EEeeepp Christmas is coming!

Dare I say it - Christmas isn't that far away! If you are anything like me, that is very exciting! If you are a bit of a grinch, feel free to book mark this page to read in early December :-)  I love Christmas and always have. It may have something to do with the fact that it is my birthday 2 days before Christmas as well, so it has always been my favourite time of the year.
This year I have decided that we needed a new kind of countdown to Christmas in our house - when they were little we had a tree that had little doors on it, and each day they could open a door and hang the little bell from it on the tree, this worked well with one toddler and one baby but as soon as they could argue about whose turn it was it kinda all fell over!
This year, I plan to have each envelope to have an activity or fun thing to do/look forward to for each day.

 

 

All the items were easily available - I did make the little envelopes, but I'm sure they would be easy to source. The frame is a cheap photo frame from Kmart, the butchers twine is from Spotlight, the 1-25 cards and the stick on decals are from The Stationary Warehouse and the little pegs are from Lincraft. I'm sure you could find these items in many other stores as well.

 

 

Ideas for the cards on the inside:

Help ice the Christmas cake

 

Make palmier hearts for after the candle light carol service tonight (a Christmas eve Tradition in our family)

Make some invites and plan a Christmas party (I have pre-invited the parents of this party, so they already have it booked in, so the fact that they get 4 days notice from the invites is ok)

Make a cinnamon ornaments wreath for the front hall way

Make the family and friends Christmas cards

Paint/stamp some brown paper to make our own Christmas paper

Make food presents for the Grandparents/Aunts/Uncles

Hide Rudolf's nose – ongoing until Christmas eve (a game where you hide a red ball in the house, and the first person to find it hides it somewhere else)

Reindeer cupcakes  or these

 

Make your own snow globes

Bake some rice krispie ornament treats

Write our own twinkling holiday sign

Make gingerbread houses

Put up the Christmas tree and decorate it

Make something to wear to the Santa parade

White choc marshmallow popcorn and a Christmas movie

 Host a Christmas party for our friends

Sock the neighbours

Flour fight! We don't get snow at this time of year, so why not get messy with flour?

Santa beards with shaving foam and take some photos!

Family picnic under the Christmas tree and read the Christmas story under the tree

Toast some marshmallows

 

Do you have any family traditions you would like to share that I could add to this list??

 

 

Rainbow Butterfly party - my (current) youngest turns 4!

 

Well life has been a  bit busy lately, what with the pregnancy ticking along and a business from home, working the weekends at my other job and raising two wonderful girls!
Little Miss 3 wanted a "Rainbow Butterfly Party" for her fourth birthday - so this is what we did:

 

Butterfly and Roses centerpiece

 

 

Marshmello fondant is our new favourite!! so much cheaper than regular fondant AND it TASTES LIKE MARSHMELLO!

 

 

 

 

 

Face painting is always a hit with the kids!

 

 

Rainbow jelly oranges went down a real treat at the icecream bar

 

 

 

 

Once everyone had eaten their savoury course we moved all this sugar to a little coffee table and let the kids (and adults!) make their own ice cream sundaes. I was amazed at how grown up the kids were about it! They lined up nicely and took about the same amount of lollies a parent would have served them anyway, and they hardly spilled anything. Goes to show that kids step up to responsibility if we give them a chance.

 

 

 

 

After the usual rounds of pass the parcel (known for some reason in our house as castle castle...), a treasure hunt outside, the making of butterfly puppets with much glitter/sparkle/feathers and a face paint, our happy punters had a good jump on the trampoline and headed home.

Gift Ideas For Children

So it has been quite some time since my last blog post. 14 weeks of feeling like sleeping and spewing kind of puts one off writing (or doing anything for that matter!). We are now 20 weeks into a third healthy pregnancy and feel very blessed for this.

