We collected a lot of toilet paper rolls and were not sure what to do with them… eventually I suggested some sort of temporary mobile for the baban-brother-to-be. Lo drew 5 snowmen, helped to wrap gold around the cardboard rolls and we taped it all together. It’s fallen apart 2 times so far so I suspect it won’t be around when baby gets here.

It’s that Chrimbo limbo time, the presents are all open, but we still have family to visit, leaving on the train tomorrow for three and a half hours of quality time together, people watching, pulling faces at other peoples too loud phone conversations, doing puzzles, reading stories to whoever has to sit by us, and wondering if we can afford a something from the trolley.  Cherries picked from the 'whoops' selection in Asda's need eating and G suggests a chocolate cherry bun recipe, as she particularly enjoys de-stoning three or four and then leaves the rest for me.  We decided to make them look like Christmas puddings by turning them upside down and icing them with a thick blob of white icing green glitter icing holly leaves, and berry sugar balls. G did a lot of it herself, I was chief get the eggshell out of the mixture monitor, and do the final stirring when arms get tired and fancy pogoing around the house on the new bungee bouncer that Father Christmas supplied. This is fitting as on the actual Christmas day, me and G served the pudding and custard by that very transportation method of pogoing it from the kitchen to the living room to our assorted diners. Possibly that cherry beer had affected me a little more than I had thought at the time......but it was G's suggestion, and we are a team.

Eilir has never had a proper Christmas stocking. In our household we've always used pillow cases, so when I suggested that we make one, Eilir was over the moon. On Christmas Eve we still hadn't started, but the sewing machine was still set up from the sock monsters and I thought it wouldn't take us too long (that was a mistake!). We chalked out a stocking shape on an old green sheet folded in two and cut it out. I got out lots of bits of material (cut-offs from curtains etc), and suggested different ways we could decorate the stocking, including cutting out letters to make words that we could sew on applique style. Again Eilir had his own ideas, deciding he wanted stripes of different materials the length of the stocking and a length of red fun-fur at the top (left over from an old carnival costume of his). Eillir arranged the stripes and I tacked them on while we watched Matilda on the telly.

We then went back to our team approach to the machine work, Eilir on peddle and me on guiding and calling out commands like "Put your foot down", "Step on it" and "STOP". Eilir was getting really into using the machine and taking a great interest in how it worked, he loved it when we had to refill the bobbin - "Wow! That's really cool!" By this time it was getting very late (and me a little worried - I hadn't even started wrapping any presents...!), so Eilir got ready for bed while I persevered in finishing it off. It was eventually done at 10.30pm, Eilir took it upstairs and promptly fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

The excitement in the lead up to Christmas is getting unbearable.... tears and tantrums everywhere. To occupy Eilir, I suggested that we make sock monsters. Eilir has been wanted to do this for ages, having seen the instructions in a magazine, but we hadn't yet got round to it. I selected a long stripy sock of mine that had lost its pair, but Eilir wasn't impressed ("too stripy"). He went off to his own sock draw and picked out a really scraggy pair of aquamarine coloured socks that had seen better days. I got Eilir to chalk the outlines of where we needed to cut out, and then I did the cutting because all the sharp scissors had disappeared, leaving us with a fairly blunt pair. I set up the sewing machine and demonstrated how to guide the material through. Eilir had a go, but was not keen to continue, and suggested that it would be better if I did the guiding while he controlled the foot pedal. As we were sewing Eilir got very concerned about my fingers saying "You're terrifying me!", but once he got the hang of easing the pressure on the pedal so that the needle worked slowly he was much less worried about the danger of sewing my fingers!

