DIY Aquarium

Upcycling empty tissue boxes to make little aquariums to add on to their animal families free play activities.

As a mom to multiples, I strongly encourage them to share their toys.  However, this depends on the nature or size of the toy, if the size is sufficiently big to ergonomically positioned and shared among three of them (such as the DIY cardboard carpark), I would just make 1 piece, and they would share; if the size is small, I would prefer to make 3.  

I usually keep the design simple, because I will be making 3 sets, complicated designs will takes forever to complete.  And most of all, the simplicity will give more space  develop their creativity and imagination.  

Day 1:

I helped them to cut and strengthen the tissue boxes. They will help to glue the corrugated blue paper (as water) and light yellow color paper (as sand) into the respective boxes.  Once they had completed the pasting, they were already arranging their little aquatic friends into the new 'home' 

  

Day 2:

I drew out some fishes for them to colour. Then I gave them thread and masking tape to hang up the fishes.  They could tape it nicely and independently. 

Syuen's Aquarium

Hung's Aquarium

Juin's Aquarium

They call this "Animals Family"
They insisted that some of the farm animals had to be there when taking this photo.

Free Play - animals, boxes & lots of imaginations

These few weeks the boys were into their "animal family".  Everyday, they would emptied the animals toy box along with other toy boxes (be it trucks, blocks, puzzles or boxes) to create their own free play & stories.   

Hung's animals were having a ride on the truck. Patience & steady hands needed to cleverly balance as many toys as possible on the truck. 

Syuen & Juin were in a discussion... Discussing on how to arrange the animals on the 'beach' 

Those jigsaw puzzle pieces were the sand & hill. The animals are on the beach enjoying sunset. 

Happily Posing with their stories.

From their free play, they had inspired me to make a DIY Aquarium for their Aquatic Families.

DIY with cardboard boxes

3 weeks ago, had DIY "roads & parking spaces" using a big cardboard box for their little vehicles. It was quite an ad-hoc idea, just pasting the roads with masking tapes. It would look better if black duct tapes were used.

Today, as I was observing their play, I have this idea of creating DIY mini doll house to facilitate their imaginative play & story telling capabilities. 

We have quite a number of empty cereal/muesli boxes (we keep all the empty boxes because we could always turn these boxes into some new toys). I'd selected these boxes with the cut-out leaves design because it could served as the windows that saves my cutting time. 

Tools used: Scissors, blade & glue

Direction: 

1) Cut out the back portion of the box, 

2) One of the side flaps might fall apart, just glue it back,

3) Using blade, slice the door or windows (3 sides, so that it could open & close)

4) Done! Time to play

Within minutes, manage to create 3 pieces (waiting for the glue to dry takes longer time than cutting). One for each of them for the time being, could create more when they are bored later (which is usually after 2 weeks).

These boxes are very versatile. We could stack it vertically looking like a tall building.

the an additional hole at the side of the box, we could add on stairs to move the people from one level to another.

 Arranging it horizontally

Or even stacking it vertically and horizontally.

However, most of the time, they might not play as how it was suppose to be.. the "house" is now a "row row boat" :)

Video Clip Sharing: Baby Talk@14mths

Was showing the boys some video clips of them when they were 1+.  They were amazed!

All of us had some good laugh.

Here's sharing one of the video of them "baby talking" when they were 14mths old (corrected age: 12mths old), hope you enjoyed it as much as we do.

DIY Paint

Friday is our weekend over here in Qatar. Daddy is not working and the boys are scheduled for personalized haircut from daddy.  While daddy is giving one of the boy his haircut, mummy needed to prepare lunch. However, the other 2 boys were quite 'gluey' today. They wanted to stay in the kitchen with me. I have to quickly think of something to keep them busy in the kitchen. I remembered this DIY edible paint recipe shared by some friends recently, the ingredients needed are simple, hence I gave it a try to let them prepare the paint by themselves.

First, they helped to prepare the 3 primary colours in 3 big bowls. 

Then I gave them a small cup (we use the yogurt cups) each. Guide them to select 2 primary colours and put into his tiny cups. Let them stir and mix the colours. 

Here, they are busy stirring the colour mixture and they were definately amazed with the result (secondary colours).  

mixing the colours at the kitchen

mixing red & blue

mummy, look... red and blue makes purple

Secondary colours

Painting Session:

Syuen

Hung

Juin

Exploring with pouring method

Syuen enjoys painting on his feet

Syuen enjoys painting on his feet

Masterpiece from 2 yrs 8mths old Cubbies 

DIY Edible Paint Recipe:

1 cup multi-purpose flour

2-3 cup water

1 cup salt 

(act as preservatives for the paint, without salt, the paint mixture turns sour within a day)

Food Colouring 

(could use natural colours from food such as beet root (red), tumeric/kunyit (yellow), blue-pea flower/bunga telang (blue) )

18mth Triplets miss CubbyDaddy

CubbyDaddy had left to work in Qatar since 2 days ago. Yesterday, cubbies was calling for cubbyDaddy whenever they heard the starting of car engine sound and sounds coming from upstairs. Guess it is not only me that needs time to get used to the term 'daddy is at work'.

Today as they were playing slide, they heard a car stopped outside the house.  Hence, they started to call for daddy non-stop.  They even climb on top of the slide to have a better view.  Enjoy the video...

cubbyDaddy, we miss u!

Brotherly Love

Triplets are down with flu and cough one by one..  We had tried to keep them slightly distance, separating their drinking bottles and utensils... However, we were unable to stop them from spreading and passing the flu bug to each other cos they enjoy and love to hug and kiss each other.  Once the hugging and kissing game started, it can keep them occupied for 30mins to an hour.

Here's a short video clip of them hugging and kissing each other.

Triplets' Love

13th months old (corrected age 11months old) Cubbies showing their care and love towards each other.

Triplets 1st Lantern!

Mooncake festival also known as mid-autumn festival falls on 12 September (八月十五).  Last year, triplets were too small to celebrate this festival. Now, they are 1 year old, have better understanding.

I was searching around for lanterns which are suitable for them to play. At last I found these Angry Birds Lantern.  It is not that we are a great fan of it, but I find it some how suitable for the cubbies.  The handle which holds the battery operated music and light can be easily removed from the bird, this means that cubbies could play with the bird as if it is a balloon.  Inside the bird it has a small bell which makes it more attractive.  But the boys are not interested with the bird-head balloon.  Finally, I gave in and allow them to play it with the handle.  Surprisingly, they knew how to hold it and walking around with it.  Although they had just mastered their toddling skill, they are walking quite well for a 13mths old preemie.  They enjoyed it better with the handle esp biting onto it :)

Here's a short video clip of the 3 little cubbies playing with the battery operated lantern.  Hope you like it!

Playpen for Triplets

Our long awaited playpen has finally arrived!!!

Why do we need a playpen for Triplets?
The triplet cubby-babies are getting very fast in their crawling and sensitive towards the surrounding. They enjoy exploring to the nearby coffee table, the nearby wiring, table cloth and so on via crawling or cruising. We used to put pillows, bolsters, and cushions to block their way, but now, they will either crawl over it or hold it as support to stand which may result in tumbling down.

With this Lindam Safe & Secure playpen, we could put all three of them into the pen.  However, triplet cubby-babies cry after some time because they had been used to having a large area to roam about.

playpen which can accommodate triplets

Hence, we remove the confined playpen style into a room divider which is the actual intention in buying this playpen. This works better as their play area remain the same, but in a more secure condition. And for us, there is lesser areas for us to child-proof.

Using it as room divider

This playpen shouldn't be use with the intention to cage them. It is just to isolate the not so secure area for explorative babies.