Friday, May 24, 2013

Craft

Or 'cwaft' as some in the house might say!




He thinks, plans and designs in his head and then sits down to build a 3D model.  The 'camera' he built by himself, the 'frog' he got me to help wi the sticky tape but the rest is his own handy work.  I love that he feeds the frog by popping the end of the tube off and putting drawn food inside; simple, but clever.


The camera has interchangeable lenses too, a toilet roll as a prime lens and a paper towel roll as a zoom lens!


I know it is just stuff stuck together but I find it amazing that a 3 year old can take a three dimensional idea from conception to construction in this way.




This set of shelves for Blue's room has been in progress for so long that I am starting to fear he will outgrow it before we get in done.  A shame we don't get our craft done as quickly as Blue does!

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Testing, and a bit about Lego

This post is to test* an app called Pages which I downloaded from Apps gone free.  I have been so busy lately that Blogging has flown out the window so when I saw this app I wondered if it would help.  

For three days the children upended my husbands lot of Lego and mixed everything up.  I was worried things would get lost and only wanted them to play with one unit at a time but The Mr said it was important for kids to play and use their imagination in order to learn so he let them play as they choose.

They created, mixed and had so much fun so The Mr was obviously right.  At the end of three days we have lost small gear stick but that seems like a small price to pay.


*the post drafting phase went well and access to my iPad photos was easy enough.  I think for good photos from my camera my computer would still be the way to go.  I will have to see how managing the comments goes from this point; also, I can't work out how to do labels... 

I went to publish and it told me there was an error as my photo was still uploading.  There is no progress bar to tell me when this should happen which I find annoying.  Then, when I came back in to edit all my line spaces were out.  I remember when Old Blogger used to do that and it was annoying.

Edit: there was a progress bar and an outbox!  I missed them in my haste.  Also, it easily let me in to edit this post so I have to say that given this is the first time I have ever used this app AND it is early in the morning and I still have not finished my first cup of coffee I am going well.  They say more haste, less speed so perhaps I was the problem when I first hit publish.  I also found the tags under the little 'i' so I can't complain about anything in the drafting and posting phase yet.




Monday, May 13, 2013

Jamie Oliver HomeCooker {Mother's Day}

I was spoilt this year.  Normally not much happens to mark the occasion on Mother's Day but this year I put in an order and was given the Jamie Oliver HomeCooker.  Jamie Oliver is so wonderful and his cooker is just as good as I would expect from a product underpinned by him.  


I got the Cooker with cutting tower and also the pasta and steamer trays.  This lot cost me $300 on sale at Harvey Norman and there is also an extra $30 to come off that via a promotional cash back deal running right now.  It all made it such a great deal.


The big difference between this machine and the Thermomix, other than the price, is that the HomeCooker does not have built in scales and the cutting tower is used instead of having the built in cutting system.  I can live with that when you consider this was $1700 cheaper.


I have used it a lot as I may have opened it before Mother's Day, I just couldn't wait!  It really does make tea time so much easier, put ingredients in, press button, beeps when something else needs to happen or stirs until you are ready to eat.  Simple!


The whole thing is dishwasher safe too which is a big plus in this house since we recently put a dishwasher in.  It is easy to assemble and clean and so far I have not found anything I don't like about it.


I love the Jamie Oliver cookbook too.  There are more recipes online and because I registered new recipes get emailed to me.  It is not hard to cook most of the foods we like using this system so a lot of old favourite recipes are being cooked as well.

I had originally wanted a Thermomix but I am glad I didn't rush out and buy one as there are now a number of similar products about.  I won't claim they are exactly as good but I do think this goes close and if value for money is important this is a much better option for us.  




Friday, May 10, 2013

Term 1 {Catch Up}


On the last day of Term 1 Possum got to wear 'crazy socks' as a reward for having earned 10 merit awards. I did not have any socks so decided that stripes on stockings under her sports shorts were crazy and would count.  She looked great and was so proud of herself.  In addition to her Bronze Award for merits she also got a reading award so she had a great day at school.  Kindergarten also hosted the final assembly for the term and Possum had memorised her readings and spoke clearly and well into the microphone; yay!

The holidays included a trip to Nan and Pop's for the children, craft and a quick trip to the Northern Rivers area of NSW.   ANZAC Day also featured and Possum wore her school uniform and marched with the school which was a nice experience for her.  It was not a nice experience for the rest of us as Blue hit his head when he fell off a fence so the Mr and I took him up to the hospital for some glue and we missed the big event.

Little Athletics also finished up last term.  We still have to have the presentation night but I am looking forward to having a few months off with quiet winter nights on a Friday in front of our fire.  I am trying to be less busy but I have no idea how long that will last ;)

This term I popped my head in and helped the Kindergarten class do some cooking for Mother's Day.  Possum was so excited to see me in her class as a 'teacher'.  I will have to do that more often; it was fun to help the younger Kindy children as I work with Year 1 and 2 and also help Year 3 and 4 with reading groups a couple of times a week while I am there but had not helped in my daughter's class at all as I was worried that she would find it hard to switch between mum the 'teacher' and mum the parent.  It wasn't an issue which was great.