Spring fever!

It's been quite quiet today, as both my boys were back at school all day after a two week Easter break.  I started the holidays slightly worried about what we were going to do to keep them entertained, especially Harry who's attention span is short at best!  We ended up taking a spur of the moment trip to my parents and the weather further south in Herefordshire was lovely.  We got up to loads...

Building dens in the garden...

A spot of sunbathing...

Trips to the park...

Daisy chain making, and some really tiring activities as well, such as walks in the bluebell woods...

And a certain little monkey's first swimming lesson which went very well but proved to be extremely tiring!

It was a very relaxing week away, full of sunny weather, lovely food and even time for Mummy to sneak in a vodka and orange in the garden!

A week away and it was time to come home.  We only had a few days left, but we filled these with boxes...

And daffodil exploring...

We also took a trip to our local play farm, Broom House Farm where we enjoyed seeing all the new baby animals...

and Hannah and I snuck in a cheeky cake while the boys played in the hay bales!

Back to school this week, but we have had a lovely holiday, and there was much less boredom and yelling at each other than I feared!  Oh, and I know it looks like I don't actually take photos of the boys, its just more of a struggle to get them to keep still for pictures!  Olly refuses to let you take any - the box was a sneaky one!

Hope you all had a lovely Easter!

Spring Antics of my Three Little Monkeys

So, it's been a while since I wrote a post, I thought I'd give a quick photo summary of what we've been up to here and some of the antics my little monkeys have got up to so far this month!

There has been some surprisingly long-lasting play involving large cardboard boxes, with the result I now am keeping two as permanent fixtures in the playroom.  I walked in the other evening to find both boys sitting in the boxes with cushions and blankets quietly watching Lilo and Stitch!

In the middle of February, I went down to London and was away six days.  I missed my little monkeys like mad, but I did get to spend some lovely time with my brother and sister who I get to see nowhere near as much as I'd like.  My baby sister is having a bit of a rough time of it, so I thought I'd take her something to cheer her up. She's a big Tangled fan, so I made these for her:

I was surprised they made it all the way down to London in my suitcase, but they made it in one piece!  And this lovely surprise was waiting for me when I got home...

We've been doing a lot of baking here recently.  Shortbread....

Lots of cupcakes...

Banana bread...

And as it was Spring Equinox/Ostara last Thursday, we made an Ostara cake...

Olly and Harry made the chicks and eggs, and Harry cut out the butterflies and flowers.  You can't see, but it is actually a pastel rainbow cake.  I will take a picture, but I haven't got one right now.  I was really happy with how it turned out.  It was only four colours, but I am working up to making a proper rainbow one!

We made some other Ostara crafts as well.  This was Olly's banner, though he did need a bit of help....

And this was Harrys.  All his idea.  I did help him by doing a couple of the eggs myself cause he was running out of time and wanted to finish it before he went to bed....

There has been other making too, little Harry's sculpture he brought home from school...

And the playdough town the boys made together...

And a couple of beautiful hats for Hannah made by my very talented mum!

We'll finish off with some games...a bit of den building for a picnic...

And playing at wheels on the bus.  As you can see, Hannah has the steering wheel and is driving.  I don't think that was intentional, but the boys loved it!

Anyhow, that's it for now.  I'm not feeling very well this weekend, and Hannah has just got her first tooth, with the second one following on behind, so she isn't very happy and not sleeping well, so we'll pop off for a short nap!  See you soon!

Spacemen and Imbolc

Just before Christmas, Olly drew a great picture of a space rocket and all the children in the nursery were so interested in it that the teachers decided to do space as their topic this term.  So on Wednesday they were all asked to dress up as something spacey.  They varied from Darth Vader and Stormtroopers, to a little girl who came in every sparkly piece of clothing she could find and asserted that she was the North Star!

This was our attempt at a spaceman astronaut!

Saturday was Imbolc, the pagan festival that celebrates the first small appearances of spring and the Celtic goddess Brigid.  It is traditional to bake bread....

....and to make a Brigid's Cross...

...they are usually made of straw, but pipe cleaners are easier and tidier for smaller fingers!  It is also traditional to make a Brigid doll from straw and a bed for her to sleep in...

Oliver decorated the bed and the doll was a combined effort from me and Harry!

Then, of course, as Imbolc is also a festival of lights, there needs to be a lot of candles, namely on candle crowns...

We made a beautiful Imbolc altar....

...and finished off with a little party tea!

It was a lovely day all round!  I even managed to get a bit of washing and ironing done in between!

Catch up time!

I've done my normal thing of forgetting to post for ages, but am determined to keep this blog going, so here's a little run-down of things we've been up to since Olly's birthday!

The first major event really was Halloween.  Being a mainly pagan household we also celebrate Samhain (Summer's End), but with the children being so little at the moment we concentrate on the more mainstream aspects of this holiday.  So there were decorations throughout, including some huge burnt orange silk flowers I found at Boyes which were beautiful stuck in a vase with some bare sticks and little spiders hung off them!  The children dressed up - two skeletons and a little ladybird fairy (you may recognise a pirate dress from the party, this was its original intended use!), we played apple bobbing and chocolate buttons in the flour as well, and of course, we carved pumpkins!

I may have helped slightly with the carving, but Harry drew his own design and Olly picked his from some we found on the net.

The next day, we decided to get outside to feel the turn of the seasons and to make it a bit more fun for the boys, we went to Hall Hill Farm.  There wasn't a lot going on, but the boys made a scarecrow from old clothes and straw, and they both got their face painted as pumpkins.

It was the first time Harry has been brave enough to get his face painted, so it was a surprise when he asked to get it done too!

Following on from this was Wacky Hair Day at school.  Both my boys have rather long hair, and I wasn't able to find any spray on hair colours for them this time, so these were our wacky attempts!

I thought they were great, but was told that Olly looked like a girl!

We've had some cold days outside...

And some snuggly ones inside...

And then it was Christmas!  We put up our decorations on the 1st December, and the tree a couple of weeks later to spread the fun!  We left the Christmas cd on constantly in the car (much to the dismay of my other half who is a scrooge until about 4pm on Christmas Eve!).  We had a grownup party for people from work and friends which just happened to coincide with the solstice on the 21st.  And of course, there was lots of making!  The boys made all their cards to give out (we are still finding glitter now!), and we made some tree decorations for our playroom tree.

Here's Harry painting the salt dough decorations...

We made our first forays into sewing helped greatly by Grandma...

And I made Christmassy cupcakes for gifts for teachers...

In the midst of all the build up to Christmas, a certain baby girl achieved a special milestone which I was lucky enough to catch on camera - doesn't she look pleased with herself?

Christmas Eve was lovely as usual.  It was just us.  The boys had a bath and came down to find that the elves had delivered an early present for them; nice fleecy pyjamas, slippers and dressing gowns.  There was even a pretty new babygro for Hannah.  They got dressed and we had pizza in the living room while watching Arthur Christmas.  I was sceptical at first, but it was actually a lovely film.  Off to bed then, putting out mince pie, carrot and baileys for Santa and Rudolph first, and then hanging the stockings.  They took a while to settle, but Santa had been surprisingly organised this year and all the presents were wrapped.  Eventually there was quiet upstairs and he was able to deliver...

Morning was chaos, dinner lovely, made nicer by the fact I wasn't cooking, and the evening was chilled.  A perfect Christmas for my little girl's first one!