Cereal Box Marble Run: How to

I recently spotted this on Pinterest & had to try it with my marble loving boys.

We spent what felt like weeks collecting toilet rolls & cereal boxes, then finally we had enough to make two.

 

 It has a trap door at the bottom, so the marbles don't come tumbling straight out & a hole in the top.

Then, when we came to make Ed's, as impressed as he was with Bean's, he wanted a marble maze instead. 

So I asked him to draw a track on the cardboard, which then had to be slightly amended on the parts where it was too close together and we added extra routes where there were gaps.

I tried to make it using the loo rolls, but there wasn't enough, so I had to make amends with the spare cereal box, which turned out much better and far easier to put together.

Oh, I cant tell you how much I enjoyed making this!
This one also lasted a lot longer than the loo roll one.

 

 It has a hole at one end, then a trap door in the other so if he fills it, he only has to control one hole. 

As soon as I made it, he put all the marbles in haha.

 Sooooo much fun! Go make one!

Baby Number Three?

One of the great things about being me is that I feel big emotions for short spurts of time. When things are good, they're really good, and when things are bad, they're really bad. This seems to fit with motherhood because my kids seem to run on similar mood swings. My days are full of moments when I look at my kids and think; "Bloody hell, you're beautiful!" When we stop for five minutes and have a snuggle on the sofa, it's the best five minutes of my life.

I don't want to dwell on the bad moments, mostly because I don't remember them. But I did once contemplate, for a millisecond, crashing the car just to make the fighting in the back seats stop. I don't let it get to me because even in the depths of a bad bit, I know there's a good bit around the corner.

This makes the decision to have a third child difficult because I change my mind on a hourly basis, and once the deed is done, I can't ever take it back.

Almost three years ago, it was my main goal. I wanted to lose all the previous baby weight so I could have the pregnancy I'd dreamed of without the overzealous doctors complaining about my weight. I was working out at the gym three times a week with the image of a growing human as my inspiration. I never succeeded with the weight loss because I enjoy eating too much but that's not why I gave up on the baby dream. I gave up over a year ago because I realised how difficult I was finding being a mother of my two little boys. I was struggling to home educate them, while running the house, ignoring my online business and entering into the mission that is getting Ed's diagnosis.

Now they're back at school, life is of course very different. I get a lot of time to work on my own stuff and the boys are settled into the routine of school runs and the like but there are still moments when I really struggle with my boys, like at bedtime or when we're out. Moments when an extra person to worry about would be way too much for me to cope with. How can I round after them in the store with a buggy? How can I get them to settle at night when they're having a mad half hour and I've also got a hungry baby to contend with? Of course Mr Strawberry would help a lot, but those moments are already super stressful. 

Despite this, as I head swiftly to my late 30's, the inner panic of losing my fertility is rising. For some reason my head just keeps coming back to the idea of having another baby. When we got married, we wanted to have a big family. We are both from large families and we'd planned of having four ourselves. This plan changed when we'd had two children 16 months apart, promising ourselves we would never do that again.

My biggest problem is that I am super gullible. I can be sold a dream in less than two paragraphs. I'm also a bit of a fantasist. So all this imagery the media throws at us fools me every time. Beautifully airbrushed mothers with their chubby little babies, laughing and playing in their sparkly clean homes. I know it's not real, I know, but it's a nice dream.

Only the SMA TV advert is truly honest. It shows those moments when you might think 'this might all just too much for me to cope with'. Those moments like when you're ready to leave the house finally, having packed the equivalent of a weekend away only to find the little monster has done one of those poos, the one when it goes all the way up his back. 

So, do I really want to enter back into a world of nappies, crying, sleepless nights and living with a little human who has no sense of reason? I know what real sleep deprivation is like and what it does to your mind. I know what shower fear is, that guilt and worry you feel when you're finally taking five minutes to wash your hair. I've listened to my baby scream constantly as I washed the skanky breast milk from my stinky body (I leaked...a lot). But it's all just temporary. 

As bad as it got, it's gone now. 

