Sophie is rubbish at hide and seek

Were now getting into the concept of games with Sophie and we learnt hide and seek from about 1 year  she is now 18 months and is still we haven’t quite got it right.  There are 4 versions Sophie plays

1 The simple my eyes are covered so you can’t see me, however she is peeking through her fingers to check that you are looking for her, Does this count as seeing her?

2 The daddy chase and hide, daddy has started a heavy footsteps chase game where Sophie will flail, panic and scream and end up hiding facing into me or curled up into a little ball on the floor.   The screaming and flailing totally gives her hiding position away.

3 She will stand really still and quiet and hang her head down but only enough to fish eye me.  It’s almost as if by standing really still and quiet she becomes invisible.  It’s quite amusing pretending to look for someone who’s standing right in front of you.

4 she will run and hide behind a curtain and stand hiding in silence for at least 15 – 20 seconds while I pretend to look for her in different rooms or in the room she is in. What makes me laugh is she comes out from her hiding place and starts to help look for herself.  

Gardening in February

I don't profess to be an expert gardener, but I do enjoy getting my fingers in the soil and the sense of achievement when you have planted a seed and tended a plant for it to fruit some delicious treat to eat is second to none.   February has a buzz of excitement as a new year means preparing for new growth. 

One of the things I enjoy is going through and editing my seeds checking I have enough from harvesting the year before or buying more, I do get my seeds from all sorts of places Wilkos is good and cheap, Wyevale has a good variety but I find them a little pricey, I do like Marshalls seeds which I buy through their catalogue they always have some interesting variety's which make the bog standard staple more interesting to grow.  This year I'm growing carnival peppers you get the usual red yellow and green but you also get a purple too, I am also growing a cucumber which I grew last year called a Fatum a well deserved name, forget your usual long thin type this bad boy is short and fat and when I say fat we have had slices as wide as a large orange, they are like mini marrows but with a super crisp bite with little of the watery seedy jelly inside, always a pleaser in a salad.

Carrot and courgette muffins

These sounded really intriguing as I  have never made or tasted a savoury muffin before and I'm really glad I gave them a whirl from the Hummingbird bakery book, they tasted really nice and a great lunch time snack as well as getting two types of sneaky vegetables into little ones, however if anyone has a nut allergy best stay away as these have walnuts in, although I put a mixture of walnuts and pecans in mine.  I think next time I make these I will increase the amount of cinnamon and maybe add a pinch of salt to help bring out the flavours but overall these were great and I will defiantly do them again.

Rain sticks and Jazzy bottles

The good thing about grey days is that you can stay in and have your friends over and get busy with the glitter and glue.  Today we had great fun making rain sticks and jazzy bottles, both very simple to do for young toddlers.


Rain sticks what you need
Postal tube from post office
Crayons or paint to colour the outside
Sticker and gems to decorate the outside
Rice and lentils to make a good noise inside

Very simply get creative and colour your tube in add the stickers and gems then create a noise by adding the rice and lentils. so simple and makes a great noise.

Jazzy bottles what you need
Bottle
Beads
Sequins
Glitter
Shiny stars

Of course you don't have to use the above just anything that will look interesting in a bottle when it is shaking up.  This is even more simple than the rain sticks and little fingers just love practising their co ordination of popping  little bits and bobs into the neck of the bottle, simply seal up with some glue then shake and watch all the pretty bits float about.

Thrifty Potting pots

I bought this useful gadget a few years ago and each year have made my own pots and its a great way to recycle old newspapers. 

What your need paper pot maker bought from a garden centre, pair of scissors, old news paper.

Little Valentine cards

To go with our gifts for Valentine's we got busy making some little cards, Sophie got busy with the crayons on some red paper doing her best scribbles, then we folded the drawing in half and drew round a heart shaped cookie cutter making sure that we put the fold on the edge of the heart so it would open up as a card, of course mummy did the cutting as scissors are dangerous.  Using the cookie cutter again we drew round a picture of Sophie and cut again.  Sophie had great fun blobbing glue about and not just on the pictures and these were stuck inside the heart with a happy Valentine message, out side was decorated with a red glitter glue pen.  MWAH Happy Valentine's everyone.

Red velvet cakes

I love baking and there's nothing better than sharing the offerings of your hard work after and see a little bliss on some ones face.

Today I made some red velvet cakes to take to a friends house they are from the Hummingbird bakery book a Christmas present from my hubby, and well worth the buy.  I was really impressed with the way the sponge rose and stayed up after coming out of the oven and I was really intrigued with the fact that the recipe used white wine vinegar and buttermilk in the sponge both of which I have never used in cup cakes before, they tasted really great the cupcake part was really light and fluffy and tasted of chocolate and vanilla bean. I added vanilla bean instead of essence but I am sure it does not matter seeing as bean essence is much nicer, and what of that colour such a interesting red which comes from mixing coco powder and red colouring together.  The frosting was another yummy addition made up of cream cheese and icing sugar which I finished off with a little red edible glitter, they went down very nicely with a cup of tea.

