Indoor and Outdoor Activities to beat the winter blues Mama
Week 34 - Mama Activities To Do in Australia Winter, but you can do it if you are not a mama too!
Thinking about what to write about this weekly update has been challenging because there is little to report…hence the delay in this past weekly update.
It’s been a wet week, and I have been a tired mama, so I have not had much energy to do much, let alone be creative or think creatively like I have the last couple of weeks.
I thought I’d go through my phone to remind myself what has happened this past week to get some inspo for this article, make it a photo article, and share a bit of cuteness!
It turns out… it has been a creative week for me, but I mostly focus on the kids!
I cannot believe Memphis is ten months old and walking!!!! It is mind-blowing how he is already at this stage and how wonderful it is to see Phoenix become a great big brother 70% of the time! I’m not going to lie. I often try to get them away from each other's space as Phoenix becomes more territorial over his toys when Memphis is around.
However, as much as I have not been in the mood creatively to write, I have been actually creative with my children. Being inside forces you to think of things to do to entertain your children when TV is not an option.
YES, I am one of those parents who do not allow their children to watch TV 80% of the time. I give in to more challenging weeks, like this one, when we are all stuck inside. But TV does not go on in this house during the week; if it does, it is probably only once a week.
Treasure Hunt
I realised quickly after I made this that it can also be used INDOORS to find small toys or trinkets around the house to fill the box up with for at least a few minutes.
Tip: You have to build up a story and be hyper and excited to get this egg carton to be something a 2-year-old wants to do. Well, at least that was the case for me and Phoenix.
Hand Painting
I finally decided to teach Phoenix how to paint and got him an easel and everything. However, he was not interested in doing it yet. He wants to get involved when he sees me do it. But it is a 2-minute attention span, and he is over it.
I got more interested when I put the paint on his hands, and we made hand prints on a few pieces of paper. After that, he asked to do the painting and thought the painting was hitting the paper with his hands. This is a success and fun for us to do for five minutes each day indoors.
Tip: Practice slapping the paper with their hands open a few times before putting the paint on their hand so they know what they are doing. Keeping a baby or toddler’s hand open can also be tricky if they do not understand what you are asking them to do. I demonstrated painting my hand first and slapping the paper so that Phoenix knew what I asked him to do.
Making Homemade Cards
I turned the paintings into handmade cards for our family overseas, such as MISS YOU cards. This is also an excellent idea for a Father’s Day card coming up in Australia on September 1st.
Writing cards and letters is still very much something I do because I love the feeling of getting mail in the letterbox. I also love sending letters and cards, knowing that the person on the receiving end got a surprise coming to them in the mail someday soon.
Phoenix goes to the letterbox daily as part of his morning routine to check what letters we receive. He enjoys it, and he kills five minutes outside after he sees the “Postie” deliver the mail.
This is a marvelous tradition that I personally want to keep alive for the next generation as we continue to move into the digital world. These traditions often need to be recovered.
Simple things like writing letters or cards to friends and family are becoming forgotten and obsolete because we can email, DM, text, FaceTime, Whatsapp and Messenger them in seconds and get a response almost immediately.
Certain traditions, like writing letters and cards to special people who live close to you or overseas, are worth keeping alive. It’s another way to embrace a slow-living lifestyle, as you know it will take days, weeks, or maybe a month before they tell you they got it.
A Trip To The Post Office
The post office isn’t the most exciting place to take a toddler, especially if there is a long line. But if they know they have a SPECIAL LETTER or CARD to send off, it would be worthwhile to take a walk and wait in line to purchase stamps to send their special letter.
You can beat the long lines if you go early enough in the morning.
It is also super fun for them:
to put the stamp on the envelope
open the post box and drop the letters in
It also completes the circle for them to understand how mail works. Phoenix understood getting mail in our mailbox outside our house, but he had not yet posted anything himself to learn how letters get delivered. So it turned into this beautiful learning lesson about mail for him.
Note: Overseas stamps for cards are $3.00 per stamp. Ensure you say it’s for a card instead of a letter, as the price differs.
A Trip To Your Local Ice Cream Shop
Even though it is cold and wet outside, it doesn’t mean you can enjoy a cup of your favourite flavour and dream about spring coming!!! We shared mint chips and a vanilla double scoop.
Tip: Winter sale was on for double scoop for only $7.50 on certain days of the week, so check out if your local ice cream shop does winter deals
Kid’s bedroom, aka (previously a master bedroom)
I have been meaning to share how we turned our master bedroom into our children's room for months now. I knew over the winter, I would need more space for them to play indoors, so swapping rooms would make that possible. All we had in this room was a king mattress on the floor and one wardrobe as we downsized our clothes massively.
Friends were concerned that living in a small house would be hard with two small kids, but I have always felt that if there is a will, there is a way to make anything work.
You must be creative to see how changes work for your situation. I love the challenge of making this work and transforming spaces to accommodate our growing family.
This is just one example of how we have transformed our master bedroom into our boys’ bedroom/playroom to suit the needs of our young family this winter.
We had changed the room's design a few times and made Phoenix a little nook to hide in, as Memphis would always bother him when he wanted to play on his own.
This didn’t keep Memphis out, but Phoenix likes asking us to sit here and read with him.
This is the most recent update, as we added a bed for Memphis to sleep in the same room. Even though these beds are bunk beds, Phoenix is too young to go on the top bunk for us to feel safe for him at night.
We only put another Kura Ikea bed in the room because we got it for FREE from our Buy Nothing Facebook Group. As a mother would toss it on the verge for waste collection, we were happy to keep it out of the landfill and just bought a mattress so Memphis could start sleeping in his floor bed like his big bro did when he was a baby.
Floor mattresses for babies have been such a success for us as a family, and I could write a whole post on that alone. If you are interested, let me know.
This room configuration could be better, having the shelf diving into their room, but it works for now as the mats need to be there if either of them crawls or falls out of bed.
I hope you enjoyed these activities. You can do them if you are not a mama, as painting, writing letters, or making cards for loved ones is universal. I even got a watercolour set of paints to learn how to use them.
Going out of the house for a specific reason daily, like to the post office or the cafe, is beautiful, even for a single task.
Changing your space inside your home to suit your needs for the season or to make the space feel new and different can change and evaluate your mood.
Winter makes everything feel slow, so figure out how to embrace it creatively like I have… even if I didn’t notice it until I wrote about it! HAHA
As always, thanks for reading this weekly update
Sending you lots of love and light
Kim