Yesterday after school we had fun working out what each boy would wear.

Mr Z (he’s insisting I change his title!) loves lizards. He wanted to go as a “Scientist who studies lizards”. So we Googled that phrase to find out that a Herptologist is a scientist who studies lizards. Armed with a basket of assorted lizards and wearing his Opa’s forestry shirt, Mr Z went off happily this morning.

Mr N was a bit harder.  With some creative thinking, we came up with the idea of him dressing as Archimedes – wearing a bathrobe and shower cap with a towel around his neck, and carrying a golden crown and rubber duck. If you’re not familiar with the story, click here.

Here are the results of their costumes – taken this morning before school:

Herptologist & Archimedes

While changing his nappy, I noticed he grabbed his toes – something he wasn’t doing last week. So during play time, I undid the bottom of his suit, giving him access to bare feet. He had a lovely time playing with his toes.

So, my play for this week is about playing with my nephew. I’ve been lucky enough to babysit him every Friday for the last couple of months while my sister goes to an exercise class, and it’s wonderful watching him grow and change. Every week, he’s discovered something new – this week it’s his toes, and he’s nearly rolling over (chances are, it’ll either happen while my sister is out, or shortly after I leave!

The biggest thing is to give babies a chance to play. Playing with toes through socks or a suit is not the same as playing with toes on bare feet. I just love playing with him and watching him respond. When he found his toes, he looked so proud of himself.

This love of books has stuck with me throughout my life. Reading is still one of my favourite past times and one of the ways I love to relax.

As an adult, one of my favourite times is to sit and curl up on the couch with a good book, often with some relaxing music playing in the background.

As a parent, I have been able to share my love of books with my children. At the end of the day, no matter what else has gone on during the day, I am able to enjoy a book with my kids, and it’s not just me reading to the boys. As they have learned to read, sharing the love of books and reading has been wonderful, even magical as the love of reading and the joy of a good story is instilled in them.

Although I have to say my favourite time of day is when I creep down the stairs and see my Dad reading a book to my son, just like he used to read to me and my sister. I look at the special time they are sharing and know that he will grow up to remember these times in the same way I remember the special times my sister and I spent having Dad read stories to us.

This post is using the Weekly Story Starter from Leaf Journals. This weeks theme is: My favourite time… Books.

Well, my boys were bored, so I sent them outside to create an entry!

Yes, they are still in their PJs – it is school holidays after all. It has been wet & raining, but the ground was dry enough to draw on.

Here are the boys proudly showing off their artwork:

And finally, this is the photo heading off to Debbie to enter the competition:

If you want to get involved in the competition, go to her Facebook page.

Oh, and the boys are already talking about what they want to do with their prize!!!

I had a fun day yesterday – I spent it at emergency at the Royal Children’s Hospital with Mr 6. He has been sick for quite a while I was tired of being told it was “just a virus”. I wanted a doctor to investigate further, so off we went.

Mr 6 needed a blood test. This is something that has been quite traumatic in the past. The last time he had to have one, the vein kept moving so the doctor had to stick him a few times, resulting in a very upset and sore little boy and needing to have another blood test as the blood they got the first time wasn’t enough.

The pathologist in the Children’s greeted Mr 6 by showing him some magic tricks, making the empty vial  appear and disappear and doing tricks with Mummy’s ring and one of the wipes. The blood test went without a hitch, much to the relief of both Mummy & Mr 6 – plus he got a band aid with Homer Simpson on it!

Talking with the pathologist, he said it’s all in the way you distract the child and put them at ease. He turned what could have been another traumatic experience into something fun by playing with Mr 6. There were no tears and he’s been talking about the magic tricks since yesterday.

It’s amazing how much difference a bit of play can make when a child is unwell and scared. And it’s amazing how one great experience erases the trauma of past experiences.

Oh, and Mr 6 is OK, and we have the answers we were looking for.

On Sunday, we had some friends over for lunch after church. I was the only one with kids. So the make up of the group was a 6 year old, an 8 year old and 6 adults ranging in age from 18 to 33.

It was fun seeing my kids get out their lego and Magnetix and watching the adults have a good play.

This is a picture of the start of one of the Magnetix creations.

It was funny – a couple of the adults are engineers & scientists, so there was discussion of the correct structure for the Magnetix and other technical stuff the kids couldn’t possibly understand. The boys just cared that their pyramid would be strong, and then able to be destroyed!

It was a lot of fun, and a good reminder to us adults that play is not just for children, it’s for us too.

Anyway, both my boys love playing Monopoly, and have for years. On Mother’s Day, after we got back from lunch, we (read Mummy) wanted a rest. Mr 8 had other ideas, begging and pleading to play Monopoly.

This is a picture I took of the board on Sunday. I lay on the couch and rested while we played. Mr 8 won, with over $900 in a neat pile of $100 notes – he had those and a few $1, while I had just over $400 in different size notes. We both had a lot of fun.

I’ve found Monopoly to be a great game because it teaches the boys about money. They are familiar with the different notes (even though they look different to the ones in Mummy’s purse) and need to add and subtract. In this game, Mr 8 was banker, so he had to work out change when we bought property or had to pay for anything. There’s also learning about paying rent when you land on a square.

There are also lessons about taking turns and about being a good winner and a good loser.

You will notice the money in the middle of the board. We have made up a rule that if you need to pay tax or a fine, you put the money in the middle of the board and if you land on the “Free Parking” square, you get to keep the money in the middle of the board.

When we had finished the game, Mr 6 decided he wanted to play, but it was time for dinner. I guess I know what we’ll be playing this weekend!

I checked our meat supply, and we had heaps of sausages, so I thought Devilled Sausages would be nice, and something a bit different. I first went to the recipe books & couldn’t find one, so I Googled it! I found a recipe on an Aussie site, and, with the laptop still opened, made dinner.

The recipe I used is here.

It’s currently in the oven & smelling yummy. I’ll update with how it goes.

The challenges were:

1. Count the number of blue things in the back yard and who do they belong to?
2. Look in the lounge room and find the number of cars not in their home (ie the car box)
3. Count the number of cars in the car box, and then line them up on the verandah to see  how far they go

Well there were 40 blue things, including t-towels from my brothers cafe, pots for pot plants, a doona cover and a blue thing the boys play with in the spa.

There were also 3 cars in the lounge room, and 42 cars in the car box. They only went half way down the verandah (see photo).

The boys didn’t even realise they were tidying and sorting the cars as they were doing the challenge, and they were practicing their counting skills. They had so much fun doing this challenge, we’ve had to think up other challenges for them! It’s a great way to play and get jobs done at the same time.

Oh, and we hid the piece of paper with the challenge on it too – so they had to follow clues to find the challenge in the first place!

I loved nursery rhymes as a child, and loved reading them to my children.

What is your favourite nursery rhyme? Have you changed it in any way?

My Dad or Grandpa (can’t remember which) taught us a strange version of “Little Miss Muffet”. It goes something like this:

Little Miss Muffet, sat on a tuffet,
Eating her curds and whey;
Along came a spider, who sat down beside her
She said “Rack off hairy legs”!