Raised with Enid Blyton

We always had lots of Enid Blyton books in the house when I was growing up. My Dad had a big collection of the original hardbacks, and I read them over and over. I didn't have a torch to read under the bedcovers but I remember begging to read one more page before the light was turned out. I still enjoyed them even though they were rather removed from my own experiences. The Famous Five books are the first proper books that I can remember reading on my own, and I devoured the books - buying them with Christmas money, borrowing from friends and the library.


The books have held up pretty well considering how often they've been read by me and my siblings, and after dividing them up I still have plenty to pass down. Behind these is a whole shelf of paperbacks that I've bought since from charity shops, including the full set of Malory Towers books, another favourite series.

I loved the original illustrations:

Maybe the stories were quite repetitive, they certainly had many of the same themes, but I didn't mind. It's also a different experience when re-reading them as an adult, and you realise how politically incorrect some parts seem now! But although Enid Blyton may have had her critics, she certainly started me off on a love of reading!

Did you read Enid Blyton as a child? Which were your favourite stories?

An ending, and a beginning

Today marks the start of a new role in life - as a full-time, stay at home Mum. After being back at work for a whole month I was placed at risk of redundancy, and the whole long, drawn-out process, which could have seen me found another job at any time up until 5pm on my leaving day, has finally come to an end and I have now officially been made redundant.

I'm not really cross about it. I fully appreciate that my work had dried up, and the fact that I had taken a full year's maternity leave twice without any cover shows that I was hardly indispensible. Mainly I'm just a bit sad, it was my first proper job out of university, I'd been working in the same team for nine years, and I'd built up some strong friendships. I'm really going to miss the social aspect.

Fortunately we are in a position financially that means I can stay at home for a bit, and now that everything has finally been confirmed I'm able to concentrate on the positives. I had some wobbles about returning to work, and I am thrilled that I'm going to be able to spend more time with the little ones. Harry will move to a pre-school closer to home for a few sessions a week as we prepare for him to start school next September, and Mia will be at home with me all the time for now. I sometimes feel that Mia can be pushed to one side as Harry can be so demanding, so it will be lovely to have some time to spend just the two of us.

Here's to a new chapter!

Reindeer handprint Christmas cards

One of the first Christmas tasks that pops up on the calendar is sending out the Christmas cards, and it's a good idea to start thinking about them sooner rather than later. With young children, I like to involve them in the making of the cards, and they can easily make these lovely reindeer cards using their hand prints.

I must admit that this handprint reindeer Christmas card is not an original idea. Harry brought one back from nursery last year and I fell in love with it, so much so that I kept in my drawer all year long to use as a bookmark. This year I decided to replicate it using Mia's hand for the reindeer and Harry's help to add the details.

All you need to do is make some handprints with brown paint onto coloured paper or card. It's worth making far more than you need so that you can choose the best in case any end up smudged. Then just add two googly eyes and a red nose! If you are hand delivering the cards you could use a red pom pom, stuck on firmly.

I cut out the reindeer faces and Harry then helped me to glue them onto some contrasting coloured card, this way you don't need to worry too much if you end up with some mess around the edges of your prints. We used different sized googly eyes for some variety. They are so easy, and I think they look really sweet!

Pizza cookie with sweets

Pizza is a favourite meal in this household, and cookies are a favourite treat. This recipe for a giant pizza cookie combines the two!

My original inspiration for the pizza cookie idea came from the A little bit of heaven on a plate blog, sorry no longer available. I wanted to make more of a biscuit base though, so I used the recipe from another pin - A Mothers Ramblings, changing it slightly by keeping it plain as I was going to be adding plenty of sweets on top.

Ingredients:

Base:
125g brown sugar
75g caster sugar
125g butter (softened)
2tsp vanilla essence
1 egg
1tsp baking powder
150g plain flour

Topping:
Icing sugar
Red food colouring
Water
100g bar white chocolate, grated
Sweets

Method:

Start by making the base. Cream the sugar and butter together, it's a lot easier if the butter is softened first. Then add the vanilla essence and the egg, then finally the flour and baking powder. The mixture will have the texture of a thick paste. I lined a pizza tray with grease proof paper and then spread the dough out evenly on top with a knife. It will spread a little when cooking so leave a small gap around the edges. Mine spread out really nicely leaving a good, realistic looking crust.


Bake in the oven at 180C (slightly lower for fan assisted ovens) for about twenty minutes. It is ready when it has started to brown on top, but it will still appear quite soft. It needs to cool for a little while, and then it will harden up. You can see how the crust has curled up slightly resembling pizza crust, perfect.

Then for the fun part - the decorating! Originally I was going to use jam for the tomato sauce, but my son suggested using icing and I think that worked better. I just used icing sugar, with lots of red food colouring to make it nice and dark, and water. I'm afraid I can't give exact quantities as I always guess my icing! We spread it out over the base, and then sprinkled the grated white chocolate on top before scattering with sweets. I didn't choose particularly realistic ones as I just used what we had, but you could try and choose sweets that look like the different ingredients that you like on a pizza! 

I think it looked pretty good when it was finished (and it tasted delicious too!). This would be a great alternative to a birthday cake for a pizza loving child (or adult!).

Firework sensory tub

Since I created my first sensory tub, I can't stop thinking of ideas for new ones. I don't think that Harry would have had the patience for them as a toddler, but now that he is a bit older he has really enjoyed playing with the couple that I have made. Mia loves joining in too, although she does have a habit of splashing her hands up and down in the rice, then losing interest and wandering off, scattering rice about the house as she goes.

