4 Years or 48 Months?

The BIG day has arrived. Today my baby turns 4!!!! It sounds so BIG, doesn't it? Last week I was talking with a friend of mine who also happens to be one of the staff members at my son's kindy (preschool) and she was sharing about a conference she went to which taught them to remember that the 4 year olds in their care were just 48 months old. When you put it like that, it doesn't really sound so old after all does it? I think it was just what I needed to hear at the time. :-)

My boy is SO proud of how big he is! It really is very sweet.

This year Lightning McQueen is featuring very heavily. For those of you not familiar with Lightning McQueen, he is a red racecar and the lead character in the movie "Cars". I LOVE the storyline as he learns what it truly means to be a friend and to have friends. And that "winning isn't everything".

We gave him a Lightning McQueen beach towel and wallet (he FINALLY has his own wallet!!!! A fact he is very proud of. We tend to start teaching money management to our children from 4 years onwards - that's probably a subject for another post). We also gave him a Leapster that included a Lightning McQueen game. Being the youngest, he is being introduced to computer games a little younger than the other two. DD now has a gameboy and our other DS has a Nintendo DS so this is TJ's very own "gameboy". They work out fantastic for travelling in the car - we drive quite a few km's a week living so far from everything.

His grandparents gave him his very own tool set (with REAL tools) - it came with a hat, goggles and toolbelt and he is ecstatic. So in many ways turning 4 has become a significant milestone for him becoming a "big boy".

On Monday he's having a few little friends over for a "Cars" Birthday party. To the left is a copy of the invitation we used as a base for our invitations. Gotta love the internet for being able to find HEAPS of great party ideas. :-) The children who have been invited are all quite EXCITED at the thought of a "Lightning McQueen" party. :-)





The plan is for each child to make their very own Lightning McQueen car out of a cardboard box (the kind you stand inside of). I've printed off some Lightning McQueen faces to stick to the front of the box and there's a red piece of paper with a "95" on it to go on the sides. Then of course the paper plate wheels and steering wheel. DH is going to mark out a track on the back lawn so they can "drive" around it

I think it'll be lots of fun. The cardboard cars will take care of most of the activity for the morning and also become part of the "take home" gift for each child. I have bought "Cars" party bags as well and in them will go a few lollies, a small packet of chips and a couple of "cars" colouring sheets I printed off the internet.

I'm hoping that by the time they arrive and settle in, make their car and race around in their car, there won't be a need for too much other organised activity. We also have a blow up tunnel type thing my parents gave our children for Christmas which DH will set up and the sand-pit. I do have some blow up egg and spoons they can play with and if need be we'll do an egg and spoon race or two and play a few games like Duck, Duck, Goose. I find the whole "winning/losing" issue with party games and prizes a hard one at this age so I simply solve that dilemma by avoiding those kinds of games.

We have a little boy coming who is allergic to eggs, milk, nuts and a few other things so I've worked on party food that he can have (usually his mum brings food for him but they're close friends and it'll be nice for him to be able to come to a party and just be "one of the kids" instead of being different). I feel very honoured (and a tad nervous) that I am one of the few people she will trust with the life of her child. His first sleep-over away from home was here.

Party Food will be:

* fruit platter
* popcorn with icing sugar
* iced biscuits with lolly faces (I know which biscuits he can have)
* plain potato chips (he can have Home Brand salt & vinegar but DH accidentally ate them)
* toobs
* pretzels
* jelly cups with jelly frogs in them (if I get around to making them lol)
* cordial (plus tea & coffee for the mums)

He can also have my Chocolate Fudge Cake so I'll make that for the birthday cake. I prefer to keep things pretty simple all up. There's nothing worse than spending hours making party food only to end up throwing a heap in the rubbish.

Today I have to make 2 birthday cakes. One for his family birthday tea tonight and one ready for the party on Monday. I'm planning on making a number 4 cake for tonight. The cake for the party is pretty simple (photo's Monday night hopefully). I've bought a toy Lightning McQueen to go on it rather than attempt to actually make and ice a Lightning McQueen (like I said, I like simple :-) ).

I don't think it takes too much to put on a simple little kids party that can be lots of fun without being TOO much work. If I make things too complicated for myself I tend not to want to go through all of that again. LOL. This way, we all have fun and I don't end up in a heap. :-) Having it during the school day means I only have the 6 kids who are coming plus 5 mums (2 kids are siblings) and DS and myself to cater for.