We stuffed our socks with cotton wool, pushing it in with our bamboo skewers for the fiddly bits (like the arms). Eilir's arms were made from the other sock in the pair, while mine were made from the fingers of my gloves, which were riddled with holes anyway (I hoped Santa had picked up on my many hints for new ones!). Next came buttons for eyes. Eilir rummaged around, and decided that buttons of similar size were more important that matching colours. In the end he found a nice brown pair that he was satisfied with. I made lots of suggestions for what he could do for the mouth, including a line of beads, but Eilir opted to use some t-shirt pens we have to draw one on. He first had a go on a piece of paper, and announced that he was "taking a risk", before drawing on his mouth. All this activity was accompanied by a soundtrack of Eilir singing festive and made up songs. Eilir was a bit concerned that the sock monsters weren't 'Christmassy' enough for the blog, so we used some mini bobble hats that were decorating the tree to finish them off.

Christmas Eve, and a pleasant day spent visiting friends.  Happy in the knowledge that we had found the ripe plantain for the Christmas breakfast, and that the peas were slow cooking themselves for the rice and peas as we went about our business, we could relax.  G announced that she would be leaving sustenance out for Father Christmas and his reindeer, in the shape of biscuits. 'Not the spoon it out kind, the kind you can cut out'. I began to look out for cutters of a vaguely Christmas theme, however, G said she wanted stockings and Christmas trees, and she would be cutting them out with a knife. We both made a mix simultaneously in our separate bowls, mine was too wet and surely of the spoon it out variety.  In fact it was pronounced that I had made buns. We began to pay a bit more attention to G's and she triumphantly managed to turn out a soft dough onto a heavily, maybe some would venture a little too heavily floured table.  Despite the fact that we were working in conditions where health and safety would demand some kind of mask, we managed to see enough through the billowing clouds of flour to pat out the dough and G set to work cutting her shapes.  She actually did really well, cutting stockings, crescent moons, stars and Christmas trees, as well our favourite, snowmen, which we said we would ice white. However when they came out of the oven, we found we either could not be bothered to get the icing out, or as G said 'we want them to be healthy don't we, for the reindeers? Concern for the hardworking reindeers' dental hygiene demanded we leave them exactly as they are..........

We watched Mister Maker and he was using my most favourite material of all (apart from hessian), masking tape! Anyhow, highly influenced by him, the boys (at just about bedtime) got excited about doing a painting using tape.  Lo wanted pink and red and Rohan opted for blue and yellow. After the work dried, Rohan did not want to take the masking tape off so, that aspect of the Mister Maker-inspired-thing was defeated.  Nevertheless it was work that they unanimously agreed ought to be featured on the BLOG.

Okay, I’ve postponed it for long enough. Christmas is officially around the corner. Advent calendar down to one more door to open and we have to fulfil Lo’s request from the very start of this project, to make snowflakes.

I’m not in a very good mood at the moment and finding this process slightly frustrating. I ended-up folding the paper and cutting out the shapes (because the folded paper was a bit too dense for little hands to manage effective cutting), while Lo diligently folded paper into a miniature hat and coloured it in and Rohan took turns with me to use the scissors. He cut straight lines out of another piece of paper and then stuck tape onto it.

I suggested that we paint the patterns onto black paper using the snowflakes as templates. With my weary eyes and aching ribs we resorted to just gluing the shapes onto the paper. Logaan said “I just want to do it the quick way.” Fully agreed!

Rohan was my star at gluing and sticking the patterns on. He loves to sing while he works. Glue finished now. Lo arranged them in the order to be hung. Not such a bad day after all.

In the absence of real snow, a 3d snow star was piled up with polystyrene packing pieces. Other projects were a giant Santa's beard, a snow man, and a Christmas tree.  This was our favourite, but there could be more to come......

This year's Christmas project is Christmas hats to wear when we have Christmas dinner, as the cracker ones always tears.


This is the boy's favourite project, because it involves glue and cutting paper, generally making a mess.

I must say anything goes with these hats, there are some fabulous psychedelic Rudolph's and Santa Claus from Luke, and girly pompoms from me of course.

We will be all wearing all our finery come Christmas lunch with pride, as Sebastian is demonstrating.

Merry Christmas. xx

On the tenth day - return of the hazel

Back in day three we went looking for a nice piece of hazel for Eilir's shepherd's staff and we saved the remaining piece to make a traditional Christmas decoration for Eilir's bedroom.

