Summer time is officially here so I thought this little gem was worth sharing. My boys can have HOURS of fun with water balloons – filling them, throwing them and, now, using them as a pinata!
Simply fill the balloons with water, attach them to a high string or surface (the washing line is great!) and then bash away with a broomstick until they burst and shower the kids with water. Much better than lollies in my opinion!
Growing up in Lake Macquarie (near Newcastle) a trip to the “local” drive in was a bit of a hike but most definitely a very special occasion. My two sisters and I loved the fancy little speaker outside dad’s driver window, buying popcorn from the kiosk and being able to snuggle under our blankets to watch Herbie the Love Bug.
Drive-ins are few and far between these days but how is this for a fab recreation of one? Makes the perfect setting for a ‘movie night’ party for the kids. Here, a trampoline covered with a large white sheet makes for a fab screen and the little personalised cars all lined up in a row are just too cute for words. You could take things a step further and ask guests to decorate or personalise their own car as part of the entertainment.
Either way, this party idea gets the triple thumbs up from my three little guys.
source unknown
Perhaps not an every day treat due to time involved in execution HOWEVER this is one way to get your little ones eating their 5 serves of fruit and veg a day!
image courtesy of theentertainingelf.com
I decided this year I would outsource the birthday cake for today’s superhero bowling party for 5 year old Dude.
I should explain that I have a big imagination and like to revisit my own childhood whenever I can so I always start with grand plans for my kids’ parties. Then I have a much needed reality check about what I can actually execute and start outsourcing faster than you can say AMF Bowling.
Back to the cake. When I say “outsource” I don’t mean recruit a fancy cake decorator and pay a shedload of money for an absolute masterpiece. I mean I would pop to Woollies and buy a pre-prepared spiderman cake, complete with a gazillion different shades of food colouring and preservatives, and be done with it. For weeks I have TOTALLY OK with that plan.
But this morning it came. The mother guilt.
I decided that since I had outsourced pretty much everything else by opting for a bowling party, leaving the fate of our celebration in the hands of an awkward 16 year old student called Paris, the least I could do is make a cake. Now, again, when I say “make” I mean decorate. Not make from scratch in a Donna Hay frenzy.
So at 7.30am with a heavy dose of mother guilt on my shoulders, I raced to the local supermarket, stocked up on a few key ingredients and whizzed home to gather my little team to prepare the Superhero cake of our dreams (well, kinda).
And here is the result.
I promise if you stand back, squint, and imagine you are five years old, it looks a bit like a superman emblem with an R in the middle.
Good or bad, my 5 year old superhero thinks it is truly fabulous so I’m calling it. It’s a winner.
I’m feelin’ all sentimental so had to share this picture. Tonight is my middle sized baby’s last night of being 4.
This is him, finally nodding off after unusual levels of pre-bedtime craziness (it’s true what they say about kids and the wind), all tuckered out from a one on one “last-day-of-being-4-day” with mama which included a much anticipated shopping trip to buy something special with birthday money from his 91 year old great grandmother, “More Nanna”.
He loves all things nature so chose three new whales for his collection. I wont go into great detail (he can tell you their full “proper” name, where they live and what they eat) but suffice to say they’re not exactly cuddly little bedtime buddies. Nevertheless, they will no doubt keep the five year old version of my beautiful boy company for many nights to come.
My five year old. It just sounds so much older than my four year old. I dont think I’m quite ready to say it yet.
Anyhoo, sleep tight little Dude. Big adventures await.
rudy and the dodo 