Our Wet Weekend

John Travolta eat yer heart out........................... This is a photo of Kalem practising his dance moves (taught by dad, yes that is J's finger in the corner of photo..) for his first school disco on Friday night! I am sure that with moves such as this he is sure to be a hit with the girls....just like his papa!!! Actually there was no dancing with girls, just A LOT of eating JUNK..... We gave Kalem a few dollars to get a drink and something to eat, he came back literally green from eating so many sweets and drinking those VILE little bottles of fizzy orange yuk, definitely can't be called drink...poison perhaps!! When he got home he stumbled through the door almost like a drunk clutching his half full bottle of fizzy, feeling sick and with a headache. I have been in this state myself on many an occasion (not for a long while though..), but not when I was 7 after a SCHOOL DISCO...........

Actually it is not like Kalem too eat so much rubbish, he does not have a sweet tooth (unlike his mama) and is very aware of what is healthy and what is not. An example..... when he was about 3 we went to Western-super-mare for the day and had fish and chips in a cafe with my mum and dad. After eating our seaside meal, the cafe owner brought over a large container of lollipops and offered one to Kalem. Kalem politely refused and told the (kind) man that they were bad for his teeth, much to my delight and parents embarrassed horror!!!! I have totally failed to install this way of thinking in Talia, she no doubt would have taken the whole container of lollipops and eaten them one after the other. I wonder who Lola will be like??

This weekend in Christchurch the weather was shockingly bad, Saturday it absolutely poured down, flooding the garage and even getting into our sleep out. A great weekend however for making salt dough figures, which we have been meaning to do for a while.

Kalem and Talia busy creating..........................

The little figures after being baked....perhaps a bit overdone!

The finished collection, after being painted. There are flowers, ladybugs, a car, penguins and even a THING??? made by Talia.

The kids and I had great fun making these, so I though that I would post the recipe in case anyone else needed something to pass the time on a rainy weekend..

* Mix 2 cups of flour and 1 cup of salt in a large bowl, add water a little at a time until the dough is thick but not sticky.

* Place dough onto a hard surface and knead until it is soft and smooth with no lumps.

* Then let you imagination flow....................................................... Just need to remember to brush the extra bits like legs, heads, eyes etc with water before adding them to the main body of work. Can also use a toothpick to keep head and body together.

* The instructions say to bake completed models on a baking sheet (or tin foil) @ 100 degrees C for approx 1 hour, placing models directly on oven rack half way through cooking. As you can see from the picture I had the temp too high and left them in too long, hmmmmm still blaming sleep deprivation. The temp and time can change for smaller/larger models, just keep an eye on them.

* Leave to cool and paint!

Oh and by the way, I did not come back with any more enthusiasm after my gym visit. I did book a swiss ball lesson (?????) for Saturday, but (unfortunately) had to cancel as Julian was not back from taking Talia swimming in time. What a shame.................. must have accidentally forgotten to tell Julian about my lesson, oops!