Astronaut food - A Relish Review

When dad came back from Vegas he had heaps of awesome surprises for us, even some Astronaut Ice Cream.  We decided that today was the perfect day to try our ice-cream as an after school snack.

It was weird to eat.  It was dry and powdery.  When the pieces of ice-cream melted on your tongue it actually tasted like neapolitan ice-cream.  The initial taste was delicious.  The taste a few seconds later wasn't so nice.  In fact the taste left in your mouth was like the taste you have in your mouth in the morning when you have a giant glass of milk before bed and then forget to brush your teeth.  

It was fun to eat but I don't think it is enough for me to want to eat more.

Love AJ and Milla

Sing

Growing up in the country was great but there was limited exposure to the amazing opportunities that my kids have.  During my childhood, symphonies and operas were something that was on TV every now and then, even then we would skip over those channels and run back outside to play.   Thanks to the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra,  conversations about going to the symphony, enjoying a ballet and now listening to opera is something normal for my kids

Last year we were lucky enough to be invited to see the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO) perform with dancers from the Australian Ballet.  It was an awesome program so when Alison from MSO contacted us to see if we would like to head along to another performance we jumped at the chance.

The MSO website promotes SING as being a program that features one of Australia's pre-eminent conductors and a passionate advocate of the importance of singing in a child's life, Richard Gill, and singers from Victorian Opera, joining forces with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra to lead a stimulating musical program for children which will explore the joy of singing and inspire aural imagination through song.

So that is the official spiel, what it really was was a fun filled musical program that had us singing, clapping and dancing in our seats.

On the edge of their seats, enjoying the performance

Normally, I am sure that if I asked AJ to sing a nursery rhyme he would laugh and walk away.  At SING he was singing along, yelling out answers to questions being asked about the orchestra and having a great time.  Milla and her friend were acting out all of the instruments and having a great time. They particularly enjoyed singing, so much so that Milla has decided that she will re-join the school choir next year, and maybe even audition for an extra-curricular choir!

Even someone like me, completely tone deaf with no musical ability at all was singing along.  In fact I have been singing one of the tunes all day long and actually enjoying it.  At one stage today, as I was wandering through the park with Milla, we both began singing ding dong, ding-y ding-y dong in rounds.

Ding dong, ding-y ding-y dong, ding-y ding-y dong, the cat is gone 

Ding dong, ding-y ding-y dong, ding-y ding-y dong, ding dong!

Thanks for another wonderful opportunity Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

Meeting the talented  Jeremy and Kirilie after the performance

Disclosure:  The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra offered us tickets to the show, the opinions expressed are ours.

Sticker Fun

A group of girls and a couple of packs of face and body paint stickers and I expected the house to be filled with princesses covered in pretty flowers and jewels wanting to run upstairs to find some pretty dress-ups to put on.  Oh how I was wrong.  Firstly, the sparkly, flowery, pretty stickers were the last to be grabbed, the priority was on tomahawks and feathered headdress stickers, followed by handcuffs and pirates!

So many choices!

The stickers were designed for kids 3+, so there really was no challenge in getting the stickers off the card and onto their faces...

Peeling more stickers.

...or onto their bodies!  This meant I was able to sit back and giggle at their antics rather than be actively involved in peeling and sticking the stickers.

Stickers, better than piercings!

Temporary tattoos

Of course, next came the competition to see how many stickers you could fit onto a single person - I think a couple of the girls had more than 30 stickers covering decorating their body.


The end result, a very happy group of 8 year olds who had a great time creating with friends.  The biggest bonus - they could go home with the stickers on and re-use them again if they they chose.  There was no mess, no face paint on clothing, all in all no hassle but heaps of fun.

Of course, the girls didn't stop there, Milla had seen the old-school face paint that I had left on the bench.

Gruesome beats pretty!

Knowing that they had grown out of the desire to want to be pretty and girly, I shouldn't have been surprised when they wanted to use the face paints to make wounds, scars and blood!


So the activity didn't take place quite as I had anticipated but with a smile like this, it is pretty evident that she had a great time.

A very happy 'princess'!

As an added bonus, we now have a pile of stickers that we can re-use should the opportunity arise.  Of course that isn't likely, she has already found and alternative use for them.  She reasoned that if they can stick to skin and peel off without hurting, that surely they can stick to books or the walls of her bedroom and can be removed without causing any damage.  Fortunately she was right, the paintwork in her room isn't damaged and she has a new decorations around her bed and on some of her folders!

These are the sticker packs that the girls used...

... and these are the ones I saved these for when my nephew comes over to play!  Hindsight and I would have given the girls the monster pack to use but when I realised they were in to gore, I was too busy laughing at them to walk back upstairs to get the extra pack.

Disclosure - The stickers were given to me, for the kids to try.  The opinions expressed are my own or those of my kids.  If you want to find out more about the stickers check out Colorific.