A walk in the woods

The sun was shining and Grapie and I went for a little walk in the woods the other day. Well, not the woods exactly but a little copse close to our house. We were on our way back from dropping princess off at preschool, and Grapie was in a good mood (she's usually ready for her nap when we get back, thanks to getting up sooooooo early!)

We are very lucky to have a lovely green area so close to our house but it's been so boggy recently that it's been impossible to go in with the buggy. It's dried out a bit now so I took the opportunity to show Grapie some nature.

She loved being free to explore and touch things. We talked about how things felt and Grapie learnt lots of new words, like rough and hard, and it was lovely to have some quality one on one time with her, as often, even though she is with me all the time, we spend our time rushing from one thing to the next before it's time to pick Princess up again! 

It was short and sweet and simple but we had a really lovely time!

Fun in the sun

The rain has finally stopped and the sun made an appearance this weekend. It was the perfect time to get out in the garden and reclaim our outsise space after the winter. To be honest, we have hardly ventured out in the garden for months, our grass was so muddy and boggy and slippery that it was easier to go to the park for our outside time.

But this weekend the sun was shining, the birds were singing and we started getting the garden ready for play. We cleared the trampoline of leaves and puddles, so the girls could have a good jump. Princess had forgotten how much she loved the trampoline, she jumps on her bed every day but after going on the trampoline, she said to me later, "mummy, my bed isn't very bouncy, is it?"

We cut the grass so it can start to dry up quicker, and cleaned out the sandpit, ready for some fresh sand. This year, I would love to get a water table for the girls to play with out there. Also this summer I want to build some raised beds to plant vegetables in, so we can grass over our abandoned vegetable patch that has become one big raspberry bush! 

Its amazing what a difference a bit of bright weather makes, let's hope the rain holds off for a little bit longer so we can have some more fun! 

Monster spray

Princess has stopped sleeping well at night. She says she is scared of monsters. At the moment she is waking up scared around twice a night, on top of the several times a night that Grapie is up, so basically I will give anything a go to get a better night's sleep.

I came across the idea of monster spray on Pintrest, the idea is that Princess will spray her room before bed to prevent any monsters getting in. I'm slightly torn on this idea as part of me feels that this might be agreeing with her that monsters actually do exist. But on the other hand telling her that monsters aren't real isn't working, so if this gives her the confidence to feel comfortable at night then, in the words of Postman Pat, mission accomplished!

It was really simple to make. I used an empty spray bottle, filled it with water, and added a tiny drop of pink food colouring to make it slightly pink tinted. I also added about 10 drops of lavender essential oil, in the hope that it might also be relaxing. A good shake and it was ready.

I found a fantastic printable label over at Easypeasygrandma, she has also made some really cute bedtime monsters. Once that was stuck on, I put it in a box and told Princess that the postman had delivered it!

She carefully sprayed her room before bed tonight, we did the door, window and the ceiling (apparently this is were the monsters are!) So hopefully this will keep the monsters away tonight.

Pompom Blowing Race

It was after dinner. Princess wanted the telly on. I didn't. So we came up with a game which soon took her mind right off it. It was so simple, involving a straw and a craft pompom, but both girls loved it. Pompom racing. We started with a pompom each and a straw each.  The finish line was the kitchen door. We had to move our pompom by blowing it with the straw and the first to cross the finish line was the winner.

Princess is very competitive, so really enjoyed this, and wanted to do it over and over again she kept coming up with different obstacles for the pompom to go through, such as toilet rolls, her rollerskate, tunnels made out of books and lots of others. Grapie didn't quite get the hang of it, although she can blow through a straw when it involves making bubbles in her drink! But she enjoyed watching too.

When we had finished, I gave Princess a winners medal which she loved.

And the telly stayed off. Which I loved. Simple, fun, perfect.

Winter Olympics small world play

Princess loves the Olympics. We took her to see an event at the 2012 Olympics, and she still remembers it even though she was only 2, and she has been enjoying watching the winter Olympics this year.