Our family tradition is to have a kind of party tea on the day of each child's birthday. Generally I let the kids choose what meal they'd like and so far they've always chosen a "party tea". LOL. Just like their mother really - that's what I used to ask my Grandmother to do when she would do a special birthday tea for my birthday. :-) So naturally, I'm happy to oblige. No party pies this time though (I don't have any at the moment!!!). But we will have "little boys" (cocktail sausages), fairy bread (an absolute must), cheese & bacon fingers (some people call them "toasties"), potato chips, salad platter and slices of watermelon. I've also bought some brandy snaps and cream as a bit of a treat. And of course, the birthday cake. I *might* make a few mini quiches if I get really energetic today while the oven is on - we'll see.

I think I'd best go write myself a "what needs doing when" list. More details and photo's will follow over the next couple of days. :-)

Glass Deco

Over the weekend as part of our "gradual" Christmas decorating, the kids and I made some Christmas stained glass window pictures with a Glass Deco kit I ordered through one of our preschools fundraising toy catalogues. On Saturday the kids had a great time making these and then on Sunday they were most excited as I peeled each one off and stuck them on our cupboard doors in the kitchen.

This first picture is the one done by my not quite 10-year old son. Each of them chose their own picture from those I had found and printed off.

DD chose an angel. No surprises there! :-) (She gets to dress up as an angel twice in Christmas performances this year. Once for school and once for Sunday School. She is very excited about that.)

The black outlines are done first. I did them throughout the week in preparation as they're quite fiddly to do. This meant that on Saturday the kids were able to fill in the sections with whatever colours they liked. The sparkly sections are done using a Glass Deco confetti kit (so the glitter is already in the paint). I think you can get glitter ones in some stores too but this catalogue only had the plain colours and the confetti.


This tree is my "turning 4 this Saturday" little mans efforts. How cute is it? :-) I had to stop myself from encouraging him to use colours that I thought would be best. He needs to be able to express himself in whatever way he likes. He is so proud of this and points it out every day.

These are really designed to go onto glass - windows, doors, jars etc but they stick to any surface that is reasonably smooth. Stuck to my kitchen cupboard doors (the floor to ceiling ones) they sure do make my kitchen look festive.

I love things that the kids can do instead of using only store bought decorations. At the moment I am making some different pictures to add to jars for some of my homemade Christmas gifts. I'm hoping to have enough paint left that the children can make another one each for us to add to our glass back door.

There are some great Christmas colouring pages available all over the internet. I found these particular pictures here . I'm planning to print off some more colouring pages for them to colour in when school lets out for the year. Only two weeks to go now!! (my children have tommorow off so today is the end of week 7 here). They have a little over a week between school breaking up and Christmas Day so it'll be helpful to have a few fun "Christmassy" type activities for them to do. :-)

Science At Home

I like to use Epsom Salts in the bath when I have one. Apart from being good for your skin, you absorb the Magnesium and Sulphate through the skin. I seem to need more magnesium than I'm getting from my diet so it seems like a nice simple way to get it into my system. The sulphate is supposed to help with ridding the system of toxins. I'm no expert when it comes to this kind of thing but I figure anything that *might* help without a risk of being harmful is worth a go. I also tend to chuck it in the kids bath. They all suffer from dry skin (was excema when they were younger but has improved to the level of dry skin) and the Epsom Salts in the bath seems to really help with that.

I'd heard the cheapest place to buy Epsom Salts was a horse supply place so when I had the chance of being near one, we went in to ask about them. I thought I was doing the right thing asking for Magnesium Sulphate when I went in to this place that hardly looked like a shop at all (and was behind a scrap yard of all places!). All I got was a blank look from the guy behind the counter. Eventually he asked me if it was the same as Epsom Salts. LOL. Next time I'll just ask for Epsom Salts. Anyway, it cost me $2.50 kg. Last time I purchased a 1kg box from Woolworths it cost me $5.71 so it's quite a significant savings.

Are you wondering how all this relates to Science at Home yet? LOL. I'm getting there. On Sunday I had a bath using these Epsom Salts. I was in a lot of pain and couldn't keep painkillers down so I figured a soak in the tub might help - as well as help with not getting dehydrated. Because I had a 5kg bag of Epsom Salts I decanted some into a glass jar.

Yesterday when DS got home from school, he asked me what the white stuff in the jar was. Not expecting it to mean anything to him, I told him that it was Epsom Salts. Turns out he DOES know about Epsom Salts. I think this 9 year old knows a LOT of stuff that I have no idea he knows.

This term he's been involved in a program called "Challenge". It's designed for kids who find regular work reasonably easy and challenges them in other ways. So far I've been really impressed with the program (it has a fantastic teacher running it who has a gifted child of her own so she seems to really understand them). And DS seems to really love it.

