Painting with straws

Salt dough shapes

This was a great craft that Jambin and I did over the past two days. I got the idea from this post at the Long Thread blog.

First we made the salt dough, using the recipe in the Long Thread post.


Then we rolled the dough out flat:


Then we cut shapes out of the dough using biscuit cutters:


Then we poked holes in the dough shapes, and baked them in the oven:


Then we painted them:


We let the paint dry overnight, and then we threaded them onto embroidery floss:


And made a bee-yoo-tiful necklace!

Green Slime!

Jambin and I cooked some green slime today. I used the Easy Slime Recipe #1 from this site but the cornflour stayed very lumpy in the mixture, so I think if I used the same recipe again, I would mix the cornflour to a runny paste with a small amount of water before adding it to the saucepan containing the boiling water.


Pushing the mixture through a tea strainer (the only strainer in my house) wasn't very effective as the unmixed cornflour soon coated the strainer so that no slime could be pushed through:


So we decided that we would just play with lumpy bumpy slime:


Honestly, Jambin wasn't overly thrilled by this activity. He thought it was kind of interesting for about 5 minutes, we then extended the playtime by letting him coat the backs of my hands in slime, and then he was asking if he could wash his hands. Oh well. It was worth a try.

Collecting pinecones for Christmas

This was such a fun activity to do as a family - something seasonal, outdoors, local - and we now have a lovely basket of pinecones sitting on out hitchen table exuding their lovely resinous pine-y aroma.

These pinecones came from the Kauri pine (agathis robusta) which are native to Eastern Queensland. We discovered that birds like to pull off the tabs of the pinecone, presumbably to get at the pollen, working from the bottom upwards. It became a game to find the most perfect, untouched pinecone with all tabs intact. We also noticed that the outer edges of the pinecone were covered in a whitish resin the consistency of candle-wax - very sticky and with a strong pine smell.

Afterwards, as we were sitting on a bed of pine needles enjoying watching a couple have their wedding photos taken, we were treated to the site of 4 cockatoos walking on the undergrowth very close to us.

Darcy's 5 month birthday

Darcy celebrated her 5-month birthday yesterday. She is growing up so fast. I took her to the baby health centre to be weighed ... she is now a whopping 6.3kgs, which is 1.6kgs bigger than when she was born. We started solids two weeks ago, a little earlier than planned, because of her failure to thrive diagnosis. She thinks rice cereal is gross, but apple puree and prunes are the best!

She is rolling front-to-back and back-to-front, but not too often ... just often enough to remind us that she knows how to do it yet. She likes to sit up supported in a breastfeeding pillow, and has just started grabbing both feet with her hands and trying her best to chew on her toes. She is improving at tummy-time and will now tolerate it for about 2 minutes.

She is still breastfeeding beautifully, and she has a strong preference for 'rightie' over 'leftie'. When times are desperate, she'll accept breastmilk in a bottle, but she normally makes it known that she is not to happy with this state of affairs. I'm not sure what will happen next month when I'm going to an occupational therapy conference for two whole days. Gareth will probably bring her in for a lunchtime feed, so hopefully she's survive morning and afternoon tea without me.

She's still waking 2-3 times a night for feeds, although last week it was closer to 5-6 times a night. It nearly killed me. Like her older brother, she isn't much of a day sleeper, having 4-5 mini-catnaps of about 15 mins each througout the day. So far, I haven't figured any way to resettle her after she wakes up, so we're stuck with this for the time being.

She absolutely adores Jambin and follows him with her eyes all around the room. If she's whinging, Jambin will sing to her and she will settle instantly. She watched him dance to a CD this morning and giggled loudly the whole time ... what a magical sound! She spends as much time with him as she does with me, even more than her Daddy, so he is definitely an important part of her life.

She is putting everything in her mouth to explore it, and has recently started getting annoyed if I take something off her, so I always have to offer her something else in it's place.

She is an absolute joy, a happy and contented little soul, and a wise, knowing, observing being. We're all looking forwards to seeing what the next month may bring.

Bathing in the pulla bowl

On account of our having disposed of our baby bath before moving to Sydney, and her early bedtime which precludes showering with Daddy after he arrives home from work, Darcy must suffer the indignity of being bathed in my pulla bowl. This is, as its name suggests, the bowl I use to bake pulla, a type of Finnish coffeebread. Since Miss D is intolerant of dairy and soy, I can't eat my beloved pulla. And if I can't eat any, I'm not going to cook it either. So I guess at least the bowl is being put to good use in the meantime.

A conversation with Jambin

Me: Would you like a cup of juice?
Jambin: Yes pleeeeese Mummy.
Me: Would you like the blue cup or the yellow cup?
Jambin: I want this cup!! (holds out a packet of sultanas)