This week my baby boy turns three, I can hardly believe it!  It has been a really hectic year and I am not nearly as prepared as I have been for previous birthdays, but hopefully I will have everything done on time!  As well as Ethan's birthday, we have a lot of friends with third birthdays around the same time, so we've got lots of presents to buy!  So I thought that I would share with you some of our gift ideas for Ethan and for his friends' third birthdays.

Balance Bike




This is going to be Ethan's main present, we've gone for Kiddimoto which is hopefully a good one, we will let you know!

Games




There are quite a few games that are recommended for ages three and up, and we particulary like the Orchard Toys games and Galt games.  I think that there's a definite change in children's ability to understand the rules of a game at this age.  And it is a great way to help teach them about taking turns and playing together.


Science Lab Set


We have been given this Learning Resources Lab Set to review, and are looking forward to giving it a try and doing our own experiments.  It's so fun that Ethan is old enough to be doing his own little science experiments, I know that he's going to love it!

Books




Well, books are a great gift at any age really, so of course Ethan will be getting quite a few for his birthday!

Toy clock or calendar




We have been talking more and more about the days of the week, months, and seasons so I think that Ethan would enjoy having a calendar to keep track of things each day.  He also loves clocks and telling me what time he thinks it is, he's not quite ready to learn how to tell the time, but I think that having a clock to play with will be fun and help prepare him to learn the time in the future.

Trampoline



We have been given a Worlds Apart Zebra Trampoline to review, so look for that post coming up.  In general a trampoline is a great gift for a three year old, who should now be able to jump confidently and would have fun with the extra bounce that a trampoline provides.  Also a great way to get in some physical activity if you're stuck in the house on a rainy day.

Arts and Crafts



We love to get crafty and want all of our friends to have fun with arts and crafts as well, so we love to give a crafty gift set.  Hopefully Ethan's friends' parents won't mind the glitter everywhere!



* This post contains affiliate links to buy these gifts from Amazon *

And what better excuse for a little something special for yourself, after all you have successfully raised a child to three years old, and I know that's not easy!  The lovely people at Victorious Bee are offering one lucky winner a Birthstone Necklace with up to 4 different stones of your choice.

Featured here in Opal, Smokey Quartz, Aqua marine and Agate

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We were challenged by Primula to come up with some fun recipes using their new Primula Kids Cheese, and as Halloween is fast approaching, I decided to give some fun Halloween snacks a try!  We always end up with so many sweet treats at Halloween that this is a great opportunity to make something fun and healthy to fill the kiddies up before they go trick or treating, or for a Halloween party.



First we made some Halloween pumpkin faces on crackers.  I got some nice round cheddar cheese crackers that are a nice orange colour, and we used the Primula to make their faces.  Ethan loved that he could squeeze the cheese all by himself to make a face, telling me that his pumpkin needed a mouth, eyes and a nose.  



Next we made Halloween ghosts using celery sticks, Primula cheese and raisins (for the eyes).  I washed and sliced the celery into small pieces, rounding off the top as much as possible to make the head of the ghost.  I also use a vegetable peeler along the back of the celery to take the stringy bits off, so they then don't get stuck in Ethan's teeth and he's more likely to eat them!  Ethan squeezed the Primula along the length of the celery and added the raisins for the eyes.  Boo!



Then we made a Halloween skeleton, with bones made out of bread sticks.  We used both the mini bread sticks (head, arms and legs) and the long bread sticks (body).  I laid them out for Ethan and we squeezed the cheese onto them together.  This one was a bit trickier for Ethan to do as the bread sticks kept rolling away, but he kept at it and made a cute little skeleton!



And finally, we made a Halloween spider!  I couldn't think of anything black that Ethan would like to eat, so we went for an orange spider instead!  I used a small orange bowl as the body and we filled it with Primula Kids Cheese as a dip, then sliced up an orange pepper to be the spiders legs.  Ethan counted them out for me as I put the spiders legs into the bowl, then happily dipped away to eat his yummy snack.