I love that on Sunday mornings, while I lay in bed, my little ones take themselves downstairs and fetch themselves some breakfast. I love that they are perfectly capable of fixing themselves something to eat (I'm always listening out, forever the worrier, but you should see their faces when I come downstairs to find them chomping away). They are quickly turning into reasonable and independent men and I love it. I have loved watching them grow, establish their personalities, and change from a squishy little squeaky things to learning how to be grown men. 

And that's the pinnacle of parenthood: watching them grow. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to have another human to observe. 

A few fellow mothers I know well enough to have this conversation with would also love to have another baby, but are terrified. Life with two small children is hard enough, and they worry they won't be able to cope with an extra person. And rightly so. Especially if you have children who appear to be a little extra high maintenance. 

But what if having a house full of giggles and silliness is what you want? Of course it will also be full of demands of more food, dressing children in clothes only to realise they've grown out of them...again and the nightmare that is instilling a bedtime routine.

And there are of course Mums I know who are doing a fabulous job of raising a large family.

As cute as babies are, they need you 24/7. Sounds do-able until you realise just how draining that is. After six weeks of hard work, those first smiles are pretty much guarrenteed to be aimed at someone else and when he learns to talk, he'll say Dada and Nana way before he says Mama.

Everything will always need wiping, food splashed all over the walls, carpets pee'd on, but you won't have the energy or the inclination to bother. Cleaning a house with children in it is like trying to bail out a boat with hole in it using a teaspoon.

I'm finally starting to gain control over the cleanliness of our home and having a new baby would change all that, which in turn would literally depress me. I need my surroundings to be clean and tidy-ish to stop my mind from going completely wild.

But I can't cope with what if's. I know baby number three will haunt me for the rest of my life if we don't try. But we also know now isn't the right time. Not right now, we've both got too much on our plates. But it may not always be this way.

I saw a meme the other day which said "your child will be your best teacher and most beautiful work of art". The reality is, is that some of those lessons will be painful to learn.

We don't regret the things we do, but the things we don't do. I've never heard anyone grow old and say they wish they'd spent more time working but I have heard people say they'd wish they'd had more children.

We don't regret the things we do, but the things we don't do.

Bean & Mummy's Yo! Sushi Date

Ever since we started making veggie sushi at home, I've wanted to be brave enough to go out for proper sushi. 

Bean is a bit of a food lover and I've had plans building in my head for a while of places we can go where we can try new foods together. So when Mr Strawberry and I went on a rare date and the boys became jealous, it didn't take me long to arrange 'dates' with both boys. Ed and I went to the movies (his choice) and I took Bean for sushi. It wasn't our only option but I'm so pleased we went, it was fabulous. 

On the way there, we discussed eating fish, raw fish and crab. We talked about how neither of us had ever eaten raw fish but maybe we should try it. It's fine to not like something but it's not fine to not try anything new. 

So, we got there and Bean chose us a little booth. He loved the bright colours, the cute characters and the tv on the wall that seemed to go through a loop of sushi dishes and lucky cats, all within cool Japanese imagery. The staff were all super helpful and friendly, made sure we had everything we needed and ensured they were close by if we had any questions. Every table has water taps so we never went thirsty and the conveyor belt of plates went past the table so we could grab whatever we fancied. 

It took us a bit of time to read through the menu (there are so many options) and find what was passing us but we didn't feel rushed. The dishes we really fancied but couldn't see, we simply ordered. Bean loved that he could press the button which alerted our waitress (thankfully he didn't get too hooked on it and was very sensible for someone who is only five). 

Our first plate.

From the top; inari & chive futomaki, duck gyoza, tamago nigiri, inari pocket,
pumpkin korroke, duck & mango roll.

So, I take him out for sushi and he orders himself sausages!
At least he attempted to eat them with chopsticks!

We tried lots of new foods, and even got brave enough to try both raw fish and raw beef but we didn't like it. We tried the salmon without the salmon and poor bean ended up with just the wasabi flavoured rice. "Too spicy!" he said. But the pumpkin korroke, duck gyoza, beef tsukune, tamago nigiri and inari pocket were delicious! 

seared beef nigiri and salmon maki.

