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.

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" :)

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) )

Snip.. Snip.. Snip.... Triplets 1st Haircut

Since cubbyDaddy was back from Singapore during the weekend, we had decided to give cubbies a haircut.  Their hair had not been shaved or cut since birth, and now they are 14 months old.

Initially we planned to cut their hair when they are taking their nap... However, it is tougher than we thought.

So, we changed our mind and let them sit on the high chair.  For safety reason, we had chose to use the shaver instead of scissors.

We tried blowing bubbles to distract them.. but after a short while, we noticed the boys were totally alright with the idea of cutting hair.  They were sitting quietly and didn't make any fuss.

We were so proud of their good behaviors.. they get to have fun in the pool after the session :)

Here are some photos to share:

 

cubbySyuen with his new haircut

cubbyJuin posing handsomely before the haircut

 

cubbyHung waiting for his turn

  

Thank you cubbyDaddy for the cool hairstyle, we love it!!!

Triplet's Nap Time

"What time is their nap time?" is one of the very common questions people tends to ask.
They will usually followed by "Do they all sleep together??"
"They nap for few hours??"

When Do They Nap?
I did not make a fixed schedule for them to follow.  Hence, they will nap whenever they feel like napping. :)

Advantage:
Flexible for adults in a way, whenever we feel like bringing them out, we'll just do it without worrying it affects their schedule.

Disadvantage:
When they are excitedly playing, they can over-tired themselves without us or them knowing it.  The next thing we know is that they start to be cranky and fussy.  When they are over-tired, it's not easy to put them to sleep.

Nowadays, they usually nap twice a day (1 year old toddler).  Once before lunch time and once in the afternoon.  The timing can be still vary.  For the morning session, sometimes they can fall asleep right after the breakfast (about 10-ish), sometimes not until 12 noon they fall asleep.  For the afternoon session, it is worst. For example, today one nap at 230pm, and by 3pm, all fast asleep.  Sometimes, they refuse to nap till it is 6pm.


How Long Do They Sleep/Nap??
Usually they nap for 30mins - 2hours.  Once again, the timing is not fixed.  We won't know when they wanted a longer nap.  3 of them might have different schedule, for example Triplet 1: 30mins - morning, 2 hours - afternoon; Triplet 2: 1 hour - morning, 1 hour - afternoon; and Triplet 3: 2hours - morning, 30mins - afternoon.


Do They Nap Together/Same Time?
They DON'T!  Sometimes you can have 1 napping, sometimes 2 napping.

Advantages of napping at different time:
You get to spend some personal or 1 to 1 time with one of the triplet while the other 2 are napping.
Less strenuous for new parent.  Handling 1 or 2 crying babies are much easier than 3 crying babies.

Disadvantages of napping at different time:
There's no time for you to nap together with them.  You have to stay awake the whole day and not having any 'me' time.

I will try to make all 3 of them nap together.  However, if each boy needed 10mins to put to sleep, there's a high chance that after the 3rd triplet fall asleep, the triplet who napped first might be time to wake up.  End result, three of them are not napping at the same time too. :)

Today, consider a bonus... the boys slept almost together in d morning and in the afternoon.

11am: cubbySyuen found his favorite spot - next to the sofa (sometimes under the sofa), one finger in his mouth, another hand holding d corner of the pillow... fall asleep without patting :)

11:10am: cubbyJuin also found his favorite spot and position, lay down next to me, thumb into the mouth, one hand holding onto my hand.. fall asleep without patting as well :)

11:15am: cubbyHung still active and busy playing...

11:20am: cubbyHung found his favorite pillow, 2 fingers into the mouth, one hand touching the pillow... fall asleep without patting :) and in the center of the toys too...

11:22am: Carried cubbyHung onto the bed, lights off... and I have free time to cook up their lunch. 

11:40am: cubbyJuin wakes up, followed by the other two at 12pm.

To reward them for their good nap time.. I've converted part of the sofa into a climbing platform for them... will blog about it another day :)