DIY with dad: top 5 easter egg designs

Here's some inspiration for Easter craft projects with the kids - depending on what you're into and what resources you've got at home you can pick a project from the following:

The ultimate Easter Gadget I guess ... the "Egg-Bot Kit" by Evil Mad Scientists - prints illustrations and patterns on eggs (other other spherical objects). Getting one of those will set you back $195 ... but hey what price tag can you put on being the coolest parent on the block.

Here's an awesome tutorial on how to create marble eggs ...

Make your own LEGO egg - get some felt floor scratch protection pads (usually used on chairs / tables to protect wooden floors) and stick on your egg. Afterwards paint over in typical LEGO colors (yellow, red, blue, etc).

DIY with dad - getting ready for Easter

Here's a great activity for dads and kids when you are preparing for Easter. Many families end up decorating Easter Eggs but to do that you need eggs you can decorate. So you can take the boring route and just buy some eggs in a craft shop. OR you make this task into an adventurous (and perhaps slightly messy ... but in a good kind of way) activity with the kids. Here's a step by step guide for blowing out eggs:

Preparation

1. Get some fresh Chicken or Goose eggs with white egg shells (shouldn't be hard around Easter)
   
2. Find a space that's either easy to clean (e.g. wooden floor / tiled floor) or put some plastic cover / old table cloth / newspaper on the floor. This is just to avoid any stains on carpets etc in case you break an egg or some of the liquid spills on the floor.
   
3. Grab a food bowl to hold the egg white and egg yolk (which you can use later on for cooking or baking)
   
4. Find some 2-inch nails, drawing pins or a high speed drilling tool and have paper towels within reach (just in case).

Blowing out the egg (you can also watch the video below if you're a visual kinda guy)

Survival Guide for Single Fathers of Tween and Teen Daughters

By Gretchen Gross

You’re a smart guy. You read The Perfect Storm and now you find yourself living it. Your daughter, who yesterday was happy to hang out with you at Home Depot, now cries for no known reason. Last week you were her soccer coach and ‘the best dad there ever was, really,’ and today on the way home from practice she turned away and stared sadly out the window and wouldn’t say a word to you. She’s hovering around adolescence and all of a sudden you’re flopping on the daddy-deck in a panic. What the heck is about to happen and how are you going to get through this? How can you help her get through these difficult years when honestly, you don’t totally understand it yourself? If you’re a single dad, it can get all the more complicated. You might not know who or where to go to for the real deal, the inside scoop. When did her body start to change? Where the heck do you buy a training bra, and when? Do you have to take her or can you pay someone else to do it? What about dating? Or the girl clique thing you’ve heard about. Can’t you just ignore it and raise her just like you would a son, just like you were raised? This book is for any man raising a tween or teen daughter, but particularly the single man who does or doesn’t have full-time custody. This is the definitive guide to helping dad and daughter get past ‘survive’ and onto ‘thrive.’ Written for any man raising daughters, the authors geared this book for the single dad who may not have a woman in his life with whom to confer about issues their daughters may be facing like sex, friendships, boyfriends, alcohol and drugs, and personal hygiene. This book covers it all, from what to keep stocked in the bathroom to how to talk about sex without being blown off. The authors help dads gain a better sense of what their daughters are going through, how their bodies are changing, how their relationships are changing, and how best to handle the ups and downs of these challenging years.

Here's an extract from our book "But Dad! A Survival Guide for Single Fathers of Tween and Teen Daughters":

Check out the brave people below who submitted their Dressify photo to us - good on ya! Download Dressify (free) and try it out yourself. Great fun for the whole family.

Daddy's Rules for Dating Daughters

Rule One
If you pull into my driveway and honk you'd better be delivering a carton of beer, because you're sure not picking anything up.

Rule Two
You do not touch my daughter in front of me. You may glance at her so long as you do not peer at anything below her neck. If you cannot keep your eyes or hands off of my daughter's body, I will remove them.

Rule Three

Daddy the car mechanic

Fathers, I hate to say it, but for the good of all your adorable daughters that you become her car maintenance instructor. When you do your next oil change - or do more than just wash your car - I beg you, begin explaining to your daughter how a car works, and name all the parts.

Rodney's home birth story

Everyone has "the" list ... you know the one, babies coming and magically this list appears "things to do". No matter how hard you work and toil over this list it just never seems to get smaller ...

So 9 months after starting on this list, (ok I had a few days out fishing) it was Saturday morning and all I had left was to plant 5 trees and fix the house.

I had been woken at 2am to be told that my wife had been having very mild contractions since 7pm the night before, but don't panic as this was the third time and baby was still a long way off. The midwives were due at 10am for a checkup.

10am rolls around the midwives arrived and we timed the contractions at about 30sec long and around 10 mins apart. Armed with the information that when they last 45sec and 5 min apart that we should head to the hospital. Yes this was originally supposed to be hospital birth, but the fact that this letter is in this magazine you already know the outcome…

Back to the story; 10.30am and my wife and I are in the back garden with the final job on the list. She is only there to supervise, while I am digging planting and timing the contractions. Just after 1pm the first contraction that went aver 45 sec came. Quickly finishing the last plant and fixing the hose, my job was done and the list complete.

Dealing with your daughter’s first boyfriend - The nightmare begins

Oh those dreaded teenage years. As parents you may experience anxious feelings about the coming years when your children will grow up to be young teens. Those temper storms, stubborn behavior, changes in ways of thinking and so many new and difficult situations to deal with. And above all, you know deep within there will come a day when your daughter will start going out with a boy.

As a parent, acknowledge that everyone does start dating at some point. Don’t forget your past years as a teenager and youth. Dating is both a normal and good activity.

Sing your heart out with dad

Check out the following video - is there a better way to spend time with your daughter (kid) than making music? Superb!

Peter and the Wolf

Have you read Peter and the Wolf to your kids yet? If not - why not get a book out from the library (perhaps with a CD) or check out the following links. It's an absolute masterpiece by Prokofiev and a such a fine example of how music and instruments can be used to paint characters, describe moods or even convey what happens in the story!

Recently Se-ma-for Studios (Poland) have done an award winning animation of the story, check this out!