The Best of Fun With Mama 1st Year

Today (Friday the 23rd of July) Fun With Mama turns 1! The year has passed so quickly and I am so excited that I have been able to document so much about our family in this past year. I will be creating a Blurb book of all the past years posts to keep for our own memories.
In celebration of Fun With Mama’s first year I have pulled together this post of our top ten twelve thirteen favorite posts!
If this is your first time visiting Fun With Mama this is the perfect place to start!

Fun With Mama’s Top Ten Twelve Thirteen Posts (in no particular order):

1. Colored Salt Tutorial

2. Create Your Own Stamp (with foam alphabet letters)

3. Puffy Paint

4. Make a Volcano

5. Play dough, Colored Pasta, and Rice Fun! 

6. Elmo Cut and Paste Printable

7. Handprint Plaque

8. Lets Go Fishing Printable

9.Ladybug Cut and Paste Activity

 10. Crawling Knee Pad Tutorial

11. Shaving Cream Painting

12. Bubbles Galore

And here is one I really like… something that keeps me motivated and inspired:

13. Encouragement

Delicious Milk Tart – Anyone?

Milk tarts happen to be one of the most delicious desserts ever and it is not nearly as hard as one would think.It is actually pretty easy! Thanks to the push and the shove from my friend Sameerah I have conquered it! (She also happens to be the most awesome milk tart teacher in the world! She is a woman of technology and often forces me teaches me to cook fun recipes and yummy desserts using black berry messenger.)

Deen loves milk tart and in the cutest way ever he  comes to me and say “Mama, can you make me milk tart with love?”

This recipe makes two milk tarts.

Ingredients List

2 oz margarine (times 2)
sugar
2 eggs
1 heaped tsp baking powder
1 cup of flour
round silver milk tart foil dishes
1/2 a litre of milk
vanilla essence
corn flour
pinch of salt
cinnamon

(Part 1): Dough

2 oz (1/2 of 1/4lb)(=125grams) margarine

¼ cup sugar
1 egg
1 heaped tsp baking powder

Approximately 1 cup flour to make a soft dough. (dough should not stick to your hands).
Separate Dough into 2 parts (This recipe makes 2 milk tarts).

Press flat into a silver container. (covering bottom and sides in an even layer)

 

Bake in oven on 180 Celsius (350 Fahrenheit) until parts of the crust starts to get brownish in color. (Be careful that it doesn’t become too brown)

 

 

Part 2:
On the stove boil 1/2 litre milk with 2 oz margarine.
(When it has boiled it will rise)

Part 3:
In another dish mix:

3 tablespoons sugar
Pinch of salt
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
2 tablespoons maizena (corn flour)
1 egg

    

Part 4:
When milk boils (part 2) add part 3 to the mix and keep stirring till it becomes medium thick.

Pour milk into crusts.

Sprinkle cinnamon over and put in the fridge for a few hours.

Enjoy!

Build A Better Blog Challenge

The SITS Girls are hosting a really fun blog challenge to build a better blog in 31 days. I decided to jump on board seeing as the motivation of the group will continue to push me to put my best foot forward.

If you don’t already know, The SITS Girls are, “A group of more than 6,000 woman dedicated to supporting one another by leaving comments”. To be honest though it is much more than that. The SITS Blog features many interesting articles about blogging and every day they feature a blogger and showcase their best posts. It is so great to be introduced to new blogs and be immediately taken to the best posts on that blog.

The SITS Girls ProBlogger Challenge features ProBloggers e-book called 31 Days To Build A Better Blog. Each day you are given a task that you need to complete which will help you create a better blog. I purchased the e-book. (There is a discount code for the e-book for anyone who wants to participate in the challenge on the BlogFrog Post). The best part about this challenge is that there are already over 250 people that have signed up to participate… imagine having that kind of motivation?

We will all be motivating each other on Twitter as well as on BlogFrog.
If you are here visiting from the Challenge post you can add me to your twitter here: funwithmama

The challenge starts on July 19th. After having a look at the e-book, the information there is so informative that it is definitely worth checking out.

Since it is an e-book and I generally like to jot down my ideas on paper I created a Task Challenge booklet for myself to ensure that the ideas keep flowing (no matter where I am).