It really is amazing how many ways you can use Primula Kids Cheese to make yummy, healthy snacks.  


* This post is for the Primula Kids Blogger Challenge, we were given a few tubes of Primula Kids Cheese in order to come up with some fun recipes and share them with everyone. *

Party planning for Ethan's third birthday Octonauts extravaganza has made me completely Octonauts obsessed!  So after last weeks experiment with making pom poms with a cardboard ring, I now have a fantastic little pom pom maker and just want to make everything a pom pom!  So here is our first attempt at character pom poms, we made Barnacles, Kwazii and Peso and Ethan loves playing with them already.


Materials:
Pom pom maker
White wool
Black wool
Orange wool
Felt pieces - blue, black, white, orange and yellow
glue

Barnacles and Kwazii were easy as they are just one colour, and for Peso I wrapped the pom pom maker with about 3/4 black wool and 1/4 white wool for his face.  Ethan helped to wrap the pom pom maker for Barnacles (his favourite) it was much easier than the cardboard circle method for him to do, and he loved playing with the pom pom maker!


Then for Kwazii I cut out his hat, ears, nose, one eye and one eye patch for Ethan to stick on (and then of course to say 'Shiver me whiskers!')


* This post contains affiliate links, if you are interested in buying a pom pom maker from Amazon please do click through the link, we get a small percentage of the sales made through this link, which then goes towards the running of Play & Learn Everyday, and keeping us in craft supplies. *

This week we're not playing with real food, instead we made some food with felt to play with. It was just a really quick activity to fill the time while Ethan's dinner was in the oven and he was hungry and grumpy about it.  


I got out a packet of felt sheets and some scissors, and asked Ethan if he wanted to make a pizza with me!  Of course he said yes, and so I cut out a yellow circle to be the crust.  Then we talked about what could go on our pizza, so I cut out a smaller red circle to be the sauce, then little strips of orange for the cheese, small pink circles for pepperoni, little white strips were butter (I don't know why, but it was his choice!), then some little black strips were the vegetables.


Then we decided to make a felt sandwich to go with it!  White bread shaped pieces to start, then some pink ham, white chicken, yellow cheese slices, a red slice of tomato and slices of cucumber.  Ethan really liked thinking of all of the different ingredients for our food, choosing which colour of felt to use and then telling me what shape to cut out.  Then when we were done he took them all apart and put them back together again.  When he's done playing with them we may glue them all together to keep them, but for now we're having fun putting them together over and over again!

I can not even believe that Ethan is going to be 3 years old in just over 2 weeks.  He's still my baby, how did this happen?  We absolutely love birthdays in our house, and I really want to make this one extra special because Ethan's old enough to really 'get it' this year.  On Ethan's actual birthday we're planning on spending a nice family day together, doing something fun, opening presents, eating cake and going out for pizza to his favourite restaurant.


Then for his party we're inviting all of Ethan's friends to a bit soft play place for fun and games, climbing and sliding together before coming together for lunch in the fabulous Octonauts themed party room!  The venue supplies the food and entertainment, but we still have to plan for all of the other little details.


Ethan is really enjoying being a part of this process, helping to plan his super fun Octonauts party for him and his friends.  We got out a big piece of paper and brainstormed together to think of as many different ideas that we could to make a great party.  He watched as I made his invitations on the computer, then helped to address the envelopes, add some fish stickers and even put them in the post box himself today to send them to his friends.  Now to make all of his ideas become a reality and organise this party!

Have a look at our previous parties (and other fabulous children's birthday parties) on our Pinterest board:

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I am very excited to be going to the Handmade Fair this weekend in London.  I love all things crafty but have been finding it difficult to be creative lately (too exhausted!) so I'm looking for some fabulous inspiration to get me motivated again!  I'm a big fan of Kirstie Allsop and love her shows, I think it was her Christmas show last year that she discovered the fabulous pom pom makers that make it much easier to create perfect pom poms.  I've been wanting to get one, but haven't actually seen one in the shops, so today we were making pom poms the old fashioned way to contribute to the shows 'World Pomination' mission to break the world record for pom poms and to raise money for charity.


