3 year olds say the funniest things

Don't you just love the little sayings that 3 year olds come out with? Lately my little man has been coming up with some little gems, so I thought I would share a few with you.

A long time ago, yesterday night.  A nice long way of saying 'last night'

Mum I think Emily wants to go back. Back where? Back into your tummy! Does she now?

Dad is there poo in shampoo? No! Then why do they call it shampoo? Good question!

Mum what was that big thing we saw at the museum that was furry and had schnozzles? Ummm?? A Mammoth? Yeah that's it! - What a guess! Tusks are also known as schnozzles!

Mum, I love you as big as our house and I love Dad as big as a Pirate Ship! I love Emily as big as a big big cat.

May I eat my boogers please Mummy? What beautiful manners!

Don't lean on me Daddy, you'll break my belly bones!

And my personal favourite...
The sunset is so beautiful and so are you Mum! Awww couldn't you just melt?

What lovely sayings do your kids come out with?

Friday's Favourite Find: The Third Prince

Since Prince William got hitched today I thought a story about a prince would be perfect!  I found The Third Prince by Rachel Flynn.

Princess Glori dreams of meeting her very own prince charming and when she is given some wishing seeds as a gift she wishes for one.  Becoming impatient she wishes again, just in case the first time didn't work, and then again to make sure she got what she wished for!

How will she get herself out of this mess? 

This is a delightful novel and would be ideal for any young girl who enjoys a fairytale love story. It would be ideal for the 9 - 12 year old age group.

If only someone would give me some wishing seeds! Not that I would wish for a prince charming (already got one of those!).  What would I wish for?  Perhaps a holiday? No, I think what I really want is an hour to myself where I can actually finish a cup of tea!

What would you wish for?

Would you like a Dinosaur with your Vegies?

Every Thursday afternoon the 'Vegie Man' arrives from Aussie Farmers Direct with our weekly delivery of vegetables.  James loves helping unpack the box and I love that he gets so excited over fruit and vegetables! 

The best part of the delivery though is deciding what to do with the box that the vegies arrived in.  Last week we used it as a Pirate Ship. This week, inspired by our visit to the Dinosaur Museum, we made a Stegosaurus...

Then it turned into a very fashionable hat!

And of course we read some great books on dinosaurs today.  James' favourite was Harry and His Bucket Full of Dinosaurs: I'm Not Scared of Monsters because Harry has a Stegosaurus called Steggie, which is what he called his box dinosaur!

For more fun and play ideas check out Childhood 101: We Play.

Dino World

It's been quite a while since our last dinosaur fix, so we went to visit the National Dinosaur Museum here in Canberra.  I'm not sure who was more excited James or Daddy!

Here is a selection of the Dinosaurs we saw...



The museum also had a great range of floor puzzles and of course we had to do the T-Rex one!

With dinosaurs on our mind we decided to make our very own Dino World when we got home.  We collected leaves, acorns, sticks, rocks and a heap of dirt which we used to design a gorgeous world for our little dinosaurs to enjoy.  The acorns made perfect dinosaur eggs.

To finish off our day we read a few Dinosaur books.  With so many to choose from, it was hard to go past a dino story by Michael Salmon.  We read Deep Sea Sauruses and The Dinosaur Who Invented Things.

For more play ideas, check out It's Playtime link party.

Willy Wonka would be proud

What better way to end Easter Sunday than with yet another dose of chocolate (and caramel, marshmallow, Crunchie bar and ice-cream)!  Inspired by reading Even More Revolting Recipes by Roald Dahl, I made Wonka’s Whipple-Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight.  And it sure was a delight!

It doesn’t look that great but gee it was delicious!

And it didn’t last long!  I even caught my husband licking the bowl!

This is just another reason why I love Roald Dahl and always will.

‘Wonka’s Whipple-Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight!’ cried Grandpa George. ‘It’s the best of the all! You’ll just love it!’

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Friday's Favourite Find - Scumdidlyumptious!

'Nose-bags On!'

This week I stumbled upon a scrumdiddlyumptious book! Roald Dhal's Even More Revolting Recipes is a wonderful cook book for families that is inspired by Dhal's most popular stories.

Have you ever wondered what a Plushnugget or a Glumptious Globgobbler would taste like from The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me?  Or what about Boiled Slobbages from James and the Giant Peach?  Well, this delightful book, illustrated by Quentin Blake, will show you how to make them for yourself!  Mmmm delumptious!

I will definitely be making the Wonka's Whipple-Scumptious Fudgemallow Delight!

Ahoy there it's Pirate Day!

Being so close to Easter I had planned to do some more Easter activities today, however, my little 3 year old decided that Pirate Day would be so much more fun.  So I went with it and here's what we got up to today...

