Blast from the past - CASADI Video

The other day Sarah posted a bit of a blast from the past for her Polkadots Blog post! I had totally forgotten about these photos, and it made me have such a good laugh! And now I really want to see the video footage again of this video we made for Caydence and Delta! It was quite fun to see all of this again, so I thought I would share her post here!...

"Recently i stumbled upon this photo that totally makes me LAUGH OUT LOUD and brings back so many funny memories! Let me give you a little bit of back ground on how we came to be doing random poses in this photo while wearing WEIRD green costumes and head bands with matching leg warmers (clearly we didnt have a stylist for these photos,lol).......

So way before the "The Polkadots" Carly, Dionne and i spent  most of our High school and teenage years together... actually thats an almighty understatement, we were joined at the hips! The Three Musketeers! All for one and one for all! We went everywhere together, did everything together, Sang, Danced, Learned and Played together. We shared each others families, siblings, clothes, friends, boyfriends (lol) and even toothbrushes... Yes we were THAT TIGHT! People would always ask us if we were sisters, so much so that we decided we would just tell them that we were....  although we arent "blood sisters" our friendship is forever and we are totally "SISTAS!"

After High school we each got married, Dionne and i had our first little babies, Carly was the best aunty ever and the three of us still maintained our "Musketeer" status."

The Three Musketeers

Untill one day Carly decided that she wanted to be a big girl and explore the world with her husband and her CAMERA. Naturally Dionne and i tried to come up with every excuse as to why we should go too, but it wasnt to be. We werent happy about the seperation but knew how much Carly  loved learning and exploring so we reluctantly let her go, on one condition. Before her depature we had to make a video of Carly reading fun childrens stories, singing songs and dancing so that she could still be an active aunty to Caydence (My daughter) and Delta (Dionnes daughter) who at that time were 6 months old. So we spent a couple of days filming and dressing up in silly costumes singing songs, dancing, reading books and playing funny games in front of a camera so that Caydence and Delta could watch and learn form their Aunty Carly while she was away on her overseas adventure.

CASADI - CArly, SArah, DIonne

We named the video CA-SA-DI (Pronounce Cassidy) which are the first two letters of each of our names (CArly, SArah, DIonne) The video was so amatuer and silly but so so funny to me and it totally served its purpose for Caydence and Delta and was actually really effective, so much so that a few years later we became Musketeers of a different kind.... "THE POLKADOTS"

That is one fabulous pose!

Caydence and Delta helping us with "Story time with Aunty Carly"

Caydence and Delta - The stars of the "Bath Tub song"

I will definately follow this BLOG up with a VLOG (video blog) of some of the footage from CASADI. I may have to get written consent from Dionne and Carly first tho : )

And don’t forget to participate in our new contest, “A Polkadottie Musical!” going on now through to March 23rd! Winner gets an animated ebook created by Mr. Bop! For more details click here

Popping Polkadots

Since I'm a Polkadot about to POP! This week we decided to do "Popping Polkadot Art!" My little man is not an eager artist, so I have to get creative with how I expose him to things arty.

So, we started with Popping Bubbles! We filled three small bowls with a tablespoon(ish) of liquid detergent in about 1 1/2 cups of water and three different food colourings. (If you are finding the colour is not leaving a very strong colour behind once popped onto the paper then add some more colouring.) We put a straw into each bowl and I challenged Ashton to see how high he could make the bubbles go. We then got our piece of paper and squashed the bubbles under it and the colouring from each bubble popping would make a print on the page. Ashton thought this was pretty cool and loved the pattern it left behind.

Ashton loves to blow bubbles at any chance he can get so he was very excited about this activity and actually asked to do it multiple times throughout the day and the rest of the week.

Next, we did Popping Balloons! This was a little more prep work, but very exciting when we finally got to do it! I watered down some poster paints and using a funnel, poured the paints into the balloons and blew them up. After I'd stuck the balloons and some sheets of paper to a tarpaulin we took it all outside! I then gave Ashton a big poster pin and told him to start popping. He was keen for the first pop, but then the paint exploding everywhere and gave him a bit of a fright. After the initial fright wore off he became quite intrigued with the paint splatters and loved imitating the sound of the balloon popping! I thought it was pretty fun!

