Painting with nature

Yesterday whilst walking through a park to meet Nana, we stopped and collected lots of conkers that had fallen on the ground, so today I decided to use these along with some fir and pine cones, and create a little sensory box for Alyssa.  We took them with us to a local craft cafe that we go to occasionally, which was a little bit calmer than usual for me with just the one, but I still was unable to sit down for longer than five minutes as Alyssa is potty training, and found the toilets fascinating compared to her potty, especially when I flushed it.  I very rarely get to do any of my own crafts at these cafe events, as I am usually wit the children, but I do find just being by creative people can be very inspirational.  The venue had lots of Autumnal things on display, beautiful browns and golds, from bunting to wreaths created from Autumn leaves, and whilst playing with Alyssa and the sensory box, the cafe members started to discuss painting with the fir cones and things which I thought was a great idea.

I found it wonderful watching Alyssa play with the conkers, counting them "1,2,3,4,8" which was amazing to me, as having to always fight for attention with her brother always talking over her, or saying "mummy mummy" all the time, I had never previously realised she could count at all!! I feel like such a bad mum sometimes that she hasn't had as much attention as Arthur had as a first born, but then moments like these tell me she is doing just fine as she is.  Her favourite game was definitely turning it all out then putting it back in the tub again, occasionally counting as she did.

Once we got home I got out some brown, yellow and orange paints, and thinking of marble painting, decided to let Alyssa roll a conker through paint to great a painting.  She didn't quite understand tipping the tub, and did try a few times to just pick the conker up and paint with it instead, but she seemed to enjoy the noise that it made when she did shake it.  Next we tried painting with the fir cone, by rolling the cone in paint then rolling along somer paper, and also a bit of leaf printing with some leaves we found on the way home, the effect was pretty hit and miss but I think she enjoyed getting her hands covered in paint, it seemed such a shame to stop her to have dinner!!

Exploring!

Tipping

Conker painting

Fir cone rolling

Pretty patterns keep appearing 

Leaf printing

RAAAA! Paint, handprints, smoosh MEEEEESSSSS!!

Mixed texture, leaf hand and fir cone

Conker rolling/painting

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Were going on a Gruffalo Hunt!

We decided to celebrate a rare extra family day together of a bank holiday Monday, with a Gruffalo hunt.  To celebrate the 15 year anniversary of the book, there are events taking place all over the country, and we thought today would be a lovely day to take the Aj's to Haldon forest park for theirs day, as we like to try new places and explore different surroundings. 

So after we had packed a lunch, and the other typical items needed for a day out with the kids, all but the kitchen sink etc etc, as well as Arthur's adventure back pack binoculars and other exploring essentials, we headed out for an hour long drive across beautiful moorland.  The scenery was beautiful, and Alyssa soon fell asleep in the car, so Arthur and I spotted cows and sheep and we talked about other points of interest we could see, until we had obviously bored him too much as he fell asleep too, which turned out to be very lucky for us in the end.

We arrived at Haldon Forest to find it rammed, we were expecting a little bit busy as it was a bank holiday, but this was like the whole of the South West of England had had the same idea, we drove round and round the car park willing a space to appear, and being beaten by the car in front multiple times, as well as a number of incidents where friends physically blocked spaces whilst phoning directions for friends.  Soon Arthur woke, excitedly asking "are we here?' and we had no place to park, and had to give up!  How do you explain to a toddler that we have sat in a car for over an hour for nothing, and no Gruffalo hunting is going to happen??

Then daddy said we would go to another forest on the way home, so we told Arthur we hadn't reached the forest yet!  We soon arrived at Stover country park and first thing to do was fill our bellies with our pack lunch, Arthur excitedly said he was having lunch with a gruffalo.  Then we started on our walk, telling Arthur that we may not see a Gruffalo but we will look really hard, whilst secretly thinking what are we going to do?  But with a bit of imagination, and almost expert knowledge of the book, we soon ended up having the best Gruffalo hunt ever. 

We started off explaining to Arthur that we needed to look for signs of the Gruffalo, like foot prints in the mud, broken branches where he had walked past, and signs of food.  Within minutes of starting we had found broken bits of pine cones on a bench and I told Arthur they were remains of the Gruffalo's lunch,  then we spotted broken branches, and strange prints in the mud.  We soon arrived by a lake, and a sign said there were snakes in the habitat, so I told Arthur, this was the lake where the mouse was meeting the Gruffalo and we searched for the snakes logpile house, which we found.  We also went on an tree top walkway and spotted a tree top house for owl.  Other things we found were underground houses for fox and mouse, a nut casing were mouse had enjoyed his nut.  We also found the Gruffalo's home, but he was out, and a large pool of water were he had his baths. 

