activities

Our Rainbow Run

A few weeks ago I mentioned that the twins and I would be taking part in Tŷ Hafan’s Rainbow Run in Barry Island. It was a fantastic day that started with us donning our white t-shirts and heading to Barry Island nice and early to beat all the traffic.

We arrived just at the perfect time before the car park filled up, literally, it was pretty much empty when we arrived and was almost full before I had even finished paying for our parking ticket! We registered and then headed to get our faces painted and buy our tutus, wig and paint for the paint party. Can you tell which one of the girls wasn’t taking part?

My Sunday Photo ~ Planting Corn the Toddler Way

The nice weather over the last few days has meant we have spent plenty of time down the allotment. O loved helping me dig holes for our corn plants, he learnt to be “berry gentle” with the gwreiddiau (roots in Welsh and yes he can say gwreiddiau better than very!) although a toddlers version of gentle involves tossing the plant in the vague direction of the hole they are being planted in!

My Sunday Photo ~ Paint Party

Here is shot from the paint party at the start of the Ty Hafan Rainbow Run the girls and I took part in last weekend. Expect plenty of colourful images when I update you all about it soon!

Remember it’s not too late to donate!

The Summer Days Linky – Shakespeare and Sports Day

Welcome back to the Summer Days Linky with myself and Karen from Stopping at Two. You can read more about it HERE.

At the beginning of the week we had a beautiful couple of days. By Wednesday, while the rest of the country seemed to be enjoying a heatwave we had cool breezes, cloud cover and even a fair amount of rain! Luckily O and I had taken advantage of the sun in my parents garden while waiting for the nappies to finish rinsing in the machine (ours is still broken)

Stuffed Owl ~ Hillarys craft competition

I’ve never hidden the fact that sewing isn’t my strong point. So when I was asked by Hillarys if I wanted to enter their craft competition, to create something out of 1 meter of their blinds fabric, I was initially hesitant. But I like to challenge myself, so I figured what the heck? What’s the worst that can happen?

Well, after weeks of pondering what to do with my Safi Turquoise fabric, I finally managed to make this little feller:

Not bad if I say so myself! Okay, so he isn’t perfect but I think his higgledy piggledyness just adds to his charm. The fact that he matches the new colour scheme in the hall and stairs is purely coincidental but I think he looks quite sweet perched on the step.

I didn’t follow a pattern as such, I simply drew the shape I wanted onto some paper. Then I cut the eyes, feet, beak and mouth out of felt and stitched them to the front panel along with the wings before sewing him together. I filled him up with the stuffing from an old pillow that was no longer being used.

It was actually a lot more simple to make than I first expected, although I did have a few issues with the machine getting knotted up, but they have a tendency to hate me so it’s lucky to actually to still be alive. Seriously, other sewing machines have not been so lucky in the past.

O is very taken with the owl too. The first time he saw it he kept kissing him over and over. I think I may be making him one of his very own soon!

If you would like to see some of the other entries in the competition you should check out Hillarys board on Pinterest. I have had a look through them all and I have to say there are some fantastic entries!

My Captured Moment ~ Wild and Welsh

I happened upon an SD card in an old camera today and found these photos. They were taken at Manor House Wildlife Park near Tenby. More commonly known as ‘The Welsh Zoo’ which is owned by Anna Ryder Richardson.
We have been back quite a few times now but this was our first ever visit back in 2010 and it was by far our best experience there, we had beautiful weather and it wasn’t too busy even though it was the summer.

Apart from the animals one of the kid’s favourite parts was the hay barn. It had tunnels going through the middle and the kids could literally have spent all day in there, it’s just never been the same since although they have still enjoyed it. I’m hoping to take the kids back this summer to see the rhinos, maybe we can recreate some of our photos with O.

If you are looking for a wild and Welsh day out I truly recommend you take a visit to the Welsh Zoo!

