nuts bolts and washers

Tonight I raided the garage to come up with this little pre dinner montessori inspired activity for our very 'hands on' boy. He loved threading the washer in then twisting on the nut and I loved watching his wee (slightly marmitey as we scored a jar) hands.

 

If you'd like to read up on the importance of fine motor practise for kids and the stages of pencil grip development there's a good website here: pencil grasp development

hammer, nails and polystyrene

A wee while ago J spent all day fixing our gate so that our dog stops getting out to go on adventures. T wanted to help, which was fine for about 5 minutes until he started getting in the ( J's) way.

I originally set up some wood and nails for him to hammer in but he was getting frustrated with not being strong enough to drive the nail in. I remembered how much fun he had banging the nails into the cardboard tube when we made the rain stick so started looking around for a cardboard box he could hammer nails into.

The same day J had bought a bench saw that came in a box and encased in two big pieces of polystyrene ( sorry environment!). I pushed the nails in by hand to start with and then T hammered them right in. The polystyrene was sort of hollow so we could turn it around and push the nails back through and start all over again, kind of like these wooden hammer things I remember as a kid.

He had a great time : )

mmmmmmm museli

I love breakfast, it's my favourite meal of the day, probably because to really enjoy breakfast you need to not be in a hurry - and I like to wake up slowly in the morning.  I also live by the theory that if you have a good filling breakfast you're less likely to be really hungry ( and grumpy as far as our kids are concerned ) before lunchtime.

I found on this great NZ recipe on this website http://www.nzfavouriterecipe.co.nz/

Ingredients

• 2 cups big rolled oats
• 2 cups of quick cooking rolled oats
• 2-4 cups of ½ cup or so of any of the following the sky is the limit
• Shredded coconut, oat bran, hulled millet, wheat bran, Seeds( sunflower, pumpkin seeds, sesame), nuts (almonds wholes of sliced, cashews, pecan), wheat germ.
• ½ Tbsp dried cinnamon or quills
• Vanilla pods (optional)
• 3 tsp honey any sort
• ½ cup of fruit juice any will do orange and apple seems to work the best
• 1-3cups of any dried fruit sultanas, dates, apricots, cranberries, apple. Cut up large pieces.

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees.
2. Put all the ingredients except the fruit, honey and the juice into a large bowl and mix.
3. Melt the honey in the microwave add in the juice and stir. Add to the mix in the bowl and stir through.
4. Add baking paper to a roasting dish or similar deep baking dish and pour the mixture into the dish. Spread out so that the cover is even .
5. Bake for 30min mixing a couple of times.
6. Allow the mixture to cool and then add the dried fruit.
7. Put into an airtight container and shake to mix the ingredients

When  I made this I used sultanas and put them in the oven ( for half of the time) with the rest of the ingredients as I like them when they're harder and all puffed up and chewy. I also put coconut, almonds and wheatgerm in mine. You have to watch it in the oven closely as it could easily burn, so I put the timer on for 5 minute intervals and gave it a stir each time. It also only took 20  minutes in our oven so you may need adjust the time in yours.

blog love

Miriam the kind and creative soul behind  Create Hope Inspire awarded me with a blogger's sunshine award. She asked that I think of the award as a sort of chain-letter of love without the nasty threats if I don't pass it on! I have to answer 10 questions about myself and then pass it on to others, so here I go : )

1. Why the title for your blog?

'Milk and honey' is a metaphor meaning 'all good things'. I liked it for that reason and also because our kids like drinking lots of milk and eating honey sandwiches : )

2. What piece of clothing works the hardest in your wardrobe?

My shoes, I'm not nice to shoes and they never last long.

3. If you had to choose only 3 pieces of clothing to wear for the next month (underwear excluded) what pieces would you choose?

Jeans, a floaty top and cute comfy flats.

4. Which blog do you find consistently inspires you? (could be your faith, your craft, design, clothing, or just general attitude).

I love Stella's verydarkhorse as she is wonderfully creative and resourceful.

5. On a menu what can you never resist?

Anything lemony.

6. If you could choose 3 words to describe yourself what would they be?

Loving, creative, organised.

7. What colour can you never go past?

Turquoise

8. City Apartment, Country Mansion, Beach House, Wild Wilderness - which would you choose for a holiday?

Beach house, I feel like some consistently warm weather and sitting in a  deck chair next to the hubby watching our kids play in the sand would be my idea of bliss right now.

9. Best piece of advice you have ever been given

To accept the things I cannot change, have courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.

10. Collections - did you have one as a child? Do you have one now?

I collected stamps and stickers as a child. Pre earthquakes I had a huge 'sphere' collection- some were pottery, some glass- all got smashed! I like to start collecting vintage bottles.

I'll be passing this on to:

Shelley at She sells sea shells as she's fun and lovely and her blog is 'laugh tea out of your nose funny' ( and she's my sister in law).
Kristeen at Capital Living because she inspires me in lots of ways, one being to cook her yummy recipes for my family (and she's my mum).

I think you should also visit:
Angela  striking keys
Stella  very dark horse
Megan  mousehouse
Merrilee  mer mag
Maddie colour me there
Gina the daily B
Meghan MNM's

That was fun : )

things I'm loving this week

I wholeheartedly believe that no matter what is happening in your life, there is always something you can be thankful for..no matter how simple it is. 

Very popular Spiderman and tutu dress ups handed down by a friend

painting

playdates

playing outside- even when it means emptying the contents of the playhouse at the letterbox

this stuff is yum!

It's Christmas Day in 73 days time!

Joining in with Things I'm Loving: http://meghanandmark.blogspot.co.nz/

an icecream pinata

The girl would like a pinata for her birthday. I've decided to make one for her friend's party in November- mostly because he'll like it but also to work out how it's done.  Getting the amount of paper mache layers right is the part I thought I'd find tricky- I don't want it to smash open with the first hit but also don't want it to take forever to open up and end up needing an enthusiastic dad to step in!

He likes ice cream so an ice cream in a cone seems appropriate. Once we covered the top part with several layers of paper mache ( the kids helped) I painted it with a base coat of white. There's no need to paper mache the cardboard cone. I painted the ice cream part to look like it's chocolate flavoured.

At this stage I used a craft knife to cut a small opening in the cone part of the ice cream we'll use to put the treats in. I used that opening to pierce a hole in the top of the ice cream part too. I threaded a double length of fishing nylon ( so the string isn't that visible) through a yoghurt container and tied the end to a small bolt. I did this because the string is thin and I wanted to anchor it inside the ice cream so the pinata doesn't just get separated from the string the first time it's hit.

I used strips orange crepe paper to cover the cone. We put the treats inside and covered up the door with more crepe paper. We'll use a soft bat on the day, anything too hard would've made short work of it- no fun at all.

The card is from Resene, they sell $1 sheets of card for testing paint samples so I always buy extras.

Drying in the sun