Bug Hotel

We are starting to work on the garden again now that Spring has arrived, Daddy is working on making it a bit safer for the Aj's and prepping the 'veg plot', and I am working on making it a bit more interactive and fun for the Aj's.  Today's plan was to get them to help me make a 'bug hotel', so we can investigate different bugs that come in the garden and make it their home.  I have seen many different designs on the internet including bundling bamboo sticks, but the log one seemed the simplest idea using things we already had in the home.  So we headed off to the garage and picked our biggest, nicest looking log, then grandad showed them how to drill a hole using a hand operated tool so they could have a go, then Daddy got out the power tools and drilled some more, the Aj's did both 'help' daddy as well a little bit, but unfortunately his battery wasn't fully charged so we didn't end up with very many, but it's enough for a start!

No all that's left is to start on the other sections of the garden and wait for the bugs to settle in!! If you want to create a wildlife friendly garden look at The RSPB website for some ideas!

Drilling a hole

Not quite got the hang of it bless!

Tada!

Watching Daddy

"Can I have a go?"

Ready and waiting for the new guests to arrive!

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Homemade Hobnobs

Today the Aj's and I were invited to a friends house to play and have lunch, I felt it would be rude to turn up empty handed, so decided to make some homemade Hobnobs to take with us.

Arthur first of all helped me to weight out all the dry ingredients, then took in turns with Alyssa to mix them all up.  I then took on the task of mixing all the wet ingredients as they needed to be done on the hob.  Then Arthur had the important job of mixing it all together and dolloping the mixture onto a baking tray, we ended up with relatively big biscuits, but still had roughly half the mixture left to make fresh biscuits another day, Arthur enjoyed controlling the making of the biscuits and gently patting each blob down into a biscuit type shape. 

Then it was  time to put them in the oven and try our hardest not to eat all the leftover mixture, which tastes just as good uncooked, as well as try and not eat all the biscuits before we arrived at our friends as they are scrummy!!  The rest of the day was spent running in and out of the garden between rain showers and enjoying plenty of warming hot chocolate with our biscuits.

Mix one

Mix two

"If I distract everyone I may just get a sneaky taste!

Dolloping!

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!

 

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Egg box Daffodils

The final piece of our Mother's day gift, along with our Simnel cake, and our Cards is a lovely bunch of flowers, egg box daffodils to be precise.

The Aj's both seem to really enjoy painting, it really helps Arthur to concentrate and Alyssa just likes to put the paint in her mouth more that on the paper, but also copy her big brother.  I think it also helped that we had a vase of daffodils on the table that Arthur had picked, so we were able to discuss colours such as what colour is the stem/petals.  Alyssa really enjoyed being let loose with a paint brush and part of an egg box,  Arthur was happy to attempt to paint it all over and get his hands covered in paint.  I then cut some rough petal shapes and stems out of a cardboard box, and let them paint those, Arthur wanted to paint more and more but we didn't have enough egg boxes so I then just let them both paint freely for a while as they were enjoying themselves so much.  The whole thing may mot be completely covered in paint, or look very neat, but it was made specially and that's what matters most!

"Need a touch more paint!!"

'Can't quite pick this up!'

"Ah got it!'

Free painting

Beautiful!!

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Simnel cake!

To go with our wonderful Mother's Day Cards that we made the other day for Granny and Nanna, we attempted a bit of traditional baking.  A Simnel cake was traditionally made by young girls working in service as Mothering Sunday was the one day of the year they were allowed home, however now it is more commonly and Easter cake thanks to the Eleven marzipan balls on top representing the twelve apostles minus Judas!

Recipe:
350g currants
100g Sultanas
75g mixed candied peel, chopped
225g Plain flour
5ml ground cinnamon
5ml ground nutmeg
175g butter or marg
175g caster sugar
3 eggs beaten
milk to mix
apricot jam or beaten egg to use under marzipan top
Marzipan
Lined 18cm cake tin
Oven 170c for first hour 150c for final three hours

First of all we creamed together the butter and sugar, I really wanted Alyssa to get really involved in this as I am hoping that it is something we can do every year for mother's day to bring bake the Simnel Cake tradition a little bit, so once Arthur and I softened it up a bit we let her have a go, then we tipped in the rest of the ingredients and mixed it all up into a scrummy cake mixture, so scrummy in fact that Alyssa had a cheeky taste!! I sense trouble baking with these two in future, lots of extra mix needed to replace any they both 'taste!'

Once it was all cooked and cooled, we had a bit of time in the playroom whist this happened, we set about rolling out the marzipan and making the balls to goon top, Alyssa really seemed to enjoy having a go at spreading, and Arthur enjoyed stealing the marzipan!  I also let Alyssa have a little go at rollingout the marzipan with the rolling pin.  Arthur had the very important job of making the balls, as Alyssa is too small to be able to attempt them, so we had 22 varying sized, individually unique little balls to go on top.  All that was needed then was to brown it under the grill with a brushing of milk, and try not to eat it!!

Creaming the butter and sugar

Cheeky taste!!

Spreading the jam (with mummy's help!)

Adding the balls

Rolling

TA DAH!!! MMMMMMMMM!!

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Sweet wrapper (Grand)mother's Day cards

I decided with Mother's day approaching, I couldn't really get the Aj's to make a card for me (that's daddy's job!!) so I thought we could make some simple cards to give to Granny and Nanna instead!

I wanted something simple that they could both have a go at, so I decided to get out the sticky back plastic again, and my favourite excuse to eat lots of chocolate at Christmas, Quality sweet wrappers, it's for the children after all! I cut a simple heart shape out of a cereal box, then put the plastic on the back and let them loose in the hope it would create a pretty sun catcher style card.

