Hurstmonceux Observatory.

I am truly sorry that I cannot blog more in the hols, however this was a day out early on in the break....

Although this was not actually on our list of places to visit this holiday when it was suggested by O and I looked it up it seemed ideal....educational, fun and not too expensive at only £25 for a family of 4.

So off we went.....they had loads of small activities all along a large corridor that taught you about different aspects of science and the world. 

Here the boys are trying to build shapes other than pyramids to see how easily crystals are formed...

Here is the Diva learning a bit about each of the different planets....I had to do a lot of the reading for her but she managed to pick out a few words.

Outside was just as fun and interactive...this is the playground where the children can find out how to space bells apart so that they ring at an even time when the ball goes down the slope...

Making a 'rope' out of metal by twisting it up.

Making noise down this huge pipe and it echoes back to you!

And there were so many other outside bits including an interactive water feature or two.

Back inside and they found out about how buildings collapse in an earthquake.

Then into the light and colour section to find out about how the 'lightening'follows your hand around on the board....

and this globe....

and how the colours join and can be made into white light again too....

Again another fantastic day out with lots to keep them busy and fun things to learn about.

hairband lollies

When I was last in the garden center I found these...

They are great! What a novel idea ( that I may have to steal!) and a great way to give a child more hairbands in the colours of their school! I feel some of these coming on for Christmas presents. My nieces uniform is purple too!!!! So easy to make...I hope....a lolly stick and cardboard circle and tie bands around it! Cover is film. 

Sunflowers

A is growing a sunflower from his Beavers group....They have a competition going to see whose sunflower grows the biggest over the summer.....as you can see ours is pretty big but not yet in flower....I will have to take a photo of A under it when it is fully open and measure it too.

This is another fun thing to do over the break as it does not require much to set up but is something they have to rememeber to take care of everyday.

Hastings!

Well, you can tell the holidays are in full swing as I have not been able to keep up regular postings.....apologies for the next 6 weeks....posts will be fairly erratic but should be back on track by September!

We decided that in the first week of the break we would take a trip to the coast and stay with my mum. This gives both me and the kids a bit of a chance to relax and enjoy different surroundings (and being cooked for!!!) The weather was not that great but we still managed a few trips to the beach and a trip to Hastings to visit the smugglers caves.I have always heard of these but never actually been there so it was new for all of us. The kids really enjoyed it, although the Diva was pretty scared as we went further and further down into the dark depths!

She and her brothers all enjoyed the beach afterwards though....

The tide was on the way in but they still had fun on a few rocks in the shallow waters...

At least I knew if worst came to the worst I could get wet and fetch them all out very easily!

It was lovely to get away and we managed to do a couple of the things that were on our list of things to do this summer!

We spent a lot of time collecting stones as well....naughty but in the end I only actually let them each bring 3 home! However, if they found pretty shells these we could bring home. I was on a mission looking for stones with holes to tie together once we got home....something I will now have to get on with or they will end up in the garden!

The first week was a great success and I hope the rest of the break is as fun.

Veggie patch update

I have not had a photo of the veggie patch in a while, so here goes....

That is one of the three beds I have on the go....It has a large currant bush, a small blueberry plant in a pot, loads of Borage and some onions. A rather random grouping but they all seem to have come on ok. The other beds have a load of peas and runner beans as well as more onions in them!

When we had our garden redone a couple of years ago I decided to divide a huge fushia that we had....I really had no idea of what I was doing and just hacked away and got 3 plants from it that are all thriving. Goes to show it is always worth having a go!

Nectarines!!!!!

We have now been in our house for 7 years and this is the first year that our nectarine tree has fruited! Granted it does not have a huge amount of fruit (8 total!) but wow! It must be because it has been so warm this year early on.

They taste ok too! The plums are not that great this year though, two of our trees have no fruit at all. However, last year they were so heavy with fruit that one of the branches actually broke off! I think I have heard somewhere that every other year they are supposed to be good. The crab apple tree which is right next to the nectarines has loads of fruit as always but has some kind of disease....