And the puddings! It's obvious from my waistline I'm a pudding girl. I went for sushi so I wasn't expecting great puddings too. My sister had told me about a cheesecake sushi thing so I knew they did a few, but the puddings ensured we went past our 15 plate limit. 

We went on a Sunday, so we partook in the Sunday munch deal, which is 10 plates for £20 and 5 plates for £10 for a child, but because we were trying everything which caught our eye, we soon maxed out. Then when Bean spotted more puddings passing us and ordered himself a fruit platter, it pushed us so far past it was cheaper to charge us for two adults. I didn't mind, the last time we had a date was August! And the unlimited water was free. We didn't finish everything on our plates so we brought home our left overs. 

We first tried the custard dorayaki which was so yum Bean nabbed a chocolate one too. The chocolate mochi was peculiar but tasty, as was the strawberry cheesecake mochi. I'm still deciding on the anko mochi, there's some in the leftovers box. 

Testing the mochi.

strawberry cheesecake mochi, custard dorayaki, chocolate dorayaki, chocolate
mochi and anko mochi.

"I will succeed..."

Looking back at the menu now (to get the names spelt right!) there are so many dishes we didn't try. We'll have to go back very soon. 

So impressed with the conveyor belt.

Yo! Sushi is the most child friendly place I've been to in ages, with sparkly clean toilets (which I always appreciate) and absolutely no tutting from anyone because I dared to take a child to a restaurant, especially one who can be a bit fidgety and knocked a glass of water over our table when he was being a bit impatient waiting for his fruit platter. 

We finished our meal utterly full, with a belly full of yummy-ness and after such genuinely lovely staff, I literally couldn't help leaving a massive tip. We struggled through town and Bean almost fell asleep on the way home. We probably shouldn't have eaten quite so much but if it's only twice a year who cares haha!

We're so full....

Brave Face: Teaching Children to be Honest

As adults we often find ourselves giving the world our happy face regardless of what's going on inside. We have people in our lives we can be truly honest with, who when they ask how we are, rather than give them the "fine, how are you?" response, we tell them the truth, good and bad. 

When I collected Bean from school on Thursday, he had his arms wrapped around his tummy and his little face was white as a sheet. He was obviously quite poorly and his teacher handed him over seeming oblivious. As soon as we got in the car he fell asleep and proceeded to spend his evening sleeping in the sofa, waking only to puke in a bowl. He perked up around 8pm and happily got ready for bed despite skipping dinner and sleeping for almost five hours that afternoon. 

He was fine after a good nights sleep but because he'd been sick in the last 24 hours he couldn't go to school, so we had a lovely chilled out day together. 

When we collected his brother at 3pm, I picked up Bean's homework from his teacher and asked if she knew he was poorly. Apparently, she had no clue. 

Now I know Bean had a rubbish short term memory so it's difficult to drag the truth about what happened, but when questioned he told me he had felt poorly both before and after lunchtime, which means my poor sausage had felt dreadful all day and not bothered to tell anyone.  I, of course, explained to both boys that if they ever felt poorly at school, they ought to tell a teacher and I'd be happy to come fetch them so I could take care of them. There's no reason to suffer though it.

But it bothered me that Bean couldn't tell his teacher, who is lovely. I hope she doesn't feel bad about not noticing how ill he was. I know my boys and if they want to put on a brave face for the world, they will, keeping all their feelings saved up for when they see me. Ed is the same, he keeps everything bottled up all day only to release a tirade of emotions when I collect him. I wish they could be more comfortable with their teachers, though they have only been at this new school for five months, they need to be open and honest with their teachers.  Especially if new situations arise, like if someone started bullying them, they need to be able to tell someone at the school. 

I don't really know how to deal with this, aside from talking to them, encouraging them to be open with their teacher, instilling the idea that their teacher is a safe place and giving them more time to get used to their new school. 

On the plus side, despite how busy and distracted I can get, I am obviously still their favourite 'safe place' and I can't help but enjoy that feeling of being needed by my little people. I must be doing an okay job of being there for them when they need me *mini happy dance*.

