50 Dangerous Things: #48 Explode a glass bottle in the freezer.

The book told us that this would be a great project to do while we were doing something else - and it was! We decided to pop a bottle in the freezer just before dinnertime.



Aesop was in charge of filling the bottle. We used a sweet chilli sauce bottle, and we filled it right to the top.

Otto placed it, carefully, into a plastic container (which would catch all of the pieces, when it did explode!) ready to go into the freezer.

We popped it in, covered with a tea towel for extra safety, and we waited.
We checked it after dinner, nothing.
We checked it before bed, still nothing.

We checked it in the morning...

Smashed!

We talked about why the bottle had broken, about how careful we needed to be around the broken glass and also noted things we could do differently next time. We noted that there was ice all around the bottle, so it must not have been completely frozen when the bottle broke, and that the top had also popped right off. We thought we might try different sized bottles, and maybe starting with different temperatures of water?

Have you ever tried this one?

50 Dangerous Things : #2 Lick a 9-volt Battery.

Number two - Lick a 9-volt battery! Eeep. This one got some of us feeling very nervous, indeed.
On the face of it, it seems pretty simple. Tongue plus battery, done. Right? But trying to get your brain to allow your hand to physically put that battery onto something as sensitive as your tongue is a a big hurdle!

As I expected, Otto (aged 4) took upon the task with gusto. He was very keen to go first, he stuck his tongue out and did it without much of a reaction at all. He wasn't keen to do it again, but he did it. He described the feeling as 'yuck'.
Abraham had a bit of a struggle to get his brain to cooperate, but did it pretty quickly. He described the feeling more like a bitter taste than an actual buzz.

Aesop, our nearly-nine year old, is a bright spark. He also struggles to do things that he is not 100% certain about. His brain works overtime and he struggles to overcome it. In a lot of ways, he is the main driving force behind us doing this 50 Dangerous Things challenge.
It took about 20 minutes of talking him into it,  but he felt so much better once he had done it. I knew the feeling of not being included in the challenge, and not having his picture in the book would be far worse than any discomfort from the battery!

I found this surprisingly easy. I had the initial panic and then decided that I needed to tough it out if there was any chance of Aesop having a turn. It was a really strange feeling, a buzzing, almost pinching sensation and a bitter metallic after taste.
Strange, but not truly shocking ; )

That makes 2/50 complete! Whoop!

50 Dangerous Things - Intro and thing #1!

Inspired by one of my favourite friends (who happens to be a super great blogger) and her sweet family, our family has purchased this book and set ourselves a challenge for this year : to get brave, and complete these 50 Dangerous Things. We're calling it a team building exercise.

If I'm really honest, it's a much-needed reminder, for Abraham and I, to let our kids experience the simple-yet-memorable things that we all did as kids.
Things like licking batteries, making slingshots, burning things with a magnifying glass, sleeping in the wild, building campfires and sticking your arm out of a moving car.
I mean, we did those things and survived, right? We probably didn't even do them with supervision and instruction from adults.. we had a blast, and we still survived to tell the tale. 
It's really easy to bubble wrap our kids. Society encourages it! We're forever hearing of schools banning playground games, toys being deemed 'unsafe', our favourite fireworks going off the market, children getting hurt doing things that would have been everyday activities a decade ago. I find myself discouraging all sorts of things, without realising it.
It's really hard for kids to learn about danger, without experiencing any. And really hard for parents to remember how important that learning is. We're hoping that, by encouraging our kids to try these things, that they'll learn about the boundaries of danger and learn when it's okay to give things a go, and when it's best to give it a miss. (And we'll learn not to be so afraid to let them be kids!)

We've had a flick through the book, trying to decide where to start - and then, yesterday, the weather decided for us! The clouds darkened, the temperature dropped, and it started hailing!
Number 2 in the book is - Play in a hailstorm! Perfect!

The book suggested putting a metal bowl on your head (for the sound effects!), donning a coat, long pants and gloves and heading out to play. We compromised a little - figured maybe going out in a lightening storm with a metal bowl wasn't super smart - and used plastic bowls. We also skipped the warm, protective clothing, it wasn't hailing really hard and wasn't too cold. We had a warm-up bath afterwards, instead.
The kids loved it. They didn't stay out long, due to the very loud thunder freaking them out a bit, but they managed to eat some hail that had collected on the tramp and run around a bit.

They were mostly just excited to have made a start on the project! They're busy deciding right now which activities we might be able to do this weekend.

(As the storm continued, we decided that a pizza and movie night was also in order. So nice to snug up on the couch on a rainy evening.)

Lately.

It has been quiet around here. A lull in blog posts.
It's not for lack of love, merely lack of interesting things to post about. Life just bubbles along at the moment. Filled with kids, baking, housework, sewing...washing. So, so much washing.
(And some taxes (boo!) and hut making (hooray!)..)

This week marks the start of the school holidays though. Hopefully, this will mean a little less rushing from home-school-kindy and a little more time to hang out, take photos and do blog-worthy things. I'm not usually one to look forward to the holidays, but I'm actually sort of looking forward to these ones. Just the thought of not having to be anywhere. Glorious.

Black-and-white-Michael-Jackson-cat Party! (Super mega lots of photos!)

 Okay, so I did think about trying to split this into multiple posts.. but meh. I will post all but Mol's costume in one post - it's just easier for both of us! Will just take a little longer to load..

Our sweet Otto turned 4 on Sunday!

Hi day was filled with lovely presents and lots of special treats, including a bit of a shindig with some friends and whanau.

Otto is such a creative wee soul, so when we talked about what kind of party he might like, I shouldn't really have been so surprised when he declared that he would like a 'Black-and-white-Michael-Jackson-cat' party. Those things all go together, right?!