As we walked inside to get cleaned up Ashton looked down at his legs and said, "Look mum, i got pretty legs!" And he did indeed ... the balloon popping splats had left quite the work of art on his legs, and my hands. . .  and our faces! LOL

We had a great time exploring these new forms of art, and popping everything pop-able in sight! Now there is only one thing left to pop and that is ME! 5 weeks to go! SO EXCITED!!! Watch this space! I promise to post photos!

What to do with your child's art work??? (This is what we like to do...)

• Take photos of each of his masterpieces and upload them to Snapfish.com and make a photobook compilation of all of his work. For the pieces that he was more involved in I include photos of the process he went through to create his final piece and write a little story to go with it.
• Keep the work in a folder and use it to make homemade cards for his friends and family's birthdays.
• Have a clipboard frame that you can rotate his latest masterpiece on. Keep it on display in the house until a new piece of artwork is ready to take its place! (This is an old picture frame painted to go with your home's decor with a little clip screwed in at the top. You can see an example of this here on my Pinterest page!)

What do you like to do with your children's art work? I'm always looking for new ideas!!!

A day at the beach

"Look mum, i draw a rainbow! 

I draw a rainbow in the sand! See Look!"

You can only imagine my excitement when Ashton put this own artistic creativity into action and decided to draw pictures in the sand with a stick he had found while we were at the beach with friends today!

The sand really was a perfect natural canvas to be drawn on at this point as well, as the tide had just gone out and the sand was super flat and pretty much untouched, since we were there first thing in the morning. 

I love that he was so excited to show off his masterpiece and saw it as something worth sharing! 

I keep saying I am so excited about Ashton doing anything arty... but I actually think my excitement for Ashton actually drawing or doing "anything arty" has shifted from being shocked excitement that he is actually doing engaging in artistic activity at all, to excitement over the fact that he is actually starting to do it on his own accord! My efforts to expose him and encourage him to develop his creativity is finally paying off!

 As well doing sand drawings while at the beach, Ashton jumped waves with his friends, built sand castles, chased birds, strutted around doing an 'undie walk' at the playground, and even let me bury him in the sand from the chest down! It was a great morning at the beach just letting the kids explore as they pleased and it was nice for us mums to be able to catch up with each other... in amoungst the sprints to the toilet, with three toilet training children, shepherding children back to our base or the playground, and feeding or putting babies to sleep! YOU TAKE WHAT YOU CAN GET RIGHT!

It was quite the active morning and Ashton was obviously quite exhausted by the end of it because... he feel asleep in the supermarket trolley on my quick dash into the supermarket on our way home!  That boy never ceases to amaze me, whether it be where he falls asleep or how he finds ways to tell me about his world! 

Photo Fun!

"Polkadot Carly, loves to explore, but loves her camera even more!"

This line is soooo true about me that it totally could be the tag line of my life! I am constantly thinking about the next adventure I could go on whether it be with my little man, my whole family or my friends... I love to go on adventures. And on these adventures you can guarantee I will have my camera with me! If I find myself without my camera, I would not be over exaggerating  to say, it feels like I am missing a limb!

So, this Christmas when Santa left me a new iphone I was extremely excited to find that this savvy little piece of technology has an 8 mega pixel camera and an HD video camera as one of its features! Then to add to this excitement a fabulous app called "Instagram" was introduced to me to make taking photos even more fun!

My blog today is sharing with you the coolness of simple photo editing! Because it has just made sharing photos so much more fun for me! ... I know that Instagram is only available to iphones right now. (I hear it will be available to android very soon.) So I did some very basic research and found some other alternative apps or online editing programmes that do similar effects. Because sometimes its just fun and fresh to see photos in a slightly different way. Its adds mood and vibrance and sometimes a bit of quirk! I also found a free photo collaging programme too!!! SO EXCITED!

