Flashback Friday: Spooky Bangs!

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This week's theme for Flashback Friday is Hallowe'en, however I'm bending the rules slightly and including Bonfire Night as well.

I relish any opportunity to dress The Boy up, but as he gets older and develops his own personality, I'm not particularly welcomed with open arms when I wave a cutesy costume at him.

However when he was 18 months old, that was a completely different matter!

I'm hoping to get The Gruffalo costume on him at Christmas time!

This weekend we're off to the annual Sparks In The Park in the ground of Cardiff Castle. Last year we left it to late to gain access but were directed to an excellent spot by the university building which would give a great view. However, it's not the same if you're not in with the thousands of people who are all freezing and queueing for the portaloos together, so I've prebought our tickets.

Our first time at a firework display was two years ago, and The Boy was way more interested in the falling leaves and trying to glue them back on to the trees, than any shooty-whizzy-swirly-flashes in the sky.

I look at these pictures and he looks so tiny and babylike, yet it seems like yesterday!

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Linked up to Flashback Friday at Mummy Mishaps and Real Housewife of Suffolk County

Home-Made Advent Calendar

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I know it's only the 1st of November, but in about three weeks time you'll be grateful that I started these posts early.

Advent: (n) The coming or arrival, especially of something extremely important.

For Christians, Advent starts on the fourth Sunday before Christmas Day where a candle on an Advent wreath is lit for each week leading up to the celebration of the birth of Jesus.

For most families nowadays, the word 'advent' used around the festive season conjures up chocolate calendars printed with their youngster's favourite television character, some may have a gorgeous 'traditional-style' wooden tree with 24 drawers in, allowing it to be reused each year. And yes, I said '24' because 'advent' means the 'approach of'. It's a way of marking the coming of Christmas Day, and as such should not have a 25th window. This practise of counting down each day was started by German Lutherans at the beginning of the 19th century. Not such a new tradition hey?

We've been making our own simple Advent calendar to use in a few weeks time when December starts.

You'll need:

  • coloured foam or card numbers
  • 24 boxes*
  • coloured, shredded tissue paper
  • ribbon*
  • 24 'treats'
  • cardboard
  • glue
  • gold paint
  • sequins*
  • scissors
  • paintbrush

Christmas crafts

Set out the numbers into a numberline up to 24.

Christmas crafts

Assemble the boxes.

Christmas crafts

Stick on the numbers to the front of the box.

christmas crafts

Place the shredded tissue paper and a treat inside each bag. (I've used a mixture of Christmas tree decorations and chocolate coins). Tie the handles together with a length of ribbon, long enough to tie off the hanging circles (30cm).

christmas crafts

Draw four circles with an inner circle in them, creating a hoop shape. Cut them out and stick two together. Once dried, paint both sides with gold and stick gold and silver sequins on.

Tie four lengths of ribbon to the first hoop. Cut four double length strips of ribbon and tie them to the second hoop. Gather all of the eight ends together and tie into a knot. This forms the loop to hang the calendar from. From the first hoop, suspend twelve of the boxes and from the second tie the other twelve. If you arrange this in a random order then it makes it more of a challenge to find the numbers.

christmas crafts

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'Counting Down To Christmas' is a craft bloggers link-up held each week in the eight weeks preceeding the big day itself. Each week we will be posting a different Christmas craft activity.

This week, the co-hosts are Rainy Day Mum ~ Mummy Mummy Mum! ~ Life at the Zoo ~ Here Come the Girls ~ The Fairy and The Frog ~ Jennifer's Little World ~ Playful Learners ~ Making Boys Men.

Power Rangers: Samurai (Review)

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My six year old nephew has gone all retro in his toy tastes and adores the revival of the Power Rangers toys that dominated the playground when I was a child.

We were sent a few of the products for him to try:

Boy Cousin loved the poseable and moveable functions of the Pink Super Samurai Power Ranger action figure, and it fitted brilliantly onto the disc cycle he was also sent to review. The Samurai minifigures had no moving parts, but the added bonus that that can be popped into his pocket for playing with at any time.

He was also sent the Disc Cycle to test and thought this was brilliant, it really made role-play a lot easier and meant it wasn't dominated by sparring between the characters.

All the Power Rangers: Samurai toys had a big thumbs up from him and are very reasonably priced, making them ideal stocking fillers. The only criticism was my from my sister, that the minifigures smelt quite rubbery.

We were sent these products for the purpose of this review. All opinions are honest and unbiased.

Petite Harumika

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I may be a mummy to a boy but I still know what's 'big' in the world of girls' toys thanks to my two nieces, one of whom is obsessed with Harumika, the 'Girl's World' of the 21st century but with added fashion designer power.

We were sent one of the Petite Harumika Romantic mannequins for her to review.