I think the 'brave face' has a place in our lives, we can't go around opening up to everyone who glances in our direction, that would be weird (and we've all experienced that person at the bus stop who suddenly launches into their life story, which only leaves you thinking "why can't I drive?") but I think there needs to be a certain amount of people you can open up to. For my boys, I think they should have someone at home (obviously) and someone at school. In fact, thinking about it, the people who are truly miserable at work seem to be the people who haven't got anyone they can be truly honest with in that place. So maybe we need one at home, one at work, one at whatever social activity we do.

What do you think? 

Are things uncomfortable when you don't have a confidante in each surroundings you find yourself in on a regular basis?

Up-cycling: Rescuing an Old Basket from the Bin

This helped me solve a problem I had on my bedside table. I've been redecorating my bedroom and it's coming along beautifully except the random items I desperately need at my bedside were driving me mad. I needed a basket of some kind but my searching had come up with nothing that would fit in my scheme of things. I knew I'd end up making something myself so when I found this broken old basket in the bin (not my bin, but don't tell) I was pleased as punch. 

I could see why it was being thrown out, the top edges had completely come apart with sharp sticks poking out everywhere, but with a fabric lining, no one would ever know what lies beneath. 

You could do it too! 

Paint it the colour of your choice and find some fabric you like. I could have made it to fit perfectly, but I hate sewing curves so I just gathered the excess in and put some elastic around the top edge. 

Up-cycling; it's fun, saves waste AND it can solve your storage problems :)

Silent Sunday

Minecraft Diamond Ore Curtains

So I needed to make some curtains to go in the boys new Minecraft room. At first I was completely stumped, but after raiding my fabric stash I came up with these.

I love that I have so much fabric, and so many different kinds. I'm so grateful to all the people who let me raid their clear-outs.

I had some grey wool, but unfortunately not enough, so I backed it with some black wool, which actually turned out great because it's given them a really useful blackout effect (fab for playing games with torches). If I was to make them again and willing to buy fabric especially, I would simply use a nice grey cotton or something.

For the blocks, I used some shiny satin and metallic polyester.

I cut out my curtains and started on the coloured blocks. Because I was using scraps from my stash, I used several pieces. I first ironed on some bondaweb.

 Then I drew on some 3x3cm squares using my set square.

 These are the shapes I wanted to cut out.

 I cut them all out and pinned them in place, using a google image as a guide.

I ironed it and stitched it all together.

Et voila!

The wool is very wiggly and it would've looked better in cotton, but it was free so I'm not complaining and the boys are very impressed.

Think I'll make some matching cushions...

Minecraft Boys Room

So yes, I have two children and yes, they are addicted to Minecraft. Like the nation of children (and a few grown ups).

So, when I offered to re-decorate their room after a move-around (it needed re-painting anyway due to the sheer amount of 'art' on the walls and after moving the furniture it's blindingly obvious where it all used to be), they asked if they could have a Minecraft room. To be fair to them, they currently have nursery curtains (in a very cute zoo animals print), so maybe it is time for a change.
I didn't really want to go with a 'theme', but I know how often I like to change things around so by the time they're bored of it, I'll be very pleased to do whatever needs to be done.

I've pretty much made this up as I went along and I've done it on the cheap with what I could find around the house.

Their room is chocolate milk colour, I last decorated it in February 2012. This is how it was until they grew out of their toddler beds and went into bunk beds.

Ed and Bean's first night in their new bunk beds instagram photo

Unfortunately, no-one wanted to be on the top bunk. Ed got it by default because Bean was too young (and incredibly clumsy) but he's never been particularly happy about it. We had discussed Bean going up there when he hit five and a half over the Christmas period, but when the time came, he wasn't confident enough. So, after measuring everything up, making a layout plan, I worked out I could (just about) get it all to fit with the beds separated. No more top bunk.

Tiny room, bit of a squeeze.

So that's that solved.

Now to work out how the hell I'm going to make a 'Minecraft room'. I googled it and all I came up with was those sticky decals which would last a whole five minutes with my monsters. Mojang aren't making any bedding or anything at the moment so it's just up to the creative types to solve this.

