Day to Day

We like to build things

My boy will be turning 17 in just a few months and is all sorts of busy at the moment - riding/racing his mountain bike and training on his road bike.  Just a few sweet years ago he was playing Pokemon, building Lego sets, growing cacti plants in the backyard and dreaming about building up his Star Wars collection.

It goes so fast.

While he'll probably still be building Lego sets when he's 40, there's a beautiful set of Anker stones in his bedroom that just sit and wait to be opened, built and played with again some time. 

I guess that's where little sisters come into play.

With a bowl of peas as an afternoon snack, Bella sat and tried to build a castle.  She called her big 'Jamesie' to lead the way and once again he was sitting, building and making.  

Nice to meet you again Anker stones.  How I've missed seeing you on our kitchen table. 

Castles and towers were built and gently pulled down to build more.  And more.

Bella finally built her own structure.  My boy was reunited with his Anker stones (if only for a brief moment) and this Mama was happy.

Hooray for those special childhood toys, dusting themselves off and making an appearance for spring.  I like it.

EnviroBLOX

I first heard of EnviroBLOX back in July, when I attended the Bloggers Brunch in Melbourne.  We all received some samples in our goodie bag to bring home and after a little bit of online research I discovered that EnviroBLOX were pretty cool, especially for kids.  

I contacted the lovely Tracy at EnviroBLOX to let her know how much we enjoyed our samples and she was kind enough to send our family a big box of them to play with.  I say 'our family' because we've ALL been using these over the last few days! 

If you read my blog post on Thursday, you'll have seen that I spent 2 hours sorting out some colours in separate containers, ready to start creating an EnviroBLOX medieval scene.  The castle isn't anywhere near finished yet, but we plan on adding to it when we arrive home from our Great Ocean Road trip - just 2 sleeps to go now!  There are plans for a draw bridge, water, more scenery around the castle and many, many more men and animals in the army.

We continued building our castle on Friday (for family fun night) and I have one word - fun! There were quite a few giggles when Dad decided you needed a LOT of water to join the blocks - he melted an entire section of the castle with water, even after we told him that you only need a small dot of water to hold.  We rebuilt though and put him on a water ban. Teehee!

I love that when we're sick of building/playing castles and tired of the dust accumulating on our structure, we can hose it down in the back yard and watch it dissolve - It is 100% biocompostable and environmentally friendly.  There was some talk by the boys to hose it on the weekend, so they could watch it melt - but the girls put their feet down and said no!

If you would like to order your own fun set to play and build with, EnviroBLOX are offering FREE shipping at the moment - pop over HERE to order.

When we're home from holiday, I'll be sure to pop back and share the next stage of our castle and some other fun creations that we've made.

P.S. 

Some EnviroBLOX facts for you:

• Safe - no paint materials used of any kind (only food dye colorants).
• Environmentally friendly - made from corn starch; "a very GREEN toy!"
• No glue needed, simply moisten and watch the blox stick together like magic.
• EnviroBLOX dissolve in running water like ice - no need to throw in the rubbish bin.

Disclaimer: I was not paid for this blog post.  The lovely EnviroBLOX team (it's a family business, hooray!) sent our family these goodies to create with and enjoy.  They're a fantastic product and I decided to share our experiences with them in this blog post.

For the love of Smurfs

I had one of those weak Mama moments the other day.  I was having photos developed at a local store and before I knew it I was in the toys section putting a box of $20 Smurf Mega Bloks into my trolley.  You know those moments when you know that a little someone would really love a mid year gift, so you just decide to treat them?  

 

She's been collecting a few different Smurf trinkets for a while now - figurines, miniature furniture (from the Smurf village) and her latest addition was a t-shirt that we picked up in Hong Kong.  There was much excitement when she spied my gift - squeals and jumping were involved!

The Smurfs' village game on my iPad has also had a work out over the last few weeks, by Bella.  It's a free game to download but there are charges for additional content - such as purchasing extra berries, which we haven't done yet.

The old figurines made their way out of the storage bag too.  I'm very fond of these myself, they remind me of Saturday morning cartoons on t.v. - I used to love Papa Smurf and wished that I could live in one of their cute houses in the forest.

We've been watching the new Smurf movie trailer too and although I don't think it's one that we'll want to view on the big screen, I know Bella is really looking forward to seeing it as soon as she can.

Do you have any Smurf addicts in your household?

P.S. I did buy a treat for James too, he didn't miss out :)

The games we play

I'm always on the look out for new board games to fill our already overflowing games cupboard.  I had a nice op-shop find today - Labyrinth - a lovely game that I haven't stumbled across or heard of before.

We set the game up after school and gave it a whirl.  Made up of moving tiles, you shift them around to create new passages or use the tiles to trap the other player/s.  Apparently it's a keeper, so we'll be all giving it a whirl this Friday for our family fun night.

While I'm on the subject of board games, do you remember my Pictionary give away?  The lucky winner is:

Melissa G said...

Oh! My husband are getting into the board games too. It won't be long before our children are old enough to share the fun with. Can hardly wait. I look forward to big family board games nights, with pizza on the side.
As for my drawing ability. Well, it is a bit hit and miss really. Some days it is all about the stick figures and other days the spirit of Da Vinci will strike me.