Alyssa loved stomping through the woods and squelching through the mud, and really enjoyed looking at the river and learning to say it "Wiwa," as well as spotting Ducks and saying "wack wack!"  She also liked wearing the binoculars and looking through them, but mainly just the opportunity to get out and about and go for a walk, she walked for miles bless her, just like Arthur at her age, which is worrying as it means I will have two small people who never seem to get tired!!!  So a bit of imagination and quick thinking saved the day, I have to say that the most memorable part of it was when Arthur got stuck in some mud, and daddy had to rescue him, and when he pulled him up, his welly stayed behind.  

Prepared for adventure

Inspecting the remains of the Gruffalo's lunch

Snake spotting

The lake

Snake's log pile house

Owls tree top house

Alyssa the adventurer

Mouse's underground house

The Gruffalo knocked a tree over!

Arthur found a nut and the nut looked good!

Gruffalo's house

Arthur being a stick in the mud!!

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Butterfly garden and Wrens

It's been a lovely sunny day today, so once the Aj's finished at nursery we all headed out to the field to see how the tunnel house is getting on and think about planting potatoes and onions in the field.  Once we arrived Grandad told us to visit the shed, where he had noticed a Wren had made a nest in some rope hanging on the wall.  It was very interesting to see a nest relatively up close, and interesting to see how they make the most of anything, I never would have thought a rope would make a good place for a nest!

Grandad was busy using the rotivator  to prepare the soil for the potatoes, and Arthur had a go at helping him to push it, but unfortunately the machine soon packed up for an unknown reason, and we were unable to plant.  It was a bit of a disappointment, but Alyssa had been having fun digging around in a little patch of soil, and Arthur soon busied himself with the ever so important task of watering the tunnel house.  It was nice to see that the strawberries are coming along and turning red already, and also the radishes are starting to poke up through.

Once home again we put some compost into some small tubs and sowed the seeds for our butterfly garden, it was lovely to see the Aj's working nicely together, taking turns adding compost, then seeds and finally watering.  All that is left for me to do now is print and laminate some little pictures of butterflies, to stick on lollipops to help the Aj's spot and identify some of the different types, as well as look up different foods that they like so when the time comes we can lay bits on a little tray for them.  We also had a little look at our Bug hotel, but as of yet we have no visitors, I guess it takes a while!

Wren's nest

Rotivating

Radishes looking good!

Dreaming of Strawberries and cream!

Digging away!

Looking thoughtful!

Watering the Strawberries

Potting the compost

Seed sprinkling!

Watering in the seeds

"Your turn Alyssa!"

Just have to wait for them to grow now!

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Veg plots and Potatoes!

After our recent illness, we enjoyed a much needed wonderful four day break with family!  Today was our first day back home, and there was lots of work to do!

Daddy has recently been starting off a load of seeds ready for our vegetable plot area, and it has finally come to the time off planting them out, the Aj's spent the morning 'helping' mummy tidy up and rogue weeds around the garden whilst daddy prepped the plot.  Then once the ground was prepared, and compost laid down it was time to start planting.  First this we did was give Arthur the honor of planting the lonely seed potato we found out the field recently, it may or may not provide potatoes, but it's a bit of fun for Arthur to learn how potatoes grow.

Then we moved onto planting the Sunflowers, one for each of us and granny and grandad in the end, so we are now having a little competition to see who's grows the tallest.  I have memories as a child of growing sunflowers and having the excitement of trying to get them to grow taller than me, so I am looking forward to seeing how Arthur reacts when they really take off! He loved helping make the holes in the ground for daddy, so he could plant them, then gently patted the earth down around them 'Putting them to bed!"

Next it was time to help daddy build a pea stick wig wam for the peas to grow against, Alyssa and Arthur had great fun passing the sticks in a line for daddy, and Arthur had the extra important jobs of holding the string for daddy too!

The only thing we have to do now is make sure Arthur doesn't walk all over the plants, which he has already done once, as he is so use to being able too as there has been nothing in there for so long, and cross our fingers, that something grows and we have a lovely crop!

Who knew this is where potatoes come from!!

Prepped for planting

ready to plant

In it goes "tuck into bed!"

Making holes

Daddy's little helper!

"to me, to you!"

Building a wig wam!

Planting peas!

Bit small still!

Alyssa exploring wood chip

PEAS!!!

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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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