During the day yesterday we made a few things to adorn it, including pomanders like Steph and G made in their first day, inspired by a load of reduced to clear oranges in the shop (24p for a bag-full - bargain!). Ours are a mixture of designs, including names, faces, and spirals. Eilir liked doing these, particularly making all the holes with our trusty barbecue skewers (we seem to be using these a lot lately) and ran upstairs to his older brother (Tathan) calling "Smell my hands", to which he suspiciously replied "Why?", and got the response "They smell Christmassy!" Didn't take any photos of this making process, my phone had suffered enough the day before with the icing - I thought it best not to cover it in sticky orange juice and cloves too!

We also collected up silver cake cases that Eilir's brother (Fred) had amassed (he's a cherry bakewell addict), and again poked holes in them with our skewers and threaded old laces through them, making knots in the lace in-between them to space them out. Eilir grabbed one of these and did an impromptu song and dance while shaking it "Ding-a ling-a-ling, ding-a-ling-a-ling, clychau Santa Claus. Ding-a-ling-a-ling, ding-a-ling-a-ling, yn canu yn y nos" (rough translation: Santa Claus' bells, ringing in the night). For the final touches we added some decorations Eilir had made in school.

Eilir was very excited on re-entering the room when he realised it made his room smell festive, Fred (who he shares with) was less than impressed though, "It stinks!" The next morning the branches were overhanging the bed - the load had got too much. Eilir liked the effect and wanted a photo of it with him in bed. We've managed to anchor it now so that it's upright once more, it should still be in place when Santa comes a calling (fingers crossed).

We liked the idea of taking pictures of different parts of the Christmas tree and then making a collage of the images. The initial plan was for Lo to take six photos and Rohan to take six as well. The digital camera was on a strange setting that made it hard to not get a blurred image and our front room with curtains pulled open and all the lights on is still as dark as a cave, so, that didn’t help the camera action either.


Rohan delighted us with his rendition of ‘horsie- horsie’ while rocking on his rocking horse. Logaan took some great images and Rohan wanted me to take photos for him. He only requested one specific part of the tree from where hung his special decoration from Grammy. She gives them one every year.

Day 1 was the making


Day 2 was the destroying

My personal favourite, though have to say, not too much collaboration with Mati on this one.

She wasn't really into the papier maché which I thought she would be.


The idea was that she was going to paint the snowman piñata, but there just wasn't time before the party, so he was an 'au naturel' snowman...might actually prefer him like that...

I really enjoyed this one - and will be thinking of more piñata ideas - shapes, etc


but I suppose, I did the construction, the boys and girls did the destroying...it went down well, especially the contents


next time need to make it more in advance - drying takes quite a while, it's been about 25/30 years since my last papier maché attempt...

Party Day: Annual Miles mayhem Christmas party for cousins and best mates...

Hat making


I cut out some card, gold and silver and the children decorated their own with Christmas and other colourful stickers...


I didn't get a photo of the best one unfortunately, and by the time I got around to taking photos, hats had been left here, there and everywhere.


A good party ice breaker for the start of the party, the kids could put all their shyness into stickers...

One of the most important dates in December: The day we get the Christmas tree out, it means the Christmas period has started in our household and the countdown until the big man arrives has started.


Great excitement in our house and anything goes. As I decorate the room, the boys attend to the tree at least three times we have to take the decors down because we have forgotten the tinsel or we need space for baubles. Deep breaths, it is only once a year!!!!!

Amongst the fine glittering decorations are the most highly treasured decorations, the handmade ones.

Of course the true highlight of the whole experience is the ceremonial turning on the lights, and deciding on the light sequence. Cheers and applause abound, no celebrities required, we have our own little stars.

Back to cakes! My mum is a big Christmas food traditionalist and spends most of November preparing mince pies, Christmas puddings, and Christmas cakes. We were lucky enough to receive one this year, and all we needed to do is decorate it. I wasn't feeling too well today though (running nose, sneezing, sore throat, etc etc), but had promised to do this after work. The greedy vultures had been closing in, but I'd said categorically that no cake was being eaten until the decorating had been done (so extra pressure there).