I decided I would go for a simple motif, touch up the chocolate milkshake on the bottom half and paint the top half green. Then I planned to add some Minecraft block detail with a handmade stamp. However, my darling Mr Strawberry commented on how green it would be and wouldn't it be nicer with a blue sky too? Of course he was right, so off to B&Q for more paint I went.

I tried to make a stamp using a piece of wood and some glued to felt, but it didn't hold the paint enough to provide a good stamp, so I ended up making a stencil (oh how I hate working with stencils) but it worked out well after a bit of touching up.

Grass block.

Making the stencil;

Using a grass block as inspiration, I drew out 3x3cm squares on a piece of card, to make a stencil. Then laminated it, and cut out the appropriate squares to make this...

I drew a line around their room using Mr Strawberry's spirit level.

I painted the top half a beautiful sky blue, touched up the brown where it needed it, then painted a green stripe across the middle.

Using my stencil, I added the grass block effect, then painted Minecraft clouds along the top edges. I did them free hand so they're not perfect and would've been better if I'd used my set square, but I'm happy regardless. Remembering which pot had the darker grey proved to be the biggest issue while doing this.

Sky inspiration.

And here's the finished room...

Grass block detail. 

'Snow block' storage from Dunhelm.

I'll tell you all about the curtains in a post coming soon....

Silent Sunday

Silent Sunday

How To Up-Cycle Your Kids Favourite T-Shirts

My boys have feisty opinions about what they wear and when they're not butt naked, they're wearing their favourite trousers and t-shirts. So, over the last few years, when they've grown out of their absolute favourites, I have been up-cycling the pictures on them onto new, plain tees. Sure, I could go out and get him a new Batman tee, but this way is much cheaper and they're made just for them. Sometimes, family members buy them designer clothes and worse than watching them chuck chocolate ice cream down a beautifully made tee is watching them grow a little tight around the edges, which is how this all started in the first place. I could never face getting rid of them and the boys loved them so much. Our favourite designer tees were all applique anyway so I was inspired to re-applique them onto new, bigger tees.

So, obviously, to get started you need a grown out of tee, an iron, some bondaweb and a sewing machine or a needle & thread. 

You can go as crazy as you like with this too, there are no limits, except your imagination.

I once cut out all the images on a pair of Buzz Lightyear trousers and lovingly hand-stitched them onto a Summer hat.

Here we go; 

1. Lay out your tee.

 

2. Cut out the image you want to keep. Chuck the rest. You want to cut it out quite roughly, there's no need to be pedantic. You'll need plenty of around the edges. 

3. Lay out your image(s) on the bondaweb. Trim it as close as you can, you do not want that stuff sticking to your ironing board or your iron. You can use some of your rough edges to ensure a close trim. 

4. Flatten everything nicely and iron until the bondaweb has stuck. Most kids t-shirt images can't be ironed on, so just do it from the back, but don't forget to check it's flat on the other side, jersey (t-shirt fabric) can have a mind of it's own.

5. Now trim the edges nicely. You can be as pedantic as you like, or you can make your sewing much easier by just doing a very basic shape or by rounding everything off. I tend to leave a small edge around the image so I don't have to sew on the actual image.

6. Lay out the new t-shirt and place the image where you want it.

Because you often can't iron directly on t-shirt images, I use a piece of A4 paper because I find it gives me more control than using a tea towel or something and the heat transfers well. You could also use baking parchment or greaseproof paper.

7. You're ready to sew.

I made a few since I'd bought a triple pack of long-sleeve tees for about £7 from Asda.

You can hand stitch it (bearing in mind a CHILD will be wearing it and we all know what they do with their clothes) or use a sewing machine.

I use a free motion embroidery foot because I want to practise with it more, so no, my stitching isn't perfect but the boys won't be complaining and it's not about perfect stitching. This is a free-for-all, go for it!

If you manage to follow my dodgy instructions, I'd love to see what you make, please show off your handiwork in the comments below.

Good luck and a Happy New Year to you all xxx