• If you have an iphone... totally go and download Instagram now! It gives your photos a great 1970's feel, and there are 17 different filter types that you can choose to apply to your photos! LOVE IT!
• If you don't have an iphone I found an app called picplz which does some similar effects.
• If you don't have a smartphone but would still like to do some simple photo editing, then I found a website called Picnik.com. This site allows you to do some pretty quirky things to your photos, but also has some more classic filters as well.
• If you want to collage your photos into fun designs, then this website is for you! photovisi.com is for you!

So those are three editing tools you can go and have a play around with... and if you know of any others that you have found fun or good to use please do share! I love finding new apps or programmes to play with, especially when it comes to making photo sharing more exciting!

Here are some random shots that I have taken since Christmas to show you the different filter effects.

Filter: Inkwell

Filter: Lo-fi

Filter: Kelvin

Filter: Earlybird

Filter: Polaroid (done in Picnik.com)

Collage done in Photovisi

My ALL NEW Polkadots Costume

Mum did her Polkadots Blog all about my new costume and how it evolved the other day. Its always funny to read something written about you and your personality by someone else. So I thought I would share it here! I love my new costume though!

I love how Carly’s Polkadot personality has developed as ‘The Explorer’. As a little girl she was always fascinated by her world; discovering things in the garden, fascinated by ingredients and how things worked together, collecting things in her pockets and proudly showing me her ‘c’lections’. She just loved to have adventures and could usually convince little sister Dionne to join her.

It was always a pleasure (and enlightening) to see the world through Carly’s eyes because she would find things I just didn’t see.

So, making her new Explorer costume was a really fun process. I knew it had to have a map of the world (top left hand polkadot). It had to have a hood because she would want to go out in all weathers. It had to have lots of pockets for her ‘c’lections’ and, of course, bright orange is perfect because, “Watch out, Carly’s going exploring!”

Carly in her new costume

Carly going exploring with her little boy Ashton.

Toilet Training FUN!

This past week I decided to embark on the journey of toilet training with my little man! He is 2 years 4 months now and with our little lady due in only 10 weeks I was determined to get this toilet training done so I didn't have two children in nappies!

In my experience, toilet training is always given such a negative wrap and I can see why... poo's and wee's to clean up every 15-30 minutes is never fun. But I decided that I wanted to make this a fun adventure and positive experience for both of us... after all it is a big milestone for both child and parent!

So, with my addiction to filling up my week with constant outings and activities, I had to look at my calendar and find a week where I hadn't already booked in something each day and then made this my TOILET TRAINING WEEK... well actually I booked out three days! That was the best I can do, but the last two days I was still with him, I was just looking after 7 other children at the same time! (I've moved onto Polkadot child care duties while on maternity leave.) Booking out this week to really focus on toilet training was the best thing I could have done! I HAVE LOVED IT! I'm pretty exhausted, but Its been a joy!

So this has been the key points of my approach to toilet training that I feel has worked really well

• PLAN TO PLAY OUTSIDE - preplan lots of activities that will keep them wanting to play outside so that when the accidents happen, you don't care!
• EXPECT LITTLE on Day 1 - Day 1 is all about them getting used to the sensation of number 1's and 2's coming. Most of the time they don't make it to the potty (in fact Ashton didn't make it even once!) But if you aren't expecting them to make it there and your focus is more about them getting used to the sensation, then if they do make it to the potty in time, its a BONUS! This is not to say you don't try to get them on to the potty in time, but you just don't get upset about it if they don't.
• Go NO UNDIES! - If possible, let them go the day without wearing underwear, its so much less laundry and they get used to the sensation A LOT QUICKER! When they have underwear on they still have a security of knowing there's something there to catch whatever is coming out and they become less urgent to get to the toilet/potty.
• WATCH THEM LIKE A HAWK - The reason you need to block out 3 consecutive days and do nothings else other than focus on toilet training, is so you can follow them around everywhere they go and be ready to get the potty in place the minute they start displaying those signs of going 1's or 2's. Watching them like a hawk right from the work go, gets you accustomed to these cues as well.
• CELEBRATE LIKE YOUR CRAZY - When they do make it to the toilet/potty in time, celebrate and congratulate them like they have never seen you behave before. Do a song and dance about it, give them high fives, give them a special reward (up to you as to what you choose for their reward.) 
• GO OUT FOR SHORT TRIPS - Its hard to be housebound for 3 days! So, plan short trips away from the house... just to the park or down to the shops. Best to keep the outings, literally outings, so that if they do have an accident you're not having to do an embarrassing clean up job in public! These little outings help them get used to having to go pay attention to the signals of toileting even when they are out and can get distracted.
• TAKE A POTTY or SHOW THEM WHERE THE TOILET IS - Whenever you go out, take the potty with you so that at a seconds notice you can avoid the accident. These first three days are about having as much success as possible! If you don't have the potty make sure you show them where the toilet is (wherever you are) so that they know they can go and also where to go.