Now he's quite excited to discover that we have Epsom Salts at home and wants to show me an experiment they did with an egg at school. You add Epsom Salts to the water and a fresh egg that sinks to the bottom, will float instead. I asked him if he knew why that was. He said it was to do with hard vs soft water. Adding the Epsom Salts to the water makes it harder and therefore stronger and able to hold the egg up. So there you have it - I learnt something new. My understanding of hard water is limited to how it affects how much washing powder you need to use! LOL. If you live in an area where there are a lot of minerals in the water, you need to use more washing powder to get the same results. If you use something like rainwater which is very low in minerals, you need to use less washing powder. So I guess with Magnesium being a mineral (I have no idea about the sulphate part), by adding it to rainwater, you do indeed make the water "harder". What I didn't know was that "hard" water means it is stronger.

It's nice to know he's having fun and learning some new things at school. Next he wants to show me how putting an egg into vinegar with make the shell go soft. Should be interesting.

School Holidays

Well today is the first day of our mid year School Holidays and the kids are fighting like cat and dog. *sigh* I know they'll settle down once they get used to being home (and once the 3 year old adjusts to having his "turf" invaded). At least I *hope* things settle down.

I'm trying really hard to be proactive rather than reactive but it's not always easy. I remember in the past people talking about all the things they planned to do with their kids in the holidays and wondering when their kids got to have a break. I think though, as kids get older, they get more and more *used* to being entertained and the holidays can tend to drag on.

One thing I do want is for my kids to look back on their school holidays as a positive time.

So in an effort to be "proactive" I have posted a list of reminders for the school holidays on the fridge. Here's a copy of it:

JULY SCHOOL HOLIDAYS

Everyone would like to have an enjoyable school holiday, so here are some things to remember:

• Speak nicely to one another. Think about how your voice may sound.

• Be tolerant

• Respect one another’s need for space

• Get one activity out at a time. When you move onto something else, pack away what you’ve gotten out so that we don’t have a BIG job to do at the end of the day.

• It’s cold and wet a lot at the moment so keep your eyes open for opportunities to go outside (when it’s sunny and not too cold) as there may not be many – and it’s good to get some fresh air when you can.

• You can watch TV until 10am and after 4pm but everything MUST be packed up before the TV goes on in the afternoons. Other times will be by negotiation and dependent on the weather.

• Remember to eat breakfast!

I've also posted a list of ideas for snacks. I just hate it when the kids are constantly asking what they can have to eat. Here's the list I came up with so far:

JULY SCHOOL HOLIDAYS – FOOD

If you’re hungry and would like a snack, the best thing to do is decide on what you’d like to eat before asking mum or dad if you can have it. So instead of coming and saying “can I have something to eat”, you come and ask “can I please have a biscuit” (this is just an example).

Snack Ideas:

• Fruit (need to have piece of fruit in between other snacks)
• Toast
• Biscuits
• Popcorn
• Baked goods (eg bun, cake or whatever we have made)
• Sultanas
• Yoghurt
• Cheese


I've also posted a list of *special* activities for each day. I have a few things in the cupboard that are only gotten out during times like school holidays. The kids have access to all their toys plus some writing/drawing things - but these are little extras that they don't have regular access to.

So far we have:

* Hama Beads - these are a great low mess craft activity. Small plastic beads are put onto a peg type board and when the design is complete - you iron them so that the beads fuse together.

* Special Craft Box - with pipe cleaners, pom poms, googly eyes, popsticks and all kinds of things for making.

* Special Textas - magic markers, erasable textas, blendy pens, stampers. Over time we've collected some different kinds of textas that are great for rainy days or a school holiday treat.

* Card making - if we have a birthday or special occasion coming up.

* Craft Kits from Cheap as Chips. I have some that you make up little creatures with and some that are a sewing activity to make a puppet.

* Bubbles - for outside play. We seem to have collected all kinds of different bubble blowers. Straws make great bubble blowers too.

* Cooking - a great one for entertainment and also to provide those much needed snacks that the kids are constantly looking for during the holidays.

* DVD day - where the kids are allowed to watch DVD's all day (instead of being restricted to certain times of TV watching).

For each of our home days, I've allocated just 1 special activity for the day. Most of the day the kids fill in their own time. But by having 1 special activity to look forward to each day, I'm hoping that my children will look back on their school holidays with good memories.

Tomorrow we're having an outing to town to do the grocery shopping. While we're there we'll visit the library and have a special lunch at the bakery. I don't find it possible (or even necessary) to go out each and every day but an outing every now and then helps break things up a bit.

What ways do you tackle the school holidays and what types of things do your kids enjoy doing? I always enjoy hearing new ideas and what other people are doing.