I thought it would be really helpful if I shared this with my fellow SITS Girls who also like to jot down their ideas on paper. I feel that this will make the challenge so much more organised for me.

Here is what the pages look like:

To download click on the image above or here: Build a Better Blog To Do List 

I printed mine out and then binded it with my bind-it-all. You can punch holes in the page and add it to a binder or even more simple, staple the pages together.

  Disclaimer: The 31 Days To Build A Better Blog Challenge is brought to you by ProBlogger’s Darren Rowse and the SITS Girls. The only thing here that is by me is my  to do list. The above to do list does not contain any direct information on the e-book itself.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse Movie Review

Ok I can’t deny it…. I love the Twilight series!
and and and…. I love Jacob! There, I said it.

This is coming from a mother of two… but hey I’m still only 24 years old (if that counts for anything?)

It’s not that I love Jacob the person or the actor, I just love Jacob the CHARACTER.

On Wednesday night Faheem and I went to watch Eclipse (Yes that is the first day that it was playing). If I had a ‘ Team Jacob ’ shirt I would have definitely worn it…
Hmmm…maybe I need a Team Jacob locket… or better yet… I love the bracelet that Jacob made for Bella with the wolf on it…

Faheem, if you’re reading this… I want a wolf bracelet too!
Hey and if you can make it yourself like Jacob did, even better! :)
if not…. here are a few places selling it… *hint hint*

This one can be purchased at Bella Twilight Shop 

And this from My Bella Bracelet

Ok… so now on to the movie review

As a true Twilight fan I love the different interpretations of the book and the movie. Yes they are very similar, but if they were exact then how did I react so differently to the two?

While reading the books I was a die hard Edward fan….
In the movies I am now a die hard Jacob fan…

Doesn’t that tell you something? 

I’m not sure if the reason I switched teams is because Taylor Lautner is such an amazing actor. He nails the role so perfectly. Although a movie can’t really show you what a character is thinking (like the book can), Taylor Lautner somehow manages to take you deep into his thoughts without even needing to say a word.

Rob Pattinson is really not my view of how I envisioned Edward to be (or to act for that matter).

But anyway… Lets get back to the Review of Eclipse:

For me, it was 4.5 stars out of 5 stars! I loved it! Eclipse has always been my favorite book and that carried out into it being my favorite movie! It would have been five stars for me if it was longer and incorporated a few more scenes.
Yes, there were a few scenes missing (and changed slightly):

•   Alice’s sleep over with Bella where she ‘kidnapped’ her(I remember Alice being at the sleepover in the book, not Edward but I could be wrong)
• Angela doing Bella’s invites.
• Bella’s thoughts on if she chose Jacob

There were a lot of lines that made everyone in the theater burst out in laughter:

“From now on, I’m Switzerland!”
”Doesn’t he own a shirt?”
“Well, I am hotter than you.”

The acting was better than the other movies. (Although Taylor Lautner did great in this movie and in New Moon).

Special effects were pretty good but I did notice that the wolves kept changing sizes…

Jacob and Edwards scenes together were intense and you could feel the animosity and jealousy between the two characters while their hearts both fought for the woman they love.

Supporting Characters got more on screen time and you get to see how cute Alice and Jasper can be together.

All Jacob and Bella scenes were captivating.

My Favorite Scene? Bella and Jacob’s Kiss (the one before he left for battle).
For a more in depth review check this site out: Eclipse Movie Review

Jacob Vs. Edward:

If I was Bella I would choose Jacob, he is more ‘ALIVE’.
I feel that they have more chemistry together and you can see the magnetic pull on screen between them(or at least from Jacobs side).
He protects her and even when he has to protect her for her own safety, it still bothers him that she is hurting. (When Jacob became a wolf and left Bella alone, he made sure to come to her room and check that she was okay. Edward on the other hand takes it into his own hands to ‘protect’ Bella and in turn hurts her more because she never understands the reason why).
I like Jacobs personality more, he is more active, bubbly, funny, snarky, and he wears his heart on his sleeve. He portrays his emotions more yet doing it in a very manly way.

I’m not really looking forward to Breaking Dawn because in all honesty I really did not like that book. I would have preferred if a new book was written for Jacob, one in which he finds someone who is worthy of his love, who helps him get over the heart ache and show him what true love feels like.

