A few weeks ago I received a note on my Facebook from Bec at Four Little Piglets. I have been fortunate enough to be nominated for another Liebster award from a blogging pal. Well thank you Bec, I accept! I still am no closer to the true origin of this award or the original rules so I am going to stick to the format that Bec has used. If this award is to remain true to itself, change throughout time is what needs to continue to occur. Bec's questions
The blogs who I am passing the Liebster award onto are: oops I had trouble stopping at 11 Mellywoods Mansion The Not Quite Military Wife Can I get another bottle of Whine... Barefoot Hippie Girl Crystelle Boutique Consumed Choosing Joy Daily For the Love The Multitasking Mummy MUMedia Melbourne Mum With Grace & Eve Mother Load My questions for the above Liebster bloggers
Other posts you might like -One tradition we wanted to start with Cakes was the use of an advent calendar though somehow involving her in the making of the calendar. I had scoured the internet for a few hours (I had not stumbled across pinterest yet) and couldn't find anything we had all the resources for and had to come up with something myself. We had some cardboard lying around (much to Daddy's disgust) so we turned it into a Christmas tree. After I had cut the two triangle shapes out Cakes painted them both green on all sides. She did a very good job for a 19month old. Then she decorated the tree with stickers. She loved taking the paper off the back and making them sticky more than putting them on the 'tree'. I collected 24 small toys, lollies and books (This cost me about $10 with small packets of things separated across several days for her to collect the whole set) and wrapped them all in wrapping paper and loosely tied them all on with ribbon. The last thing we attached was Cakes's letter to Santa in the hope he would leave some presents and a letter in reply. Cakes picked pictures out of the toy catalogues (that I had saved from the June toy sales) and I cut them out for her to glue onto her letter. Cakes took a few days to catch on that this was a daily thing. She didn't once ask to unwrap a second present (which was great because I really though she would). I was more excited than she was each morning to unwrap a present. The few days I had a sleep in Daddy let Cakes remind him about the present and he even remembered to take photos for me (which was very unexpected seeing he doesn't value photos). I was a little worried what would happen after we had finished all the presents, though she knew it was all over. I am assuming the day she got a few extra presents from here, there and everywhere (Christmas Day) was a nice big finale for her. Santa even left her a letter in reply to the collage and food she left for him. Hopefully he is just as friendly this year (provided he can find us, we will be away for Christmas day this year). We are going to use the 'tree' this year as our holiday tree, looking forward to Cakes decorating it.
All children love bubbles and there is so much learning to be had when chasing a bubble or many. Cakes chased the bubbles from the bubble machine she got for her first birthday from her friend Princess L for almost an hour. As the wind changed she changed her strategies to catch them, from moving up high to low, turning around, going behind the bubble machine and chasing them to the other side of the yard. We talked about the ones that were near and far, high and low, infront and behind, above and below. We discussed how they were moving slowly, fast, up, down and popping. She caught a few with her mouth which resulted in a few minutes of raspberry blowing. The one thing Cakes noticed that had her thinking for sometime was the rainbows in the bubbles. She was very interested in how they got there and why they were different on each bubble. This left plenty of room to discuss the soapy solutions and light.
Cakes has been saving money since birth however she has only been placing it in her money boxes herself since just before her 2nd birthday. Like most toddlers, Cakes is fond of 'posting'. She has many toys that allow her to post including a Piggy bank, Pig and letterbox which are all great toys to develop hand eye coordination, fine motor skills and counting however Cakes prefers real world things and doesn't really enjoy these toys. In the photos below Cakes used several money boxes to spread her collected coins across. She placed all gold in one and then sorted the larger silver and smaller silver coins into the other two money boxes. We counted each coin as it went (as she has only learnt to count to 20 we stopped at 20 and went back to 1 before continuing) and discussed the numerals written on each coin and its value. Her favourite coin is the 20 cent coin as it is "a big circle" though she is considering the $2 coin as whenever she is asked how much something is it is "two dollars".
Cakes's little Pixie friend was having A Very Hungry Caterpillar party for his first birthday. I really like to try match the theme with part of the present if possible. As I cannot knit or crochet I had to enlist Nanny into helping us create this super cute puppet. I stumbled across a great tutorial that my clever Mum was able to pick up and follow. Since Cakes was born, Nanny cannot help herself and constantly knits and crochets, so the one puppet I requested turned into 2 large puppets and 3 small ones. The small ones were for Cakes, her little pixie friend and Big Cousin H. The two large ones were for Aunty Weeze and myself (not that I am complaining). First Mum made the crochet hand pieces, eyes and noses. Then they found their way back to our house where Cakes and I traced some circles and my finger to make the faces and antenna. These puppets are still a hit in our household and Aunty Weeze and Cakes's little Pixie friend seem to also.
Why do I find it so hard to do anything creative? My work space is usually busy with things that do not need to be there. Daddy's drink bottle, a stacking cup, Cakes's car book, a cloth, bits and pieces from 3 other projects and a handful of other things. Where we live we seem to miss most storms, they either go right past us or they are very small. On the weekend we had a very quick and severe storm. Strong wind, massive hail and sideways rain. This was the first storm Cakes been old enough to see (she was too young for the 2011 floods). As she has stopped having day time sleeps at home she was a bit grizzly and had sent herself to bed early this evening. When I came into the room and said that there was ice falling from the sky she couldn't get to the door quickly enough. Looking out the window she was pointing out each piece as it fell and trying to count them. As she has only learnt to count to 20 this was a short lived process. Once the hail died down a little we headed out the front to collect some ice to wash and eat. She thought this was great. I was keen to collect much much more and fill the bath tub for her (as this was something I remembered doing with a friend in primary school and thought it was the best), but she wasn't keen. Daddy collected the largest two pieces in the yard though they had melted from the rain by the time he got them. When they were coming down they were the size of tennis balls, by the time he got to them they were only as big as golf balls. After the hail stopped Daddy suggested we look outside for a rainbow. There was one that spanned the entire sky (and a faint double rainbow). Cakes named each colour from top to bottom and bottom to top. She was teaching Daddy the order of the colours, which ones were primary colours and which ones were secondary colours. After a while the birds were back out in full flight and there was a beautiful rainbow with lorikeets flying in front of it. Then the clouds slowly swallowed the rainbow and the sky went dark again. Cakes was asleep before it stopped raining. Storm chasing is a tiring activity. |
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