Designed to be clipped onto a key-chain, pencil case or bag, this miniatureHarumika measures in at 7cm tall and comes with a stylus tool, one piece of pretty material, four accents and a sheet of gem stickers for decoration. It's just the thing to play with in a spare five or ten minutes and can easily slip into any young lady's bag.

I'm impressed with how such a simple toy allows for such great fun. My niece is nine and reached that age where she's not a child anymore but also not a teenager; it's difficult for girls of this age nowadays. The Harumika toys allow her to explore the concept of fashion and being a teenager while still actually playing with dolls. Thumbs up from me and from her. The only criticism she had is that it would have been helpful if there had been a little bag to keep all the bits in so they don't get lost or dirty.

The Petite Harumika range is available from most high-street toy retailers and online. It's priced at £7.99 RRP.

I was sent this for the purpose of this review, our opinions are honest and unbiased.

 

Lego Heads (Review)

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A few months ago, The Boy received his first batch of Lego to play with and was quite enthusiastic about it. Admittedly he's still quite young for proper-sized Lego at the moment, but it's actually the first time he seems to have shown an interest in construction; conventional toddler building blocks did nothing for him at all.

However, last week we were sent some amazing giant Lego storage solutions which have been designed and created by Room Copenhagen (under license from Lego). They have developed a range of giant Lego head tubs and storage blocks to save mums and dads the world over from suffering 'stepping-on-Lego-bricks-with-bare-feet-itis' (a well known condition affecting parents).

To celebrate Hallowe'en, The Boy was sent the small Pumpkin head and Skeleton head, and a black storage box.

Lego storage

As you can see, one of the best features of them is that they actually stack on top of each other just like the 'real' Lego blocks. The Boy was completely enamoured with the storage heads and block, and has put all of his Lego into the black box with the heads on top.

The problem is, he doesn't have very much Lego at the moment…

Lego storage

… I'm sure that will change in time, and the box will be overflowing!

We were sent these products for the purpose of this post. My opinion is honest and unbiased.

Monday 29th October 2012 – 'Cocoon' (303/366)

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Last night we put a single duvet onto The Boy's bed with a normal width pillow, as opposed to a cotbed duvet and pillow. It meant we were able to tuck him in all the way around in order to prevent movement and try and keep him warmer (he's been waking up at silly o'clock for the past fortnight, which I've decided must be because he's cold in the middle of the night). He barely moved all night and was still tucked up in the morning.

Country Kids: St. Fagan's Natural History Museum

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In the north-west corner of Cardiff there is a (not so little) treasure. Up until recently, we haven't been able to partake of its resources because The Boy has been a little bit too young, but now that he's becoming more and more curious it's ideal.

St. Fagan's Natural History Museum is an outdoor museum that houses a multitude of buildings from different times throughout history. It's also set in beautiful woodland with lots of areas to explore and a farmhouse with some animals in the yard. This was originally why we went, but we gained so much more! (We actually popped in on Saturday for an hour before closing, and decided to go back on Sunday as there was so much more to see. As it's free entry, it's a good day out)

It's called a museum but it's so much more than that. A museum is not traditionally somewhere children can immerse themselves in the past by being in the place, but at St. Fagan's that possible because of the reconstructed buildings. The newest addition is St. Teilo's church which was originally thought to be five hundred years old (until they found paintings in it that were three hundred years older than they first thought), and my favourite is the Rhyd-y-Car Ironworkers' houses, which is a row of six terraced houses and gardens, each decorated as they would have been at various points from 1805 to 1985. It makes Mr. TBaM and me chuckle to see the huge video players from our childhood.

The Rhyd-y-car houses were one of the things that The Boy found most interesting, the houses of 1955 (when nanny was a little girl) and 1985  had recognisable features to him: Did nanny have those lights?Is that what a tv was like when you were little mummy? It was an excellent way to introduce him to the concept of history in a way that he can equate to as most of the time he has difficulty remembering what he had for lunch! He was horrified at the concept of outdoor toilets!

We had great fun pretending to be chickens in the cockpit (we glossed over what the chickens would have been doing there), buying bread from the old bakery using flour ground on site, sitting in a Celtic roundhouse and pointing out he wouldn't like to live there because 'it's silly!' (which we went onto discuss meant different), and exploring the woods. The real gem was finding out there was a small, hundred year old, vintage, children's funfair there: his first go on the swingseats!

As it's a museum it's free, although parking is £3.50 a time. I actually bought a year parking permit for £17.50 because I can see us going there lots of times over the forthcoming year to explore the many different buildings, take part in the arts and crafts at different celebrations, explore the woodland, or just for a picnic and a play in the excellent playpark there.

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Linking this up to the fantastic linky 'Country Kids' over at Coombe Mill. Fiona does an excellent job of promoting and encouraging us to get outside and play with our children, and her linky is one year old this week!

coombe mill

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