*I received a box of Smooze Simply Coconut for the purpose of this review. As always all opinions are my own*
Imagination is the one thing that I fear the loss of most. Without imagination we have no place to hang out when the going gets tough. Having a 4 year old boy has opened up my world to a whole different level of imagination. Cars talk and everyone is a super hero.
I love listening to him play out scenarios with his toys. We bought him an emergency services house and the possibilities have been endless. Sometimes I cringe as I hear him acting out things he has heard one of us say. A ‘mummy car’ telling ‘daddy car’ that she’s had a hard day and needs a drink from the fridge. A nervous giggle as Paul and I realise how much he takes in.
I hope that never loses his imagination. I hope that his imagination allows him to lose himself in books and stories as he gets older. The imagination can be a beautiful thing, threading stories through our lives, creating memories as it goes along. Imagination lives strong in the Children’s movies, they don’t question a talking animal, a flying car or a man who can save the whole world.
It’s sad that we lose that ability to lose ourselves as we get older. I find myself enjoying movies but questioning the motives. I certainly don’t think we should constantly live in a world of fantasy but a bit of magic in our lives definitely couldn’t be a bad thing.
Summer is the height of the imagination period. Summer brings with it trips to the beach, adventures in the garden under the hot sun and running through the sprinkler. Summer is playing in the dirt with diggers and trucks, while Mummy enjoys a cold beverage. I can hear the stories he creates over the noise of the traffic going by.
A break in creation means an iceblock. A cold treat on a day where the sun is hot enough to cook an egg in the shade. One of Mr 4’s favourite treats is Smooze’s Simply Coconut icy treat. These babies are made with pure coconut milk so give the creamy taste of an ice cream with the lightness of an iceblock.
The coconut taste can be a little over powering if you aren’t a fan of coconut but Mr loves them. I usually have a few in the freezer to help him cool down after a hot day. The best part is they come in little cardboard containers (a bit like the trusty poppa) so they are easy for little hands to hold and less mess than other ice creams available on the market.
I love Smooze’s Simply Coconut Desserts so much that I have 6 boxes to giveaway to 6 lucky readers! I’ve had to hide them in my cupboard so that Mr 4 didn’t eat the prizes before I got a chance to give them away!
All you have to do to be in the running to a win a box of Smooze Simply Coconut is answer this simple question.
“What was your favourite imaginary game as a child”
Entries close at Midnight on the 22nd of February 2014.
Terms and Conditions.
- The competition begins on Saturday the 11th day of February 2014 and closes at midnight on the 22nd day of February 2014.
- All decisions made are final.
- The winner has 48 hours after being contacted by email to answer, or the prize will be redrawn.
- The competition is open to Australian Residents only.
- Entrants must answer the question ‘What was your favourite imaginary game as a child’ in order to be eligible to win the prize.
- Each entrant is only eligible to win one (1) box of Smooze Simply Coconut.
I think one of the gifts we can give our kids is opportunities and encouragement to live imaginatively and creatively as they grow older, and enter the business of life. Why not? But it sounds like your little man won’t lose his imagination any time soon, with a supportive mum like you. Thanks so much for linking up for #sunshinesundays! xx
My favourite was pretending I lived in a cave, at the beach near my Nanna’s house. Many hours on school holidays spent in this wonderland.
Fingers crossed your little man doesn’t find the coconut stash, Tegan xx
My favourite imaginary/role playing game would have had to have been playing shops, school and dressups. But I did collect my easter egg wrappers and boxes one year and glued the wrappers to the cardboard boxes to make my trolls some funky houses. Aah, the power of imagination 🙂
Indeed – it is sad to lose imagination and a very cool place to hang out.
We loved to play the very politically incorrect cowboys and Indians – with cap guns. However, everyone wanted to be Indians, who we considered cooler that the cowboys…
Oooh, they do sound nice.
Me and my siblings used to play cops and robbers a fair bit. It was a warped version called Done for. We stealthily chased each other around with empty staple guns and when we found one another we would shoot the guns and say “Done For”. Dag…gy 🙂
A fabulous opportunity thank you.
My favourite imaginary game as a child was playing house. Under the big trees in the backyard my sister and I had laid out a floor plan using bricks. We would play outside for hours. Having friends over was fantastic as we entertained our visitors. We constantly renovated.
I had what me friends and I named “The Secret Passage.” It was just the gap between our house and the neighbour’s fence. We’d spend hours there making houses for fairies and rockeries for lizards we’d catch. It was a wonderful time 🙂
* eek sorry about the typo
– **my
Thanks for a great comp!