It's important that you look the part so we made a Pirate hat and beard.  Don't you just love the versatility of the local newspaper?  Read it then wear it!

With such a beautiful sunny Autumn day we ventured outside to sail our Pirate ships.  It's amazing how 3 cardboard boxes could entertain us for over an hour!

What would Pirate Day be without a Treasure Hunt.  So we made Treasure Maps by soaking some paper in coffee and I burnt the edges to make them look authentic.  We then mapped out where our treasure was buried and the hunt began.  Mmmm gold foil covered mini chocolates!

I had bought a heap of chocolate to make Easter Eggs today but since we were being pirates we ditched that idea and made chocolate Pirate Ships instead.  So much chocolate and so so good.

Our Pirate story for today was Tough Boris by Mem Fox. Boris von de Borch is rough, tough and fearless but when his parrot dies he cries, like everyone else.  This delightful picture book shows that even tough pirates can express emotions.

For more play and crafting fun check out Childhood 101:We Play and Playtime

Happy Pirate Day!

Books for little hands



Little Emily loves books. She claps her hands and gets so excited when I read her a story and her favorite pastime is pulling all the books off the bookshelf. Recently I have noticed that she is now showing interest in opening books and looking at the pictures. Although chewing on them is still a HUGE temptation.

Learning to hold a book, turn pages and 'read' the pictures are all important skills to develop on a baby's journey to becoming a reader. Board books are a great way to kick start your baby's love of reading. They are perfect for little hands and they can withstand a fair bit of rough treatment and of course chewing.

Finding good quality secondhand board books can be a little difficult, however I have managed to find a few in great condition and they are for sale via Facebook and Fishpond.

Hippity Hoppity Easter's on its way

With Easter just around the corner, I thought an Easter theme for our craft day would be fun.  Here's what we got up to...

We made some little rabbits out of plastic eggs and paper to give as Easter presents. We filled our bunnies with little chocolate eggs.

We also made an Easter basket so that the Easter Bunny knows where to leave the chocolates!

I found some Easter cookie cutters yesterday, so we made biscuits and James was in charge of icing and decorating them.  What a fantastic sugar overload!

With such a lovely Autumn day, we then headed outside to practice our bunny hopping and our Easter Song was Here Comes Peter Cottontail.  Here are the lyrics.

For more fun play and craft activities, check out Childhood 101 We Play and It's Playtime.
Happy Easter!

The bunny in the little blue jacket.

Peter Rabbit is one of Beatrix Potter's best loved characters and with Easter just around the corner, this gorgeous rabbit in his little blue jacket has been popping up all over the place.

I loved this story when I was a child and recently Mum gave me some of my old books from when I was a kid and The Tale of Peter Rabbit was amongst them.  So now I can share this classic tale with my children. 

Here are some of the reasons why I love The Tale of Peter Rabbit:

• 'Your father had an accident there, he was put in a pie'. A very stern warning from Peter's mother about going into Mr McGregor's garden very specific. I don't think you would find many children's books these days referring to a father ending up in a pie.
• When Peter finally makes it home after his ordeal, he is sent to bed with out any supper and a dose of chamomile tea.  Certainly a punishment from my perspective! I'm not a big chamomile tea fan. 
• Mothers will always love and take care of their naughty little bunnies, even when they don't follow instructions, coming home sick from gorging themselves with food stolen from the farmer's garden and losing their clothes for the second time in a fortnight!

For all things Peter Rabbit and Beatrix Potter, check out the official website.

Honey Bee Books also have some beautiful pre-loved Beatrix Potter Books for sale via our Facebook shop. 

Library Day!

As we were already out and about this morning, I thought we would go along to Story Time at our local library.  It has been a while since we have been and James was so excited.  It was Grandparents theme today with two Grandparent books by Pamela Allen and then some craft activities.  With books borrowed and full of inspiration, we went home to set up our own little library. 

You can't borrow books if you don't have a library card. So I whipped these up on the Computer.  We got the plastic protectors from our visit to the library and they made our cards look very official.

As the 'Library Man', James decided to host his own Story Time with his friends.  He chose a book that he knew how to 'read' and did a wonderful job, including introducing himself, showing the pictures and singing a round of Old McDonald's Farm to finish off. 

Here is Emily selecting her books to borrow.  The 'Library Man' was not impressed when her method of choosing a good book included chewing on it.

In the afternoon we decided to make our own book for the library.  I found a pile of old magazines and cut out a range of different pictures, which James then stuck into his book.  We came up with lots of fun stories to match the pictures.

The most fun was had when we decided to use the letters from the magazines to make our title page.  I wrote the words on a piece of paper and James went through the magazines to find the matching letters for us to cut out.  I was really impressed by how far he has come along in recognising the alphabet.

For more playtime fun check out Childhood101 We Play link up.