Harry Potter Finger Puppets

Maya, who is just crazy about ‘Harry Potter’, made some ‘Harry Potter’ finger puppets from gloves, with her friend Elin.

They decided to give a puppet show at school! 🙂

A Christmas Peep Box

“What is this?” you ask.
Well, I will show you….
…two closed empty boxes, connected to each other, with a tiny peep hole cut in the front….

…let’s look a little closer….

….and closer still…

Yes. That’s right. A Christmas gnome.

…to his left you can a toilet roll ‘pine tree’, behind him lies a window of a house, within which lie presents and a gingerbread house… and to his right, a snowball ‘lantern’…

You see. I knew you’d love it.
Another ‘marvellous Maya’ creation….

P.S. Don’t forget to include a torch 🙂

A SuperMario Bead Plate (Christmas Gift)

Maya has been off school for a few days with an ear infection.
Of course, she won’t just sit around when she’s ill – oh no! She’s been busy making Alfie a Christmas present…a SuperMario bead plate…..

🙂

Ted Turns Four!

Yesterday Teddy turned four…

It seems strange that my last child of four, out of the toddler years, is growing up so quickly….
…Ted. An eccentric ‘performer’, who loves to sing, and to tell stories, to dress up and to make you dinner in his kitchen. A ‘forever happy’ child!

He had a lovely relaxing day at home playing with his new gifts, a day topped off with a birthday meal of cheesy ‘cars’ pasta and a ‘fish’ birthday cake entirely baked and designed by Maya…

…and ending with our family film night, cheesy snacks and juice included.

Happy 4th Birthday Ted! We’re looking forward to what you’re going to surprise the world with! 😉

Pumpkin Time!

Just because it’s always so much fun to do, because they always look so wonderful when lit – and because it’s given me an opportunity to play with lots of different photography ‘affects’, I’ll give you an insight into our pumpkin carving session….. 😉

In true Maya style, she was still hard at work with hers hours after the rest of us had finished (doing the ghost above)…. And I just couldn’t help myself taking some photos of some cheeky sibling fun taking place…

…before giving all the pumpkins a ‘test run’….

🙂

A Homemade Halloween Dress

Maya really loves to sew, and this year she has decided to sew her own Halloween costume.
She’s going to be a witch, and she has already saved up for some black material, ordered it over the internet, and cut and sewn it for fit…..

Difficult to see, but here is where she has stitched it at the sides, to take it in…

Did I forget to tell you that she made her own ‘manequin’ out of cardboard rolls to help her….?

Here she is at the ‘preview’…

However, then she decided she needed a little decoration. She chose some sequins to sew on, making a pattern on paper first…

..before sewing them on….

Gorgeous!
I’m very proud of her! 🙂

Hot Air Balloons?

Many moons ago, when Leon was very small, he had a huge interest in aeroplanes and things that fly. Being the first child, and having so much more time, we extended his interests as much as we could – and this included buying a toy experiment hot air balloon.
So deep in the depths of the cupboard, we found it the other day….

Well, we didn’t get it floating in the sky – but it didn’t stop Maya from continuing to try flying a smaller version…an empty bin bag….

Perhaps it’ll fly if I jump off the swing set…?

Or perhaps if I tie it at the bottom, and hold all the warm air inside (did I tell you she used a hairdryer?) ?

Oh well. Never mind. She gave it a good try anyway! 😉

A Homemade Indoor Racing Track

Maya and Alfie were home from school a few days this week – during this time I let them watch a film called ‘Turbo Snail’, about a snail who wishes to race…
Sometimes a small thing like a film can inspire bigger things….and while Alfie played happily with racing cars for hours, Maya spent those hours building the race track (with an added moment here and there to wave the start flag for Alfie’s cars…)…

Really – Maya’s creativity never ceases to amaze me! 🙂

Maya’s Mice

Maya and her friend Filippa decided to make some mice cookies….

These were the first four. In the end they made 48. It took them around 6 hours…. 😉

Maya’s Embroidery – From Scratch!

Maya asked me for “one of those round things – you know – that you can sew inside”…. and it just so happens, that in one of my cupboards, I had bought some lucky child, a ready made children’s embroidery kit – with a stencil for a design, and everything.

So I gave it to Maya. She was overjoyed. The stencil was of a bird. “Great idea” she said, and with that, put the stencil aside, and got on with the embroidery…

Having tried embroidery once before, at school, she decided to embroider her own design from scratch.

She wanted brown thread for a birch branch, for the bird to sit on, but we had none, so she settled for black – after all – birches are slightly mottled aren’t they?

Isn’t it lovely? It’s a gift for Farmor’s 75th birthday. 🙂