I cheated a little by buying ready-made coloured icing that looks and behaves a lot like playdough. I also had some writing icing in the cupboard from previous bakings. Eilir had already had the idea that he wanted Father Christmas and a 'carw' (reindeer) to feature. I started with Santa, and then realised that I didn't have any pink 'playdough' icing - so plumped for a 'Simpsons' yellow face instead. Eilir made his carw and I suggested breaking up some bamboo barbecue skewers to reinforce the antlers. I started the snowman, again in yellow, as Eilir commented "Like someone wee'd on it" (boys and their toilet humour....). Eilir then took over, making a scarf, hat, eyes, etc. He again used bits of skewers for the arms, but was a bit concerned that someone might try to eat them. Last came the sleigh covered in presents, this started with each of us making individual presents, then Eilir suggested that he should make the squares and I should decorate them. As we were doing this he mused "We're like a factory, a house factory. We're elves, cake elves". The last parcel was made by Eilir and decorated with silver balls - this was to be HIS present.

We had a bit of help with this one - thanks to Roath Park rangers who organise this event as a fundraiser every year.  Eilir and I went along to Roath Park and had the choice of creating either our own wreath, yule log, or table decoration.  I wanted a log, Eilir wanted a table decoration (I think he fancied the look of the oasis), so we ended up with one of each.  Despite starting on separate projects, it very quickly turned into one shared project.  We collected bits of fern, fir, holly, pine cones etc and started to randomly arrange them around a candle by pushing the bits of plants into the flower arranging oasis.  Eilir was soon finished with this task and wanted me to finish it, as my yule log making (which required attaching the different foliage with metal staples and a hammer) looked much more fun.  I'd try to start it off, getting the staple in place, then Eilir would hammer it fully in.  He soon became expert, complaining if I hadn't set it up properly "You've hammered into the plant, not the wood - I can tell".  His enthusiastic hammering produced some squished holly berries and a lot of smiles.

On the seventh day I suggested to Eilir that I demonstrate the 'ancient art' of potato printing for the purpose of making our own homemade wrapping paper.  This age-old tradition (I explained) is what I used to do in school in the days before mass-produced, ready-shaped, painting sponges.  I think he thought I'd gone mad when I brought out the potatoes and started cutting them in half!  I kicked things off by cutting out a star shape, Eilir then had a go at scoring out a Christmas tree shape and a holly leaf shape.  After letting him loose on the knife for a short while, I then took over the fiddly bits in order to prevent bloodshed.  I made a little berry shape to go with the holly, which Eilir was unsatisfied with, so he produced a double berry design of his own that worked much better.  Eilir was in competitive spirits and wanted to better any design I created, so after I printed a bunched holly design, he printed a wreath shape using the holly spud print and announced "Definitely better - a whole circle".  He also played with different effects - dragging the star spud across the page saying "Look! It's a shooting star!"  Great fun and very messy.  We hung the sheets up to dry, and were able to use them for wrapping presents that we delivered on Sunday - Eilir was very proud.

Eilir is going through an intense drawing phase.  He is constantly scribbling something, but his favourite subject at the moment is 'Moshi Monster' characters.  A number of his best friends are similarly obsessed with these and other characters, so we thought we might make Christmas cards for them that featured their favourite characters in Christmas scenes.  My input in this was minimal, really.  I made the cards themselves - by papering over odd leftover cards from previous years (with Eilir doing the gluing) and prompting Eilir regarding spellings etc.  He started by drawing some 'Pokemon' balls for Joel, and put them in a snow scene.  He then suggested that Eve likes 'Odi' (a Moshi Monster), so again Odi was put in the snow (there's a theme developing....).  Eilir was particularly proud of his stylized snowflakes, which ended up appearing on each card.  For Iago he drew 'Iggy' and told me that he always bounces, so he drew snow being dislodged where he'd 'knocked it out of the way' jumping.  Eilir's greetings inside demonstrated his tendency to code-switch/code-mix at the moment, so some started 'To' but ended 'oddi wrth', others opened 'I' and concluded with 'from'.