Quite a lot of the branches are dying at the ends....I think I may have to do a drastic cut in the next couple of weeks and see how it fares next year before deciding if it is too old or anything.

50th school anniverary

It has been 50 years since the childrens school opened its doors and what a celebration they had!!!

First off, all the ex-teachers,  heads and governors were invited to a show in the afternoon....the current head teacher gave a rather long speech about when the school opened and its history and achievements.  It was a very hot day so all the kids were very well behaved sitting in the scorching sun for an hour and a bit!

Year 4, of which my eldest O is part of put on a display of through the decades clothing and telling us what important events happened in their decade. Amazingly they even got my son to sing in front of everyone into a mic!!!!!! How impressed was I????

The celebrations went on into the evening and as you can see the Diva was having a lovely time with her friend....My lot are normally upstairs in bed by 7pm, but we actually stayed out with them till 10pm!!!! They were a little tired but thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

There was a live band, a magic show and lots of free kids entertainment throughout the evening.

Again year 4 were brilliant....they decided to get the spare cardboard and shared it out and spent a good 3 hours sliding down the banks that are normally out of bounds.....even some of the teachers had a go...and the head teacher was watching and said it was nice to see them inventing fun games and not stuck in front of a screen! The grass will grow back!

This was such a fun occasion, enjoyed by so many families. I do hope they do it again.

Holidays!!!

EEEkkkkkkkkkk!!!!!!!

5 more days of school to go! (one weekend in there too!)

The kids are very happy to be finishing for the summer next Tuesday, and with a bit of luck the forecast will be good for wednesday onwards so that I can take the kids to stay at my mums for a few nights. This has become a little bit of a tradition now, for the last 3 years I have taken the kids to stay by the seaside at my Mums for 2 or 3 nights at the beginning of the summer break. It is something that we look forward to and really makes it feel like we are on holiday. My other half does not come as he still works and has a bit of time off later in the holidays.

We have started a small list of things we want to do this holiday!

1- Go to London Zoo...I have never been either!!!!

2-Visit Bentley Wild Fowl

3- Visit Hastings Caves.

4- Get the train to Brighton and people spot.

5- Go to the beach

6- £1 cinema

7- See the Minion movie

8- Go to Washbrooks farm

9- Junk Modelling

10- go to the library

11- learn how to cook something

12- Mummys Mad Monday!!!

13- Go on our holiday to Wales. ( again I have never been!)

14- go to various parks

15- Go to Airbourne show

16- see cousins

17- Take a picnic and walk along the Cuckmere river

18- go to a national trust place

19- visit a castle

20- do some learning!!!????The kids did actually come up with this one!

I am going to buy a small sketch book for each of them and we are going to do a holiday diary. The books only have 40 pages so it is a page a day, and they can write a bit, stick photos or tickets in it too.Hopefully they will enjoy doing this too and can take it into school in September to show their new teachers. 

PARTY!

Sorry to be posting more about her party but it was such fun and we did so much.

At the Divas 5th birthday we had 7 of her friends around to our house....I tend to do this as you can land up paying an absolute fortune to hire a hall and entertainment.

As you can see they seemed to enjoy it...

This is her about to blow out the candle on her rainbow butterfly birthday cake....

the crepe streamers went on for miles.....

and miles......and I still have half a roll of each colour left over! The rainbow butterflies also spread out quite nicely....when we take them down in a couple of days I am planning on getting the Diva to write her thankyou letters on them too so double use!

And a very tired husband and cat...

and again the main party room where I did all the games. We played Musical statues, musical bumps, pass the parcel, we sang the Hokey cokey and Heads Shoulders Knees and Toes too. Then they iced some butterfly biscuits that I had made....so we kept it quite traditional.

Rainbow bunting

Carrying on with the party.....I made some card rainbow bunting. It was only £3.99 for a pack of 50 A4 sheets of coloured card so we made bunting and some butterflies too....

For the bunting I cut out diamonds by folding the card in half and cutting a triangle.....

These were then glued onto a piece of florists ribbon......

And you can just about see the bunting in the window and then there was enough that it trailed all around the other side of the room too....

