We wish you MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Dear friends, and again a year passed. Time is flying...However, let's be happy and with a big smile on the face!!!Its one of our favourite holidays, which unites people together. 

So, we wish you all the best in these holidays and...

 May this Christmas be bright and cheerful and may the New Year begin on a prosperous note! 

and this is our xmas tree which we decorated with Karolina after the last post

Karolina and her mum, Lady Di

Christmas crafts 2013

Some days are left before Christmas and New Year 2014. As I already mentioned before preparations with Karolina this year were amazing and here are the crafts which we made with her:

So, as you can see we made a big family of Reindeers-) Karolina wanted to make the family which consists of mum, dad and 2 kids like by us. She gave them even our names-))) and that one which is with a bow - is of course our Karolina.

This 3D Christmas tree craft was done for Karolina's great grandfather which she decorated again with her favourite Minnie Mouse image. She also added some decorations in different geometric forms as we repeat them again. So this tree is already in the envelope somewhere on the way to her greatgrandfather.

And this snowman which was made from cotton discs and xmas tree was a present for her grandmom. It is together with 3D tree travelling to its final destination.

We also made some decoration from pipe cleaners and this craft was inspired by Martha Stewart. Now the hang on the lamp and some go to our Xmas tree.  

    

                                              
An angel appeared in our decor as well. It was her handprint angel activity where the face we tried to pain together, with supervision of mum of course.

One of the longest mini Christmas projects was to make a girlanda from Xmas associations of Karolina and her cousine.
And of the last but not the least crafts was again a Christmas tree but already done in another way:





So, this is a little summary of our productive work with my little girl and now we are going to decorate our Christmas tree. We wish you all HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!!!

Attention!!!Toes are playing!

Today Karolina continued to play with her snowballs. In the morning before changing her pygama, Karolina decided to use her bare feet and play with her toes, taking a foil snowball and put it into a basket like we had done before with the pebbles.  It makes her laugh every time-)))

I remember how it's happened the first time - tickling feeling, new experience, exciting activity. I told her: "Try to be a monkey and do like they do". Showing to Karolina how to move the pebbles helped her to get the idea at once-)))and plus the pebbles makes such a nice sound ...

That was not only fun, but also a good thing for motor skills. Her first glass pebble was not taken up so succesfully like she was thinking but at the end she managed it very well.
So, play monkeys and don't forget to eat banana after that-)!
P.S. for developing motor skills you can also take a towel with your toes from one side and your child from the other side and try to pull it,  it is such a joy!!!

My little BIG helper in the kitchen. What makes a toddler busy?

Karolina likes to play a pretend game "Cinderella", where she must tidy up things, toys, dishes, clothes and etc. Of course it works when she is in a very good mood or when she wants that her room - or her palace- will look like by the princess, or by fairy- clean and tidy.

As other kids Karolina loves to help as well with washing clothes, putting them into the washing machine, taking out spoons, forks, knives from the dishwasher and sortirising them in the place they belong to.It makes her really occupied. And she loves helping with cooking and working with all kitchen utensils.

Karolina is helping with preparing Pelmeni, russian meal

 

One of her favourite one is combiner or mixer or blender. Like today we made a banana-milk shake where Karolina was the chef cook. She knows already what she needs and how to make it-)))

Karolina can cut a banana with a child knife and put it in a correct way from the chopboard into the blender

I was proud of my little BIG helper today and her milk shake was really delicious-)))
And what does your toddler already cook???

Foil SNOWBALLS activity

Winter crafts do not stop...It brings so much fun and joy to Karolina. Especially she likes when we need to decorate sth, like it was with Xmas decorations for the flat. She wanted to hang all lights only in her room. Everytime she took out anything from the box, what she found more beautiful, she said immediately: "Mummy, let's hang it there as well...", adding "I will do it myself..."

Yeah, this year is really different, Karolina's understanding and expectations of Holidays make it more interesting for us as parents. I love New Year and Xmas but with Karolina I feel it even more.

Her dad promised her to make a snowman as soon as the snow will come...So, Karolina is waiting and meanwhile, like today for example, we played with her fake snowballs....which were made from the alu foil.

We made a shape of balls, and the main idea of snowballs games was the following:
1) to make them, which is good for motoric skills
2) to count them
3) to compare them by size
4) to throw them into each other, pretend play with snowballs
5) to throw them into a bowl or basket
6) to take them with chinese sticks and put in the bowl (which was quite difficult when she did it from the floor, thats why  a TIPP: let the child do it from the table, on the same high level) - for motoric skills

Time is for bed already. It is quite warm in the flat, but our snowballs will wait for us till tomorrow, to play again. 
Take care and don't get cold-)))

DIY sand at home for your little one, mummy-time

The weather doesn't welcome us now at all. Quite chilly, quite fresh, quite wet. Karolina asks me every time to go to playground when we pass it by. And I have to find again everytime a new explanation for her why it is not possible. Just the answer "it is too cold" doesn't satisfy my toddler already. She doesn't stop her question WHY and it continues, it seems to me, ages...

So, to make these dull days brighter I allow her to put on sometimes her swimming suit with Hello, Kitty! and then she plays in swimming pool with her toys, using a basket for that.  And I made for her sand a time ago, when the sun stopped appearing often here ....to remind a little bit about those nice days.

I should say, It was fun and brought lot of Joy to Karolina. I didn't listen her for about an hour, so much made it her occupied.
All you need for your mummy-hour-time is 4 glasses of flour and 1 glass of baby oil and mix it....The consistence is nice and so is the smell.

It was once, I will tell you honestly, may be later I will do it again, but for now I must take rest from that hard work with vacuum cleaner, lol-)))

Anyway, I am happy that Karolina enjoyed it, it was quite useful for her motorics as well. And it was sth different from days full with crafts, which I will post later as now it is hot time to make postcards or presents for everyone-)))