We made Christmas stockings out of brown paper. Rohan did the first one, then Logaan and by the third I had to actually ask/beg Lo for help on getting it to look finished. They were quite time-consuming, but fun to fill with bits and bobs!

It's a paper maché polar bear standing on a pizza base ice berg, with its cub. I love the way G painted the 2D cub looking up at the 3D mum. I had gone out of the room to put something in the sink, I didn't even know we were painting stuff on the iceberg, I just put it there to give the wobbly bear a bit of stability. Mini jaffa cake packaging made the initial structure, actually we were trying to make a reindeer inspired by a muddy deer hunting trek in Margam Park, but it just began to look like a polar bear so we went with it...

Party time in our house, friends coming round, big tradition of homemade games going back certainly 3 generations that I know of. My Nanna being an expert at circle games, although the prizes were a bit different in those days, I remember handkerchiefs with nursery rhymes on or your initial embroidered in the corner, hey, sometimes it was someone else's initial, but somehow just as coveted, and brown plastic combs, or murray mints, and once I won a tiny bottle of bubble-bath, I was on cloud nine. Anyway, although G never had the joy to meet this pocket wonder of a Nanna, she has fully imbibed the ethos of cutting up that cereal box and making a party game. I was simply the provider of scissors, water, brushes and getting the paint down from the shelf, I was beginning to feel a bit left out when I got offered to do some of the background, and was asked a little bit of advice about the boots. I am proud to say I also cut the mouth bit out of the beard. The rest from sketching out to painting, cutting out and checking it worked was all down to G, another pocket wonder I should say. A pin the tail on the donkey style game, but it is pin the 6 different features on the Father Christmas. Blu tak on the back of each feature, a scarf to gently blindfold your competitors, and optional spinning of course...

This weekend we put up our Christmas tree and decorated it. Eilir wanted to decorate the room too (something I don't normally do much of because our living room is pretty colourful as it is), he also wanted to learn how to make chains of paper people - so I thought we could combine the two using newspaper (the black/white/grey would be a contrast to our shocking pink walls).

I first showed Eilir how a standard 'stick man' chain is made, folding the newspaper, drawing the design and then cutting out. Eilir then drew his own design with spiky hair that worked really well - on each he drew a different face, some with 'sticking out tongues'. Depending on how well we did the folding we'd get the occasional off one with bits missing, like one mysteriously was missing a head 'maybe he had a skiing accident...?' We then tried different Christmas themed shapes, like a snowman that Eilir drew - I did the cutting out while Eilir provided commentary 'Is it hard [cutting out the scarf], is it worth it...?' He then asked if he could do ‘corachod' (Welsh for elves), and proceeded to draw a practice elf. He commented 'Do you know what I think will be the hardest part? The curly shoes', and he was right - they were a devil to cut out (but definitely worth it)! We finished off with some weird and wonderful ones, including some fat birds (mine) and a man wearing a snowman suit (Eilir's).

Rohan is a king/wise man in his Cylch Meithrin Nativity play. Drawing, cutting, measuring, tracing, gluing, taping, neatening and more measuring. He started to cry when we started gluing gold paper to Logaan’s crown. He said: “don’t do Logaan’s Mummy, do mine.”

They were really good at cutting, taping and gluing and gave the tracing outline a good go! (Lots of practice with that using feet, hands and soft toys as templates). Rohan also said that it was a bit tight. It’s okay when his hair goes through the top.

Wanted to take a picture of him in his costume with the gold crown we made. Logaan is wearing his and completing a 100piece dinosaur jigsaw. Rohan refused, preferring instead to run around in a vest and nappies. His little hands and feet are freezing to the touch.