Alyssa really enjoyed herself playing with the wrappers, and seemed very intrigued by the sticking of them once I had shown her what to do.  She also enjoyed exploring all the wrappers, scrunching them and looking through them seeing everything through different colours. 

Arthur was interested but only for a very short while and completed his really quickly, but with effective results.  The only thing left to do now is back the pictures with more card and write (scribble!) lovely messages on them. 

"That goes there!!"

"make sure it's stuck properly!"

"Almost finished..."

"I can see you!!"

Tada!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Soda bread and all things Irish!

Today is St Patrick's day, so after breakfast we used YouTube to watch some Irish dancing and jigged around the front room, I then put some Irish music on to listen to in the kitchen whilst we made Soda Bread.  I really let Alyssa get involved properly for the first time this week, Arthur added the lemon juice, after tasting it and pulling amazing faces, and the let Alyssa stir.  Then we started sifting the flour, Arthur really enjoyed making it 'snow' then said "Alyssa's turn!" so glad to see him starting to understand the process of taking turns, esp with Alyssa.  When it was a dough, I let Alyssa play with it and touch it for a little bit, and she immediately started to push it like kneading, and prodding it.

After the baking I let them amuse themselves in the play room whilst I stuck little shamrocks all around the house, leading to a little rainbow with a pot of special 'rainbow salad' made by the Leprechauns for dinner.  After a little game of potato rolling racing for a bit of active fun, I told Arthur a little bit about Leprechauns, then 'noticed' a shamrock I had stuck near the door.  Arthur got so excited pointing to all the shamrocks saying "there's another one!" then he saw the rainbow and got even more excited.

I then told him that the shamrocks were magic too, and gave him a crayon and paper and showed him that rubbing the paper made the shamrock magically appear, which he thought was brilliant!!

Unfortunately neither of the Aj's were impressed with the salad, and didn't eat it, but they thoroughly enjoyed the soda bread with some cheese and ham.

Mixing the milk and lemon

Alyssa's turn

Playing with the dough

All baked and looking yummy!

Having a quick game of potato racing

'

"A rainbow!!"

The Leprechauns treasure

Shamrock trail

Crayon rubbings

YUUUUMMMMM!!!

MMMMMMMMM!!

Painting rainbows and shaving foam clouds!

For a bit of fun I decided to let the Aj's loose with some paint,  I aimed for a rainbow theme, but didn't really expect much more than a mass of mixed colours as they are both really too young to produce perfectly formed arches of rainbows.  I did however add a bit of extra sensory fun with various painting tools, such as hands, toothbrushes, feathers, plastic forks as well as using shaving foam to create fluffy white clouds.

Arthur had great fun mixing and talking about what different colours he had or wanted, and delighted in smooshing the foam in asking for more and more over and over.  Alyssa just went a bit mad and covered herself head to toe in paint and foam whilst crawling all over the paintings and playing as well as painting!  I guess sometimes you have to remember that the journey and experience of painting is more important than the final outcome at times!! That and that without a doubt Arthur will always end up painting his hand!

Silly mummy had been clever enough the put down multiple bin bags to prep the floor and set up a bowl of soapy water and a towel for the clean up, but not anticipated the amount of mess the Aj's would get into!!  In the end I ended up giving the Aj's a lovely bubbly bath in the middle of the morning, making it extra bubbly with lots of bubble bath and blowing bubbles for them as well for a bit of extra fun! (there is always a bottle of bubbles in the bathroom for this very reason! Especially as they don't get bubble baths very often with their eczema!)

After we had changed into fresh clean clothes, I made some yummy cheesy sweetcorn fritters for them  for lunch, before we headed out into the drive way area to play with Arthur's bike and football in the lovely afternoon sunshine.

Starting off nicely (mummy's rainbow at the top!!)

Bring on the fluffy clouds!!

Gettin 'IN" to the painting a bit Alyssa!!

Not quite rainbows, but still pretty!

Experimenting with painting tools!

Gardening fun and trips on an aeroplane!?

With the weather staying nice for the rest of the week (fingers crossed!!) it was time to start sorting the garden out a bit ready for use!  We have lots of big plans in place for this year to try and make it a bit user friendly and safer, bare feet and wood chip did not prove popular with Arthur last year!!

Our task for the morning was to weed and tidy the vegetable/ herb/ whatever manages to stay alive and grow area.  I armed the Aj's with some tools and some pots and just let them free to play whilst I got on with the hard work in hand.  It was lovely seeing them play together side by side as well as being absorbed in their own little things.  Alyssa enjoyed filling and emptying her little pot, and feeling (and tasting!!Yuck!!) the soil, as well as imitating me and putting one of my gloves on.  Arthur was obsessed with finding worms and pretending that the weeds were plants in his plant pots (we like to make use of everything in this house!!)

After a while they lost interest a little bit in the soil, and Alyssa toddled around the garden picking up bits of wood chip and doing things with them like poking them through the holes in the plant pots.  Arthur started telling me that the noises of the traffic were his aeroplane arriving, I kept asking him where he was going but his wouldn't answer. Finally he sat on the step with the kneeling pad on his lap, telling me it was his 'Puter' and he was on the aeroplane going to work! He then delighted in telling me all sorts of things he was doing, people he was pretending to be inc Peter from Narnia, whilst dipping back and forth into 'helping' in the garden until I was finished. 

I am so glad for Arthur's wonderful imagination, I can be thoroughly entertaining at times, I love hearing the answers to my questions he comes up with sometimes.  I dearly hope that Alyssa ends up the same, it certainly made weeding the garden a little bit more entertaining.

Sharing nicely

Hard at work!

One of the many worms we found!

Wearing mummies glove

Arthur's turn for big gloves

Playing happily

Not bad for a mornings work! :)

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