I had to look for the directions to make a pom pom maker on a cardboard circle, as I'd actually forgotten exactly how it worked, but luckily Pinterest was very helpful and a simple search showed me all I needed to know.  So I cut out some donut shapes out of a cardboard box, got some wool and started Ethan on winding the wool round and round the cardboard.  It was a great exercise for for his fine motor control as he threaded the wool through over and over again.  He did get a bit tired of it though, so his pom pom is not very fluffy, but he's still very proud of it!  He ran around the house with it for ages afterwards, pretending it was a lasso and saying 'yee haw!' (I have no idea why!)  Ivy also loved playing with the pom poms, a fun little sensory experience.


I'm definitely going to pick up a fancy pom pom maker at the Handmade Fair this weekend!  This isn't a review post, as we made those scraggly pom poms all by ourselves, but I have been given a ticket to the Handmade Fair, which will hopefully mean lots of inspiration for future crafty posts!

Ethan and Ivy both absolutely love to swim, they are such little water babies, I couldn't keep them away from the water if I tried!  We've taken both swimming since they were tiny babies, and we've always used Huggies Little Swimmers for them in the pool.  So when we were asked to attend a Little Swimmers event, I jumped at the chance!  But of course on the day things just weren't on my side, and we weren't able to make it in the end.  But we did get sent a goody bag to enjoy on our other swimming outings!  


We've enjoyed using all of our new swim goodies over the summer, and look forward to lots more fun swimming throughout the autumn and winter before our big holiday next year, when I expect that Ethan will spend the whole time in the pool!  Seeing the two of them in the pool together is so much fun, my favourite moment of our last trip to the swimming pool had to be having them both sitting side by side at the edge of the pool, giggling with anticipation as we counted to 3 before 'jumping' into the water.  I love that this is something that they both enjoy doing so much, and can continue to do as they grow older.  Huggies Little Swimmers have got a campaign about 'Starting a habit that will last a lifetime' which is exactly what we're doing with our two!

* Thanks so much to Huggies for sending us some of their swimming products to try out and to write an honest opinions about. *

This week I realised that I rarely read to Ivy on her own, Ethan is the one who usually chooses the books and asks me to read to both of them.  So I've tried this week to have some special one on one reading time with Ivy, and get out some of the lovely baby books that we have.


One that she particularly likes is Baby Baa Baa (affiliate link), as it's got great big flaps that she can help to open to find what's hiding behind them.  She also loves hearing all of the animal sounds, and giggling as we read them.



What have you been reading this week?

I can't believe that Ivy has been eating solid foods for over a month now, time is flying by!  She's doing really well, happy to eat everything that I've given her so far and getting better at eating properly (not sticking her tongue out as much!)  I make all of her food at home in big batches and then freeze it in small portions to give to her each day.  But when we're out, it can sometimes be a pain to take a frozen pot of food out, so we often buy a pouch of organic puréed food.  Now, we are very lucky because the pouches that we buy do have very good quality food in them, so I don't worry about giving them to Ivy once in a while, but it can get a bit expensive if you're doing it all the time.  As we seem to be having lunch on the go more and more lately, I decided to try out these reusable pouches from Nom Nom Kids.  They sent us a Weaning Kit containing 10 pouches, 15 lids and a wipe able pen.  It's funny how much things change, because I don't think that reusable pouches existed even 2 years ago when I first started feeding Ethan, but now they're everywhere!  I like these ones because you don't need some sort of big contraption to fill them, you just have pouches and lids.  The side of the pouch opens (like a sandwich bag) you spoon in the purée or smoothie and then seal it up and you're done.


I made a few big batches of food (with Ethan's help of course, he's getting very good at chopping up fruit and vegetables for Ivy!) and then filled up some pouches for Ivy.  The weaning set comes with a pen as well, so I just write down what's in the pouch and the date and then pop the pouches in the freezer, ready for Ivy's lunches.  