I made her this little Olympics small world play scene this week out of a cardboard box. It was quite simple to set up, and she has played with it for hours. It has really  sparked her imagination, and she has been making up all sorts of events and games to play with it, both with me and on her own.

I used a box with a lid that opens up to be the ski slope, I used bubble wrap at the top to be the launch platform. Then i used tissues on the alope to make it snowy, but when I tested it with a skier it just wasn't slippery enough, so I added a freezer bag on top of the tissues so the figures could really ski. 

The skier was made by blu-tacking some craft sticks onto the figures feet (we also made some into snowboarders later by using just one craft stick!)

I made a luge run out of a toilet roll cut in half and covered in silver foil and stuck on.

The winners podium was made out of Duplo, with pipe creaner medals.

I used cotton wool in the bottom of the box for snow and made an ice skating rink out of cardboard covered in foil. I sectioned a bit of the box off for the audience, but this has hardly been used as Princess likes alk the figures to be involved! I used stickers to add details like team GB flags on the figures and Olympic flags to decorate the box.

Princess has loved playing with it, she has gone back to it several times since, and I'm planning on covering it with fresh snow (shaving cream) once the novelty wears off, too give it one last lease of life. Which she will love, but we will only be able to do once! 

A bad night shows me how far we have come

Last night was a bad night for Grapie. She is getting 3 teeth and she tossed and turned all night, waking up and crying what felt like every 10 minutes. Not even Calpol gave her much relief. This took me back to a time when every night was like this for her, when she was suffering badly with reflux. And I realised this morning just how far we have come.

Don't get me wrong, its far from perfect. She still wakes several times a night and I still spend half the night in her bed with her. But she sleeps in her own little bed in her own room, she falls asleep without any help apart from me being in her room and she has stopped breastfeeding.

We still have a long way to go before she is sleeping all night but we have come a long way.

Spiderman birthday cake for my Princess

Princess, despite her name, and despite loving all things pink and sparkly, is a tomboy at heart. So when I asked her what birthday cake she wanted for her 4th birthday, she said she wanted spiderman. (Actually she did say pink spiderman but I couldn't find any of those, is that gender stereotyping?!) So here is is, her spiderman cake!

The recipe I used can be found here, I have an 8 inch square cake tin and have used this for the last few years, with great results every time. It's really easy.

Ingredients
340g self raising flour
280g caster sugar
280g butter
5 eggs
3 tablespoons milk

Pit all the ingredients in a bowl and mix with an electric mixer (although this is the first year I have actually had a mixer, it can be done by hand but, wow a mixer makes it easier!)

Pour into an 8 inch cake tin(greased and floured) and put in in the oven (150 degrees) for an hour and 15- 30 mins. Easy!

When it was cool I cut it in half and put jam and buttercream in the middle.

For the icing I used ready to roll royal icing, rolling it out until it was about half a centimetre thick. I'm no expert at this sort of thing, but it turned out ok, I just cut bits off and tucked bits in to make it fit and look neater.

Then for the exciting bit. I bought some Spiderman cake toppers off ebay, they were not expensive and they made producing a spiderman cake out of thin air a lot easier for a novice cake maker. I'm a big fan of cake toppers, I've used them for the last few birthday cakes I've made, and you can even get them with photo's on. I got one big spiderman face and lots of small ones, and I applied them with a bit of buttercream spread on the back.

And that's it! I'm sure that there are a lot fancier Spiderman cakes out there but Princess was pretty pleased with hers, especially as she helped make it!

Birthday Traditions

Princess turned 4 this week, and this year I was keen to start some birthday traditions that we will continue on the girls birthdays throughout their childhoods. I want their birthdays to be a special day when we celebrate them and not just an influx of toys (especially as Princess's birthday is 3 weeks after Christmas so she has just had an influx of toys!)