A lovely Crafternoon with Hillarys Blinds

A few weeks ago I was invited to spend and afternoon of crafting with Hillarys Blinds to showcase what other wonderful things can be made with their fabrics, apart from window dressings of course!

The event was being held in Chapter Arts in Cardiff. I managed to get there in record time even though I went round in circles trying to find the carpark, which I knew existed, but just couldn’t see but after turning right instead of left after my fourth trip around the block I finally found it! After worrying about getting lost and being late I was there in record time and was early! The trip home is a slightly different story but I’ll save that one for later.

Now, it’s no secret that I love arts and crafts. Give me a paintbrush and I’m truly in my element. But sewing?

Well, lets just say sewing doesn’t really like me.

I think to date I have managed to kill two sewing machines. Literally smoking and needing new parts killed. But I can hand stitch.

I say hand stitch…

There probably isn’t an actual name for the stitches that I do but they work and hold things together so I’m not going to knock it!

But when I walked into that room I have to admit I was relieved to not see a sewing machine in sight. Instead there were tables filled with pincushions, as well as one that resembled a haberdashers window display with buttons and ribbons galore along with pre-cut fabrics and a gluegun!

First up we made a lovely book cover, which only involved four tiny bits of stitching, which I managed to do without too much trouble. We then got to embellish it however we wanted. I opted for a simple yet effective wrap around design.

Our second craft was a 3D bird. This one had much more sewing and I’m afraid I didn’t get time to sew up the tail as I was so slow. He also has a bit of a wonky beak, but I’m quite proud of him anyway!

All in all it was a wonderful day and Hillarys, along with the lovely ladies from ‘The Crafty Hen’ also ran this workshop in Glasgow, Newcastle and Birmigham so in all 81 bloggers got to experience the fun too. Why not search #HillarysCrafternoon on twitter to read some other experiences?

Now I promised to tell you of my journey home! In all, what should have been a 40 minute journey took me two hours and a bathroom break in McDonalds. It all started with one wrong turn which lead to another and another. Then, when I thought I was finally heading to the motorway, I realised I was going toward Newport, the exact opposite of where I was supposed to be going!

Cue even more wrong turns and driving past Cardiff Castle three times which finally, after over an hour actually managed to get me OUT of Cardiff AND on the right way home. I think I may need to invest in a Sat Nav!

Are you a perfectly capable stitcher, or are you more of a have a go sewer like I am?

How to Make a Handprint Flower Bouquet for Mother’s Day

These Handprint flowers would make the perfect gift for Mother’s Day, birthdays or simply just to brighten up your day! The fact that they are so simple to make is just a bonus!

What you need:

Paint and brush
coloured Paper
drinking straws
sticky tape
scissors
pot/vase

Step one

Take a willing small child and help them to paint their hands and make handprints. You can take a few approaches to this using a paintbrush to paint the hand, dip the hand into a big blob of paint or squirt a little paint straight into the hand and get them to squish it around.

Once you have managed to get your child to cooperate for a few minutes and you have some nice handprints feel free to let them have some fun with the paint.

Step 2

When your handprints are dry, collect together the rest of your items:

Step 3

Cut out your handprints. To make them sturdy I don’t cut around each finger individually, I have some of these flowers that are over 12 years old and are still looking as good as new! But feel free to cut them out as you wish.

step 4

Use the sticky tape to stick a handprint to each drinking straw:

Step 6

Place your flowers into a pot or vase and enjoy!

I got this small vase in Ikea for something silly like £1. I love the fact that it looks like a milk bottle! It’s a little too tall for the drinking straws so I pushed some spotty plastic inside to give them something to sit on. You could just as easily use pebbles or tissue paper. I then added this little ribbon to pretty it up even more.

I hope you enjoy your handprint flowers for many years to come! You could even add to them each year as you child grows 🙂

Britmums Carnival

I’m really pleased to be hosting this edition of the Britmums Carnival. I have loads of great posts to share with you from the last four weeks, some I’m very familiar with and others that are brand spanking new to me too. To read the post yourself just click on the name of each blog.

