When Reuben Turned THREE!

This absolutely gorgeous boy turned three back in April! Three! Can you believe it? He is growing into such a beautiful little fella. He still owns the cheekiest smile ever, with a contagious laugh to match. He is just so much fun to be around. He has a great sense of humour and the biggest heart. He's loud and loves all the boy things. Dinosaurs, trucks, trains, planes, cars, superheroes. All the boy stuff.

So Reuben asked for a Superhero party for his birthday, and boy did Mama deliver.



I decided to make it a party where the kids could do stuff, so we turned the party into a Superhero training boot camp!

Each guest got one of these checklists, and each party game fulfilled one "competency". (***see the end of this post for a link to the prints!!***) When they had completed the whole list, they were presented with a certificate of completion. And yeah, I may have laminated stuff. I'm so a teacher.

First up they had to look the part... they came up with names, decorated capes (really simple ones I made with pieces of white cotton with a hem sewn at one end with elastic threaded through it), and had their faces painted.

They pinned the star on the SHIELD...

Single-handedly demolished "brick walls"...

Rescued a baby from a burning building... (and yeah, my husband does own a smoke machine)

Made their way through a laser maze...

And for their final challenge, they had to work together to defeat the evil villains (played by my brother and his BFF who turned up on motorbikes just at the right moment). The kids went to town on them with silly string and foam swords and karate chops.

The food was all allergy free, and I made little labels for each thing stating which superhero power it helps to build... like 'builds muscles', 'every blast', 'increases elasticity', 'boosts invisibility' and so on.

It was so much fun. The kids had a fabulous time, and I really enjoyed putting it on.

I also took allergy free cupcakes to kindy for him to share with his friends later that week...

All in all Reuben had a VERY happy birthday.

And now he's THREE!!! My beautiful big boy.

***If you're interested in the printable I made for Reuben's party VISIT THIS LINK. You will find the training checklist, the food labels, and the certificates. Enjoy!!

Birthday Bunting {Free Printable}

As you may know, my gorgeous Mayana Berry turned FOUR on Friday!!

We/she had a wonderful day… and weekend… and there’s more to come with her Mermaid Birthday Party this coming Saturday. But more on all that later.

One of the things I did for Mayana’s birthday was to decorate the dining room beautifully for breakfast. I had a picture in my head which included ‘Happy Birthday’ bunting, but I couldn’t find any I liked online. So I did what any sensible person does late at night the day before her daughter’s fourth birthday, and made my own!

And since I had trouble hunting for a free printable birthday bunting, I thought that maybe someone else might be looking for one too, and thus, I’m posting it here for you to use too!

It’s fairly simple, not too big, but nice and colourful. It looks a little something like this:

And it prints out like this…

It’s pretty obvious, but all you need to do is cut out the pieces, fold down the flap and tape to a piece of string or ribbon (I used twine). I have two blank pieces (bunts?) on the printable, I put number ‘4’s in them, but you can put whatever you like, or just leave them off! If anyone is interested, the font I used is called ‘Irish Spaghetti’ and is my new favourite, you download it for free here.

You can DOWNLOAD THE BUNTING PRINTABLE by clicking this sentence.

And by the way, I did pull of the picture I had in my head. Mayana walked out of her bedroom to see this:

make your iphone pretty

I don’t know about you, but I like to accessorise. I’m the sort of person that gets a new wallet at least once a year, because I see something prettier. I’m the same with phone cases.

When we got our new phones, Peter went to eBay and got us a couple of clear cases for them. They were less than $10 for two of them! I have to give it to my husband… completely brilliant idea. A clear case means that I can essentially change my iPhone cover at a whim!

I can simply insert a photo or two, or some pretty scrapbooking paper… anything I want and I have a new cover for me phone, practically for free!

I’ve knocked together a couple on the computer with favourite quotes or scriptures, and I thought I’d share them here. I have made them for an iPhone 5, but have chosen not to put the camera cut-out on the template, so that you might be able to use them for an iPhone 4 if you need to.

