A Harvest Sensory Box

At last! A sensory box that Idris engaged with for a length of time WITHOUT resorting to immediatly throwing the contents out of the box! This box came about very rapidly this afternoon after I'd sat Idris on the counter top next to me whilst I kneaded play dough and he started putting the veg scraps for the guinea pigs in and out of a cup and poking them with a spoon. I put a few pots and pans from the kitchen box in an underbed storage box and added a bag of chunky pasta shells and a range of implements.

Idris played for about half an hour, completely absorbed, murmuring to himself quietly as he transferred the pasta from pot to pot using his hands, stirred them, and tipped them in and out. After a while he climbed in, and, being impressed with his sure footedness (is that a word?) he stepped in and out a few more times just to make sure he could do it without a wobble! Then sat down to tip, transfer, poke and shuffle some more!

Then he got fed up and resorted to his trajectory routine! So I added a bag of mixed beans and an egg box and a ladle and he was once again fascinated and absorbed! It was great to see him so involved in something like this i

Support and Friendship for Childminders

I wanted to post a link here that I have added to the sidebar - I have today left the long-established forum that I have been using for various reasons and as I am enjoying the fledgling forum that has recently been formed, and granted permission to publicise it, here it is:

The Staffroom: http://childminder.freeforums.org/index.php

I was saddened by the swift deletion of my account from the other place - I had asked for it to be shut down and been told of the person I had to ask to do it. I hadn't asked that person yet and was halfway through private chats and public posts to say goodbye when I was suddenly locked out. I have been incredibly supportive of the forum since it's takeover,and am sad to have missed the opportunity to exchange contact details with many friends. I know that some of them read my blog and I wish you all well!

Autumn Planters

We made these Autumn planters last week. I found the ceramic pots at the pound shop, and the plants came from the supermarket. We put one Heather in each pot and then some tiny plug plants of citrus coloured Pansies and Primroses. They are grouped together here on my bird table (more like an albatross table, it is made from scaffold planks!). They need to be above ground level so that Idris doesn't 'unplant' them several times! They will wing their way off to various people this coming week, one home with my baby mindee and one at my parent's house as a welcome home present for when they arrive home from a long visit to my brother in Canada. My little mindee aged 11 months had a fabulous time doing these. I've been trying to encourage her to put things into pots as well as take them out and when the compost came out she got the idea and chuckled away as she put handfuls of it in. Idris was more creative with the compost than that.... isn't he always?!!

Long time no post....

It isn't that I haven't had anything to post about, we've been doing loads of things, I just haven't felt like posting much really!

The revised EYFS has been keeping me busy writing the updates needed, I've taken the chance to completely overhaul my policies and cut out a lot of uneccessary flotsam that isn't needed.

The girls have been keeping me busy. They have wanted and needed some more input from me and we've started our new schedule quite gently, getting into doing certain things every day. We've been fairly autonomous for a while but it was the right time to use some structure again.

Our house purchase has taken a few more twists and turns and I'm still managing to be patient and good humoured with the seller whilst not really agreeing with her take on things! The mortgage offer expires on the 16th October though so if she hasn't organised herself by then then it will all go up in smoke!

Autumn is nipping at out heels here and making me appreciate stolen minutes in a warm sunny spot in my garden all the more. I love Autumn, it really inspires me, although I can't decide if I love sunshine and warmth more than Autumn.....

The girls are bonding over a shared game on the patio - it's bedtime but I'm letting it run as Faith spent 24 hours in hospital having neuro obs on Thursday after a big fall. She was confused afterwards so they wanted to play it safe. It would be the day when I was in an unfamiliar city with my car in the garage and my mobile broken..... good friends helped out though and we got through it, albeit very tired afterwards! Eve was distraught about leaving Faith there but when she came home was oddly distant with her...... hence why I'm leaving them to enjoy their game as they need it!

Bad luck continued with the death of a goldfish and an embarrassing incident in a supermarket where my card was declined, I whizzed off to get cash from the machine only to come back and find they'd put all my shopping back on the shelves - I was mortified.... and hungry! I'd eeked out our food until Saturday so I could swap our food shopping day to Saturday from Thursday to fill some time whilst Faith does gymnastics. We literally had nothing to eat left..... and while I stared at the manager in distress, I became very aware that my hair could do with a wash, and there were stains on my t-shirt (the kind that are standard practice with a 13 month old clamped to your hip)..... oh yes and that my darling baby boy had eaten half a punnet of blueberries on the way round the shop (he was most pleased with himself as he'd opened it by himself!!!) and we hadn't paid for them.

Not a great day really.... rounded off by said darling boy biting me at his bedtime feed - someone should really tell him that he shouldn't bite the boob that feeds him.....

