Pilgrims picnic

To celebrate thanksgiving, we started the day pretending to be Native American Indians, using our Indian headbands we made recently, and the pop up tent became our Teepee.  I found some music on the internet and we danced around the 'camp' and banged on our drum.   Arthur enjoyed galloping around on his hobby horse, before hiding in the teepee crying 'the Indians are coming, quick hide!"  We also had a little mega blocks campfire built out of orange and yellow flames, but that didn't last long. 

Soon it was time for lunch and our Pilgrims picnic, I grabbed some of our teddies and put a few in little Pilgrim style hats, and laid out our Thanksgiving Dinner we made the other day.  Then I laid out some simple picnic food for use to eat.  It was great fun as we soon ate up, and were continuing our feast with our pretend food, endless amounts of chicken and cherry pie with Ice cream and custard were consumed before it was time to tidy up.  I thought I was being clever laying all the food out on an old curtain to make it easier to clean up, but once all the plates were removed Arthur took it as an ideal opportunity to whip the curtain up and down really fast making the crumbs and leftovers fly EVERYWHERE!!! But that wasn't the worst part of the day for me, that would have to be opening the door to a delivery guy dressed up like and Indian!! Queue slight embarresment, but the cries of 'lets play Indians' from Arthur were definitely worth it, and Alyssa seems to be following Arthur in his love of dressing up which is fantastic fun!

My Little Indian

Even mummy joined in!

Playing on the drums

My little Chief!

The teepee

Pilgrim Marley

A Pilgrims picnic for Thanksgiving

Talking with Marlene

Latkes for Hannukah

Whilst Alyssa was fast asleep and lunch time was fast approaching, Arthur and I attempted to make traditional Latkes to celebrate the Holiday of Hannukah.  It's the festival of lights for the Jewish community centred around the lighting of the Menorah and eating of fried foods representing the oil that burned for 8 days in the temple.  Donuts are a big thing for this festival, but I don't have a deep fat fryer to attempt to make these, so Latkes were the next best option. 

Latkes are a form of potato and onion pancake, served with apple sauce.  So our first task was to peel some potaotes, Arthur did try to have a go but couldn't quite do it.  But he thoroughly enjoyed pushing the button on the food processor, and squeezing as much water out of the grated potato as possible, before our next step of mixing all the ingredients together. 

Once they were cooked we served with some pureed apple, Alyssa and I thoroughly enjoyed them, but Arthur did the usual toddler trick of looking at it and saying "me no like it!" I can't wait for him to get over this stage, it is so frustrating!!

Attempting to peel

Pushing buttons

Squeezing

Mixing

Yum Yum!

The Aj's "Make" Thanksgiving dinner!

In preparation for Thursday, I got the two of them to help me "make" Thanksgiving dinner with the help of some felt tip pens, paper plates and some food magazines.  Arthur is really interested in learning how to use scissors, so I gave him a scrap of paper to practice on whilst I found some pictures in the magazines to cut out.  At the same time I gave Alyssa a plate with some basic carrot, potato and pea shapes on to colour in.  Arthur then got settled in helping me glue the pictures to the plates, the good thing about round paper plates is it doesn't matter which way they glue the picture down as it will always be the right way round!  The other great thing about these is if they remain in relatively good condition after Thursday, they can be used again and again for role play or imaginative play props.

Arthur cutting

Colouring carrotts

Sticking on a nice pie for dessert!

Thanksgiving dinner anyone??

Drawing salad

Christmas card making

This morning we had some fun with paint, making Christmas cards ready for when needed for Arthur's nursery friends.  We used a few different thumb, hand and foot printing techniques to try and create different Christmassy pictures.  I obviously guided Arthur a lot in order to create them, but then allowed his to have free play with the paint after, although he did get a bit over excited a couple of times and create some minor issues with a couple. such as an upside down reindeer and a big browny green blob that I haven't figured out how to salvage yet! (we only had a limited number of cards!!)

After lunch we then went on a lovely chilly walk to the park to play the swings, and take a walk through the woods and along the river.  Poor Arthur fell over in a big puddle, but luckily he was well wrapped up in waterproofs so didn't complain.

Alyssa getting creative

Christmas tree and fairy lights

Christmas tree and candy cane

Not quite sure yet!!

Arthur wanted to paint his own foot!

Reindeer and Father Christmas

A walk in the woods

A little bit muddy!!

Indians and toilet roll turkeys!

It has been a tough few days, with a house full of snot, especially me, I have had no energy in the evenings to update, so have taken a bit of a break.  We have had two hour walks, and fun with indoor football, we have also been preparing for Thanksgiving next week with a few things. 

We actually made the Indian headbands on Monday, getting Alyssa use to using crayons and singing along to 10 Little Indians, whilst Arthur tried to do and Indian cry.  They had great fun and ejoyed wearing them, I just have to keep them out of harms way so they don't get damaged before next week!