Many parents spend this time of year working out what they will be getting for their children at Christmas, and working out a budget to suit. Below are so low/no plastic, high positive memory ideas for both Christmas and Birthday ideas:

1. Memberships. Zoo, science museum, children’s museum, etc. These are particularly great for family gifts! Many young families want to enjoy day outings, but affording them can be a challenge, so give them the gift of a yearly membership.
2. Subscriptions. Kids enjoy getting things in the mail. Why not encourage their reading by getting them a magazine subscription for something they are interested in!
3. Events. Movie tickets, tickets to a play, concert or sports event are really exciting! Having an event to look forward to makes the rest of life more enjoyable.
4. Activities. Mini golf, bowling, skating rink. These are so much fun! And a big part of the fun is going together. Children love spending time with the adults in their lives, they want to see you enjoying your time as well as enjoying them.
5. Classes. Music, dance, riding, drawing, classes are a great way to encourage children in their interests and let them know that you pay attention to them and what they enjoy.
6. Recipe and Ingredients. Kids love cooking with their parents. Baking something special or cooking dinner is an ideal time to spend together and learn life skills. Print out a recipe, purchase all the ingredients and set a date for cooking together. Or do a cookie in a jar gift.
7. Crafting Date. Our daughter loves making crafts. I do to, I really do enjoy the creative aspect. But I rarely take time out to do it with her. These crafting dates mean the world to our creative little girl. Keep a basket of craft supplies and get out a book for inspiration.
8. Arts and Craft supplies. If your craft box is running low, stock up a little on things you need. Add in something fun the kids haven’t used before. A gift of art and craft supplies often brings on the imagination and kids can’t wait to get to work!
9. Coupons. An envelope of coupons that they can “spend” at any time: I’ll do one chore- no questions asked, movie and popcorn night, you pick the movie!, 1:1 game of cards or basketball (whatever the child’s interest is in), sit and read a book with me, Stay up 1/2 hour past bedtime
10. Restaurant Gift Card. Dinner, ice cream, coffee, cupcake- whatever suits their fancy! Give them the freedom of inviting whoever they wish: it may be mom or dad, it may be a grandparent, aunt or even teacher that they would like to spend more time with.
11. Dress Up Clothes. These do need to be limited, but  2 dresses and couple play scarves can get hours and hours of play!
12. Calendar. Many children like to know what is going on, what day it is, how many days until ____. They can write down their own classes, appointments, play dates, etc. And if they ask you, send them to their calendar so they can get used to being in control of their own schedule. You can even schedule “spontaneous days”, so they know that something different will happen that day. Trust me, it will help them enjoy the spontaneous outings!
13. Books. We get a lot of books from the library, but there are some that I just can’t find there, or it takes us longer to read through.
14. Clothes. When kids only have a certain amount of clothes, they often enjoy getting clothes. Make it a point to get something that fits their style. That may mean western clothes, super-hero, fancy dresses, etc.
15. Snacks. If your child is a foodie, they will love this! Some homemade granola or cookies made just for them, is a special treat!
16. Outdoor Supplies. If you are an outdoorsy family, giving kids their own fishing tackle or gardening equipment can be a big deal. It’s also something that gets left on the shelf in the garage, so you always know right where to find it.
17. Telling Time. The average child these days doesn’t know how to read analog, or finds it takes too long to think about it, so they search for a digital watch. Getting them a cool watch makes them want to be able to tell time on it.
18. Games and Puzzles. Games and puzzles are great activities for when kids have to be indoors. It’s a good practice to have individual quiet times during the day, and having a puzzle to sit and work on by themselves helps brain development and problem solving skills.

 

 

 

Dana's no-fail Orange and Cinnamon Fudge

I am a self professed pretty-good-baker and equally-good-cook. But I have a secret shame, despite the many amazing things I can bake - I can't make fudge... There, I said it.
I do, however, have an amazing no fail fudge recipe that is perfect for this time of year. It is done over a low heat (or a microwave if you like) and is a simple one that kids can help with. It makes great gifts for friends or teachers.

