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

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...

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!

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.

Whilst waiting for the snow to arrive to Wales this winter, I taught Noa how to make snowflakes out of paper. First we folded a square paper into half and folded it half again. By holding on to the corner that was the central point, we brought the side corners together so that the paper became a triangle instead of a square. This was a bit tricky... Then we cut out bits from all sides. Noa loves cutting paper and is getting quite good at handling scissors. He was very focused. Once we had few snowflakes ready we taped them onto our dining room window. Noa shouted happily: ‘Look mummy, it’s snowing!!’ He is looking forward to the real snow, but at least these compensate a little.

Rohan not well. Asleep. He had Calpol and blueberries, Quorn sausage and cheesy bread in the shape of a dinosaur lovingly made by Daddy.  Logaan and I made Father Christmas out of plasticine. Lo did a great job with the legs and boots, arms and gloves and the beard.  Finished it off with a snowy drawing of Rudolph, the sleigh and two moons (because “Father Christmas is visiting a place where there are two moons”), as a backdrop to the photo.

 

Missed planting bulbs last year and thought it didn't really matter, but you know once Spring comes along you really wish you had. After all the darkness, and soggy leaves I find I am desperate for signs that the garden is waking up again.  So with the last of the misshapen tomatoes pulled up, they are never going to ripen now!, G and me stuffed bulbs in their places rather unceremoniously. Alan Titchmarsh assures me courtesy of TV in the day room at work, that bulbs don't need any special soil or compost and can be packed many to a pot so we took him at his word.  Bamboo compostable pots in the bargain bin at B and Q looked like they had the right texture to actually take decoration without it all peeling/sliding off.  G chose wax candle decorating pens for wiggly lines all ‘round the pot and glass paint pens to draw hearts and flowers at intervals. No help required from me, so we are keeping these ones indoors and taking extra special care of them. The rest will have to fend for themselves......