First up we have Sarah, who blogs over at Run, jump, Scrap! Sarah has been contemplating whether, now that she’s 30, there is anything she needs to change about herself. Personally I think if you do something that makes you happy, be that shopping in New Look, loving One Direction or not chopping off your long flowing locks. Then keep at it. I often wonder if I need to start ‘dressing my age’ but then I stick my jeans, tshirt and hoodie on and forget all about it!

This takes me directly on a post over at Tiny Footsteps. Jenna writes about finding all the things that make her happy with the help of her Happiness Jar. I love this idea and really should try it myself. My favourite quote from this post is:

I can stop wasting my time trying to do all of the things that I think should make me happy but don’t.
I will not follow the crowd.

I will value highly the things that I find fun and make me happy.

There seems to be a lot of bloggers evaluating their lives this month as Katy, from What Katy Said, has also been thinking about not worrying about what everyone else seems to have in life and being grateful for, and making the most out of, what you do have! She also makes a valid point that people often only share the best bits on social media. But honestly? I think all these picture perfect images on Instagram and Pinterest will usually have a pile of stinky socks about a foot to the left and all the dirty washing piled up in the sink behind the camera!

Sometimes there are days when our stress levels are through the roof and we feel like nothing is ever going to help us stay cool calm and collected when the kids start pushing your buttons. Julia, who blogs over at Rainbeaubelle, has had a tough time for a while, with an extremely poorly husband and more than her fair share of hospital visits under her belt. She has made a list of tips she’s learnt recently to help try and keep the kids feeling loved and appreciated and also to keep herself calm. I think she deserves a medal for keeping it all together and not just curling up in the corner and crying xxx

Jess, from Mummy of Boy Girl Twins has also shared some of her top tips. Blogging can be a very lonely past time and many people struggle to get out there and get the posts that they worked hard on the publicity they deserve. Jess’s post will show you how to increase your confidence in your own blogging abilities.

Some families have been braving the cold and wet and getting the kids out and about. Karen, who blogs at Mini Travellers took her three to see the Octanauts live. Although not the cheapest day out it seems they were were totally captivated by having life size octanauts on stage! I think there may have been a slightly tearful moment with an erupting volcan0, but luckily everything turned out okay.

Another family off gallivanting was Sarah’s, from Extraordinary Chaos. They were lucky to get a tour of Leeds and Sarah has put together a list of 10 things to do in the city when you have kids. I think mine would love the Thakray Medical Museum the most, although Lee ‘doesn’t do gory’ so he may need to stay outside!

Among other great (and slightly warmer) activities, Rachel from Life of My Family and Me, really did brave the winter weather and went to Chessington World of Adventures. At least the cold weather meant that it was quiet and they got to watch the sea lions display.

One blogger who will be jetting off to warmer climates pretty soon is Stephanie who blogs over at Diary of a Midlife Mummy. She’s written about all the things she’s looking forward to in 2015. Her family will be doing lot’s of travelling but I am extremely envious of her jetting off to South Africa next month and am hoping she will send some sun and warm back this way.

I love reading a really funny blog post and Kat, who blogs over at Beautwins wrote a hilarious one that also had lot’s of mums nodding their heads in agreement. It is a list of all the things that happens when you enter the motherhood club. I’m always doing number 5 and 6, oh and 7. Actually it ALL applies, have a read and you’ll see what I mean!

Another one that had me giggling was Karen’s ‘Whats in my Handbag’ post. I think the title ‘Handbag Horror’ says it all really. I have visions of her walking round with pockets full of seedlings, you’ll have to read the post to find out what I’m on about, Karen blogs over at Stopping at Two.

