I haven't shared, is that we have made several home made batches since then and it is a HUGE hit with Little One. I have tried a few variations, but this is the recipe I use most often:

4-and-a-half cups of sandbox sand 

1-and-a-half cups of cornflour

1 cup of water (add more if necessary)

It does dry out, so you need to add water every time you play with it.
 

 If the consistency is right, you can easily mold it. I am able to use a small brick mold  and make little bricks using this sand.

We keep ours in a large plastic container in the kitchen and Little One requests this regularly. I try to keep it uncovered, otherwise it does get a little smelly. If uncovered, it lasts for quite some time - I've kept ours going for a month or two. And, because it cleans up quite easily, I allow the children to play with this indoors too. 

 

Have fun!

PS. Recipes found at: irresistable ideas for play based learning and Skip to my Lou

PPS. My apologies to my email readers. For some reason, you all received a re-post of my Bottle Top Play Dough Cakes today. Blogger must have a few gremlins, as I never republished the post. This is not the first time this has happened - I'm not sure what's up?

Paint Chip Robots

I have been very inspired by the many crafty uses for paint chips that I've seen around lately. So when I was brainstorming for some robot crafts, I had one of those happy crafty AHA moments (do you have those?) - why not Paint Chip Robots? The chips are suited to robot shapes and of course you have lots of lovely colours to work with.

I decided to add some photos to make these more personal for the boys. I didn't have any recent ones printed of Big One, so I raided an old photo box and found this picture of him - he was about 4 years old.

Little One also loved the idea of being inside the robot :).

More robot fun coming up..:) 

Sharing this at:

For the Kids Friday @ Sun Scholars 

The Sunday Showcase 

Shaving Cream Fun

If you are following, you will know that we are busy with a Robots theme at the moment, but today I'm breaking away from that to share some shaving cream fun. It's holidays almost everywhere and I thought this to be such a great holiday activity. It certainly kept my little guy busy for quite awhile.

So today I squirted some shaving cream over a few of Little One's cars that I had placed on his table. He was intrigued :). I then left him to play and he quickly added a whole lot of his vehicles, as you can see in the pics.

After a nice play, Little One deserted the scene, so I moved the table outside and asked him if he wanted his spray bottle to clean the cars. "Yes, like a car wash!", was his response. 

 

That entertained him for quite a bit longer, because after the cars were all washed down, he roamed into the garden, spray bottle in hand. YAY for me - I could get a few things done :)

This idea was inspired by posts at  The Herkert House and A Childhood List. Isn't blogging great!

PS. Linking to The Sunday Showcase