Rugby photo wall in progress

I have been wanting to do this for a long long time. Finally I chose some photos and got them printed. We have so many great memories around RUGBY in the Rose family. I wanted to put it together and place it in the hallway. I placed them in a random order and put them on with special thin blue tacks. Unfortunately with the heat it didn't stick on too long. I now have to redo some of them as they moved and got stuck on top of each other :(

I still have photos from the last 6 months undeveloped so I guess I will complete the project when I get them sorted. I must hurry up. The All Blacks season will begin soon!

Spy eyes

Luca made them after dinner tonight. He thinks he can see so much further with these...

Luca's drawings

Luca and Ashley are drawing all day, every day at the moment. Luca has been always good but it became more detailed and tidier.  

Ashley is doing well too, now she can write her name and her person now has some hair! 

Luca's dinosaur

I gave him some cardboard this afternoon. He came up with a wonderful piece of art. A volcano erupting and some dinosaurs are hurt because of the lava. Pretty good I think.

Dinosaur

Luca's recent masterpiece. He is really creative!

Ashley's dream house

This lady was VERY proud of herself to bring her craft project for the weekend to school. "A dream house"

Ashley's favourite spot in the house

She is crazy about crafting and drawing. I think at this stage the boys were more into toys and building LEGO but Ashley definitely prefers to spend most of her play time at this table.

Of course she needs to be dressed in a princess kind of dress though...

Beads

The kids spent a long time threading beads this morning. I love the fact that they enjoy these quiet activities and they are pretty good at it.

Especially little Ashley is super good for her age. I had to cut the tip of the thread so many times but she made this entire necklace by herself. Very proud little lady!

Painting on a stormy day

The kids have been begging me to bring out the paints. Finally the other day I brought them out. They were so super happy and spent ages painting. I feel really bad I don't do more crafts with them. Certainly not as much as I did with Oliver when he was their age. I might have to start a kids craft session with my mummy friends...

Here is Luca's masterpiece - Daddy watering the gold with his pet flamingo on a leash. I love his strange(?) imagination and the ability to bring it alive on a piece of paper.  

Halloween Craft sessions

We had some fun Halloween art and craft sessions this week. Getting ready for this weekend's party I had some little helpers at my place. 

I had a few things in mind so instead of the kids choose what they wanted to make, I gave them a mission each! They were all great with it and showed me their wonderful talent. 

Ashley was happily using my paper cutter for over 2 hours. She used some tape to put the cut up pieces together too.

The boys were already very excited when I picked them up from school the next day and were asking if they could do more crafts. Of course!

Luca made some bats with his best friend Rafi. He was extremely intense and concentrated on his mission of making a group of bats!! He completed it beautifully!! 

I must remember not to put away my craft boxes and keep them in easy reach so that I can offer them more when they need something to do. Just some cutting and glueing makes them so happy. 

Pet rock School

A while ago I purchased a Groupon voucher for the boys to attend a craft session - pet rock making. Finally having only two days before it expired Matthew managed to take the boys into town. 

The class was very small and well organised. All the necessary materials were provided and they were straight into it! The art teacher told Matthew that the hardest part of teaching is to get the kids to speak out about their ideas and getting them to construct. Well - no problem at all with our boys. The teacher was apparently very impressed with our boys knowing exactly what they wanted. 

Oliver made a crab and of course his favourite animal - hedgehog. Luca was very happy with his turtle and a spider too.

Wonderful way to spend the hot afternoon. I really need to let them do more crafts at home. I might need to set up a proper craft station for them.

First project of the new year

It still feels wrong to start your new grade in January. This year Oliver is in the oldest class K2, and Luca in Nursery. Oliver is not starting till midweek but Luca had his first day today. There were some new kids starting so the classes were only for half as long as usual. Well he only goes for 3 hours a day normally which meant he only had an hour and a half there.

But he was very proud to come home with his little project. A worm on a leaf.

He loved being back, hopefully another great year ahead for him!

Craft crew

Nicola and I have been preparing for Naz's baby shower. This morning we got more intense work done - the nappy castle and tiny baby shoes making. This crafty session brought back some of the wonderful memories - the craft crew in Brunei. We used to make cards, scrap booking or just get together to chat pretending to be crafty.

These shoes took a long time to assemble - we put some pink nail polish inside as thank you gifts for the guests.

Tadaaaaa - very pink nappy castle:

The daddies looked after the kids so we were very productive and finished most of the work. Only a few days till the big surprise!

Loom Bands

My crafty boys couldn't ignore the loom band craze. Or maybe it was me? I had to see if they could make something... Well I got them a loom and extra bags of colourful bands. Luca likes to sort out the colours but not still enough to make anything yet but Oliver, he is my boy! He is very crafty and mastered how to make a fishtail bracelet in no time.  

He has made a blue knights one (blue and black) and his dragon rugby team one (green and black) and a Crusaders one (red and black). He wears them to kindy everyday and takes good care of them.

He has seen some pictures on my computer so he is now keen to make other things too. I think it is a great activity not only for girls but for boys too :)

Ready to take off

Oliver spent an afternoon building this cool looking airplane. He was so proud but was devastated when he found out he had to leave it behind when he goes on the plane back to Singapore.

After lots of tears we decided it will stay in his Japanese bedroom until he returns next time.

Holiday activity

I used to be better letting the boys to do painting, playdough, you know crafty things which takes extra support and time (for cleaning up especially without maids...).

I asked the boys what they would like to do during the holidays and they had a very clear answer - Painting! So that's what we did this morning. 

Both the boys were learning how you can make new colours by mixing certain colours. They enjoyed experimenting colour mix very much.
Oliver took a gentle approach:

And Luca - yes he took "Luca's wild" approach:

But he was concentrating very hard:

Oliver wanted to paint a police dog called "Chase"

Luca - I wan't too sure and I don't think he knew either...

Oliver always hashad a great concentration span but I was again surprised to see him sit happily and painted for a long time. Lots of thought went into this painting. 

This is now displayed on his bedroom door - Oliver's masterpiece "Chase"

I really enjoyed helping and watching the boys this morning. I wish I have more time for them.

Crafty boys

Luca was sooooo proud of himself making this "finger eating octopus" at kindy.

Of course Oliver wasn't too happy he had nothing to show off, so we had to sit down and make a "rattlesnake" when we got home. Lucky I saved enough toilet rolls for this kind of occasion :) 

Happy crafting boys!

Christmas Craft (already!?)

I know it's way too early but we need to be posting some of these very soon so that Oliver's friends will get them on time!

As usual he was very keen to sit down and cut and glue with me. Luca on the other hand was all over the show so he didn't make any this time.

Not too bad for a 4 year old :)

I love this festive feeling. I hope we can keep it up until we get to freezing Osaka for Christmas. We will be in NZ, Bali and Singapore before we get there.