One of the things us mothers seem to do a lot of is crafts, especially when you have preschoolers in the house. It’s quite hard to keep babies happy and occupied while you are helping create masterpieces or bake cookies but Amy from Everything Mummy has come up with an ingenious solution using two simple ingredients to make baby safe playdough! At last Lottie is happy creating her own, safe, messes.

Of course when your preschooler grows up into a fully fledged ‘schooler’ there are still plenty of activities to do at home that are not only a lot of fun but offer some educational value too. Amelia from The Appletree has shared with us a list of her top ten educational activities. Number 10 would have to be my favourite!

One little school girl who should be very proud of herself is Lili. Heledd, from Running in Lavender, has one very excited little girl to FINALLY get start of the week for ‘doing good reading’! She even got to bring home the class bear and fill in his diary with all their adventures.

And we have come full circle and are back to the wonderful emotion that is happiness.

Katie of Life on Vista is sharing a lovely selection of photos of things that have made her happy this week. Number 4 made me giggle but it also makes me extremely happy to know that I personally got to share in numbers 6, 7 and 8!

Our final link belongs to the lovely Mrs H from Mrs H’s Favourite Things. Right back on the first of the month she wrote this post about her happy days. Just for a heads up they are filled with welly boots, muddy puddles and a date night out with the hubby. Sounds like a great week to me, although I’m not sure about the ‘blackout night’!

What have you been up to this month?

Half term Fun with Flora

As anybody with a school aged child will know, this week has been half term. Due to the poor weather (it is February after all) my house usually contains four grumpy kids who are forever getting under each others feet and can’t possibly find anything exciting to do amongst the billion games, toys and electronic devices that we have packed into our tiny house!

So a few weeks ago I was quite pleased to be offered the chance to review a copy of Flora’s Family Fun Guide. This book has been put together to give families a little inspiration to keep occupied at home during the holidays when going out isn’t feasable. We were sent a fantastic ‘Boredom Busting Basket’ filled with lot’s of crafty bits, more than enough for three activities, along with all the ingredients we needed to make two of the recipes from the guide.

It was lovely to wake up on Monday morning knowing that we had at least one thing to do that day that didn’t involve getting wet in the rain, or lots of preparation, as all the activities in the Family Fun Guide are quick and easy to set up and mostly contain items that you have in your cupboards already.

We started by colouring the pasta shells as we knew these would more than likely take overnight to dry. Who knew that covering your pasta with hand sanitizer gel would help the food colouring distribute more evenly? I’m not sure if we did something wrong but the red worked really well, but the blue and green not so much.

After laying them to dry on the windowsill we got on with our main activity, making sock puppets! Now most of these activities I would say are probably aimed more at 3-10 year olds maybe? But I even got some teens involved in this one. We now have a fantastic little sock puppet family lodging in our house!

Tuesday I didn’t have many kids here at all so O and I had a great time lacing the pasta gems onto string, he knew what he needed to do, but couldn’t quite get it. A great activity to help develop fine motor skills in toddlers this one!

Wednesday, again no big kids as they were off gallivanting so following the guides advice we adapted one of the crafts from making a crocodile out of egg boxes, to making a caterpillar. All you need is to cut off 3 of the egg cups, paint and add a face, we used buttons, and something for a mouth. He needed a little help with the face, but had a fantastic time painting everything green!

On Thursday E&Ff took charge of the first baking activity, with a little ‘help’ from O. These Cinnamon and Raisin Cookies were very simple to make, although I do have to admit we omitted the cinnamon as it makes my lips burn and nobody else likes it. I did want the cookies to be eaten after all!

Friday, the last official day of half term, was a slightly manic day in the Mami2Five household so although we managed to create these lovely moist cakes, there were no other pictures I’m afraid 🙁

This morning the eldest four trudged off to school in the snow and hail and I got to have a nice sit down after our very busy week. Well, for five minutes, until O brought me the bottle of glue and a handful of sequins that is!

Did you get up to anything exciting during the half term holidays?