So here are a few, and if I get some more together I’ll add them to this post! If you click on the pictures it will lead you to a jpeg download on my Google docs.. I believe they have saved in the correct size to print.. but let me know if you have any issues!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve currently got the quote from ‘The Lorax’ in my cover. Love it! I like to have a quote that is uplifting or makes me smile… a cover on my phone is something that I see multiple times a day, so it’s can be a good reminder for me.

What quote would you like to have on your phone cover?

Chores + Pocket Money {+ a free printable!}

Mayana is four in twelve days *sob*. She is getting to be such a big girl, and very capable. She’s a great helper, and makes my life easier in many ways. She is learning to help around the house, and is especially helpful in entertaining her baby brother when I need him distracted for a few minutes!

I really want to encourage Mayana in her attitude of helpfulness (she generally LOVES to help), and Peter and I have decided that we would like to reward her with some pocket money for the help she gives us.

The three of us had a chat about some jobs that she was already doing, and some jobs that she could learn to do, and decided on eight things that she can do daily to help out around the house. We talked to her about how it was important that everyone in our house has responsibilities to help make our lives run smoothly. Mayana know that if she helps me out with my chores in the mornings (ie washing up, sweeping the floor etc) then I have more time to play with her. She also knows that I shouldn’t have to be picking up her dirty underwear from the bathroom floor every night!

I’ve made a chart for Mayana, and each time she does one of her special jobs, she gets a stamp or a sticker. I actually plan on laminating this and sticking it on the fridge so that I don’t have to print one every week. Mayana has eight jobs she can do every day, plus I’ve given her an extra space for ‘Being an Awesome Helper’… so that I can reward her extra for things like looking after her brother, helping with grocery shopping… and okay… maybe I’ll be able to use it for a little bit of a bribe when necessary.

The rest of the jobs are mostly things that she was doing already, and a few things that she just needs a bit of encouragement to remember. She doesn’t do all of these jobs independently – for example she’s only really in charge of unpacking the silverware from the dishwasher… not the whole thing. She hangs the nappy liners on the clothes airer while I do the rest of the laundry (about 6 pegs per liner, if you don’t mind) and at this point she’s only really clearing her own dinner dishes from the table.

At the end of the week, Mayana will get 10 cents for every job that she has done. I’m under no illusion that her chart will be full of stars every week, but if she ever manages that, she has the potential to earn up to $6.30 in a week. We’ve talked to her about tithing and giving to God, and she’s excited to think that she will have money each week to put in the offering bucket as it goes past at church. We’ve also discussed saving money, and she’s already eyeing off a few Lala-Loopsy things that she’s quite like to save up for!

I’m excited to see how she goes with this. It’s been motivating so far in her keeping a much better attitude when I ask her to do a job. She loves going to get a stamp when she’s done something, and is offering to do things before I’ve even asked her. I’m hoping that it will help to ingrain some of these things as habit. As she gets older, she will get chores that are more age-appropriate, and these simple things will become more of an expectation – the things that she knows her her responsibility for helping our house to run smoothly. I also like the idea that she can learn about the fact that we don’t just always get things because we like or ask for them, and that sometimes we need to work hard and save to buy things that we want and sometimes even need. There are lots of learning opportunities involved in this too… learning about money is so confusing, and exposing her to different units of our currency is going to be good. She was so disappointed today that her fifty cent coin was only half of one dollar, and that she had to give both of her ‘dollars’ to the lady when she bought her cookie cutter!

Anyway… I thought that someone else might find it useful to use a sticker chart like this. So you can download it for free as a PDF printable if you click HERE!

I have only changed one thing from the original one above… I know not everyone has chickens so I’ve changed that to ‘feed the pets’.

If you use the sticker chart, I’d love to hear how it worked for your little ones!