Days Out - Thomas Land at Drayton Manor

I decide just one post wasn't enough to cover Harry's fabulous birthday treat! The last post was about the Thomas-themed rooms at Drayton Manor Hotel - a big hit with the boys - however, the real treat was still to come - meeting the real Thomas and his friends!

Of course, first we enjoyed a lovely breakfast in the hotel and we headed over to the park at about 9.45 (it opened at 9.30). The rides didn't start until half past 10, so we probably could have left it a little bit longer before entering the park, but it was nice to orientate ourselves and figure out what rides we were going to go on when they did open! We left our lunch cool bag in the lockers near Emily's Play Area (a soft play area adjacent to the main part of Thomas Land) and headed off to the Zoo, which was open. Harry enjoyed looking at the animals, allthough I think he was a little bit confused about the zoo and theme park concepts. When we walked past the tiger he asked 'Is that a real one?!' to be followed by when we saw the exhibits on the prehistoric trail 'Are those real dinosaurs?!'

Just past the dinosaur trail was Spencer's Play Area. I love it when a play area is well judged and designed for its target audience and this one was perfect for 2-5 year olds, which is also prime age for Thomas fans I would guess. I am sure Harry would have been happy if this was the culmination of our day but we soon had to drag him (and Archie) off the play equipment to see what else this end of the park had to offer before heading back t the main part of the park on the train.

Harry was captivated by the magical Thomas exhibition in one of the nearby sheds. He thoroughly enjoyed looking at all the elements of the scene and waiting to spot his favourite trains come chuffing around the track. The Terrence Tractor Driving School is also in this area of the park, but sadly Harry was too small to drive his own tractor. This was probably our only disappointment of the day. We would have appreciated an option for te younger drivers - perhaps even just a Terrence model to climb on - but it was a minor disappointment in what was otherwise a wonderful day.

Before long there was an influx of new people which told us that a train must have arrived at the station, so we hot-footed it over there to find it was Percy, Harry's absolute favourite train! The train rides were, perhaps predictably, one of the highlightss of the day. Nothing beats wating on an actual platform, selecting your own carriage and riding the rails with your favourite trains. We were pleased to capture a usually camera-shy Harry standing next to his new best buddy, Percy the train.

The rides in Thomas Land are really well suited to Harry's age. In fact, at about 90cm, he was tall enough to go on even the bigger rides - the Troublesome Trucks rollercoaster and the Cranky ride. However, Harry didn't fancy those ones having never been on any rides before, and I don't really blame him - I'm sure they would provide plenty of fear factor for even an older child. He absolute favourite ride was the Vintage Car ride, which isn't specifically Thomas themed, but does fit well with the rest of the rides. Little ones sit in the car (accompanied by one adult) and 'drive' it along a track. Harry asked to go on this ride every other time! We were lucky to be there on a very quiet day, it meant that most rides were just waiting for people before starting, even your little family were the only passengers! Harry also loved the Diesel ride, and being able to ride the Blue Mountain Quarry trains. Again, because it wasn't busy he was able to ride on all his favourite trains by going on the rides multiple times. Archie also enjoyed the rides, but at 10 and a half months he was a little young for them. You aren't allowed to have children sitting on your lap, they have to sit on their own seat, which can be tricky with a wriggly crawler!

We ate our lunch on a picnic bench and although we'd held the soft play area in reserve, we decided just to go back and have a go on more of the rides. We also never made it into the main part of Drayton Manor. As we walked through it seemed like there were a few rides that the boys might have enjoyed, but, to be honest Thomas Land was more than enough for us for the one day. I couldn't recommend it enough for a great day out if you have a train- and vehicle-crazy little one like Harry. I think the memories are going to stay with him for a long time and it made his third birthday a really special one. Thank you, Drayton Manor!

Inventive Playdough

Harry's not great on messy or creative play. We're working on, and currently attending a course at the local Children's Centre to give me some new ideas. However, I can persuade him to spend some time playing with playdough on occasion. The trick, of course, as with anything toddler-related, is to be inventive and relate it to their interests.



I used to simply use the playdough and model it into cars. We also rolled and cut out shapes, but this never really grasped Harry's interest as much as real '3D' cars.

More recently we have started using his construction vehicles (and woe betide you if you call the 'backhoe loader' a 'digger') to build scenes. I coloured the playdough we made last week in appropriate colours (including black for the tarmac) and he loved making the road and filling in the potholes (hmm, wish there was someone like Harry locally to do this for real!) The only problem was that he lamented the lack of a 'grader' in his construction vehicle set to level his road!!

Today we went for something different. Thanks to the 'Harry and his Bucket full of Dinosaurs' books (Harry's new favourites), he has developed a new interest in dinosaurs (I seriously have to gen up on my knowledge of names and also on which are carnivores, omnivores and herbivores!) so we go out the dinosaurs with the playdough. He particularly like feeding Tyrannosaurus and making footprints. We discussed the difference between the herbivore and carnivore footprints and in their teeth. It's nice to find something new to grab his interest as otherwise our days are mostly spent racing and performing elaborate dramas with his car collection!