G flicking through recipe books again, got an idea for these filo pastry Santa sacks. The question was, what should the filling be? The book recommended feta cheese and rocket, but G was not happy with this. I suggested apple and raisins, a bit of a mince pie feel, but G said they had to be for dinner, and came up with chopped red onion, quorn, and chopped tomatoes, cooked in a pan for a while until she reckoned they were soft enough and then wrapped up in the pastry layers. G spent ages cutting each layer of pastry into six fairly equal squares, and really loved painting them with olive oil and a pastry brush. End result: G said she preferred the risotto I had done to fill us up and just toyed with one, big sister rejected the risotto and scoffed 5. Jack Spratt and all that, it was all vegie so they must have got some of their 5 a day somewhere along the line.....

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If you haven't guessed already, we are big time greedies in our house.  This recipie was one that I fancied making back when we were doing the biscuits, so this Sunday we had a go.  The original instructions produced pink and white coconut ice squares, which I thought could be given a festive twist by using green instead of red food colouring, and if we stacked the squares in a particular formation we could make a Christmas tree shape.

Eilir again relished the task of mixing the ingredients - "The chocolate brownie milk [condensed milk] is winning" i.e. the other ingredients were getting covered in it.  Then, letting his imagination fly, - "It's wetting Camelot up, sucking it into the deep water".  He was particularly enthusiastic at the stage of adding the food colouring - "I want it to be super green".  

"It looks good, it smells good, will it taste good?"

This recipe involved waiting for it to set overnight.  I explained my idea to Eilir about making the Christmas tree shape from the cubes we would cut, but he had a much better idea.  He had seen something on a craft programme that showed you how to make a tree from star shapes, so he dug out his star shaped play dough cutter, and wanted to use this to shape the coconut ice instead.  The next day (after washing said cutter) I let Eilir show me what he meant and (hey presto!) it worked really well.   I gave him some edible silver balls (left over from making a birthday cake) to decorate it with - "This is really cool with the baubles", and he then demanded the orange slices (that he knew were in the cupboard) to represent presents under the tree.  I used the left over coconut ice to make my own tree shaped heap with some cherries.  I think we all know that Eilir's small but beautiful version wins hand's down!

Our third mission was to get the authentic finishing touch for Eilir's school concert costume.  Eilir has been a shepherd three year's running now (his choice), and has been wearing the outfit I originally sewed together from an old sheet 16 years ago for his older brother!  This year it required a little mending but was otherwise ready to go, all we needed was a shepherd's crook....

This was the weekend of Grandad Leigh's visit (who incidentally is a real life genuine shepherd being a sheep farmer in France), so we went out with the expert to learn some bushcraft (he's also Australian to boot) and to get ourselves an appropriate implement.  We went for a walk in Howardian Nature Reserve to look for a likely specimen.  Grandad advised us that hazel was the best for a sturdy crook and we soon found what we were looking for, he cut a large section which he then cut down to Eilir's size after much "a bit shorter, a bit shorter" from Eilir.  Myself and Eilir then sanded down the rough bits using sandpaper from the house to get a lovely smooth (and hopefully acceptable for school) shepherd's staff.

Grandad also advised us that hazel was the traditional wood brought in for Christmas decoration pre Prince Albert and his fir trees, so watch this space, we have kept the left over section for another Christmas making project.......

Our second project was to make some homemade treats for Grandad Leigh's visit.

We had a look at a range of different recipes, and Eilir picked out the one he fancied making, which were sandwich style biscuits which featured cut out letter shapes in the top biscuits revealing a jam centre.  Eilir always loves baking and this was no different, he sang and talked to the mixture all the way through the process.  As he mixed the dough together he said things like "You can't escape this time....." to the flour, and would sing, stop and stretch, and start mixing again (and singing).

Rolling out the dough was accompanied by an improvised "roly-roly" song.  The cutting out was a more serious business, with lots of thought going into what letters and shapes he wanted to cut out.  Most were letters, including E for Eilir and G for Grandad, then lots of random ones inspired by his fridge magnets, followed by a smiley face, and a stick man.