Today we made the toilet roll turkeys using a toilet roll and half a paper plate, it's a nice simple and can be adapted with glueing feathers on or using whatever, we again used some crayons so Alyssa could get involved.  Once we made the turkeys we found a variety of Turkey songs on YouTube to sing along too, and did the Turkey trot around the front room. 

I'm looking forward to the fun I have planned for Thanksgiving using these two makes, and many more to come!

Practicing with crayons

Arthur colouring his headband

OOOOOOOOOH!

Yeay!

Two Little Indians!

More crayon fun

Multicoloured feathers

Two little Turkey's

Doing the Turkey trot!

Building site fun!

I decided to break out the big bag of bricks today and make a mini building site with the Aj's, we had a crane/wrecking ball, workmen and work vehicles, and Arthur dressed up as a site manager with a hard hat, high visibility jacket, (well a fireman's helmet and a waist coat) and a clipboard with blue prints. 

Arthur had fun with the wrecking ball attempting to knock down towers, and playing with the vehicles.  He then started designing a new house with me, telling where to put the bathroom etc as we discussed what houses need, mainly by me saying things like 'what about if you need a wee wee? where do you wee wee?" to prompt him and working in sizes big or small.  He had great fun then building his 'house' and using a ruler to measure.

We also played a a game of tool match, with me drawing around his tools to make a puzzle for him, which he enjoyed, and Alyssa had a little go too.  We talked about colours and counted the bricks, they are such a great resource for reinforcing the learning of colours and numbers, collecting all the green brick and counting them etc.  They also can be made into anything you want, so definitely worth having, Alyssa has already worked out how the fit together and was also using them to bash together to make a banging noise.

Bricks everywhere!

Wrecking ball fun!

Rebuilding again!

Playing with the vehicles

Ready to take charge

Tool match game

Picking up 'rocks' (baking beads)

Alyssa tool matching

Measuring for his house

Planting sunshine on a cloudy day!

I love Daffoddils, the sign of spring and happy little flowers that are as yellow as the sun, and dance in the breeze.  I can never resist the urge to buy them when they arrive in supermarkets, but have never grown them.  A while back I bought a bag of Daffodil bulbs and have been waiting for a non rainy day to get the children outside to plant them, and today was the day.  It was a bit chilly outside and the sun was covered with the mist from the valley.  So I wrapped them up pretty well, and the ground was wet so I sat Alyssa on a bin bag as we don't have an all in one suit for her yet.  Arthur loves playing with mud and digging so soon got stuck straight in, Alyssa has never played with mud before and I was a little cautious as I thought she would eat it, but she just tried imitating her brother until she got bored as she can't do very much!

I placed to plant pots by the fence so they can be seen from the front room window as Arthur was very interested in watching the Daffodils grow, It's hard to explain to a toddler that they wont grow straight away, but I am excited to see his face when shoots start to appear so he can watch them change and grow, I can't wait for Spring when the heads appear and brighten the garden up announcing the arrival of the warmer weather.  I now need to look into getting more plant pots and other flowers to make our very plain and boring garden a bit more interesting, I also need to weed the garden badly, but that's for another day when it is a little warmer. 

We needed to warm up a little bit when we got in, so we did it the best way possible, with hot chocolate and marshmallows and some yummy home made banana bread. All whilst resisting the urge to put on a Christmas movies, something about Hot Chocolate and Christmas films seems to go together, especially 'Polar express' which is one of my favourites, I'm starting to get excited for Alyssa's first Christmas, and Arthur is starting to recognise Father Christmas so this year will be more magical than previous ones!

What's this??

Digging

Ready for some sun!

Scrummy hot chocolate!

Banana Bread and Yoga!

We had some bananas that were a little on the soft side and I had recently read a blog about Healthy banana bread, so today was all about Arthur having fun in the kitchen.  The fact that I had literally only just finished cleaning it and all the dishes or course, meant that mess needed to be made, as no room EVER stays clean and tidy when you have children.

I decided to try and involve Alyssa a little bit more than just the usual watching as well, so I put a bit of flour in the saucepan that stays in the play pen, and gave her a spoon so she could play.  The recipe I used was weighed out in cups and spoons so was a lot easier to do with Arthur as he doesn't really understand the scales, but could easily count out the cups.  he had great fun peeling the banana too and squishing it with a fork, and occasionally his hands!

Whilst we were waiting for the bread to cook in the oven, I decided to keep Arthur amused with some exercise in the form of some Kids Yoga Poses.  He has seen me practice Yoga a couple of times and tries to join in with the 'loga' on his 'mat' (a folded blanket!)  he had great fun looking at the pictures and saying, 'Me do that one!' hold it for less than a second before rushing off to look up a new one.  It will take a long time for him to start being calm and pose properly, but he is enjoying himself and exercising and that is all that matters for the minute!

scooping

Exploring

Peeling

Mixing

Star pose

Tree pose

Alyssa joining in!

The bread

mmmm!

Yummmy!