Challenge Yourself

I have been challenged again and again to 'get out of my comfort zone' more often. For those who read one of my previous posts (http://littleboybluetoddleschool.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/out-of-my-comfort-zone.html) you will know what I'm talking about and rather than avoiding those things I'm trying to embrace them. So each week I plan to try activities that get me 'out of my comfort zone' and last week the things that took me out of 'my comfort zone' were:

Arts and Crafts with the boys.

Here we have some glitter ('cringe' it gets every where!), clear contact paper, black card and a tub. We cut out our shapes on our card and covered one side with the sticky contact paper. We then placed the card (sticky side up) in the tub.

Little Boy Blue and Book Worm (L 8 yrs old) and Bug Boy (S 6 yrs old) had fun sprinkling glitter on top. Most of the glitter did manage to stay in the tub (one happy mummy)! We then stuck another piece of contact paper over the top to seal in the glitter. Hay presto one jewelled heart sun-catcher gift.

The dilemma then was what to do with the cut outs? I do hate waste. Then I remembered something from my own childhood - alternative stencilling or back to front stencilling as we called it because we weren't colouring in the gap in the middle but around the outside of the shapes. So we used a light tack putty to stick the cutouts to black paper and got out our chalk box, we even rubbed it with our fingers!

The effect turned out better than I thought even if I do say so myself! We were all so pleased with it.

Out in the woods.

Last Thursday a friend very kindly had my two older boys Book Worm and Bug Boy over to play. While they were away for the day with their friends I donned a pair of wellies 

Very fetching!

and went for a walk with Little Boy Blue in the woods near our house. It did start off poorly.

So windy his hat came off.

Soft moss & a hole, cool!

We were soon having lots of fun, it was very windy and the noise through the trees was phenomenal, we listened for birds, found sticks for dogs, felt the soft moss, looked in holes for animals and splashed in puddles.

Sticks for dogs!

Unfortunately Little Boy Blue fell into this puddle but I waited till he was back up before taking a picture!

Splish splash.

Our outdoor expedition has been inspired by this excellent blog:

http://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.co.uk/

You may know from my last post that Little Boy Blue was ill on Sunday and some may say no wonder if he was doing this on Thursday but after reading this news paper article http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/9810865/Parents-think-its-too-dangerous-to-let-kids-outside-in-snow.html I am becoming more convinced that (with some common sense) allowing my children to explore, climb, get dirty and fall down will teach them life skills and lessons that they may otherwise miss out on. There was no way of knowing that if we hadn't gone out in the woods that he would not have exacerbated an existing condition and it won't stop us from being out and about again once he's back to full health and strength. 

As parents we do naturally worry "what if" but do we balance this with "what if we don't"?