Ingredients:
1 can condensed milk
600g chocolate chips or buttons or chopped chocolate (about 3 cups)
8 drops of orange oil or 1/4 teaspoon of orange essence
1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon.

Line a 20x20cm tin (or similar) with tin foil.
Melt the chocolate with the condensed milk over a low heat stirring constantly. Or microwave in 30 second bursts, stirring in between.
Once all the chocolate is melted add the orange flavour and the cinnamon and stir until smooth.
Pour into the tin and leave to set in the fridge.

Notes: 1) You can buy orange oil in kitchen speciality shops.
            2) You can replace the orange flavour and cinnamon with 1 teaspoon of vanilla and
                1/2 cup chopped nuts.
           3) Use this recipe to pour in to cookie cutters that have been wrapped in foil so it
               doesn't run out the bottom. Let the kids decorate the tops with lollies or silver balls.
               Once set remove the foil from the bottom and wrap in cellophane to give as gifts to
               teachers.

Gingerbread houses the preschooler way

 



This weekend is the begining of all things Christmas in our house! It is very much my favourite time of the year, and children make it so much more fun!
Todays antics included making gingerbread houses with the kids. Considering they are only-just-three and not-quite-five, they did very well, Miss 3's responce was "this is my most funnest day I'b ebba had!" Below is the recipes we used and a few pictures of the process. Be brave and give it a go, its easier than it looks, you will be surprised at your kids skill and if it all turns to pies, you have a fantastic tasty mess to eat for dessert!
I make one every year and display it on the counter top until Christmas, when the kids are allowed to demolish it, this year they wanted their own.

For the gingerbread:

• 6 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 4 teaspoons ground ginger
• 4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons mixed spice
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves or allspice
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 190g butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup dark molasses/treacle/golden syrup - they all work, just give different colour of dough
• 1 Tbsp water 

Using an electric mixer (or by hand if you want a workout), beat on medium speed the butter and brown sugar until fluffy and well blended.
Beat in the eggs, molasses/treacle/syrup and water until well combined.
Add in the spices, salt and baking powder, if you are missing a spice, make it anyway, no one will ever know. 
Beat half of the flour into the butter mixture until well blended and smooth. Stir in the remaining flour. Knead (mix with your hands on the benchtop) until well blended. If the dough is too soft, add a little more flour, it should be a quite stiff dough.
Wrap the dough in plastic wrap, or pop it in a plastic bag and refrigerate at least two hours, preferably overnight. You can make it up to 3 days ahead of time. Let sit at room temperature for at least 10 minutes before rolling out. (We skipped this bit today and it worked just fine!)

 
Cutting Out:

For a template you can either find one online or do what we did and make one up! The walls of ours are about 12cm square. You can make a template out of cardboard box to check the measurements are right. This batch of dough makes a lot, there was enough to make 3 small houses or one large house.

Preheat oven to 180C, with the oven rack in the middle. Have several flat trays ready, preferably ones that you know will not warp in the oven heat.

Divide the dough in four. Spread baking paper on a large flat surface for rolling. Dust the paper lightly with flour. Working with one portion of the dough at a time, use a rolling pin (or a glass bottle) to roll out the dough to an even thickness of about 5-8mm - about the thickness of a pencil. Add a little flour to the surface of the dough, and check for sticking as you roll it out. If it sticks to either your rolling pin or the rolling surface, dust with more flour. If the rolled out dough is very soft, you may want to freeze it for an hour before cutting out the patterns.

Rub a little flour over the surface of the dough. Place the pattern pieces on the dough, as many pattern pieces as will fit on the dough. Use a small sharp knife to cut out the pattern pieces from the dough, wiping the knife surface clean frequently. Depending on how soft the dough is, you may need to use scissors to cut the baking paper. If you are not using paper, you may need to use a large metal spatula to transfer the dough pieces to a greased tray. Space the pieces on the tray 2cm apart from each other. If dough pieces stretch during the transfer process, just push them back into shape.

