Pumpkins

So it has been a little while! We have been busy in our house. With Pickle and Penguin both having a birthday with a joint party in the middle and then half term with all the madness that brings.

We have been having fun with pumpkins in our house! We visited a pumpkin farm over half term and picked up a few beauties. Yellow Bean and Pickle picked out classic carving pumpkins and Penguin and I chose edible ones. We also picked some cheap ones up from supermarkets.

So....what have we been doing?

First we did some scooping. But I failed to get a snap of that one...too much excitement and mess.

The kids had some great fun with the squidgy squishy innards of the pumpkin and did a pretty good job scooping it all out.

Then we washed the seeds. Pickle, Penguin and I loved the feel of the slippery seeds in the water. A great sensory activity!

We dried the seeds and picked a few to put aside for planting next year. The rest we mixed with a little oil, some brown sugar and mixed spice and roasted in a medium/hot oven for 15min. Yummy!

Pickle enjoyed carefully cutting the face he had drawn himself out of his pumpkin. We used a pumpkin carving kit we picked up in the supermarket. It was great, the blade is serrated but not sharp, totally suitable for my newly 4 year old boy.

Penguin is still a bit too little, she had a fabulous time drawing all over her pumpkin with sharpie pen.

For another pumpkin activity Penguin used a hammer to tap some golf tees into another pumpkin. He then wound black wool around the tees to make a pattern. He decided that this was like a spiders web so we have since added a black pompom and pipe cleaners to make a spider.

Not a bad little batch of activities that the small people certainly seemed to enjoy. I am looking forward to lighting them tomorrow evening!

Until next time....S xx

Picking Blackberries

We have done a lot of blackberry picking over the last part of the summer. Pickle loves to pick the blackberries but won't eat them unless they are in a crumble. Penguin can't seem to stop eating them from the bushes as we wander through the woods.

We have had a few crumbles, made some jam and some blackberry gin. We have also had lots of purple fingers and a few purple faces too.

Wonderful outside time with my two. x

Heartwood Forest

During the holidays we took a trip to Heartwood Forest. It is an interesting site where they have a lot of new woodland planted with some teeny trees as well as some established woodland.

We had a wonderful long walk around, starting with the Magical Meander. It is a beautiful trail with lots of carved animals along the way.

There were a whole range of different creatures along the way.

Pickle and Penguin loved to run up to the different animals.

This archway was beautiful, the other side had pictures of leaves from different types of trees carved on. Pickle and Penguin loved to trace the lines with their fingers and point out all of the different things they could spot.

There were muddy puddles and horses too. Pickle and Penguin found an area of the more established woodland and wanted to explore more. I just love to look up....

I love trees in the sunshine, I like looking up at the sky between the leaves and I love the dappled shade of trees in the summer time.

We had a ball in the woods. The kids were rolling logs around, we found a rope swing and had a go, peered into a badger set and built a den. It was such great family time all together.
And to top it all off we got a bit lost after wandering off of our route and ended up getting caught in a lot of rain and finding lunch in a little village pub. A perfect day.

I would definitely recommend a visit. x

Summer

Wow, where has that time gone? Six wonderful weeks of worms and muddy puddles, drawing and painting, dinosaurs, blackberries, fungus and digging. We have had a great holiday, spending time at home and a few family visits with a lot of time outside. I will be posting more in the next week or so about some of the specific activities we did throughout the holidays.

Pickle has completed the local library reading challenge, telling the librarian all about his books. I am always surprised about how much he can recall about his books, both fiction and non-fiction. He was particularly keen on a book about sharks...he told the librarian all about the goblin shark, whale shark and basking shark among others...

Penguin has recently been showing more unique interests. We try to keep toys non-gender specific in our house and don't push them into stereotypes. Both kids have a dolls, cars and dinosaurs. Penguin has developed a strong attachment to her baby and likes to try and dress it and take care of it, one day this week she insisted on putting her baby in her bed and taking the monitor with her down to pick pickle up from Nursery. Her baby is an old doll of mine and I love to see her playing with it like I used to.

I have managed to fit in a little bit of crochet among the madness...more to follow on that soon I hope!

Dinos and Ice

Today we had an adventure with ice and dinosaurs. We looked at the water melting, we used salty water and put the ice in the sunshine. Pickle and Penguin watched the dinos emerge and the colours drip down in channels through an ice block.

The dinos were really easy to set up. I squeezed some small dinosaur toys we bought at a charity shop into a balloon, filled with water, tied them off and stuck them in the freezer.

We also put some food colouring on the surface of a large block of ice and watched how it melted. Pickle and Penguin watched the channels running through the middle of the block.

This is definitely an activity we will be repeating during the hot weather. We spoke about the salty water changing the freezing point of the water, the kids felt the ice melting and how the surface was smoothed over.

30 Days Wild - Day 25

Today the afternoon was spent in a friends garden with a few other families. The kids played, there was tennis and swingball, bubbles, it was wonderful.

I had a little tour of their beautiful landscaped garden. They grow a lot there, courgettes, raspberries, tomatoes, cabbage, all sorts. As well as their flowers, it really puts my garden to shame. I couldn't believe how much further on their plants are than mine, they have big tomatoes on their 5ft tall tomato plants.....my tomato plants are only around 5 inches tall and are barely flowering yet! It is really inspiring to see such a wonderful garden and so much growing, it gives me an itch to grow more. I feel like an allotment is worth looking into for next year....hmmmm another idea for the list.

No photos today either, there were people everywhere and too much fun and laughter to be looking through a camera!

30 Days Wild - Day 24

Today we had a very busy day. We visited the London Transport museum which means most of the day was spent on trains and looking at trains and buses. But looking at public transport and changes to the ways we have traveled, including the changes in pollution I am going to count as a win.....

We had a nice train ride into London, looking out of the windows at gardens and hedges, trees and plants. It was a lovely ride and we saw plenty.

It is not quite wild wild but it is pretty modern wild and Pickle and Penguin had a total blast. If you haven't visited the London Transport Museum and you live in the vicinity, go. It is a great day out and perfect for our two, ages 3 and 1. They have things to look at, things to climb on and dress up in, things to drive and sit in. It is really great. Really.

30 Days Wild - Day 23

Today we made an assault course in the back garden for all of the dinosaur and animal toys. We used sticks and stones, hay and even a few petals from a past-its-best rose. Later I also added a tray with water for them to wade through. At the end we placed our paper mache cave for all the animals to hide in.

This kept Pickle and Penguin amused for quite a while. They really enjoyed setting it up and making the dinosaurs and animals run through it.

30 Days Wild - Day 4

Today was a Daddy afternoon. Pickle and Penguin went out for a walk to the library and then for a play in the park. One of the kidlets favourite outdoor activities! They love to be outdoors and moving around.


Unfortunately I don't have a photo to go with this....imagine swings. They pretty much just love flying through the air on the swings.