I tried them out a few times this week, and these pouches are just as easy to use as the filled ones.  I didn't have any issues with them, not one bit of food leaked out.  Ivy loves the colourful packaging and was more than happy to have these for her lunch.  I even tried making some smoothies for Ethan and putting them in the pouches, and they work great as well.  The only downside is that you have to wash the pouches yourself, and you do want to make sure that you get them really clean to avoid getting any bacteria in them.  But they can be washed in the dishwasher and sterilised in a liquid solution to get them extra clean.  Overall we are really liking them, I haven't done the math but I'm positive that the amount that I've spent on some nice organic fruit and veggies is less than the cost of the 10 pouches that I filled would have cost from the shop!

* This is a review post and contains an affiliate link, Nom Nom Kids sent us their Weaning Kit to try out and write an honest review *

Ivy desperately wants to crawl, she is constantly on her tummy shouting and crying in frustration because she can't get anywhere. Well, she can actually wiggle her way quite far backwards, but she doesn't seem to notice that she's actually moving, so we need to get this baby crawling to cheer her up!  (Then once we've got her crawling it will be time to think about learning to walk!)




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I absolutely love back to school shopping!  Now Ethan's only in nursery school, so he doesn't need much really, but I did get him some lovely warm autumn clothes and of course he *needed* a new school bag!  The lovely people at Trunki sent us a Shark - Fin Paddlepak to try out as Ethan's new school backpack.



It is a really well made bag, often used as a swim or beach bag, meaning that it's waterproof, which comes in handy for so many reasons!  There is a side compartment to hold a water bottle, so if that happens to leak, it won't get Ethan's change of clothes that is inside the bag wet.  Also, if we've got wet clothes inside the bag (Ethan tends to get very wet and messy while playing at nursery and needs changing to his spare clothes) those clothes won't get Ethan wet through the bag while he wears it home.


Ethan doesn't need to bring a lot to nursery, that's why his bag doesn't look very full, but this bag certainly would fit a lot of stuff if you wanted to!  We put in trousers, a tshirt, undies, socks, tissues, a snack and his water bottle at the side, and it still looked practically empty.  I don't want to overfill it as he's still quite small, but for older children you could definitely fit in a few books, their lunch and a few other necessities.


Ethan's favourite feature has to be the secret compartment in the shark's tail.  This would be a great place to keep a bit of pocket money, but as Ethan' has no need for that, it's the perfect place for an emergency box of raisins too!


Ethan really loves his new Paddlepak, the shark design is really cute and unique, it's comfortable and lightweight for him to carry all the way to and from school and it holds everything he needs.  I love that it's waterproof and easy to wipe clean, makes it easier for me as well!

* This is a review post, Trunki sent us the Paddlepak to try out and to write an honest review about *

This week I finally managed to convince Ethan to read a few different books (not the same ones that he's been set on for months!) to read before nap time.  I love reading him a book before nap time, I always have Ivy bouncing around in my lap and grabbing at the pages while he lays in bed and listens to the story.  



Tabby McTat is a lovely book, both Ethan and Ivy are very musical, so they enjoy the little song that's repeated throughout the story.  Ethan also enjoys when the kittens are born, and seems to have learned this week about asking questions about the story to procrastinate having to go to sleep!  He keeps asking me to point things out in the pictures "where's Tabby McTat?" and "where's Samuel Spratt" and my favourite, when he runs out of characters to ask about, he just asks about random things "where's the mew?" he's hilarious!  



*This post contains an affiliate link if you would like to buy Tabby McTat from Amazon, we highly recommend it *

What have you been reading this week?

Ethan goes to nursery 2 mornings a week, and I suppose in some ways I'm lucky, because he is provided a lunch at nursery (although secretly I think that I would like preparing packed lunches for him, but that's probably because I don't actually have to do it!)  But even though he has lunch about half an hour before I pick him up from nursery, the first thing that he asks for as we're walking home from nursery is a snack!  I want to give him something healthy (especially since he also gets pudding after lunch, which is often something really sweet like chocolate cake!) but I also need to be able to give him something easy and quick, and that he can eat while walking home (without slowing us down too much!)  Ethan loves to help prepare his snack bag the evening before, that way he knows exactly what's in there (and he likes to have a lot in there!)


