Max & Me: Outdoors

Showing posts with label Outdoors. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Toddler Tuesday - Project Cress

This week for Toddler Tuesday Max and I decided to celebrate the start of spring with a little nature project. Inspired by Tamara from One Craftee Mumma, we did our own little 'project cress'.

It was super simple and I was really impressed by how easily Max was able to do all the steps of the activity on his own with just verbal instructions from me.

All you need to get started is:
- an egg carton
- cotton wool
- water
- cress seeds
- gorgeous queensland spring sunshine is optional :)

We started out by filling each spot in our egg carton with some cotton wool and then Max carefully soaked each piece with water (using our high-tech homemade watering can).

Then Max sprinkled the cress seeds onto the cotton wool (after I convinced him not to throw them across the yard like the 'cross mumma' in Jack and the Beanstalk!).

And now we wait... The seed packet suggested keeping the carton somewhere dark until they start to sprout, so I have them up in the top of the pantry. If all goes well we should see some progress as soon as tomorrow and will hopefully have a progress report for next weeks Toddler Tuesday post.

Monday, August 20, 2012

Northside Fun Fair

Here in Brisbane we've just had Ekka week, it's a basically a really big carnival. I would love to take Max there one year, but I'm just not ready to face the huge crowds yet. Instead, on the weekend Sean and I took him and his cousin Ava to our local fair.

As far as they were concerned it was every bit as fun as the Ekka! (And it was definitely just as expensive, has anyone else ever been charged $15 for two buckets of chips and a dagwood dog!?).

As well as having seriously pricey food, sideshows and showbags it did have some really cool free activities that we made the most of. We started our night by going to the circus. Seating was really limited so once I found a seat I tried to convince both of them to sit on my lap. Ava didn't mind, but Max was seriously unimpressed!

Once I let them go and stand next to the ring with a bunch of other kids they were so much happier. Max would run back over to me every few minutes to tell me all of the exciting things that he was seeing, it was so adorable!

After the circus we met up with Sean (he came straight from work). We played some sideshow games, ate junk food, helped Ava choose a show-bag and wandered around watching the rides. Max and Ava both played the fish for a duck game as well as the one where you put balls in the clowns mouth. Both games came with a guaranteed prize, so both walked away happy :).

Next up we went to check out the major reason we'd decided to go... the MONSTER TRUCK! Max is 100% obsessed with trucks at the moment. So much so that I had actually considered buying tickets to a monster truck show so that we could take him. Trucks really aren't Sean or my thing though, so when we saw that this one was free we were all over it.

Max thought it was the best thing ever. Ava and I ducked off to go on a pony ride and when we came back Max was up on Sean's shoulders yelling, cheering and clapping with the rest of the crowd. It was so gorgeous! His little eyes were all lit up, and he was just so excited.

After that we grabbed some ice-cream and took a very happy Ava and Max back home. We all had so much fun, I think we'll definitely do it again next year!

I hope you all had an awesome weekend too!

Monday, August 6, 2012

Queensland Winters

Here in Queensland we are so lucky to have really gorgeous weather in winter. It does sometimes get cold (4 degrees Celsius the other morning), but mostly we have beautifully mild and sunny days right through June, July and August.

These last two weekends we've made the most of it and taken Max out to enjoy it.

This weekend just gone we went out to the Redcliffe, a 20 minute drive from our place. We had breakfast at a little cafe on the Esplanade (Oasis, great food and really great prices - go visit them!). After eating way too much we took a walk on the pier and soaked up the sunshine.

Such a relaxing way to spend the morning.

The weekend before last we joined up with my sister and her girls and went into the city for the annual picnic in the park fundraiser. We decided as an extra special treat for Max to catch the train in. He loved it so much!!

Every morning Max and I drop Sean off at the train station and then pick him up in the afternoon. Max loves watching the trains come and go and gets especially excited at night when Sean's train arrives. I took this little video of him waiting for his Daddy's train the other day on my phone.

When we told him we would be going on that same train he was so happy!

My niece Emmy

Max & his cousin Ava

Once we got into the city we all sat down and had a picnic lunch and then went around and checked out all the stalls. The hands down favourite with all three of them was the petting zoo. I think they would have stayed in there all day if we let them :)

Tell me. What are the winters like where you live? Are they sunny and cool, or freezing and snowy?

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

DIY Sponge Balls

Back at Easter time one of the things I put in Max's (and his cousins') Easter baskets were these cute little sponge balls.

They were really easy and cheap to make and the kids LOVED playing with them!

I started out with some packets of sponges. I think I paid about $9 for the whole lot. Like I said, a super cheap project.

I cut each of the sponges into thin strips...

Then it was just a matter of tying each bunch of sponge strips with string (I used 15 strips per ball). As you pull the string tight the sponges fan out into a ball shape.

Although I only put one sponge ball in each of the Easter baskets, I made a huge stack of them so that we could have lots of fun playing with them.

On the weekend we finally took them outside with some tubs of water and we had some sponge ball fun!!

Max thought it was really funny when we got Ava, but didn't think it was quite so funny when he accidentally got one in the face...

He got over the surprise fairly quickly and ended up having a ball chasing us around trying to throw sponges at us.

You'll have to take my word for it though, by then I'd put the camera down and was having too much fun to remember to pick it back up :)

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

DIY Outdoor Chalkboard

There's nothing quite like a Pinterest Challenge to help a girl get her DIY mojo back!

On the weekend I tackled a quick and easy project for Max. An outdoor chalkboard.

Max loves to draw so I was really hopeful that he would love this, and he does! Once I let him loose with his jumbo chalk the only thing that could drag him away was the lure of the trampoline.

I was inspired by this project from the pinterest challenge.

...

I started out with a 900 x 1200 piece of marine ply from bunnings and I painted it with some left-over chalkboard paint that I had from my kitchen chalkboard. I thought I was going to need three coats, but after only two it was perfect. I also painted along the top, bottom and side edges just to give it a little bit more protection from rain.

Try not to be jealous of my designer outdoor area (sarcasm). One day we will get there!

Because of where I was planning on screwing it into the fence I also added some extra bits of wood to the back of the board to help prevent it warping over time. I used liquid nails to attach it so that there wouldn't be any nails or screws getting in the way of Max's artistic endeavors.

Once the liquid nails had set Sean gave me a hand attaching it onto the fence. We just used regular timber screws (making sure that they weren't long enough to pop through on the neighbours side of the fence).

That chalky look is from where I 'seasoned' the board with white chalk.

We decided to hang it down the side of the house next to the clothesline. It's a part of the yard that isn't really seen, meaning that the chalkboard won't get in the way of the landscaping I'm (one day) planning to do.