Christopher's Creepy Crawly Critters Celebration

During the months of January and February this year we attended a marathon of 8 kids parties over 7 weekends, ending off with Christopher's 4th Birthday Party.


Long overdue, here are some pics of the days events:


This was my second attempt at baking a birthday cake (the other times I outsourced this task), with the help of my brother, I think it turned out quite OK!

Dad:"The wind keeps on blowing out the candles".  Christopher:"Naughty wind! It's not the wind's Birthday!"

Me and my crazy boy!

 

To Christopher's and many of the other kiddies delight, Grandpa Kenny managed to find three chameleon's in the southern suburbs and brought them with for the kids to see... we let them go in our garden, and they are living happily in the trees (hopefully munching away at all the flies!)

 

 

Sticking to the theme of the party, I whipped up some goodies for the kids to enjoy:
Dirt 'n Slugs (Layered green jelly, chocolate mousse, crushed biscuits & worm sweets)
Caterpillar Treats (grapes on a stick)
Roasted Snails (flings)
Sausage & worms (Vienna sausages with spaghetti)
Ants-on-a-log (banana with peanut butter and raisins)
PopRoach (popcorn with pecan nuts)
Fly Juice (energade cool-drink with raisins)
and a special THANK YOU to my brother Stephan, for making the cupcakes and helping with the cake!

Bradley also organised some "suckers" (ice lollies) for the kids and we got the mandatory water-slide!

 

Another successful party done and dusted! Thank you to all the family and Christopher's friends for joining in on the celebrations and for giving him such lovely gifts! We are spoilt to have such wonderful people in our lives xx

Kids Activity: Chopping!

I wonder if there are any other Mommies who face the same challenge just before suic... ahem, I mean crazy hour. You know, that time of the day when everything just collapses into chaos, and no matter  how much you plan ahead and prepare things to make your life easier, somehow it all just ends up in tears anyway?  

Often whilst I'm making dinner the whining/moaning/crying starts. Not ACTUALLY being a real-life octopus with 8 arms, I'm unable to play referee, nurse and chef at exactly that same minute. So I've had to rope them in to help me cook, in a desperate attempt to keep things under semi-control. 

Enter = Chopping!

An activity that they don't seem to tire of is cutting.  

Armed with their "baby-blunt-knives" and little boards, they helped me make supper by chopping up some mushrooms.

I'm thinking that it's a good skill to teach them (I may be wrong?) but at least they having fun and it keeps them busy for at least 10 min so that I can get some of the "real" cooking done.  I'm slowly running out of ideas for mushroom dishes, and will have to look into other possible foods that they could chop up for me, that aren't too hard or tricky to cut.

Suggestions anyone?

Homemade Play-Dough Tutorial

I think I may have come across the best home-made playdough recipe EVER!  Really easy & fast to make and way cheaper than the store-bought ones.
Whilst making a batch as little gifts for Sophia's birthday party packs,I quickly grabbed my camera to take pics to share the recipe with you:

Ingredients:
250 ml Flour
125 ml Salt
2 tsp Cream of Tartar
250 ml Water
30 ml Veg Oil
Food Colouring 

 1.) Add "dry" ingredients to Pan: Flour, Salt, Cream of Tartar 

2.) Mix "wet" ingredients: Water, Oil, Food Colouring (the more you add, the more intense your colour - less you add, the more pastel the colour)

3.) Combine liquid with contents of pan, turn the stove on ;)

4.) Stir it up, it will turn into a gloopy mixture

5.) After about a minute of stirring, it will become more stiff and after a few more seconds it will start binding into a ball of dough

6.) Remove from heat

7.) Knead the dough until you get the consistency that you want
I usually make the play dough with my kids, let them pour the contents into the pan before I stir it up... so when I start kneading it, they can't wait to have a turn! Be careful because it will still be hot straight from the pan... give it a minute.

I made a few batches, measured out 100g balls, and put them in plastic containers labelled Sophia's Playdough.  I still wanted to add some glitter to the mix to make it all sparkly for the occasion, but didn't get there - next time.

 They were added to the party packs... more on that in another post!

Give it a try, it really goes so quick and will have your little ones occupied for at least 30 minutes before they demand your attention again ;)


Let me know if you make it, and how it turns out!

Easy Cheesy Nachos

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