We used small cookie cutters to make windows and filled with a
barley sugar which melts into a window

You can cut out a door and window(s) at this point, or you can wait until after baking, soon after the pieces have come out of the oven while the walls are still warm.

Bake in a 180°c oven until the edges are just beginning to darken, 15-18 minutes for the large pieces, 6-8 minutes for the small pieces. Rotate the trays half way through the baking for more even browning. Remove the trays to racks to cool, about 15 minutes.

While the pieces are still slightly warm, lay the pattern pieces over them and use a large straight chef's knife to trim off any parts of the pieces that have through cooking spread beyond the pattern.

Remove pieces to cool directly on racks to cool completely.

For the glue to hold it all together you use Royal Icing:

Beat 1 large egg white with 1 Tablespoon of lemon juice and 1c icing sugar for 5 minutes. Add a further 1 and 2/3c icing sugar and beat well.
Spoon this into ziplock bags and store as is in the fridge for up to a week. To use simply snip the corner off the bag and squeeze out.

Assembly:

This part is really where the adult help is important. Put a strip of icing on the left and right sides of each of the four walls. Assemble the house on a flat surface, arranging all four walls in quick sucession. These need a few minutes to start setting before you attempt to put the roof on. Don't rush this stage. I left both the houses for 10 minutes before letting the girls loose on them, it might be better to make the dough one day and mum/dad to assemble the houses once the kids are in bed then allow them to decorate them the next day, the white icing sets like concrete after about 24 hours!
 

 My preschooler's abilities to use a piping bag amazed me. Let them loose with a bag of icing, a bowl of lollies and their imagination.

 

 
 

 



 

 

How to make a no-sew tutu

 

My darling girls (3 and nearly 5) have been harping on for their own tutu skirts for a while now. Today was the day! While I has making them I put together a no-sew how to, these are super easy and quite cheap to make, perfect gifts for the little fairy-ballerina-princess in your life! I couldn't find a ruler, so chances are other mums can't either, so the measurements are nice and approximate.

For each skirt you need:
About 1 metre each of 3 colours of nylon net. It costs around $5 a metre and is 130cm wide.
About 1 metre of ribbon, I found the 20mm wide the easiest to work with.

Step one: Using a pair of pants that fit the fairy-ballerina-princess in question, measure enough ribbon to fit around her waist and allow approximately 30cm (3-4 adult palm widths) extra to tie a bow at the end.

Measuring the waist band

Step two: At the edges of the pants tie a knot on each side other ribbon.

Knots at the edge of the waistband

Step three: My nylon net is 130cm wide, but is folded in half on the roll. Lay your 3 colours of nylon net (or two or four) on top of each other with the folds all together at the top edge. Cut strips of fabric 15cm wide (or about 1 and a half palms wide) towards the fold. Then cut along the folds to make each strip into two pieces. You should then end up with 12-14 strips of fabric from each colour (or a grand total of about 36-48 if you are using 2 or 4 colours), 15cm wide and 65cm long.

It doesn't matter if they're not straight or even!

Step four: Twist the middle of one of your piece of netting (it makes the knots smaller and tighter if you do this). Loop it over the ribbon, and thread the length of the net behind the ribbon and up through the loop, creating a simple knot. Pull tight. Nylon net is quite durable, but it will tear, so don't pull too hard.

Step five: Keep doing this, keeping them tightly together, between the two knots on the ribbon. I found the first few the most difficult to do, then I found leaning on the pieces I had done against the edge of the bench helped keep the ribbon tight, which made the looping and tightening much easier.

  

Step six: Trim the edges of the ribbon on an angle to help combat fraying. I also held mine over a match to melt the ends, but please be careful if you do this!

All Done! Tie a bow around the middle of your fairy-ballerina-princess, tune into Concert FM (or similar) and let the dancing commence. I also used the scraps to make matching dresses for the girls special soft toy animals.