Are you Team Jacob or Team Edward?

Does anyone know what the name of the instrumental is on this short 13 second video? I love it.

 

I guess I will just have to resort to fan fiction to get my happy ending.
I’m going to start with this story: Never Too Late
and then The Sun On My Skin 

Here is a nice fan fiction video:

 

What did you think of the movie?

New Friend Friday

I decided to join in this week in new friend friday. The blog world is so big and I am hoping to find some new interesting blogs. (Although my list is already so long I can hardly keep up!)
How do you keep up with your favorite blogs?

If you want to check out more blogs have a look at these links:

News: Our Own Domain and a New link me button!

I've been busy updating the site, as you can see on the right I have added some information about the stars of the blog.. My kids :)

I have purchased my own domain , yay! So now the blog is at funwithmama.com

and I have updated our link me button :) Check it out here

I had to have both my kids on the logo... Deen on the bottom and Aaliya on the top there. What do you think?

That sketch defines my motherhood journey. Everytime I look at it I am taken back to a moment and reminded of thhe happiness that my kids bring me. It makes my heart smile and gives me a warm feeling. It was taken from a real picture and then I turned it into a sketch in photoshop elements.

You can grab the link on the left side of my blog. I will try to figure out how to add a permanent blog roll page so that I can exchange links with my blogging friends. :)

My next move is hopefully going to be to move our blog to wordpress.org but I'm not sure how to do that and will need to spend hours trying to figure it out...

Kids Say The Funniest Things

I wanted to write a post today on the hilarious things my son has said this week... My kids give me a thousand reasons to smile at any given moment

At 2 1/2 Deen has a huge vocabulary and his language skills are pretty advanced for his age but sometimes he gets mixed up.... during the few times he does get mixed up it always ends up being so hilarious!

We were all in the car talking when all of a sudden we hear in the backseat "everyone...stop talking...Babies and deckelments!!" (Ladies and gentleman)

Deen could once upon a time count to ten... then all of a sudden a new number came into play and threw his numbers off... can you find the newly made number?
"One...two...three...four...five...six...eleventeen...nineteen..."

"mama, there are eleventeen bears!"
mama says, "deen eleventeen is not a number"
"mama... dont lie!!"

"Mama.... let me make you some play dough sghabbetti" (spaghetti)

What are some funny things your kids say? I'd love a heart warming laugh! :)

And here are some of our silly outtakes this week... ya know... the pics that just don't make the cut in tutorials or just sometimes seem silly. I thought I'd post it cuz it makes me smile:



I'll leave you with some cute pics of my daughter from 3 weeks ago :)




Kids really bring so much warmth and happiness into your life...

I think I should make this a weekly post since it would be so great to record your memories of the adorable things that your kids say... the good.. the bad.. and the embarassing! hehe
anyone wanna join me? If interested I could add a mclinky :) this would surely bring a smile to everyone!


P.S. I was reorganizing my blog today and adding categories so things could be more accessible and for some reason feedburner sent out one of my old posts as a new one... I hope it doesnt repeat that tommorow.... sorry about that!

Tackle It Tuesday - My Sewing Space

I had seen tackle it tuesday done on some blogs and I immediately knew I needed to participate this week. My sewing space was in major need of a clean up and revamp.


Here's my sewing machine(Singer Futura) and serger(babylock imagine) on a clean table (I didnt take a before pic of this table for a reason... it was embarassingly overfull)


Here is how I am storing my metal and polyresin snaps.


I organised my ribbons and put them in a drawer so I can easily get to them.


And here is the big job! I had to prewash all this fabric, iron and then fold it so that it looks neat and is accessible. It is AMAZING.... these fabrics took up 2 cabinets of this size... after it was ruler folded using this tutorial I fit it all into one cabinet.

As a beginner sewer I did not color code my fabrics(since I do not have nearly enough) so I organised them based on fabric type.

Upper shelf from left to right: Minky, ribbing, knits, woven
Bottom: fleece, bamboo velour, microfleece, suedecloth, pul(diaper making fabrics), and flannels.

I wonder if I should fold my baby blankets this way... :)