So you think you can't make a birthday or celebration cake, think again! It seems inevitable that at some time or another there will be a request from one of your children that you make them a birthday cake for school, kindy or for a home party. I've got a fail proof way for you to master this task.

First of all: don't panic. Making a cake will earn you big brownie points with everyone - and this one is REAL EASY. There's no cooking, if you are able to melt some butter you can do this. The other great thing about this cake is you can add any type of biscuits or lollies to suit to customise it for the birthday recipient.

So give it a go, you don't even need a birthday as an excuse and it's a great recipe for the kids to help choose the ingridients and then help with the mixing.

This makes one Cake serves 6-8 - you will need:
* 18 Arnott's Choc Ripple biscuits or biscuit of your choice
* 8 1/4 cup Cookies & Cream Ice-cream or your choice

Dads have the power to enchant the kids when they can indulge in simple activities and celebrations along with the kids, and Easter provides an excellent opportunity for this. In addition to Easter decorations for the home, here are a few creative activities that will excite the kids immeasurably if dad can join them:

1. Baking an Easter Bunny Cake: If dad does not do much cooking, it is still possible to bake a bunny cake using a cake mix and readymade frosting that makes the job simple. But it will simply amaze the kids to see their dad baking a cake, and the Bunny Cake is going to be something too special for any kid in the world anyway.

2. Decorating Easter Eggs: All you need to do is to poke a small hole delicately in an egg, and drain it out till the shell becomes empty. Clean it, dry it, and now it is ready for funny decorations. Let your imagination run a riot, and encourage the kids to let their creative juices flow on the eggshells to create some wonderful decorations.

This is doing the rounds on email at the moment - enjoy (or weep) :-)

POSITION/TITLE:
Mom, Mommy, Mama, Ma
Dad, Daddy, Dada, Pa, Pop

JOB DESCRIPTION:
Long term, team players needed, for challenging, permanent work in an
often chaotic environment. Candidates must possess excellent communication and organizational skills and be willing to work variable hours, which will include evenings and weekends and frequent 24 hour shifts on call. Some overnight travel required, including trips to primitive camping sites on rainy weekends and endless sports tournaments in far away cities! Travel expenses not reimbursed. Extensive courier duties also required.

RESPONSIBILITIES:
The rest of your life. Must be willing to be hated, at least temporarily, until someone needs $5. Must be willing to bite tongue repeatedly. Also, must possess the physical stamina of a pack mule

Starting a DIY project in general is a great way to save your family some money and in trying economic times like these, there's no shame in being a penny-pincher. That being said, you have to pick and choose your projects very carefully based on your abilities, skills and attention to detail. While the end result of a DIY project is supposed to aid your life in some way, it's important to stress the value of following directions when it comes to building something for your children. As a parent, the safety of your child should be first and foremost over all else, including personal finances. A recent DIY controversy is that of DIY cribs.

Wind-up toys ... don't you just love them? They are super cheap, lots of fun and can entertain kids for ages. Here's a few from our collection at home ...

It gets better ...

In part 4 of our podcasting series on child development and conscious parenting, Vicky talks about the six principles of effective discipline which were put together by SKIP. Some great tips there for parents and excellent background information on discipline vs punishment.

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In today's podcast Vicky talks about providing opportunities for children to fully explore a "window of opportunity" for their development. They might be going through a phase of wanting to explore their sorting skills, drawing skills or their concept of cause and effect. So it is great to be able to provide them additional opportunities on top of what they discover themselves. It is also important to ensure that children can satisfy their desire to explore in a safe environment. There are lots of things in our households that we often throw away that could be used for providing those opportunities. Here's a few examples of DIY toys Vicky made herself:

Amazing what you can do with old drink bottles, caps and pieces of string. Check out the toys in detail in our post "How to stimulate your baby's development with home made toys".

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-Stefan

The following DIY toys were made by Vicky Ellison with bits and pieces she found in her household and garage. They are really easy to make and provide hours of fun for your baby / toddler to explore a particular developmental stage.

1) Glitter Bottle
Basically just an empty drinks bottle filled with a colourful liquid (diluted dish washing liquid is quite cool) and some glitter. Is great for young babies to explore how the glitter moves inside the bottle and reflects the light. Make sure the bottle is well closed and doesn't leak (not suitable for toddlers who have worked out how to open bottles).
 

If you are stuck for things to do over the end-of-year break or it's too cold/hot to play outside with the kids, check out geni.com. It's a website that lets you create your own family tree and share it with members of your family. It's web based (no software downloads required), pretty straight forward to use (just sign up and go from there), has a great interface and it's free.

When you try it out you get a little box to enter your name, then two boxes for your parents and so on. You can also use arrows pointing to the to the left or right from each box to enter brothers, sisters, or spouses.

The one thing I didn't like was there blog marketing campaign ... giving out "who's your daddy" T-Shirts. Perhaps it's just me. Anyway - overall a useful site I think.

-Stefan

For the last few years Child Cancer Foundation have organised a "funrazor - shave your lid for a brave kid" event to raise money to fund programs for kids and their families on the childhood cancer journey. So this year it was time to get some DIYFather involvement in the event. Here's what happened ...

My son didn't recognise me when I got home but it's all been worth while :-) A BIG THANK YOU to everyone who sponsored me!!!

-Stefan