This sensory tub has a firework theme, to tie in with Bonfire Night on the 5th November. Bonfire Night, also known in the UK as Guy Fawkes Night, is an annual event which commemmorates the arrest of Guy Fawkes in 1605 as he guarded explosives placed in the House of Lords by members of the Gunpowder Plot aiming to assassinate King James I of England and VI of Scotland. Most of the conspirators fled, some were killed, and eight of the survivors were hung, drawn and quartered. Today Bonfire Night is celebrated with bonfires, fireworks and parades.

I didn't really fancy giving Harry matches and firewood in the sensory tub, nor did I really want to touch on the gruesome history associated with Guy Fawkes night just yet (you can read more about Guy Fawkes night here if you are interested), so I decided to concentrate on the firework aspect, as he will be going to several firework displays over the next few days.

The basis for the sensory tub is rice, which I dyed black. I just buy the cheapest value rice, tip a good amount into a bowl, add a fair bit of food colouring (at least half a teaspoonful) and mix it all about. If I have some, I add a squirt of anti-bacterial hand gel in, as this helps it to dry more quickly, although I do find that it dries quite quickly by itself if it's spread out on a tray for a few hours. I also had some sunflower seeds around from the garden so I added them in for some variety, I like how the stripes look like clouds in the sky.

Then I added some glitter, sequins and a few pom poms. Harry needs an activity to do with the rice, so I found some star shaped cake cases and star shaped chocolate moulds which I bought in the sales last January and he hadn't seen yet. Along with a couple of teaspoons, they were ready to make some firework cakes.

I put the sensory tub out on an old table cloth to try and contain some of the mess, then let them at it. Mia dug in and found a shiny star straightaway - bursting into a rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Harry spent ages filling up the various cake cases and passing them to me. I was really surprised how long this sensory tub kept them busy for.

If you are looking for more sensory tub inspiration you might like some of my other ideas:

Halloween sensory tub
Easter sensory tub
Spring sensory tub
Beach sensory tub
Dinosaur Island sensory tub
Gardening sensory tub

Review - Music for Kids Recorder Set

I like to think of myself as quite musical. It may have been a little while since I picked up my violin or sat in front of a piano, but I'm pretty good at coaxing a tune out of the musical toys that we have about the house. Like most people, the first instrument I learned to play at school was the recorder. I think it's really important for children to learn a musical instrument, so when I saw an opportunity to review a themed recorder pack aimed at young children, I thought that it would be a good way to start Harry off on a musical journey of his own.

We had the choice of Pirate or Princess, and so I chose Pirate. The pack contains a blue recorder and drawstring case, some stickers, a Starting to Play book, a CD and a fingering chart. The recorder is a good quality, three piece descant recorder, which is the size that is usually taught in schools.

As I expected, Harry loved it, and was instantly marching about blowing away. He also appeared suitably impressed when I belted out Amazing Graze for him, before performing my repertoire of children's favourites including Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Jingle Bells.

The small book introduces the instrument, with tips on holding the recorder and playing the first notes. It only covers how to play two notes - B and A - so you will need to think about further instruction books or tuition in order to progress further. I think that a child completely new to music and the recorder would probably benefit from some adult help with getting started, preferably from someone that can read music. For a child that is already learning elsewhere though, perhaps at school, it would be easily picked up.

I really liked the CD that was included. The book teaches you to play just the note B in the rhythm of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Old MacDonald Had a Farm, then adds in the note A for both songs. It's not that tuneful of course, but if you play it along with the backing track on the CD it sounds really good (and there is applause at the end to keep you motivated!)

We received the recorder pack for the purpose of the review.

Easy homemade Advent Calendar to make with kids

It might seem early, but it won't be long until Christmas is upon us! Today I'm sharing how Harry and I made a really simple homemade Advent Calendar. This is a really good project to do with children, as they can do a lot of it themselves, and it's a great way to make a start on the Christmas crafting.

The template for the Advent calendar is made using Microsoft Word or similar. Firstly set up the page so that the margins are much smaller than usual, then use the drawing tool to make 24 rectangles in various sizes. Try and leave a reasonable gap between the boxes. Then print out two copies - I printed out one copy onto white paper and one onto green paper. The white piece is the background, so it needs to be strengthened by glueing it onto a sheet of thick card. The green piece will be the front.

Then you need to collect together some Christmas images. I mainly used my collection of cuttings from old Christmas cards, which I also use for gift tags. The cardboard meant that they made the Advent calendar a bit sturdier. You could also look for pictures on Christmas wrapping paper, Christmas catalogues and gift guides from shops, magazines with Christmas articles or just use Google images to search for Christmas pictures which you can print out.

Cut the pictures to the sizes of the different rectangles and stick them down on top. Try and let them overlap the sides of the boxes a little.

While they are drying, use a craft knife to cut out the windows on the top (green) sheet of paper. Make sure that you have both pieces of paper the same way up, and cut along the top, bottom and right hand side of each box.

Then glue the top piece of paper down onto the background. Only use a minimal amount of glue, you don't want the windows to end up glued down! Make sure that the windows are lined up with the pictures underneath.

When it's all dry, you can use felt pens to write on the numbers for the doors, and bling it up with some glitter glue and sequins. Harry loved helping with this bit, your child can really get involved with personalising their own Advent calendar. And it will still be a surprise when they open a door each day as they'll never remember all the pictures that they used!

If you have a wooden Advent calendar with boxes, don't forget to have a look at my post with ideas for gifts to fill a wooden Advent calendar!