I'm starting to see the funny side of my week now that I'm wrapped in a fluffy dressing gown with freshly washed hair and my dirty t-shirt on the wash pile!!! Early bed for me as another action packed day awaits with swimming church and guess what? Yep! FOOD SHOPPING to do!!!!! I will try to get back to some posting this coming week!

Welcoming the Return of my Cooking Mojo!!!!

Well I am sitting in my darkened living room with the back door open and a cool breeze wafting in, swigging ahem, sipping wine, and celebrating the return of my cooking mojo! For many weeks now I have not enjoyed cooking and have relied too much upon convenience foods which are both expensive and boring! When I have attempted 'proper' cooking it has resulted in pulled faces and being pushed around before eventually being eaten due to it just not being that great! I haven't been able to organise a decent menu plan though, let alone a shopping list and a tasty result!! From past experience, I knew that it would return and so I was patient - and return it has!

I am just waiting for the oven to beep to inform me that some rather cute and hopefully tasty little blackberry bakewells are golden brown..... it has been years since I baked after the children had gone to bed, baked for the joy of it that is rather than necessity. Yesterday afternoon, whilst Idris was snoozing, the girls and I sat in the garden and pored through the Good Food magazines that come on a gift subscription from my parents. We pulled out all the yummy looking pages and added them to a clipboard that is propped up behind my battered old chopping board.

We made yummy Sausage Pot Pies for dinner - a really versatile and easy recipe that would be fabulous with red cabbage in, or pumpkin in the Autumn.... it met with ravenous approval and I wondered about baking the bakewells when the children had gone to bed. I then decided I shouldn't - it seemed rather frivolous to cook for pleasure, just me 'by my own' (family joke, sorry!). Wasn't there something serious and important to do?

Oh hang on, there's the beep - let's see now.....

Well it turned out that there wasn't anything more important and that baking by myself was really enjoyable and I almost remember doing it before I had children and felt compelled to include them in all baking activities!! As it happened, just between you and me - I couldn't resist inviting my little willow the wisp to help me put them together - she never goes to sleep until late anyway, and she dearly loves to help me cook!!

I am very relieved to be back into cooking mode again, where I find it simple and fun to prepare and cook healthy meals for my family - long may it last!!! The recipes for these aren't available yet on the Good Food website..... I'll pop back and add the links when they are up there!

Seed Markers Made from Vintage Spoons!

This is another of my 'seen around the web thought I'd try it out' endeavours..... not the most successful one I've ever tried to be honest! It looked so easy..... but then it always does..... I bought a pile of unusual vintage spoons from ebay and a set of steel letter punches.

Here are the spoons in their original condition.... before I got Dewi to hammer them flat (approach this carefully - he was a tad enthusiastic and split a couple of the spoons near where they attach to the stem)....

These are the punches and here it became tricky as I'd underestimated just how HARD a steel teaspoon can be..... no, really, steel is VERY hard!!! In my naive little bubble I'd imagined tapping perfectly formed letters into the spoons and joining the ranks of crafting genii..... alas I joined the ranks of bumbling also-rans, and collected a couple of blood blisters along the way!!!!

Idris was fascinated with the whole process and laughed like a drain when I hit my thumb and hopped around the patio hissing unmentionable things about spoons and pinterest!

A couple of them turned out really well and at least I'll know which seedlings are which now!!!!! I think I'll look for other ideas to use the letter punches with next time.....

An Olympic Muffin Tin Dinner!

I hadn't made the girls a muffin tin dinner for a long time and thought the closing ceremony of the Olympics was a perfect opportunity to surprise them with one! I racked my brains for what to do and decided to represent some of the sports that the girls enjoyed watching and learning about, as well as some of the classic Olympic symbols. I always balance savoury with sweet and try to include all the food groups and we always have jelly in our MTD's, it's a tradition! So we had:

• An Olympic torch made from a tortilla twisted up with yellow peppers and carrot slices as the flames
• Beach volleyball - couscous sand with a team GB flag left over from the Jubilee celebrations!
• Gold medals - cheddar discs cut with a cookie cutter and a ham number added
• Olympic ring fruit salad with black berries, blueberries,  red peach,  yellow banana and green apple
• Rythmic gymnastics ribbon baton - Strawberry fruit roll-ups coiled just so with a cocktail stick as the baton
• Diving - lemon and lime sugarfree jelly dyed blue with gel food colouring, and with a toy person (cleaned with boiling water first) embedded upside down as if they had just dived in. I managed this by putting half the jelly in and allowing it to almost set then suspending the person upside down with a pipe cleaner twisted around their legs and hooked over the edges of the cup with their head resting on the already set jelly. I finished it off with a tiny blob of plain yoghurt as a 'splash' - in a GB cup of course!

Our previouse MTD's were St Patrick's Day and St. George's Day.