A little magic in our lives is definitely a good thing! Similar to my daughter, I used to play princesses and pretend to dress up and go to balls 🙂
My favourite Imaginary game was Doctors. I never did become that doctor however.What is it about boys and super hero’s. My Mr 3 is obsessed and he has never seen any superhero stuff on TV. Is it conditioning that boys like super hero’s and girls like princess’s I hope not. Although his best imaginary friend is Cinderella she takes care of him and holds his hand. I that pic of your little man he is gorgeous.
I love the coconut and pineapple smooze, it’s like a little frozen pina colda, minus the alcohol! My sister got me on to them when she was training for her half-marathon, it was one of the things her trainer told her was good to have during a race, not frozen, and straight after! I can get on board with that! I think my fave imaginary game was teachers, I loved making my sisters be my students and “learning” them how to read and write!
Having three siblings made for role playing gold when we were kids – a favourite I remember was wrapping my baby brother in a sheet and putting him in a cardboard box to act out the Nativity. He must have been about two, and surprisingly he didn’t mind being baby Jesus in a makeshift manger!
I loved to play school. I would make my hot chocolate (pretend coffee) stand on my front step and order imaginary students around. Funny thing is my daughter does the same, minus the coffee!
I used to love setting up a classroom and “teaching” all my toys, sitting in chairs in rows, facing the front! Guess what my day job is, I’ve never given up that dream!
The magical land that lay hidden behind my bedroom wall, entry via a big crack that ran down it’s length, opening to let my brother and I in only when no grown ups were around! The fun we’d have with all our toys springing to life……at the time our game felt so real, we truly had huge imaginations back then, and got lots of fun from it.
I know it sounds really wrong and all but I used to pretend that I was kidnapped by a rich family who would give me all the things my own family couldn’t. Looking back, I know it’s pretty pathetic. My family was great and I shouldn’t have cared if I didn’t have new clothes like my friends, but you know what kids are like!!!
We had vacant bushy land in our street. We played “Wars” the game went on for days, with truce only being called when it got dark and we all had to go inside and transform from warriors into children
When I was really little (in early primary) we had a row of Casuarina pine trees at our school. My best friend and I used to play ‘families’ with the little pine cones. We made a network of rooms out of the pine needles 🙂
I loved playing shops.
My mum made me a shop front out of a large cardboard box and would save empty boxes and containers for me to use. I made my own money using the foil tops that would come on milk bottles. I loved playing shops so much and now when I looked back I loved that they game was completely home made!!
I was an only child, so I had an imaginary friend who I used to play with in my cubby house, having tea parties, and interesting conversations (for a 6 year old!).
My imaginary game with my bestie, was the enchanted forest (a park behind her house that was closed in and darker due to the treetop coverage). We imagined the trees could talk to us and that there were tree fairies and elves… So innocent!
Dragon Hunting. We had an old branch that we thought looked dragon ish and we would ride our dragon and capture him and escape from the farm to fly away to new lands.
After seeing the Brady Bunch episode where they went to Hawaii, laying by my swimming pool pretending it was the beach, and that old tattered umbrella was a palm tree, and tennis ball was a coconut I was drinking out of!
My sister and I used to talk in a pretend language and have a good conversation. We got on really well doing that and didn’t fight.
I was the eldest and we all used to play ‘rescue’ games. My brother and sister would climb as high and get into as tricky spots as they could (think high in trees and on top of chicken pens and sheds) and would call me to come in my ‘truck’ and rescue them with ropes. Most of the time it ended well (I was a pretty good rescuer!) But there were a few occasions that one of us got well and truly stuck. 🙂
Shop keeper…whether it be vines or flowers or pretty stones….selling items to imaginary customers was how I dealt with having a “brother” and not a sister
I loved “building houses” … usually from blankets draped over furniture. Sometimes they were even habitable and I was allowed to sleep in them!!!
Cops and Robbers, Cowboys and Indians. We even played Bushrangers at one stage, but mum got annoyed when she was the one getting held up all the time!
Imaginary schools, I would spend hours in front of my class of students, teaching them what I had learnt at school. My passion to be a teacher is long forgotten 😉
eye spy!
that there was an imaginary monster on my fire escape
My sister and I didn’t have a cubby house when growing up. So, we decided to put blankets over the dining table chairs and pretend that was our cubby. We’d read books and play with toys in there. We could be under there on and off for hours at a time!
When my sister & I used to play pretend Nana K’s in bed and move as far to each side as possible without falling out and giggling all the time.Nana K was large and not our real Nana and a bit mean .
My favourite imagination game when I was a kid was to pretend I was Princess Leia . I was a huge Star Wars fan & I always saved the day .
Loved to pretend I was making a cup of tea..pouring water into teapot, sugar, milk…into cup.