Ethan absolutely loves to do crafts, it's something that we've done ever since he was very young and he is naturally creative so I just take it for granted.  It always surprises me when people comment about how good he is with scissors or how creative and focused he is with crafty tasks.  I don't think it makes any difference at all what gender a child is and whether they like crafting or not, but I do know that it can help develop so many other skills.  So if you happen to have a little boy who is a bit of a reluctant crafter, than the Star Wars Aquabeads Playset may be just the motivation that you need!



We love Aquabeads, they are fantastic for fine motor control development in picking up all of those tiny beads, for learning to follow a pattern with the templates and for getting creative. Ethan was very excited to see this Star Wars Aquabeads set arrive and couldn't wait to get started.



The templates are fantastic and really look just like the characters from the films.  You can make Darth Vader, a Stormtrooper, R2D2 or C3PO.  Ethan chose to make a Stormtrooper first.  So we opened up the pack and sorted all of the different coloured beads into the compartments to get ready to start building.



Then Ethan followed the template, matching up the coloured beads to the picture underneath until his creation was complete.  As this is quite a large picture it did take Ethan a few days of focused time to get it finished, but luckily it's quite easy to just push the whole set to the side and continue to come back to it until it's complete.  Then when Ethan finished he sprayed the whole thing with water and we waited for it to dry.



Ethan loves to play with his finished creations, so I'm sure that we're going to have a lot of fun Star Wars scenes once he finishes the other three characters.  They're also great to put a magnet on the back of and stick up on the fridge (but Ethan never lets me, ha ha!)

And you can win a Star Wars Aquabeads Playset to try out yourself, enter below for your chance to win:

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* This is a review post, we were sent the Star Wars Aquabeads set to play with and write our honest opinions.*

There is nothing better than getting a brand new game from Orchard Toys to try out, we are big fans of all of their games and think they're a fantastic way to learn lots and spend time indoors when it's too cold and rainy to be outside.  So of course we were very excited to try out the new Smelly Wellies Game.


The game focuses on finding matching pairs of wellie boots, which is a great skill for young children to develop and is perfect for Ivy who is three.  We can discuss the different patterns on the boots and get excited when we find a matching pair.


The game is also great for turn taking, for developing memory skills and for general social skills.  We are getting to a point in our family where Ivy is just happy to play games and have fun, she's starting to understand the rules more and is excited to be a part of the fun.  However, Ethan has reached an age (at 5) where he is much more competitive and not very happy if he doesn't win.  So playing Smelly Wellies was the perfect opportunity to work on the matching skills with Ivy whilst working on social game play skills with Ethan.


They are both quite good at waiting their turn to play the game, which is a great first step.  The next thing that I am teaching them with games like this is to watch what the other players are doing, so if they turn over a wellie boot that you need for your card, then you keep an eye on it (or a finger on it in Ivy's case) so that you can choose that one on your next turn.  This is also working really well and helping to keep them both engaged whilst it is the other players' turns.


Then at the end of the game comes the tricky part, Ivy does not mind at all if she doesn't win and is happy to keep playing until she completes her card.  But Ethan is not happy if he doesn't win, so I've been spending a lot of time explaining to him that it's all about the fun of the game, about learning the skills (and helping to teach Ivy the new skills that she needs to learn).  Then that we are happy for whoever does win, that we congratulate them and are proud of them (as we would want them to be for us).  It's an ongoing lesson, but hopefully we are making progress!


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* This is a review post, we were sent the Smelly Wellies game from Orchard Toys in order to play it and write our honest opinions about it.*

Ivy is a huge Frozen fan, so of course there was no other choice than to throw her a Frozen themed third birthday party!  I booked the party at a gymnastics venue, so the kids had an hour to run, jump and climb all over the place before coming into the party room for lunch.

Frozen Party Decorations

I didn't have a lot of time to set up the party room so it had to be very simple, but I also wanted it to look special for Ivy, so I focused on the tables and a few hanging decorations.

• Frozen tablecloths (buy from Amazon UK / Amazon US)
• Frozen plates (buy from Amazon UK / Amazon US)
• Frozen cups (buy from Amazon UK / Amazon US)
• Frozen napkins (buy from Amazon UK / Amazon US)
• Frozen birthday banner (buy from Amazon UK / Amazon US)
• Frozen posters (buy from Amazon UK / Amazon US)
• Frozen window stickers (buy from Amazon UK / Amazon US)
• Frozen twirly hangers (buy from Amazon UK / Amazon US)

Frozen Party Food

We had so much fun with the party food, trying to think up things that would go with the Frozen theme.  We sat and watched the movie together and wrote down any ideas that we had from it, then made little food signs to go on the table.