These are the things we did this year to make her day special, that we hope to continue each birthday:

• One of her presents is a special outing, just her and mummy and daddy- this year it will be to the cinema and out for pizza, but for each birthday it will be a special treat that is just about the birthday girl

• Cake for breakfast, served on a special birthday plate! - I made some breakfast muffins and decorated them (as 4 year olds are excited enough on their birthdays without being pumped with sugar at 7.30) so she could blow out her candles in the morning too! 

• Gift wrap her lunch! Princess went to preschool on her birthday so to make sure she felt special all day I wrapped her lunch up in birthday wrapping paper! She loved this and was so surprised! (As were her teachers! Not sure what they made of it!)

• Birthday bath- I love this idea from Growing a Jeweled Rose about turning bath time into a little party! Ours involved a banner and balloons and Princess chose a bath bomb to go in it

Do you have any birthday traditions in your family? Or ways to make your child feel extra special on their big day? I would love to hear about them.

Pyjama day and den building

Time is precious. And time goes so quickly. Princess goes back to preschool tomorrow, so I wanted her to have a nice last day of holidays (and she's got a little cold) so I let her have a pyjama day today. This is a real treat dor her as she hates getting changed with a passion and we have a daily battle over getting dressed. So when I said she could keep her pyjamas on today she was very impressed!

And she was allowed a biscuit before lunch (which never happens!)

This afternoon we did some den building with the sofa cushions and blankets, and Princess sat inside playing happily for ages, with her torch. She had her snacks in the den. Even the cat got involved!

Poor Grapie didn't quite get it! She didn't want to go in so played with her toys next to the den! And of course when she did decide to go in, Princess had claimed it for her own and didn't want to share. 

We had a lovely last day of the holidays, it feels like time is flying at the moment and P will be at big school before I know it, so I'm really trying to make an effort to make the most of having her at home when I can!

Sand Art kit review

Princess was sent a Sand Art picture kit by the lovely people at Kids Bee Happy. She loves playing with sand and finds it really soothing and calming, so as our kit had a picture of Santa in, I thought the perfect time to try it out was Christmas Eve afternoon, in order to calm her excitement slighty!

She was very impressed when we opened the packet, and loved the sand in little bottles. The kit consisted of 2 pictures, lots of little bottles of sand in different colours, a little yellow stick for pulling back the paper, and some plastic wallets to display the finished art.
Princess chose the Santa picture and some pink sand and we got started. She needed some help peeling off the paper with the little stick but loved sprinkling on the sand. She went for slightly unconventional colour choices of pink beard and Santa suit!

Princess got more and more enthusiastic with her sprinkling as we went on, so it was definitely a good idea to use a tray so that we could just scoop up the excess sand and reuse it. When we had peeled off all the pieces and used all the colours of sand, we put it in the display pocket to protect it and hung it up. This is our finished picture.

Princess is so pleased with the finished product, and she enjoyed doing it a lot (even though her colour choices are slightly unconventional!) and I enjoyed doing it with her. I had been a little bit worried about how messy it might be, but all the mess was contained (mostly) within the tray so there was very little clearing up to do (less than painting!)

These Kids Bee Happy sand art kits are a great idea, really original and lots of fun. I loved the sensory element to it, and as an added bonus, when we had finished the picture, Princess used the sand left in the tray to practice drawing letters. We are looking forward to doing the next picture now!

Disclaimer: we were sent a sand art kit free of charge but all views are my own.

Christmas Elf

We are getting ready to welcome a very special guest to our home next week. Her name is Jingles and she is one of Santa's elves who has been sent out from Santa's workshop to stay with us to make sure that we are all being good.

It's a tradition that we started last Christmas, and that I think we will continue for many more Christmases to come. It is based on the Elf on the Shelf idea that has become so popular, but with fewer rules. Our elf is allowed to be touched and played with, and quite often is found doing funny things in the morning (because everybody knows toys only move when no one is around!)  

She is sometimes a bit naughty, last year she turned the milk green and wrapped the Christmas tree up in toilet paper. Sometimes she will bring treats like an advent calendar, a Christmas cd or book, or set up crafts or baking with a Christmas theme. This year she is planning on bringing Christmas jumpers all round!