Actually, it turns out they DO.
Who knew there were so many pictures of Michael Jackson holding cats!? While preparing for this party, I found 6 pictures, at different stages of his life, featuring felines!
(Otto was born 4 days after MJ passed away... kindred spirits?)
I, naturally, printed out all of these pictures, and made them into a fabulous bunting. I think it will need to be hung in the boys room when I take it down from the lounge wall.

We kept the other decorations fairly basic, too. Black table cloth, white plates, $2 shop lanterns, black+white balloons. We got out all the Michael Jackson records we have, and they provided the soundtrack for the party.

 I thought about trying to have black and white themed food, but I realised this was just not going to work. And, honestly, (my) kids prefer good old kiwi party food. Sausage rolls, cheerios, lollies, hundreds and thousands biscuits, chips etc. We had cheese and crackers, mandarins and mini sandwiches, too.
I printed out pictures of MJ, and popped them on kebab skewers, to decorate the table.

Otto chose his cake from the cake book - a cat.
(More specifically, a cat that looks like our cat, Porridge.)
I must say, it wasn't what I expected him to choose (the cat part of the birthday party theme came post-cake choosing..), but I was really pleased he didn't pick out something really difficult! Cake making is really not my strength! I had a bit of fun putting it all together, but it is certainly no prize-winning cake. Heh.

Our guests donned their black and white gear, and we dressed in costumes.
Abraham was an All Black (named Meow'a Nonu! Haha), I was a cat, Mollie a raccoon (a post about her outfit coming soon) and Otto and Aesop were Michael Jackson himself.

My dear boy looked so ridiculously sweet (albeit quite serious) in his little tux.
We had a bit of a scare, when the courier delivered his suit to the wrong house on Thursday morning. Luckily, with the help of a mutual friend, the woman in the house where it was delivered, tracked me down and got it to me on Friday. Phew! Small towns do pay off sometimes!
Otto was so pleased with how he looked - quite certain him and MJ were twins.
All his friends at the party decided to call him 'Little Michael' : )

We had such a great time!
Happy birthday, Otto Schnotto! We love you so much x

Curvy Fashion Friday

I'm on time! Totally doing Curvy Fashion Friday on the right day! Huzzah!

I snuck out into the garden yesterday morning, while the kids were getting ready for school and Mainly Music, and set up the tripod. My lines (yes, I have three different places I hang washing!) were so full of hanging clothing, that there was no way to escape having it in the pictures. I had a wee fiddle on Picmonkey, in hopes of making it less of an eyesore but, really, it's a bit of a reality at the moment.
(I'm sure all of you have houses overflowing with washing, in various stages of done-ness, too. You feel  me, right?)

I'm wearing one of my all time fave dresses, gifted to me by my friend Amy. She has a matching one, in a slightly different colourway. Amazing. It is one of the best fitting dresses I own, and so ridiculously comfortable (very important!).
I'm wearing a homemade cowl, Glassons tights and Number One Shoe Warehouse boots (wish I had bought more pairs - so comfy and so hard to find boots in my size, that I like!).

The kids soon realised I had disappeared, and came looking for me.
'Mum, I need a photo of my tiger!'
Washing and kids.. couldn't sum up my days much better than that : )

May Themed Dinner #5 - Minecraft! (With terrible photos..)

(Disclaimer: It is very hard to photograph things in UV light - please forgive the terrible photos! Next time, I promise, I'll google how to do it properly. Hah.)

Our fifth, and final, themed dinner for May was one the boys chose - Minecraft.

It's certainly not a theme I would choose, and this one proved pretty difficult to plan for. I have never played Minecraft, making it hard to know what it's all about, and all the parties I found with this theme online really only had sweet, party foods. I didn't want to serve my kids just candy and watermelon for dinner!

We decided, as always, not to stress too much about sticking to the theme.

We splashed out and bought a UV light at Bunnings, that was to be the main feature of the decor. We picked up some cheap, plastic plates at The Warehouse, and broke out the highlighter pens.

Abraham wrote 'Don't mine at night' on pieces of white paper - so that the message was only really visible once the blacklight was turned on.

(We also ended up drawing all over our hands and arms with the pens - so much fun, to have day-glo tattoos!)

Abraham also made a wee diorama with the Lego, and Aesop drew some of the characters from the game and popped them on skewers. The animal puzzle pieces were a last minute addition by the boys.
We listened to Aesop's collection of Minecraft songs, on his Ipod. Did you know that there are Minecraft versions of lots of popular songs? It's a strange phenomenon.

(That's a square apple on that there pie. Or, at least, it was meant to be.. hmm.)

For the actual meal, I cut up salad into squares (lettuce, carrot, beetroot and cheese - kid salad!) and we had minute steaks and coated chicken drumsticks. We at with our hands - Aesop tells me there is definitely no cutlery in Minecraft!

For dessert I decided not to just serve up whole apples, or other fruit. I decided to make Talia's apple pie. It was DIVINE. (Only thing I'll say, is that if you don't make her pastry.. if you're lazy like me.. then buy flaky pastry, rather than short sweet. It was pretty darn sweet!).

After dinner we played the guessing game, with the little bits of paper stuck on foreheads. The UV light made it a bit fun, and we had a few giggles.
I think perhaps the game would be easier with kids even older than ours, though. Heh. Otto was pretty confused and his questions were 'Is my sister still Mollie?' and 'Is Dad still my Dad?'. Cute.

We've decided on our themes for next month. We hmmed and uhhed about taking a break, but I'm really loving not buying takeout, and also loving the idea that we might be inspiring a few other people to have themed dinners of their own.
Have you dined in theme, lately?