The first one to be tested was a smiley face. Eilir was very excited after adding the jam - exclaiming "The jam comes through!  He's bleeding!"

After this initial test Eilir thought he'd like to try them with squirty cream middles too, experimenting with the effects - all very yummy.  We had to hide some away for Grandad - Daddy and brother Freddy were greedily eating them all!

Our first project of the season is one that we've been doing every year for some time.  My dad (Grandad Leigh) always comes over from France towards the end of November for his annual 'Christmas visit', and over the years a tradition has developed where we exchange a box of edible goodies (French treats for British ones - I think we get the better deal....).  Me and Eilir always decorate a shoebox that will contain the presents, and normally we will get it back again the following year refilled.

This year we decided to cut up all the junk mail Christmas catalogues that have been pouring through the door since October, choosing festive images we liked, and then higgldey-piggledy pasting them onto the box using PVA and water in a crazy decoupage patchwork.  We also shredded junk mail to make protective padding for the inside the box.

Here are some of Eilir's best quotes during the making (which took place over a couple of weeks - what with the drying and everything - we used a lot of glue!):

"I think Grandad Leigh will really like this one"

"...this one's really funny [a finger puppet snowman image]"

"This is my favourite sort of gluing.......Can I get my hands messy?" - silly question really!

"That's awesome isn't it!"

"I'm gooder at cutting circles than you"

"Oi! You glued me!"

"Just a bit more.... [box overflowing with paper shreds]"

"The Moshi Monsters are helping"

"Write 'Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas'"

Lola is an Angel (original!) in the school play and so we decided to elaborate upon a costume that she actually started whilst at nursery. It began life as a piece of card, hung round her neck with a piece of string, embellished with shiny paper, doileys, muller pots lids etc. We have changed and added to it over the years, and now the card has a Barbie head stuck to it and is sewn onto a large t-shirt with bits of net curtain added! Lola is a mixture of embarrassed and proud at the thought of wearing it for the play on Thursday, but has been quite happy to work on it a bit more this year. We added more glitter and snowflake gems. Lola stated' "Now her hair looks straggely (after smothering Barbie in glitter paint). We need to style it to make it more elegant". So she added some gold cord around her pigtails. I tried to restrain her from using purple glitter and pipe cleaners, suggesting it would look better staying within a limited colour scheme. The finishing touch was a halo for the Barbie’s head.

G did a set of water colours with goggly eyes and they were so cheery they had to make it into the days of Christmas. We are big rock-pool pokers, fossil finders and crab botherers. If you can get a clear day at this time of year you can discover more than in the warmer weather sometimes, starfish are our absolute favourite find, but G loves Green crabs , particularly the one she named Peter Tolla (?) only she knows why. Heck, we've never forgotten the dogfish we found at Ogmore, although he was far from alive. I got to do some of the backgrounds, I was told to do it carefully and we discussed the importance of the right sized brush for the fiddly bits and letting it dry properly in-between. I did my best. The goggly eyes were a stroke of genius on G's part....

Lo is Joseph in his class nativity play. Daddy bought a costume and took a picture of him trying it on for size. Using the laptop’s Paint programme, I whited-out the background of the photo and Lo diligently re-designed it, naturally including a Sidewinder snake. Rohan’s running in and out of the room, back and forth to Daddy and asking for something to eat.

Okay, so we’re attempting an Advent calendar based on Steve Backshall’s Deadly 60! So far so good. Lo chose 19cards to borrow from his Deadly 60 collection and we used all 5 of Rohan’s and stuck them onto card (Weetabix box). Front bit of the calendar designed by the boys. Rohan said “wow, cool!”

Next step: cutting 24doors/windows on the front cover. Lo a bit reluctant about that, not wanting the drawing outline of his toy monkey Lliw, to be slit.

Daddy to the rescue. 24 skulls etched out, a lesson on odd and even numbers and with Lo painting bits of white skulls and writing the numbers for the doors/windows – we have the only Advent calendar in the world with a paralysis tick behind door one.