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Last year, Jingles went down so well that we also had a summer elf to stay as well. It is so much fun to do and adds so much magic to the whole build up of Christmas, that it also has the added bonus of making Christmas about much more than just the presents. Here's some of the things that Jingles got up to last year.

If you are thinking of giving it a go this uear, I would definitely recommend it, we had lots of fun every evening planning where to put Jingles, my other half got really into it too, and Princess enjoyed it so much. Hopefully this year will be as much fun, I have some things planned and Pintrest is full of inspiration too.

Do you have an elf visitor coming this December? Have you got any ideas of some mischief  that she can get up to? Please let me know, I would love to hear from other elf hosts!

Fun in a box

Today I went shopping for a new set of saucepans. Nothing exciting there. Except that the saucepans came in a box. A big box. Also known as the most fun ever!

It started with Grapie locating a crayon under the sofa and practicing her 'drawing' on the box. I thought this showed a lot of initiative for a 14 month old baby!

Then of course Princess saw what was going on and wanted to be part of it, so she joined her in the box. Then they found the cardboard pieces that had protected the saucepans were perfect crowns, so had fun ' crowning' each other.

Then the box ripped and this became the door, then it became a car. Then Princess fetched her fuzzy felt game and sat in it to play, then made it into a bad. All while I made dinner. I wonder what the box will become tomorrow?

Autumn fun at the park

The weather has really turned cold now, and winter is really here, but we were lucky enough to have a lovely autumn day at the park before the cold weather set in. We are fortunate enough to live walking distance to an excellent park and we do go there most days.

 We had a great time stomping in the fallen leaves, then we found a big pile of acorns that had fallen. We played football with them first (or at least attempted to!), then we made them into the letters in Princesses name.

We then played with sticks, drawing in the ground with them, throwing and fetching, hockey and sword fighting.

After that, Princess fancied playing crazy golf, so we hired a golf club for her and had a go. We have never played it properly before and Princess wasn't too keen on playing by the rules but she did have a lot of fun!

All this time, Grapie was asleep in her pram (which is rare for her!) So Princess and I gor to spend some quality time together. Hopefully we will have lots of days if winter fun to look forward to soon.

Playing with Oobleck

Princess loves messy, sensory play, it really calms her and we have been trying to do more of it so today we made Oobleck for the first time. If you have never tried making it before like us, please please do give it a go, its great!

To make oobleck, you will need:
1-2 cups cornflour (also known as cornstarch)
1/2 cup water
Food colouring

Put the cornflour in a bowl and mix in the water, you can either add the food colouring to the water, or put it straight into the oobleck mixture (or a bit of both like we did as Princess kept asking for more pink!) Add more cornflour or water gradually until it feels ready.

You will know it is ready when it is liquid when you sink your hands in slowly but feels solid when you tap it quickly. Here comes the science bit...... Oobleck is known as a non-Newtonian fluids as changes  pressure can change the properties of it. It feels solid when tapped quickly because the pressure forces the cornflour particles together whereas when you put your hand in slowly the particles have time to move out of the way so the oobleck behaves like a liquid.

I gave Princess a pot with a lid to play with and she had a great time scooping up and grabbing the solid oobleck and letting it drip off her hands into her 'cake', then putting on the lid and shaking it.

Next she decided to make some 'tea' which involved grabbing the oobleck and transferring it to the cup. This entertained her for quite a while as she enjoyed feeling the oobleck drip through her fingers. Grapie and I also had a go, Grapie didn't like the feel of it and wanted her hands washed straightaway, but I loved it and actually once Princess had finished playing with it, I kept it for a few hours and couldn't resist poking it every time I passed!

This is what the floor looked like at the end, but it was so easy (and fun!) to clean up. I scooped most of it up an put it back into the bowl, where it 'melted' back into liquid after seeming to have dried up on the floor. The rest cleaned up with a couple of baby wipes. This is definitely something that we will be doing again, it was just so much fun!

