Musical Investigation

How do I find a few minutes to put the dishes away without a ten-month-old climbing all over the dishwasher? By pushing his high chair up to the piano, that's how. I am delighted to see this little personality blossom. Not only does he enjoy hearing Daddy singing lullabies and listening to music but he likes to make it too. The first thing he will do when picking up an object is check out what sound it makes. Then he will shake it to his little heart's content. If it doesn't make a noise? Well, he can always take his new found toy over to the heater which makes a very loud noise and bang it on that. And then there's the piano- Mummy's lifesaver when I need him off the floor for a little while.

Throwing a Party for a 3 year old?... Here's what we did.

With 2 weeks until Miss 3's birthday, I still didn't know how we were going to celebrate. I looked out onto our very ordinary back yard and wished there wasn't a big hills hoist clothesline looming right in the middle of it. That's when I realised that I needed to work with what we had instead of fighting against it and things couldn't have turned out better. 

I scoured the local op-shops for yellow and pink vintage sheets. I found 5 and borrowed another 5 from my sister-in-law Rebekah. The morning of the party, Dean and I pegged the line to the ground and tied sheets around three sides of the clothesline creating walls. We also threw sheets over the top and secured everything with pegs. We finished it with a bunting made by Rebekah from Just For Daisy, and voila, we had a party tent!

Instead of organising party games, I thought it would be best to set up several 'invitations to play'. The first was the tent with foam blocks, which the kids used for building and seating. The second was a hatstand and mirror ready for the girls to choose their own hat and jewelry. I spent several evenings making felt flowers to decorate the hats which doubled as party favours.

And lastly, we placed several cardboard boxed around the back yard. What child doesn't like playing with a box?

When posting the invitation we asked everyone to wear their finest pink and yellow outfit, this way, our guest could act as decorations (and they did a great job!). I loved the way the photos of my nieces rainbow party turned out thanks to colourful clothing and wanted the same effect.  I think we'll have a colour theme for every party we have from now on.

We decorated with flowers and butterflies wherever possible. I made flower-shaped food and butterfly straws using this Martha Stewart template.

I also made my very first birthday cake. In the past I've only made cupcakes but Miss 3 was insistent on a BIG butterfly cake. I did cheat though and used a packet mix. I didn't want to worry about baking something complicated on top of everything else. It got a little damaged before I took the photo but I was still happy with it for a first attempt.

The most important thing I try to remember when organising a party is to plan it around the child and their interests. Miss 3 is very girly and her favorite colours are pink and yellow, hence the flowers, butterflies and colour scheme. She is also quite sensitive and doesn't like crowds so we only invited 4 friends. Even this amount of people was a bit overwhelming for her. It didn't help that she was still tired from her actual birthday the day before. Towards the end of the party it was clearly getting to be all too much for her so we abandoned our plan to keep everything outside and the girls went to Miss 3's room where they huddled together and listened to my mum read stories. The tears subsided and she played happily for the rest of the day.

How We Try to Make Birthdays Special - I have a Three Year Old!

In our house birthdays, begin as most days do- with family cuddles in bed.
We open presents in bed and often there is a birthday hat. This year I decorated 8 of these hats for Miss 3's party. I didn't get a photo of her wearing her hat that morning and unfortunately by the time the party came around the next day she was over it and I didn't force the issue.  I'm not sure why I feel it is necessary to make birthday hats but it might have something to do with the hats my mum made for my 6th birthday party, 22 years ago, pictured below.

The birthday girl/boy always gets to choose what we eat. In this case, we had blueberry pikelets for breakfast, peanut butter sandwiches for lunch and pizza for dinner.

We try to give secondhand or home made gifts when we can. This year I restored an old doll house and it didn't turn out too bad (more on that in another post).  Coincidently, it matched a second hand dress we picked up a few days earlier. We all got dressed up on her birthday so she wouldn't forget it was a special day, even when we were doing mundane chores and running errands. We did have a nice picnic in the park and afternoon tea at Grandma's to make things a little more exciting too.

We started a new tradition this year, a birthday interview! This was so much fun and I can't wait to read Miss 3's words in years to come. I'll probably make a birthday scrapbook at some point. Here are the questions we asked and her answers.

1. What is your favorite colour? Pink.
2. What is your favorite food? Yellow food.
3. What is your favorite TV show? Upsy Daisy.
4. What is your favorite song? Incy Wincy Spider.
5. What is your favorite book? Spot.
6. Who is/are your best friend/s? Krystle and Katie.
7. What do you love most about yourself? Painting.
8. What do you love most about our family? Priya and Digby and you and me and Mummy and Daddy.
9. What do you want to be when you grow up? A circus. I want to work at a circus when I grow up and give people stickers.
10. What is one hard thing that you have done? Eat all my pizza.
11. How old are you? Big.
12. What is your favorite thing to do? Play with boxes... Write that down, write boxes down.
13. What do you love most about your brother? Because he loves me.
14. What is something new you would love to learn to do? Eat tomato sauce.
15. What is your favorite thing to play with? Party hats.
16. What makes you happy? Playing.
17. What makes you cry? Hitting ourselves.
18. What is the best thing about being 3? Making me happy.
19. What are you really good at? Eating.
20. What do you need to practice more? Opening the lock on the door.

We ended the day with a special treat. This is something that was inspired by posts I found through Pinterest and couldn't wait to try! I saw glow sticks in balloons over at Play At Home Mom and a birthday-themed sensory bath at Growing a Jeweled Rose.  We put glow sticks in balloons and she had a bath in the dark with both parents supervising very closely. It didn't photograph well but it was very cool. The perfect end to a memorable day.

We are always on the lookout for new traditions to adopt in our family so I'd love to hear what you all do to make birthdays special. I'm sure there are some great ideas out there!

Fun With Sheets on the Washing Line

Sometimes it's the simple things that kids enjoy the most. We have had some fabulous autumn weather of late and I have taken the opportunity to get LOTS of washing done. The kids have enjoyed spending extra time in the backyard while I hang the washing out and have been particularly entertained by our new op-shop sheets. Digby has spent half an hour, several days in a row playing peek-a-boo with a low hanging sheet. I ended up hanging all our sheets to the ground to extend the play. Our hills hoist clothesline became a maze that they could burrow under and sneak around or spin round and round. These have been happy days.

Pumpkin Pikelets

I love this recipe. My life has started to revolve around sneaking extra veggies into my kids' diets. Pumpkin pikelets have been an excellent addition to my repertoire. They are easy to make, freezable and handy to throw in the lunch box on a day out. They're suitable for both kids. My 9.5 month old loves them as a finger food and I served some to Miss (almost) 3 with yoghurt and berries. They love them! The best part is that there isn't any sugar in the recipe and I still have Miss 3 begging for more! The pumpkin and apple juice sweeten it up a bit and my kids don't eat much overly sweet food so they don't know the difference. 

Recipe:

• 1 cup wholemeal atta flour  (I got atta flour once by mistake and I loved it. As an alternative you could use 1/2 cup plain flour & 1/2 cup wholemeal flour)
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup apple juice
• 1 cup pureed pumpkin
• butter for cooking

Combine atta flour, baking powder, milk and apple juice in a bowl. Add pumpkin and mix until smooth. Heat a non-stick frying-pan over medium heat and brush with some melted butter. Drop level tablespoonfuls of the mixture into the pan and cook until bubbles appear on the surface. Turn over and cook other side for 1 minute or until golden.