Playpennies

If your younguns wont eat their roast on Sunday, try a fun Bounding Bunnies Bento box. It's really sweet!

It's long weekend soon! Are you excited? If not, be sure to check out these fun crafts to keep you and the kids busy. Plan ahead, do all the set up a few days in advance, and be ready to go before it all melts down on Easter weekend!

If you're looking for something to do with your little ones this afternoon that's low intensity and requires no more than normal art supplies, this St. Patrick's Day craft card might be a good, fun and sweet idea.

Here's  a brilliant list with 100 St Patrick's Days Activities for kids. There's sure to be something here for you to have themed fun with your little ones this weekend!

With Easter around the corner, Pinterest is buzzing with fun and exciting things to do. I particularly like this post from Growing A Jewelled Rose on 16 Creative things to do with candy, you know - instead of just eating it!

Happy Mothering Sunday! Do you know the origins of today? Here's how it all came to be, including a traditional recipe for Simnel cake.  Drink a cup of tea, and find out more about this 'family day'.

If you're looking for something easy to make for Mothering Sunday, that Dad can do, older kids could do on their own, or you can do for the grannies, then look no further. This Meringue recipe is so easy, my three year old can - and did - do it. Okay, she helped. I had to redo the eggs after she broke the yolks, but still she had fun. For ingredients you need 2 egg whites, 100g castor sugar, and your choice of food colouring. In a subsequent batch I've also added half a teaspoon of vanilla essence, just to give it a little more flavour.  

• Heat the oven to 110C
• Separate the eggs (I save the egg yolks for fabulous home made mayonnaise) If you get yolk in the white, the eggs wont stiffen up.
• Beat the egg whites till they are frothy and stand at peaks. 
• When they are firm, add the castor sugar a tablespoon at a time, beating all the time. Add the vanilla essence. 
• If you want white meringues, scoop out spoon fulls onto a greased tray. 
• In the mixing bowl we added a drop of yellow, a drop of blue and a drop of red food colouring in three different areas and lightly mixed them gently in those areas. Then my toddler scooped from each area, onto the tray, sometimes getting a mix of colours and sometimes just a mix of white and blue or white and pink.
• She scooped them onto the tray and we left them just like that. 
• Put in the oven for 40 minutes 
• If you want them chewy on the inside, you can take them out of the oven after about five minutes and leave them to cool. If you prefer them crunchy leave them in the still warm oven until it and they are cool. 

We then popped them in an over-sized cup wrapped some cellophane around it all, and that will be a mother's day gift for Nanna from her grandchildren.

Yes, you read that right. Scribbled eggs, not scrambled eggs. A great alternative to messy painting, and it looks pretty good too. Ideal for little ones, and perfect for some Easter decor.

For part of my childhood, we lived in a really tropical climate. Every year, around lice time, everyone got it. In fact, if you didn't get lice, you felt like the odd one out! Fortunately we didn't live there for long. Here's a great infographic on head lice myths and how to beat them.

Isn't this just the sweetest idea for DIY fairies? I think we'll have to try this soon, in celebration of Spring.

Nurture Store has great ideas for our Welsh readers celebrating St David's day on Sunday. Here you'll find  traditional recipes and some daffodil crafts and bunting as a great introduction to teaching children about the day.

If the first teensy tiny signs of Spring are getting you excited and you're thinking thoughts of getting outdoors, here are five tips for making hiking fun for everyone.

There's truth to the fact that baby clothes and baby toys just do not last very long. For that reason, these DIY make at home toys for babies and toddlers are pure genius.

As much as I know messy play is good for children, I really don't love it. This blog has some really good tips for how to handle messy play. Maybe, just maybe, I'll dislike it a little less tomorrow!

Have you ever found yourself staring at your partner, trying to think of something you can do with your day off? I mean, you have the time but can't think of anything you'd like to spend your time on?  Well, how about a date night jar, where you can write down a long list of ideas, and draw a stick on those days that you just need a bit of motivation!

Cathy from Nurture Store shares a fabulously easy Valentines craft-slash-baking idea for Valentines Day, perfect for kids to do with a little help on the hot stuff. Who doesn't like a rice crispy lolly pop!

It's been some time since I left school, and we didn't do class Valentines, but now I don't have school aged children yet, so I'm not sure what goes on in a classroom. Do we do those now? Maybe not, but it still a sweet craft idea for a sweetheart.

We're nicely ensconced in February now, and I was wondering about New Year's resolutions, and how everyone is getting on with theirs. One of mine was to be more organised in my day to day preparations with the children and so on. There are some things that are going well, like not switching the laptop on before we're all dressed, beds are made, and breakfast had, and hair and teeth brushed. Depending on the rest of the day, I might even put a washing on before sitting down to catch up with the night's happenings around the world.

Other resolutions, like housework and finances haven't been so lucky or gone as well. I found this 31 Days of Home Management Printables post and think there's quite a lot in there that I can adapt to suit our needs! Hopefully you can too.

If I'm going to send a Valentine's Day card then a homemade one just seems 'more' somehow, than one you just picked up from the shops.  I came across these 3D optical illusion lollipop Valentine's Day cards and think they're rather fun - you could also use this idea for any occasion that requires the giving of a card.

• Click HERE to read the original post, with full instructions, over on ParentHacks

I'm not a fan of Valentine's Day - not because of the romantic sentiment (I think that's important all year round, not just on one day!) but because of the OTT commercialism that comes along with it.  However, I'm rather tempted to join in this year, just so I have an excuse to make one of these amazing 3D optical illusion cards!

If you have a go too, let us know how yours turned out.

*photo credit - Betsy Ptak

Feeling a little less than inspired for Valentines day. Which is, you know, just over 2 weeks away? Here are 50 ideas to get your mind going in the right direction.