Book Trail

I've just started this fabulous book by Jane Brocket and it revokes some lovely memories of books I read as a child. The books aim is to recreate all the food eaten in different childrens novels. I think this is a really great idea to provide recipes the characters in the book actually ate. The book has snippets of the stories accompanied by drawings from the books.

My aim is for Corey and myself to go on a book trail.

So first up we will be reading 'The Rilloby Fair Mystery' by Enid Blyton and then we will be making good old fashioned porridge. I bought the 'Rilloby Fair' book off Ebay and I've read the first chapter to Corey and he certainly seems intrigued at the moment. More photos and posts to follow.....

A teary moment

It's back to school on Monday for Corey and I have mixed feelings on this. I know many mums will be leaping for joy but on the flip side of the coin I know many mums will be feeling like me. Whilst it has been hard work constantly entertaining a six year old and looking after a baby over these past 7 weeks, I know the house will be really quiet on Monday and I can't help feeling tinged with sadness when I realise that it is another year over. My baby is yet another year older.

I started to read this book by Fiona Neill entitled ' The Secret Life of a Slummy Mummy' and immediately I felt I could relate to her, so I thought I would write up a quick blog post on it. The first chapter had me reaching for the tissues as Fiona Neill writes about entering her sons room and finds them sleeping - a moment of stillness where she can observe the exact tilt of their nose or position of a freckle. She reaches for one of her sons hands and it instantly curls around her own, transporting her back to the first moment they were born and they done this and a surge of maternal love spilled over. She ponders that her 9 year old is already too big to sit on her lap and in a few years he will be lost to her completely. It prompted me to wonder how many other parents feel a surge of protective instinct and for their children at the start of a new term? And does it cause you to look back on how quickly the years go? It's quite scary.

I hope Corey really enjoys his new class and teacher on Monday but until then I will wait with baited breath...... If he's happy, I'm happy.

And whilst Corey thinks about going back to school on Monday - Bailey looks on - check my blog for updates in the coming weeks as we start to look at some of the best activities to keep babies interested.

Alex Toys e-i-e-i dough

Unfortunately due to the bad weather we have been unable to go visit the farm to see Old McDonald but we had the very next best thing with this fantastic kit from Alex Toys. E-i-e-i dough is appealing to children from the minute they view the box with the bright colours and playful looking characters adorning the cover. Often however, things look better on the cover than they actually do in real life. So did this kit live up to our expectations?



Upon opening the box, the visual array of colours is very tempting and immediately the scent of the dough hit our noses. It smells very much like 'Play-doh' and has the same high quality as play-doh has. Often in kits you will find that cheap substitute doughs tend to have nasty odours and stain the carpet. Not these however, Corey and myself must have spent at least a few minutes inhaling the wonderful smell. The fragrance of the dough brought back fond childhood memories of crafty days indoors spent with my own parents. So we established that the dough was a very high standard very quickly.




Next, we have two lovely sheets of bright and cheery push out character shapes. Legs, heads and bright coloured feathers emblazon the sheet and Corey sets about pushing the shapes out. This he does with ease - unlike cheap quality die cuts where the shape always ends up getting ripped, these popped out with ease.



Eager to get started Corey then rolls a red shaped ball and sticks in the dogs feet, head and tails. I was dubious whether the legs would be strong enough to support heavy dough, but the quality of the card really shines through as the dog is able to stand upright with no support and Corey could then enjoy playing with him like a little toy.

Corey's really pleased with his little dog, but being a typical boy he found it highly amusing to form poo out of the dough to make his dog 'naughty.' On the same note, that really is the beauty of this kit as apart from using the stick in characters, the brightly coloured dough can be used to make various other projects.

Cock-a-doodle doooo!

Moooooooo!

Baaaaaa!!!


And so, as you can see there was lots of fun to be had down at the farm, we still have a few characters left to make so there's definitely hours of fun provided with this kit.

Once again Alex Toys comes highly recommended by us!!!!!!!

Overall rating 9/10


Kit available from www.cuckoo.ltd.uk

Alex Toys Paper Plate Bugs

Still on the nature theme, we were lucky enough to get our hands on this fantastic kit. I believe it retails at £14.99 and is worth every penny. This provided about a week of fun for my little boy. I was amazed at the range of craft items included and the quality of them was way above average!

Here's the pics of the fun he had......................




Here's the individual bug kits laid out on the table. All very tempting, Corey couldn't wait to make them. I loved the fact that they were all individually bagged up as it meant we didn't have to spend ages searching for bits and everything remained very organised.


The first kit we tried was the bumble bee:


Here's Corey having fun cutting and sticking:


He even gets me involved.....


It was a really enjoyable activity that we could do together!
And look how pleased Corey was with his first make!!


Next we attempt the pretty butterfly. Here's the packet containing the goodies:
What I loved about this kit was that the instructions were so easy to understand that Corey had no problem following them without any help.


This is the butterfly which required gluing, taping, sticking on stickers and our next step is to scrunch up the crepe paper and stick on.

It's finished - and doesn't it look impressive.

And here's the rest of the makes:


Anyone like spiders? I like this one!


My verdict: After spending many pounds and hours of my time searching out and buying craft supplies to complete craft projects from books, this kit has to be a dream come true. It provided a variety of quality materials and called for different crafting techniques in each project so children will never get bored. My son even named all the characters and they now have pride of place in my living room. I am now officially in love with Alex Toys craft kits.

Star rating 10/10

Kit available from www.cuckoo.ltd.uk

John Adams Nature Box

The kit we have been enjoying this week is the 'John Adams Nature Box'. I think it is fantastic value, retailing at £5.40 it provided us with many hours of fun together. If I were to buy all the individual craft items separately it would have cost me so much more than £5.40. The wonderful thing about this kit is that since we have made it, we have had people come in to the house and comment how pretty it is. It really is an interesting looking feature to hold pens and pencils.

Day 1 of making the kit - Corey asked Auntie Ruth to help make the box whilst I amused Bailey. First of all Corey had to assemble the card pieces to make up the box shape. Then the base needed to be painted green. Corey then had to stick lollipop sticks all the way around the box.Is this OK Mum?

Next, the grass needs to be stuck on around the base.Then on go the flowers, some were die cuts which just needed to be pushed out and stuck on to the box with glue and others were fabric flowers which needed to be glued on.Da-da!! This is our completed piece. We pushed the butterflies out and bent them in such a way that made their wings look so very delicate and poised. We made out a sign out of paper and attached it with some pegs and string - like a little washing line. And finally we made a caterpillar, spider and ladybird out of fimo clay which needed to be baked in the oven.

How much do we rate this kit? 8/10

A really enjoyable activity that gives stunning results. In fact I think our box looked even nicer than what the cover of the kit shows. And that doesn't happen very often. Would recommend this kit to everyone with kids.