Congratulations Melissa!  

 

Eraser collection

Tucked away in a shoebox in Bella's wardrobe, is her ever growing eraser collection.  The craze started in February when one of her friends gave her a couple of Gomu erasers for her birthday. 

The Gomu erasers are pretty special because you can pull them apart easily and interchange the colours - if you have two the same.  You can buy them from newsagencies, Big W, Kmart, Target, etc... So, pretty much anywhere in Aus.  

Series two of Gomu has recently been released, which has caused another stir of excitement in our household.  Of course there are a few erasers in the collection that aren't Gomu, but most of them are.

At the end of the day each one is thrown back into the box.  Never used, just there for looking at and dreaming which new eraser might make it into the collection next.

I'd love to know what your children collect.

Blythe doll house extension - part 1

With our Blythe doll family growing beyond control a little bit this last year, it seemed inevitable that Bella would soon need an extension on her dolly house.

When Rich made the first storey of the house, we slowly filled it up with furniture and then almost overnight there were beds being added on top of the room and a make shift storey was popped underneath using a spare white storage block that we had.  It was getting a little bit crazy/messy, so over the Easter period we started to create two more levels for the Blythe dolls.

There's quite a bit more work to do - sanding, filling, painting, adding the floor and then decorating.  We're hoping to have it finished within a month and then it will be added to the current block, creating 3 levels in all.

Bella is beside herself with excitement while it's all being created.

That's all for today, I'll see you in the morning for more celebration posts :)

Collection

I was in denial for a while, but I've now come to realise that Bella is collecting Blythe dolls.  There are seven of them now - Bessie, Rosey, Mabel, Hazel, Emily-Jane, Alice and her first doll, Ruby. Oh yes, I do know them all by name and look out if I occasionally get a name mixed up.  Three of them have been totally funded by Bella herself - birthday & saved up pocket money.  The other four have been gifts from us - x2 Christmas, x1 birthday and a weak moment when we bought the first one, just because.

I'm not going to lie, these dolls aren't cheap - but they've been worth every cent.  They're all constantly played with and I do mean constantly!  After school and weekends you can find Bella dressing them up, changing their dolly house around, creating Blythe clothes + accessories and chatting with her little blogging friends about them.  

There's also lots of planning & writing involved - doing the maths on how many weeks of pocket money a certain doll would cost, writing ever changing lists about which Blythe is high priority (ie. next on the want list), writing Blythe stories, blog posts, problem solving how to make clothes that fit over the doll's head (it's big!)and so much more.  

We do have other collections in our family too - stickers, erasers, Star Wars, miniature Ferrari cars, vintage cameras, babushka dolls and I think Rich is collecting used dirt bike tyres in the shed - haha!

I once found a book on really cool things that people collect and I'm so cross with myself for not buying it at the time - and now I can't remember the name of it.  Arghhh.  

Do you or your children have a collection that just kind of happened over night? Ka-boom! In the blink of an eye, you realised that it was maybe getting a little out of control?  Please share, I'd love to know.

Pokemon addiction

Are your children on the Pokemon bandwagon too?  Pokemon has been going on in our house for ten years now!  When James was just five, he started collecting Pokemon cards.  They were all the rage at school for swapping and he used to think they were gold.  I think we've also sat through every single Pokemon movie there is - oh goodness, there were often tears at the DVD store if we'd subtly try and suggest perhaps a 'non Pokemon' movie might be in store for the evening.

Last week (or there abouts) the new Pokemon White and Pokemon Black games were released for Nintendo DS.  Well, it's possible that they were released for other game platforms too - but I'm not really up with all that!  My two agonised for days over whether to dig into their Hong Kong spending money and buy a new game each and finally, on Saturday, they gave into temptation.

Bella bought Pokemon White and James, Black.  Although I'm not an electronic gadget/gaming fan, I will say that I've loved seeing them hang out together and talk/play 'Pokemon'.  James has been a very patient big brother too and is trying not to get too far ahead of Bella in the game.

I must say, even after 10 years of Pokemon, Pikachu is still my favourite character!

Beetle bug

James also received something fun for Christmas, a remote control beetle bug.  There was a whole heap of building to do before the beetle could be used, so the boys decided to work on the project together.

Ta-da! One beetle bug that can pick up all sorts of things from the floor.  Excuse the blurry photo below, boys aren't that fabulous for keeping things still when they know you want a photo.

Don't forget that Tamar and I are starting our Hip Hip Hooray for Holidays series on Monday! You can read more about it HERE.

Wishing you a happy and safe new year! xoxo

Solar powered house

Santa Claus was kind enough to deliver a little solar powered house to Bella this Christmas - in kit form.  She was really keen to put it together ASAP, so with a bit of help from Dad (doing the wire hook up underneath) the house was built:

We actually popped some batteries inside - so it could be used straight away - and it's super cool.  There's a windmill that turns, a little light on the front and the world's most annoying horn sound when you open the front door.  Bella thinks it's wonderful!

Hooray for Santa!