• We finish each others sandwiches
• Fruit wands (technically Elsa doesn't have a wand she has a sceptre, but wands are easier!  I found these cute party favour wands and put grapes and blueberries on each one) (buy from Amazon UK / Amazon US)
• I wanna stuff some chocolate in my face - white chocolate buttons, chocolate stars and SuperTreats chocolate bars
• Frozen hearts - love heart candies
• Olaf's noses - carrot sticks and Organix carrot stick snacks
• Frozen snowballs - we made Rice Krispie treats with snowflake shaped sprinkles and rolled them into balls
• Some people are worth melting for - Kiddylicious Smoothie Melts
• Snow Flurries - bowls of popcorn
• Melted Snow (bottled water) I made labels for the water bottles that had the childrens' names on them so that they could drink them in the gym room and not get mixed up
• Frozen cake - I just bought a simple cake from the grocery store so I didn't add to the stress by baking a cake as well
• Non themed food - bread sticks, mini sausages, raisin boxes, Organix Mini Oaty Bites, Babybel cheeses and Gingerbread Buddies

I always like to have a good mix of healthy food and a few treats, and really most of the kids fill up on all the healthy goodies then just have a bit of cake and they're happy!  I love the healthy snacks from Organix, they're something that we eat all the time, so the carrot stick crisps were perfect to go with the theme and for the kids to have something crunchy to eat.  We also love the mini oaty bites as they're perfect party food (we often buy the bigger bars and carry them around for snacks.)  We also love the healthy snacks from Kiddylicious, and the smoothie melts just fit the theme in the coolest way (I love Olaf's line 'some people are worth melting for') then of course the gingerbread buddies just seemed lovely and wintery as well.  Our latest healthy find is of course the SuperTreats chocolate bars, they have no refined sugar in them but taste just like a regular chocolate bar, the kids go crazy for them and can't believe I let them eat a whole big bar of chocolate (no need to tell them how healthy they are!)

Frozen Party Bags

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* This is a review post, we were sent some party snacks from Kiddylicious, Organix and Supertreats to share with the party guests and write our honest opinions.  This post also contains Amazon affiliate links.*

World Book Day is coming up, and we love to take part and have the kids dress up as their favourite book characters.  It's fantastic seeing how all the kids really get into it and go for some elaborate costumes.  However, I'm not that fun, I'm much more practical!  I think that if you're going to wear a costume to school for the day it needs to be comfortable, any extra parts need to be removable in case they get in the way of your activities and because I am no seamstress it needs to be made out of regular clothes put together in creative ways.





This year Ethan just has to go to school in pyjamas, so that one's easy.  But in previous years he has dressed up as Peter Rabbit and as Max from Where the Wild Things Are.  So this year it's Ivy's turn as it's her first year at nursery, and she loves the book The Singing Mermaid, so she will be the main character from that book.

What you'll need to make a DIY Mermaid Costume:

• plain light coloured long sleeved top (buy from Amazon US / Amazon UK)
• swim suit top (buy from Amazon US / Amazon UK)
• mermaid leggings (buy from Amazon US / Amazon UK)
• tulle skirt (buy from Amazon US / Amazon UK)
• blue shoes (buy from Amazon US / Amazon UK)
• mermaid leggings / material (optional) (buy from Amazon US / Amazon UK)
• artificial leaves (buy from Amazon US / Amazon UK)
• double sided tape
• loom bands
• pipe cleaners

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Some other fun World Book Day costume ideas are a Peter Rabbit costume, Max from Where the Wild Things Are, Mog from Meg and Mog and The Highway Rat!

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Ivy is a big fan of fairies, she loves to put on her wings and pretend to fly around the house, so our course we love fairy toys as well.  So when My Fairy Garden offered to send us the Fairies & Friends set of course we said yes.  It's a cute set of three little fairies and their pet animals.  The toys are so small and sweet they seemed the perfect set to take out with us so that Ivy has something to play with in the car, when we travel or even in restaurants.  So we made them their own little small world busy bag to play in.

What you'll need to make a Fairy Garden Small World Busy Bag:

• My Fairy Garden - Fairies & Friends set
• metal lunchbox
• green felt
• artificial grass or leaves
• glue
• scissors
• wooden pieces / stumps

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* This is a review post, we were sent the My Fairy Garden Fairies and Friends to play with and write our honest opinions about.*

Learning to read is so much fun and we love to find ways to make it even more fun to get Ethan to the next level.  One of the techniques that he loves to do for sounding out words is 'robot arms'.  



