'Arthur' the Scarecrow!

Every year the village holds a Scarecrow competition, and weird and wonderful creations pop up all over the village, so this year I decided we would take part for the first time with the help of the  AJ's.
They are usually open to any idea, but to celebrate the Centenary of the First World War this year they are asking for a scarecrow along that theme. 

I decided the easiest thing to do is create a small scarecrow, so I thought the idea of an evacuee would be a good one, esp as I happened to have some small brown clothes and a suitcase easy to hand.  So once they returned from nursery, we started recycling all the shredded paper that we keep for the fire, and stuffing it into carrier bags for waterproofing, before stuffing these inside the clothes.  Alyssa wasn't really interested in helping, but was interested in throwing the paper all over the room!!  We then turned a small old t-shirt of Alyssa's inside out, and used some fabric pens to draw a face, before using some brown wool on the top to create hair. 

Arthur loved 'Arthur' and kept trying to make him dance and play with him, and talking to him, and was very excited to see him put up outside.  I used two bits of wood to create a cross shape and attached ' this to him before hammering it into the ground, then it was time for Arthur to see him all finished and in place, and he was very happy, now to see what the other villagers come up with!

Stuffed body!

Preparing more stuffing!

"He's got legs" (Rubbish ZZ top ref sorry!)

Trying on 'Arthur's' hair

The two Arthur's

Final adustments waterproofed and added!

Wish us luck in the competition!!!! :D

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Carnival fever for Brazil!

With the world cup being in Brazil, I thought it would be fun to bring a bit of Carnival fun to the AJ's.  So I decided that we would have a bit of fun painting and creating fun masks using egg boxes, and then host our own teddy version of Rio carnival complete with some samba and salsa music to dance to.

As the weather is beautifully sunny at the moment, I decided to take advantage of it and paint outside, you also get the added bonus of topping up your vitamin D and having painting that dries super quick!

So I set up some paper and some paints representing the colours of the Brazillian flag, and let them run riot, litterally, at one point they were running over the paper to create footprints!!! Then I let them loose with the egg cartons pre-cut and some glitter!

After that I quickly set up all the teddies, and brought out some beads and outfits to make our carnival, although by this time Alyssa was quite tired and wanted lots of cuddles and Arthur just enjoyed listening to the music and running around doing whatever he wanted.  He did enjoy playing with the masks that were made though!

Painting in the sun!

Decorating the Carnival mask

Drying nicely in the sun!

Brazilian inspired art!

All ready to party!

Teddy Rio Carnival ready!

Getting in the festival spirit!

Looking good!

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D-Day Landings

This Friday marks 70 years since the D-day landings, so I thought I would take this on board as our theme for today, as Friday the AJ's are with Granny and Grandad.  For Christmas from Santa, Arthur received a set of little toy soldiers, which were perfect for today.  Using these and a brown and blue board, I set up a D-day landing small world play. 

Alyssa had great fun mimicking Arthur's movements with the toys and making the same sound effects as him.  They are far to young to go into the ins and outs of the event, so I basically said the set on land were baddies who did naughty things and the people in the water storming the beach, were goodies. 

Whilst they were playing and doing their own little version of events, I put some wartime music on such as Glen Miller and Vera Lynn (however Arthur preferred Glen Miller!) I also found an air raid siren and got them to sit under the table whilst it played, telling them that I told people when to hide and stay safe.  I then made the AJ's a good old corned beef sandwich for lunch, Alyssa did not like it at all and immediately spat it out.  We then made little toy parachutes using old hankies that I use for dusting now, I tied one around a Monkey for Alyssa and one around one of Arthur's knights.  They had great fun thowing them around over and over and watching the chutes fill up with air.

Playing together

"MAN DOWN!!!"

"Their coming!!"

Toy parachute

Parachuting knight!

Making monkey fly!

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Rock Band!!

At the weekend we went to a friends house for a gathering/party and they had live music, Arthur was thrilled by this and loved the opportunity to watch, dance, clap and hog a spare microphone and imitate them. 

So I thought a bit of role play and music fun was in order, after watching a couple of music videos whilst I got some dress up accessories and musical instruments together, I set up a mini stage area using an old red curtain as a back drop, put on some music and let them go!  There were a few scuffles over the drum kit for a while (daddy would be proud as an ex drummer!!) Before Alyssa settled for the guitar and keyboard.

It was great fun letting them mess around, and do what they wanted with the accessories and instruments, there were some pretty interesting outfits, but I didn't manage to get them all on camera as I was having to much fun dancing and playing with them!!  I hope that they are interested in learning an instrument when they are a bit older, I never did, but there is still time,  family project maybe??

The Bailey's band getting groovy

Jazzy album cover photo??

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