Hard Rubbish score!

There's been a bit of controversy about people taking things from Hard Rubbish Collections recently. See this article here about an incident that occurred in our very own shire. I don't understand this at all (and it seems many other people who read that story agree with me there!) If something is out for Hard Rubbish Collection it means the owner no longer needs it. Why is it so wrong for someone else to take it and recycle it rather than sending it to the tip to add to landfill?

Anyway, this incident hasn't deterred me for keeping an eye on the Hard Rubbish around here lately. This Cubby House is what I found the other day! Ok, so it's not in the best condition. It has a few cracks and it was missing the screws that hold it together. All easily fixed though. My ingenious husband (I was forced to write that) managed to put it all together with a few drill holes and some cable ties. And the kids love it! So much so that they wanted to eat their dinner in it tonight. Cheap entertainment really. And I love that we didn't fork out a heap of money on something new that they will probably decide they're not interested in in a couple of weeks.

Peeking out the back window!

Look - the windows open and shut!

Do you take things from Hard Rubbish Collections? Have you ever found anything good?

I feel cheated

• Cheated that seeing those two lines on the pregnancy test didn't fill me with joy and happiness as they would for so many other people.

• Cheated that I couldn't tell people that I was pregnant until 13 weeks. And when I did it just felt weird. I couldn't share in the excitement that they had for me.

• Cheated that I spent the first trimester living in fear. Dreading every ache and pain. Just waiting to see blood and expecting the inevitable.

• Cheated that I had to live in denial. Pretend that my body wasn't growing a body so that I wouldn't be hit so hard when I lost the baby.

• Cheated that I haven't been able to feel the connection with this baby as much as I have with my other two. I think this has to do with having to pretend this baby wasn't here for so long.

• Cheated that I didn't get to choose the age gap between my children. Between the ectopic pregnancy and the miscarriage I lost over a year of time.

• Cheated that losing two babies has made me realise that things can go wrong. I was happy living in my world of ignorance.

• Cheated that I need to feel the baby moving almost constantly to feel reassured that it is still ok.

• Cheated that, until this baby is safely in my arms, I will not feel at peace.

I know that I am not alone in my feelings and that many other women out there who have experienced the loss of a baby will understand how I feel. I'm currently 25 weeks pregnant and am finding that a lot of these feelings and worries have faded. But they are there. And they will be there until the day this baby is in my arms. I can't wait to hold my baby in my arms.

Paper Plate Pig

We've started on a a bit of a 'farm theme' lately. I have also been doing this with the students I teach at school. I'm planning on making different farm animals each week with the idea to make a personalised book for the kids when we are finished. We'll see how we go! This week we have been making pigs.

What you will need:

Paper plates
Toilet rolls
Cardboard cut out in the shape of ears
Egg carton
Google eyes
Pipe cleaner
Paint
Glue
Scissors
Black Texta
Sticky Tape

How to make it:

Get the kids to paint all the different parts: back of paper plates, both sides of ears, toilet rolls and egg carton.

When dry, poke a hole in the back and put the pipe cleaner in for a tail. Sticky tape in place.

Glue ears onto paper plate then glue plates together. Glue on egg carton for nose and google eyes. Draw on mouth.

Cut slits in both sides of toilet rolls and push the plate into them. Glue into place.

Esme paints her plate - we do painting in the nude around here - it saves a lot of washing!

Sitting at the table together happily making their pig

Jacob glues the eyes on the pig

The kids really enjoyed making these - it held their concentration for ages!

Visit We play at Childhood 101 for more great play ideas!

Our new compost

Our new compost bin!

I'm very excited about our new compost! Yeah, I know, not everyone else is going to be as excited about compost as me! I've been on at Chris for ages to make us a new compost bin as the old ones were filling up far too quickly and I'd end up with no where to put the compost - we have a lot of newspaper and hay from the animals that we need to compost.

The old compost bins we used to use - not particularly user-friendly!

The new compost bin is based on the ones that Chris has seen (he used to do a lot of work with biodegradeable plastic and composting including testing of certain products) Although it doesn't look very big in the photos, it is! Each plank of wood can be removed for easy access - it makes turning it a lot easier than the bins we used to use (or so I'm told, I intend to leave it to Chris to turn over ;))

We're looking forward to lots of lovely compost to use on our vegie garden (which, incidentally, has been growing really well!)

A reason to slow down

This morning we were running late as per usual. It's always a mad rush to be organised and out the door early in the morning. But this morning we came outside and saw a beautiful spider web strung across the whole of the driveway. It had been raining early in the morning so there was drops of water sitting on the web. It looked amazing! Despite being late, I just had to run inside and get the camera. I wish I was a better photographer but these photos give you some idea of how beautiful the spider web was. It really reminded me that we just need to slow down sometimes to enjoy the little things in life. Yes, we were late to Kinder but I'm so glad that we didn't miss seeing this...(oh, and Jacob's Kinder teacher didn't mind especially since Jacob and Esme were so excited telling her about it when we arrived!)

Dog Biscuits

No, they're not really dog biscuits! But we had fun pretending they were. Seeing as we've had a bit of a dog theme recently we decided to make these biscuits and cut them out in the shape of bones. The biscuits were really yummy, the recipe was similar to that of cheese scones. The kids had a lovely time making them.

Jacob grates the cheese for the biscuits

Esme adds the milk

Jacob cuts out some shapes

Esme's favourite part - eating the dough before it is cooked and licking the flour. Don't know how it can be so appetizing but she ALWAYS does it no matter what we cook!

Here's the recipe if anyone wants to make some!

Dog Biscuits

Ingredients
1 1/2 cup plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup grated cheese
2/3 cup milk
2 tablespoon butter

Method
1. Soften the butter to room temperature. Mix all of the ingredients to form a soft dough
2. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead
3. Roll dough out, cut out using cutters and place on a greased tray.
4. Brush the biscuits with a little extra milk and cook in the oven at 200 degrees for 20 minutes or so.

Paper bag puppets

Following on from our pet theme of late, this week we decided to make some dog paper bag puppets. They were really easy to do! All we needed to make them was a paper bag, some newspaper, a stick, pipe cleaners, a bit of black and red paper, some fur, googly eyes, elastic band and a black pen. I did this with both the students I teach at school and my own kids.

It was a great choice making activity for the students at school. They got to choose what colour fur they wanted for the ears, the colour of the eyes (I got different coloured googly eyes) and whether they wanted to fill the paper bag with cellophane or newspaper. The scrunching of the cellophane/newspaper was a great sensory activity for the students and they got to co-actively assist with glueing the things on the puppet (using a glue stick with a holder).

The kids and I had lots of fun making them together too. We filled the bags with scrunched up newspaper, put the stick in and then secured them with an elastic band. Then we got to cut out and stick on all the different bits; ears, eyes, nose, whiskers and tongue. I took a bit of artistic license and drew the mouth myself ;)

Esme fills the bag with scrunched up newspaper - we went through a couple of bags before she learnt to be gentle putting the paper in!

Jacob tries on some whiskers of his own!

Glueing the nose on the face.

Esme's completed puppet...

And Jacob's too. They were both so pleased with their efforts!

Visit We play at Childhood 101 for more great play ideas!