Our Funny Toilet Training Moments! (Most of these moments happened on day 2, it was a great day in our house!)

• On Day 2 Ashton started the day off with a roar, straight away he went wee's on the potty and I was ECSTATIC to say the least! Ashton was so taken with my performance he couldn't stop laughing... now thats saying something cause I'm quite a dramatic person at the best of times and he's used to it! LOL!
• After this first success on the potty I had to share it with someone and Ashton was keen to tell his Dad, so we decided to call him at work... well, I don't think my husband quite knew how to respond to the excitement or the topic that came through the phone to him when he was surrounded by all his work mates (90% of them men). We got, "oh good, ok... ok... good!" LOL. Poor guy! He later sent a text saying, "Contrats on the wee's in the potty!" ;o)
• Ashton had just finished going wee's on the potty all by himself, and as I started to do my congratulatory song and dance, he stood up off the potty, took one step back and took a bow! I ended up laughing so much I nearly wet my pants! - He continued to take a bow after every potty stop after that, as he knew it made me laugh! It made it a very humorous day!
• Towards the end of the day when he had finished another visit on the potty, he stood up, and with his hands on his hips and a big sigh he said, "Oh man, I so busy!" - Its a hard life when you're toilet training!

I know the toilet training journey is not over yet, but I feel like we have got through the hardest stage. I know there can be set backs. But I have to say, this toilet training journey is one I have enjoyed and valued with my little man. I have got to spend heaps of time playing alongside him, getting to know him that much better. I have laughed so much its hurt! And now I have a big boy in undies! 

What are you're toilet training tips?

An ecstatic Ashton after his first #2's on the potty!
 And him laughing at his crazy mum! 

Ashton taking a bow after one of his successes on the potty at the playground!

The Action Man's First Valentines Delivery

I'm not huge on Valentines day, not that I have anything against it, I've just never got into it. But after this Valentines Day, I might just be converted!

This Valentines Day was filled with LOVE!

I LOVE that Ashton actually painted the hearts... all 8 of them!

I LOVE that Ashton wanted to write his own Valentines messages!

I LOVE that all of the girls (each of his 6 girl cousins and his 2 girl friends) were so excited to receive their little gifts from Ashton, giving his lots of cuddles and kisses and excited dances!

I LOVE that I had no idea that this collection of goodies was awaiting me  on the table when I woke up on Valentines morning... with a text also waiting on my phone with another love message! 

I have the best men!!!

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY EVERYONE!

Power Naps, Ice Blocks & Showers!

We are totally struggling with the whether to nap or not to nap issue at the moment! The Action Man just can't seem to get through the day without a nap, but he always wants to take one at 3/4/5pm!!! And this is just not conducive with having a decent bed time hour... or for giving Mummy some down time in the evening! TIPS ANYONE???

Anyways, in my efforts to keep the Action Man awake today, we decided to turn the lounge into an obstacle course. (I was desperate! and it was raining!) Then, during mid run through the course Dionne called and 'nec minute' Ashton is fast asleep on top of the couch!

I have to say... I was taken with the cuteness of the moment... and felt sorry for how tired he must have felt to fall asleep mid-climb. So I let him have a 10 minute power nap and then woke him up with an ice block incentive... in the shower! ;o)

Worked a charm... and he was in bed by 7:30pm! Maybe 10 minute power naps, and ice blocks in showers is my answer to this dilema! We'll see.