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.

The boys made reindeer paintings with their Grammy. Lo wanted to add them to the blog. He describes the making-process:

“Me and Rohan put our foot in brown paint and then pressed it down. And the same with our hands, put one and one in the brown paint and then put it on the reindeer and paint a red nose. Then, picked coloured eyes and wait for it to dry. Grammy really wanted the antlers to be black, not brown, but we decided it should be brown.”

 I thought they’d make great Christmas cards.