Ethan breaks the word down into sounds and moves his arms like a robot, up and down for each sound.  Then he says the word and claps his hands.  It's a really effective technique to get kids physically moving and learning the words with their whole bodies.  Here's Ethan showing us how it's done:



It inspired us to make a little robot reading buddy for Ethan to use while he reads.  We made it by using a popsicle / lolly stick and assorted colours of foam sheets.  We cut the sheets into a square shape for the robot's head, a rectangle for the mouth, small squares for the eyes and a triangle for the pointer on its head.  We glued all of the pieces together and left it to dry before starting our reading practice.



Now Ethan can use his reading buddy while he's reading books to follow along with the words as well as with individual words to sound them out.  It helps to keep his spot as well as reminding him to use his robot arms for tricky words to sound them out.  His reading is coming on fantastically well but we've reached a bit of a plateau with some of the digraphs and tougher sounds and this has really given him a boost.



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This post is part of a kids' activities blog hop of super fun robot activities, check them out:





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It's half term break from school and it's February, so it's not exactly the easiest time to be outside playing, so we're planning on doing a lot of crafts, and even inviting some friends over for a crafternoon!


We've got some lovely spring themed craft kits from Baker Ross that are absolutely perfect for keeping little hands busy and creating some lovely gifts and keepsakes for upcoming occasions.  Ethan and Ivy have already been giving a few of them a try, and can't wait to make some more!


We've had lots of fun making the Super Mum Magnet Kits, they come in a pack with all of the different parts needed to make six different Super Mums, so you can mix and match all of the different pieces to create your own Super Mum.  Both Ethan and Ivy thought it was hilarious to make a super hero that looked like me!  The kit come with all of the pieces that you need to make the magnets, most of the foam pieces are stickers but you will need a little bit of glue to stick the cape on.  These are perfect Mother's Day gifts, and I'm already proudly displaying my two up on the fridge.


We also sat down and coloured in a few of the flower wreaths which are just so lovely.  They have really intricate patterns so are suitable for creative children of any age.  Ethan and Ivy just coloured across a lot of the flowers with bright colours, but an older child (or even an adult who enjoys to colour) could sit down and make quite the beautiful pattern on these wreaths.  These are also perfect to hang up in the house to brighten things up a bit while we wait for spring to arrive!


And we love the pond pals sticker scenes these are so fun and easy to play with.  They would be absolutely perfect for taking on holiday with you or even for fun at a restaurant or other place that the children have to sit still for a little while.  The kits come with a background pond scene as well as a set of stickers that can be placed all around the scene to make up your own little pond story.  They would make great backgrounds for small world play too!

We can't wait for our friends to come over for our crafternoon later this week, when we'll be making more wreaths, more super mum magnets, more pond sticker scenes as well as the bug pom pom decoration kits, Easter Bunny train kit and Mother's Day handprint poem kits!

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* This is a review post, we were sent the spring craft kits from Baker Ross in order to make the crafts and write our honest opinions about them.*

Ivy has just recently turned three (I don't know where the time has gone!) and she is a major fan of the movie Frozen.  So of course it made sense to throw her a Frozen themed birthday party and to make sure that she had some Frozen inspired gifts to open.  Now Ivy has quite a few Frozen toys already, so I had to get a little bit creative and find some toys that she would enjoy because they include Anna and Elsa or because they could be played with in similar ways.  We also love open ended toys and toys that inspire creativity, so that's what we've gone for on our list.

Frozen Inspired Gifts

Frozen Doll Toys

If you ask Ivy what she would like for any upcoming occasion she will always say a 'Let it Go' doll (that's what she calls Frozen).  So we've got a nice little collection already!  They're great for imaginative play and of course lots of singing of her favourite songs from the film.

• Anna and Elsa toddler dolls (buy from Amazon UK / Amazon US)
• Anna and Elsa action figure dolls (buy from Amazon UK / Amazon US)
• Northern Lights Elsa (buy from Amazon UK / Amazon US)
• Sing Along Elsa (buy from Amazon UK / Amazon US)

Frozen Craft Toys

Ivy absolutely loves building things and putting things together (and taking them apart!) So this set is ideal for her, she loves playing with the little screwdriver to put the sparkly bolts into the crown, castle, gown and unicorn.  She can design them in different colours, make patterns or just be creative.  It's great for her fine motor control and building up the strength in her hands as well.  The perfect toy to pull out on a rainy day to keep little hands busy and happy.

What other Frozen or Frozen inspired toys do your little ones like?  I would love some more ideas!

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* This is a review post, we were sent the Frozen Aquabeads set, Orchard Toys Magical Castle Puzzle, Sylvanian Families Log Cabin and Design and Drill set in order to play with them and write our honest opinions about them.  The post also contains Amazon affiliate links.*