Gingerbread house

I love all things gingerbread. My sister and I made a fabulous gingerbread house completely from scratch one year, complete with stained 'glass' windows. That was fun, but we were teenagers and it took us most of an afternoon. My little ones are still young and don't yet have that kind of staying power, so I've bought them ready-baked kits the last couple of years. This year I bought this rather adorable Lebkuchen house kit from Aldi (it was only £4.99!) and added in a bag of dolly mixtures and a bag of midget gems to add to the decorating options. We took advantage of the teachers striking the other week to put it together. Whilst I'm sure Emma would have loved to have had a go at this, I thought Tom and Lily would find it rather frustrating to have a two year old 'helping' them, so we waited until she was down for her nap. I pretty much assembled the house for them, but they had a great time decorating it. Unusually, Tom was still at it long after Lily had moved on to something else.

The hardest part was convincing them not to eat it straight away! I've told them we can eat it on Christmas eve, though I notice there are already quite a few sweets missing. I actually caught Emma in the act the other day. She had moved her ride-on car over to the where we are keeping the house, climbed on it and was trying to pick a midget gem off the roof. Little pickle!

 Getting ready to decorate.

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School Christmas Concert

Tom is the rather adorable camel on the far left of the middle row.

Last week both sets of grandparents, Emma and I descended on Tom and Lily's school to watch them in their Christmas concert. Tom was a camel (and a very cute one) and I have included a short video of Tom doing part of his dance in the concert. He did really well, especially since his costume was clearly driving him nuts!

Poor Lily! She was removed from the stage in tears before I was able to get a picture of her. Her class were all dressed as children on Christmas eve and they all looked adorable in their nightclothes, slippers and dressing gowns. Unfortunately, Lily saw us all in the audience and started crying. Not because she was afraid to go on stage, but because she missed us!

Lily loved preparing for the concert and was really excited about it, but she did warn us that she was going to cry if she saw us. The school did four performances of this concert and Lily was all smiles in every one except the one I went to. In fact, a friend of mine who went to a different performance told me that Lily was making eye contact with her and beaming throughout her entire performance! She always does this to me! Next year I think I will tell her I'm going to one performance and sneak into a different one so I can actually see her!

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.Apologies for the shaky footage. It is hard to hold the camera steady when you have a fidgety two year old on your lap!

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Brotherly love

Tom adores his baby sister. Here they are enjoying breakfast together last week. Tom tells me he is going to marry Emma when he grows up. I don't suppose he'll thank me for recording that fact when he is older, but I think it's so sweet!

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In which I get back to blogging!

Well, it's been a while! I'm not sure I've ever gone this long without updating the blog before. We've all been fine, just busy, busy, busy with school things, Christmas preparation and a visit from my parents. Mum and Dad came up last week and left on Sunday and we finally got to enjoy a week long visit without the whole lot of us getting a stomach virus! We had a lovely week, just enjoying each other's company and there simply wasn't any time left for blogging. Needless to say this leaves me a little behind with my photos, so I shall get back into the swing of things by sharing a few pictures I took of my parents with the Podlings during their visit. I even managed to get a couple of my mum, who generally doesn't like being photographed!

 Dad showing something to Tom on his laptop whilst Emma provides musical accompaniment!

Dad showing Lily pictures of some of his metal-detecting finds.

Drawing with Nanny

My mum has a bubbles screen saver on her laptop that Emma loved.

Playing Hungry Hippos with Grandad

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Homemade Play Dough

The Podlings have all loved play dough and Emma is no exception. It is a great way to wile away a wet or cold morning (like this morning) and whilst commercial play dough certainly has its place, I have always preferred homemade dough for toddlers. The recipe I have always used produces a softer, more malleable dough that is easier for little hands to manipulate.

Recipe for homemade play dough:

2 cups plain flour
1 cup salt
4 tablespoons cream of tartar
2 tablespoons cooking oil
2 cups water
Food colouring of your choice (in my experience you need a reasonable amount to get a good colour)

1. Put everything into a saucepan and give it a good stir.
2. Turn on the gas and keep stirring until the mixture thickens and looks like...well, till it looks like play dough! The stirring gets hard work towards the end, but it's worth it.
3. Turn out the dough and leave on a plate until it is cool enough to handle (I knead it to cool it quicker).
4. Give it to your children to play with when it is cold and if you wrap it up well in cling film when they are finished it keeps very well.

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A walk in the woods

On Saturday we took a late afternoon walk in Biddulph Grange Country Park, which is only about a 20 minute drive from where we live. We all enjoyed  enjoyed the autumn colours and kicking up the thick piles of leaves as we walked through the woods. We took a thermos for tea, juice for the Podlings and some biscuits and enjoyed a mini-picnic by the small lake at dusk. It was getting quite dark by the time we started back for the car and the fog that descended lent a strange other-worldly quality to the woods that was quite beautiful.

Oh, it's times like this that I wish I had a manual-focus camera (not that I would know how to use it I suppose!)

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My Girls...

...they look so alike!

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