CARVING OUR GIANT PUMPKIN!

Earlier this year Kenzie planted several pumpkin seeds and looked after them till they became good plants. We gave a couple to his Grampy to put in his allotment and then planted a few up in pots in our garden. We only managed a small, orange sized pumpkin from our plants and unfortunately the slugs came with the first wet weather and gobbled half of it before we could pick it. Grampies ones though, grew and grew and grew!!!!
We had 3 of the giant Pumpkins and donated 2 of them to friends.

Yesterday we decided to carve our pumpkin. Brendan had many ideas of how it was to look before settling on a design he saw on the Internet. So we sat it on the kitchen table and made a start. The boys were great about scooping out the insides. It took quite a while and Kenzie decided it would be more fun to make a potion with the bits we didn't need!
We even let the chickens enjoy some of the insides as they had enjoyed finishing off the pumpkin that was attacked by the slugs!

 

 

 

 

I hope you all have a lovely spooky Halloween! 

We are just hoping the rain stops long enough to go out Trick or Treating....

CHRISTMAS CAKE MAKING!

It is tradition in our family to gather at mum and dads at this time of year with my sisters and make the Christmas Cakes! it's a really lovely time and something we always did as children. i have such lovely memories of helping mum and nan make the cake each year and mixing it in a HUGE bowl!
We now have to split the finished mixture in to smaller cake tins rather than the huge one we used as a child but the recipes is the same and I am very pleased to see that my children are getting in on the tradition and enjoying this special day as much as I do!
Here are some of the moments from the morning.

Kenzie and Auntie Heather weighing the fruit

 

Checking the scales are balanced.

Time for the sugar

Oops a bit too much

Time for some spice!

Brendan chopped the cherries

and cracked the eggs!

and  creamed the butter!!

Kenzie squeezed the lemons!

and sieved the flour!

Mummy held the bowl while he mixed all the dry ingredients together!

 

Time for a big stir now everything has been added!

Then it's time for the Traditional wishing stir. Everyone makes a wish as they take a turn to stir the cake!!

Then in to the cake tins.....

 

and then for the really fun bit.... licking the spoons and the bowls!!

This is such a lovely time of year and the Christmas preparations are starting!!

it's been lovely sharing these photos with you and looking back at the fun we had!

HALLOWEEN SENSORY BOX!

Well after some inspiration from this fabby Blog counting coconuts I decided to make a Halloween sensory box for my boys. I loved the idea of the Lentils and the Black beans mixed together so we did the same. They are very effective I think!

The knitted Halloween toys that I had ordered from EBay arrived today! A very exciting moment for the boys as they ripped open the package and pulled them all out!! They gathered up the Gourds which we bought yesterday from a local florist and then hunted the playroom for snakes, spiders and other fun Halloweeny items!!< This is proving to be a very enjoyable sensory tub!

 

Happy Halloween everyone!! hope it's a fun one!

DISCOVERING HIBERNATION

Unfortunately that's not me curling up and sleeping for months!!
The children and I are looking at how the animals around us are reacting to the changing season. The squirrels are busy collecting nuts ready for the winter,  the hedgehogs are getting sleepy and so are the bears...... although we don't have many of them in the UK lol!!

 

I made a sensory tray for the little ones to play with. we filled it with Autumnal fabric, little fabric leaves, conkers, acorns, pine cones and hazelnuts! I found a little bear, a squirrel and a hedgehog and added them to the newly created habitat! I used a nice carved piece of wood that I have, as a tree.

 

It was so sweet to watch the children gathering nuts for the squirrel and putting the in the tree. The bear liked to hide in the little cave house. This was actually something the hedgehog came in but the children decided it was far more suitable for a bear!

I can see this being enjoyed for quite a while!

OUR FIRST ATTEMPT AT WET ON WET PAINTING

After stocking up on the basics I have been meaning to introduce my boys to a bit of Waldorf inspired painting.
I bought some really good quality resources. Stockmar watercolours, strong watercolour paper and some decent paint brushes. I saved up some jam jars and today we gave it a whirl!

I can see why the stockmar paints are recommended. They go so far and the colours are so vibrant!! We really have no idea if there are specific ways of doing this style of wet on wet, but after reading a couple of tutorials and watching some videos on YouTube I thought we couldn't go far wrong!

Would love some advice from the more knowledgeable of you out there!! Anyway... these are our attempts from today!

The really nice thing about or time painting, was how calm and relaxed the boys became. They both commented on how peaceful everything was and how nice it was to be painting and quiet! they are very keen to do more of this painting which was lovely to hear!

CELIBRATING HARVEST FESTIVAL!!

This week both the boys had a FANTASTIC homework assignment! To create people or animals out of fruit and veg for today's school Harvest Festival Assembly.
I thought I would just share with you some pictures! I don't think words are needed to see how much fun they had and how cute the finished items were!!

So much fun.... and they kept trying to eat them as they were being made!