So I turn to snacks from Organix, which we have been giving him since he was old enough to eat them (some are suitable from as young as 7 months, Ivy has already started eating their rice cakes!)  They've got a great campaign going on right now, promoting 'no junk lunch boxes' with lots of great idea for alternative packed lunches to send your children to school with.  The brilliant Gourmet Mum has a list of 10 Healthy Kids' Lunchbox ideas as a part of the 'no junk' mission.  Organix sent us a few snacks to try, the fruit bars were already a favourite, but we hadn't tried the gummies or the crocodiles before, Ethan loved them both and was excited for new after school snacks.  We also got a new snack pot and new water bottle from Oxo Tot to try out, which we are also really liking.  Ethan prefers water cups with a straw, so this one is perfect for him, it doesn't leak and it holds a good amount of water for him (I don't think that he drinks enough at nursery, so he really does need this on the way home.)  And the snack pot is great because it has a lid!  I don't know why the other ones we've tried didn't have lids, but this makes a huge difference, and it means he's not spilling his snacks as we walk down the road, but also that the crumbs aren't getting all over his lunch bag, which I appreciate!

* This has been a review post, Organix sent us a lovely selection of snacks and Oxo Tot sent us the water cup and snack pot, all to try and write an honest review. *

About a month ago I introduced Jolly Phonics to Ethan, and he is still enjoying listening to the CD and singing the songs.  He hasn't shown much interest in letter tracing, whenever I get the books out he chooses to do something else, so I am absolutely not pressuring him.  He loves playing with play dough and other fine motor activities, as well as large letter writing in unique ways (like with cars) and mark making in general, so I'm not concerned or in any rush.  


We have been learning phonics sounds in our day to day activities, talking about the sounds that we hear in different words and playing games like 'I spy' in the car.  We also made these letters and phonics sounds boxes.  


The boxes are the Glis boxes from Ikea which I love and use for absolutely everything!  I put a sticker of the letter on the front (we only had upper case letter stickers, I'm still looking for lower case ones to go alongside them) and I stuck on the Jolly Phonics letter and picture on the side for reference as well.


First we are focusing on initial letter sounds, so Ethan and I are taking one box at a time and looking for things that start with that letter / sound.  I also put in the magnetic letter and some letter writing cards in each box. 


Ethan loves going on scavenger hunts through his toy boxes to find items to put in his sounds boxes.  We make the sound as we're searching 'a - a - a - a' and then every time we pick something up we say 'a - a - a - banana, does that start with a?  Nooooooo' then try again 'a - a - a - apple, does that start with a? Yesssss, put it in the box!' Ethan doesn't always get them right, but he does have fun trying.  And it's made me realise how many random little toys we have, ha ha!

As the Ice Bucket Challenge seems to be slowing down, we thought that maybe we'd avoided it...but apparently not!  We got nominated yesterday, so of course we joined in with the challenge and donating to the ALS / MND charity.  It's a good opportunity to teach Ethan about charity and helping people when they are ill, and finding ways to make them feel better.


After helping to pour the water on Daddy and Mommy, Ethan did not want to be left out of the challenge!  We had asked him if he wanted to do it with us, but he said that it was for grown ups.  Then he suddenly changed his mind!  He was running around the garden with his bucket shouting 'thanks for my nomination!' and when we suggested that he might not want to pour cold water on himself, he cried and said that he really wanted to.  So we set it all up, filled up his little bucket with cold (but not icy) water and he went through the whole process of nominating his friends, and then let Daddy pour the water on him!  He didn't cry, he actually sort of laughed and just shook it off himself.  Sometimes he really surprises me!

Here's the info to donate:
UK -  text ICED55 £5 (or other amount) to 70070
Canada -  https://www.als.ca/en
USA - http://www.alsa.org/