We Play with Dad

This week Aussie Dad (aka Super Dad) has been doing the bulk of the parenting as I have been away (having a baby). When Dad is around there is always lots of mimicking behaviour with the boys copying what their Dad has been up to.
Lately that has included a lot of DIY around the house ....
... inspiring Junior the Builder to get out his tools ...
.... and a bit of computing and general fiddling with all things electronic - hence Rascal's obsession with cables and switches at the moment.
What have you been playing this week? “Come over and play at the Childhood 101 We Play link up”

Introducing Puggle

Puggle has finally arrived and he looks just like his older brother Rascal! We are happy to be home with the rest of the boys.

We play - cardboard boxes

The boys get lots of fun out of playing with the large cardboard boxes Aussie Dad sometimes brings home from work. They a great for making beds, cubbies and cars on rainy days but this week we decided to turn one into a peg dolls house.
We used two of the flaps to make levels in the house. Gave it a quit coat of paint and furnished it with some wooded dolls house furniture, some off cut blocks of wood, magazine pictures and scraps of fabric.
Simple to make and lots of fun it has kept Junior entertained quite a bit this week.
What have you been making this week? “Come over and play at the Childhood 101 We Play link up”

Another lap quilt

With Puggle's arrival only a week or so away I have managed to finish Rascals lap quilt. It was a bit of a rush and I'm not quite sure about some of the fabric combinations but it is done now and I do love the cute little robots, cars and doggies on this one.
Aussie Dad - who has been very busy stripping and painting - has finally finished the renovations on the front bedrooms so this weekend the boys moved into there new bedroom - complete with a new bed for each of them. Perhaps not the best time to move them, just before the arrival of another sibbling, but sometimes renovations don't go quite to plan.
Junior has been wanting a bunk bed for so long and he has been very keen to share with his brother. Fingers crossed it all goes well and they manage to share their space without too many disputes (we will wait and see!).

We play in the garden

Last weekend was almost spring-like here in Perth so we had a chance to do a little gardening. Aussie Dad recently replace our side fence and ripped out most of the side garden in the process so we have a big bare patch to play in until we get around to landscaping it properly. After digging in a tray of our worm compost this was a perfect place to plant out some sugar-snap peas seedlings we started off in a seedling tray a few weeks back.
I really wanted to make a nice tee-pee for the peas to climb up like this lovely bean-pole tee-pee I saw at the Artful Parent a while back, but we didn't have big enough stacks so we have made a new Gnome home rather than something the boys can play in.
We have also been admiring Junior's beautiful daffodils which he planted back in April - an Easter present from his favourite Aunt.
Have you been playing in the garden lately? “Come over and play at the Childhood 101 We Play link up”

Balloon Play

We all went to a lovely birthday party in the park yesterday afternoon. The boys' take home party bag included a few balloons so today there has been lots of balloon play in our house.Keep the balloon in the air; balancing the balloon on our feet; football kicking practice and general silliness. Oh so much simple silly fun.What simple games have you been playing this week? “Come over and play at the Childhood 101 We Play link up”

Little boys birthday bag

This weekend we attended a two year olds birthday party so we made another little birthday bag for the birthday boy. Being a bit short of time I simply appliqued a fabric N onto a calico bag I already had rather than making up my own. We included some stubby pencils, a colouring book and I made a simple personalised note book by printing a cover on some stiff coloured card and binding it using embroidery floss.
I was going to try and borrow a long-armed stapler from work but ran out of time and the embroidery floss seemed to work just as well. These little personalised notebooks aren't quite a sweet as those I saw over at Lovelydesign but I have made them for Junior in the past and he loves the idea of choosing what he wants on the cover and having his own name on it.