You can also see some of the butterflies that we made out of the same card on the wall....

and my all time favourite crepe garlands.....cheap and very cheerful.

We also had enough butterflies to go on the window around the doors in the family room at the back of the house.

Butterfly Birthday Cake

It was the Divas birthday earlier this week and we had her party on Sunday. She had decided that her theme was going to be butterflies and rainbows with maybe a bit of Olaf from Frozen too!!!! What a theme!

I decided that I would do a simple chocolate maderia cake in a round tin. I must admit I went a bit overboard and borrowed a professional 12" round tin from a baker friend....it was HUGE! 

So you bake the cake then when it has cooled down.......and this takes forever for such a large cake....you cut it in half.

I did not have a cake board that big so you will have to excuse the red spotty tray....then you cut out largish triangles on either side....this makes the wings nice and simply.

Then go with all that icing!  I cheated here and used a Betty Crocker pack of frosting.....I used the whole carton and it covered the top....

so as you can see I left the sides with no icing. I don't think that this detracted from anything though so it worked well.

I brought 3 packets of the crispy M&Ms which are the ones that come in the blue packets. They were down to £1 in Sainsburys last week....I don;t really like the chocolate ones and you should NEVER put nuts in or on a cake that is for lots of kids unless you are 100% sure there are no allergies.

The Diva helped with sorting all the M&Ms into colours for me to put onto the cake...then we found a 5 candle and one of her Olaf toys to put in front!

Hey Presto.....a rainbow, butterfly ,Olaf cake!

Teacher gifts

I decided to make some different teacher gifts this year! Wine glasses....at 88p each glass, it makes for a cheap gift. I just used my vitrea 160 paints and did some bunches of flowers...

and a glass for teachers inspiration!

So far, I have had an order for one of each and have just advertised it on my facebook page too so hopefully may get a few more orders in before the end of term....if I don't though the kids will be taking them in to give to their own teachers and TAs in a couple of weeks time.

Friends

Just had a few friends from the year 4 crowd over for a coffee, it is so nice to have a coffee and catch up every so often. One of the dear girls brought me a lovely tin pot of carnations!....

So pretty! I was in a mad rush last night as I suddenly realised that I had tea and coffee to offer but no biscuits or cake. So,I got out my Mother-in -laws Chocolate Crunch recipe and quickly baked some which went down really well. The kids are going to be watching a sex education dvd in a couple of weeks time and that was one of the major topics of conversation....a lot of us mums are going to be going in to see it on the Monday so that we know what they have seen.

We also came to a general consensus that in this country we are so privileged to not have to pay for our children's fantastic schooling or healthcare.....it is something that we do forget every so often and need reminding of.

Beavers

Last week at Beavers, we went to Blacklands Farm, which do a lot of activities for cubs/guides/ school etc. We were doing the low ropes! What fun we had....

Basically all the ropes are no higher than 50cm off the ground so you are not likely to break anything should you fall!

Was great for getting rid of all the excess energy boys have and the really enjoyed themselves to boot.

My eldest son,O, did not want me to get any photos of him....but I managed to sneak one or two...

The Diva was suffering with a temperature under a blanket on the side. I had  given her some medicine and told her to stay under the blanket while we did this....I figured the fresh air would probably benefit her. She was off school the next day as it was still high but by supper-time it was back down to normal

We love the summer months before they break up! Apart from Hayfever which the while family gets, we do lots of outdoor activities.

First fair of the year!

I was due to do a local school fair on Saturday, as you can see when I laid all my bits out on Thursday it still needed a lot of things making!

All was well by Saturday though and this is my stall.

We were put in a carpark area which was a veritable sun trap! With no cover I was sweltering...it is no wonder I generally do not do summer fairs! People paseed through the carpark on their way in and out of the fair but overall did not actual stop to look at the stalls so it was a bit of a waste of time too. However, this was VERY local, being around the corner from where I live and was only £10 ( which I did make back!) so was worth a try.

I think I may give them one more go if they do a Christmas fair and it is all inside! Depending on the dates obviously.