Peg bugs

Today was my friends turn to host crafting at home and we made some rather super Peg bugs here's Sophie's effort with a little help from mummy.  First we got all messy with the paints splotting great dollops of paint onto paper then we folded it in half to make wings, when dried we made glue spots and added glitter and sequins and stick on gems and then attached a peg body in the centre, for added sparkle a cocktail tinsel stick was added for antennae.  This was very messy but very fun and the kids and mummies alike had a ball.

Melt my crayon heart

Valentines is coming and were getting ready to make little gifts for Sophie's Friends and today we made crayon hearts which is a really fast simple craft to do.

All you need is

Crayola crayons
Heart shaped moulds
spray oil
water

pre heated oven 250 degrees

Crayola crayons are really good as they have a fast melting point, its important not to mix in any other brands of crayon and don't use washable crayons as they have different melting points and you could get lumpy hearts or worse one solid yukky colour that could stick to your tin.

First off soak your crayons in cool not warm or hot water as the crayons will start to melt, once soaked for a few minutes your find the paper comes of easily.

next oil your tin or mould, I use a oil spray as this puts a very fine coating of oil on the tin or mould and you don't want crayons swimming in oil.  Break your crayons in half so they fit in your mould and add 10 crayons per mould or more if you have a larger mould or less if you have a smaller mould, make sure once your crayons are melted that they don't come to the top of your mould and boil over into your oven.

put the mould tin onto a baking tray just in case of any mishaps and to give a flat surface once out of the oven your oven should be pre heat your oven to 250 degrees, place your hearts in the oven for 5 mins set the alarm as these get very hot and do create a little smoke in the kitchen, check the moulds after the 5 mins and you should see they are all melted.

Take gently out of the oven and try not to move them about to much as the colours will swirl into each other and end up giving a yukky colour.  Let these cool down for about an hour and don't be tempted to touch, knock or push them out of the moulds as they can crack split and break when they still have warm centres, once cool gentle release from the tins.  How pretty.

Thrifty Easel

Sophie has developed a passion for drawing just like most toddlers so we looked into Easels which were about £40 and the foot print took up a lot of space and since having Sophie the amount of plastic things that now take up room in our house is getting a bit much.  So I put my thrifty hat on and thought about a much cheaper and more streamlined way to let our little Picasso doodle away.  Well here's an idea of using the fridge door giving a nice large space and some lining wall paper which is very cheap and you get lots and lots of paper. The paper was wrapped round to the inside of the freezer and is thin enough not to disturb the seals of your freezer.  Once one side is full of stylish scribbles the paper can be turned around and reused. 

Do many hands make light work

When Sophie was small i used to put her in her bumbo on the counter top and talk to her in the style of a celebrity chef on TV and shown her how to cut and peel things, one to keep her engaged and two, show her from a very early age about food and hopefully gain her interest. As she has got bigger the bumbo has turned into her own set of steps and she is given some vegetables to help with if only to touch and throw or copy mummy. Here’s Soph practicing the art of peeling mushrooms and helping mummy cook tea. Yes there can be a mess, and I know my house feels like its in a perpetual mess since madam came into our world, but I just don't sweat it and keep calm as it wont take long to tidy and the more important thing is it's great she is showing an interest in cooking and wanting to help and it’s a very important life skil to start early on and it good fun to for her to explore and understand new things which all helps her learning and will hopfully help her in life.

After all the fun of exploring a new food which has as you see ended up on the floor the little rascal insisted on helping clear up and i also think that its important to let her join in if she wants to, i never insist and often if im polishing around the house she will want a cloth to to mimic. I believe that letting her help and join in will later on help her respect her things and respect and value what we do for her too. As i got the hoover out I forgot to get her hoover out she went and got it herself, that’s my girl.

Chinese New year ribbon dragons

This time of year it's still cold outside and the evenings draw in fast it's hard to entertain the little ones without going bonkers watching multiple repeats of Cbeebies, so looking for new things to do and try are an inspiration and a break from the norm and gives little hands something to be busy with. 

Luckily it happens to be Chinese New year, so a quick surf on the Internet I found these very cute Chinese New year ribbon dragons to craft with Sophie my daughter of 18 months and I invited my good friend and her son who is of the same age to join in as more sticky fingers would be more fun. 

After a quick trip to our local Hobby craft to gather craft foam, glitter glue pens, googly eyes, wire ribbon and tacky glue, we got on with the task at hand.  Mums at the ready with the scissors set about at chopping up the craft foam into 5 simple shapes of a square face a big spiky mane, muzzle, feet and tail, while the little ones set about unravelling ribbon, throwing googly eyes about and of course mouthing the glitter glue pens which were suitable squishy for teething, so they thought until we removed them. The mums set about creating all the bits for the children to eventually ensemble, after cutting the foam and drawing on the glitter we set them in the oven on a low temperature and enjoyed a well earned tea break.

When the glue set we sat with the children and prepared to show them all the pieces and the glue, trying to control excited fingers with sticky glue about is no mean feat. But we got a few feet and parts of the head attached before they decide that was enough and run around the house hooting and playing leaving the mums to finish off, who didn't actually mind at all as it was all good fun and the finished dragons, I think they look really sweet as for the children and the mess well that’s another story.  Happy Chinese New Year!