10 things I love about breastfeeding

I have been making some changes to try to get Grapie to sleep better at night, and while it's too soon to evaluate its success yet, three days in and there has been a definite reduction in the amount of milk feeds Grapie is having at night (as I can tell from the uncomfortable feeling in my chest!) As she doesn't have milk during the daytime, I know that once she is sleeping well at night and not waking for milk, that will be the end of our breastfeeding journey together. She is 14 months now and I never had planned to breastfeed for this long, but the thought of stopping still makes me a bit sad.

So as its nearly national breastfeeding week, I thought I would share with you my favourite things about breastfeeding my two girls and what I will miss:

1. Instant baby-calming - when your baby is tired, grouchy, hungry, hurting, but the second she latches on, all is right in her world again. Bliss.
2. Falling asleep together while feeding - at night we lie down cuddled up to feed and both drift off to sleep
3. Milk drunk babies - so cute! Just blissfully dozing after a satisfying feed
4. Fuss free feeding - no sterilizing, no equipment, no warming, no planning required, just always available, on demand
5. It's free 
6. That it was the hardest thing I have ever done - in those early days, of pain, mastitis, bleeding cracks and awfulness but somehow I got through it and came out the other side. I'm proud that I did.
7. Magic milk - the health benefits are amazing, and I love the fact that the milk changes as her needs change. Magic.
8. Weight loss - I'm not going to lie, this is a huge added bonus for me, I'm sure I wouldn't have ever lost my baby weight otherwise!
9. The smell of milky baby breath 
10. How much my babies loved it - and so did I.

So that's my top 10 favourite things about breastfeeding, what did you enjoy?

A grouchy day for Grapie

Poor Grapie has had a grouchy day today. We all have coughs and colds at the moment and last night sleep rates as 1 out of 10 (or even less, it's not every night I take both girls downstairs at 3am and put on a dvd!)

But even taking that into consideration, she's still been grouchy. So I rhink that she may be finally getting some teeth! She's 14 months now and until last week only had 4 teeth. She got one last week (not in the order the charts say she should get them) but sooner or later she's bound to get some.

So Sophie giraffe has come out of hibernation (G apparently thinks that giraffes roar like lions, she's been roaring every time she sees her today!) No dinner has been eaten, it's definitely been a case of teeth glorious teeth rather than food glorious food today. And the Calpol is at the ready. Hopefully it won't be a huge drawn out affair and it ill be quick and easy for her. Or at least I'm crossing my fingers and wishing for it to be over soon. Because teething sucks! For all involved.

Pumpkin plate craft for Halloween

Princess and I decorated our kiving room today ready for Halloween, so we made some pumpkins to put up on the wall. Even Grapie had a go, and they look great!

You will need: 

Paper plates

Orange paint

Black paper

Glue

First the girls painted the plates orange (it was Grapie's first ever go at painting!)

While the paint was drying, we made the faces. I drew triangles for the eyes and nose and drew some different pumpkin mouths on black paper, and cut them out. Princess drew her own, insisting that her pumpkin mouth needed proper teeth too! Then once the paint was dry we stuck on the faces. Here are our finished 3 pumpkins.

Once we were all decorated, we had a practice Halloween party which mainly consisded of the three of us dancing round to the Ghostbusters song!

What will you be doing for Halloween with your little ones this year?

Recycled Halloween pumpkin craftt

Halloween is nearly here and the girls have been having fun crafting in preparation for the big night. Today we bring you a pumpkin made out of an empty tin.

This was so easy but Princess had so much fun doing it. We washed out an empty tin and Princess painted it with orange paint.

While it was drying, I cut some triangles out of black paper for the eyes and nose and a smily pumpkin mouth and once the paint was dry, Princess stuck them on. All done!

If you were feeling adventurous you could punch some holes in the tin first so that you could put a tealight inside but we didn't bother an the girls are a bit young for that sort of thing.