The recipe I use for playdough is from the Wonderplay book, which has loads of awesome ideas in it. 1 cup flour, 1 tbsp oil, 1 cup water, 1/2 cup salt, 2 tsps cream of tartar, food colouring.

Mix dry ingredients in saucepan; add wet and mix together; cook over low/med heat; stir constantly (about 5 minutes); knead until smooth; add colouring as desired.

I recommend gel food colouring, as sometimes the liquid stuff makes it too wet if you put enough in to create a vibrant colour.

Planning Play

As all the mums and dads out there will know, it's tricky to plan things with toddlers. They have their own minds, after all, and don't always what to do what we think they will enjoy or what we think they should do.

However, each week after reading what Harry does with the childminder on a Thursday morning I have found myself feeling a bit wistful that we don't manage to complete that much when we are at home. So I am planning a little experiment. By no means am I going to be removing Harry's 'free play' time, but I am going to try to make an activity open to him each afternoon that we might not otherwise have done. For example, Harry almost never instigates creative/messy play - by which I mean he is very unlikely to ever ask to do colouring, painting, play dough etc. However, as much as he loves his cars, by the end of the afternoon he does sometimes seem to reach saturation and ask for the TV on.

So, this week I am going to just think a little ahead and make sure I am prepared for a good play session straight after nap time. We are going to go for a dinosaur theme as Harry has really been into his 'Harry and the Dinosaurs' books recently:

Monday -  am: Daddy is on holiday - Soft play. pm: Track-making with cars and paint (or Daddy's choice).
Tuesday - am: Cousin Isla coming to play. pm: Playdough and dinosaurs.
Wednesday - am: Toddler group at Children's Centre. pm: Dinosaur sticking/colouring activity.
Thursday - am: Childminder. pm: Dinosaur swamp cakes (with green colouring!)
Friday - am: Messy Play Group. pm: Active play - stomp like a dinosaur! I plan to make a cushion fort/forest/swamp in his bedroom with all the blankets and pillows in the house.

Do you plan your child's play? Does it work? What do you think of my ideas? I hope to feed back to you next week how we got on!

Learning Through Play - the holiday edition

I just found this post hanging around in my draft folder, and thought I would share it with you all anyway! I think I was waiting for a picture, but haven't got around to it!

It is amazing how much toddlers can learn just from playing and experiencing the world around them. This doesn't have to be a planned, scheduled activity -although we do try to fit in a few of those each week. Most of the time we just go with whatever we are doing and I fit in whatever we are working towards.

Harry is just learning to count, so that it something we spend a lot of time on at the moment. Most frequently, of course, we count the vehicles we see as that is Harry's favourite thing! At the moment we re also working on Harry's sensory play as he has always been extremely reluctant to get wet or dirty. It has been a little disappointing on holiday to be met with firm rebuttals whenever we suggest a dip in the pool or sea (although he does like sandcastles, so that is progress!)

Yesterday we bought a cheap paddling pool and I filled it and left it in the sun to warm up during nap time. I was hoping to entice Harry in, but no such luck. However, I did manage to get him to splash his hands and by fetching a plastic mug and a bucket we had a great time learning about weight and volume, as well as practising our counting! We learned that 11 cups is lots and lots of water - nearly filling the bucket- and that Harry can carry 6 cups of water in the bucket, even though it was much heavier that 2!

We had a lot of fun, and it really did remind me that 2 year olds really do learn so much every single day!

Super Tasty Healthy Muffins!

After my exertions for our Hallow'een party I was rather butter-creamed out (I know, I can hardly believe it myself!) and my usual sweet vanilla cupcakes were not really inspiring me to bake - I also had a friend around who recently commented that her little girl was 'getting a sweet tooth', which left me thinking about how my baking habits might be affecting my lovely little man, who is always extremely appreciative of my efforts (unless they are savoury - see Pizza Pinwheels as an example!). So this week I decided to go for something a little more healthy. I had some bargain bananas bought for us by my sister when she was visiting that needed using up, so I adjusted a recipe for banana and white chocolate muffins that I found in my trusty Baking Magic cookbook - I really recommend this book for anyone wanting to bake cakes and cookies!

Here is my recipe:
1 cup plain flour
1 cup wholemeal flour (you can just use 2 cups plain if you prefer)
1 tbsp baking powder (yes, tablespoon!)
2/3 cup milk
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup sunflower oil
3 small ripe bananas
handful of fresh berries - I used raspberries and blueberries

Preheat oven to 200 centigrade. Grease/line muffin tray.

Combine the flour and baking powder and sift. This is really important!

In a separate bowl (I did this in the KitchenAid) combine sugar, milk, egg, oil and bananas. Mix in the berries.

Stir together until just combined. DO NOT OVER MIX! A rubber spatula is best for folding in econmically and quickly. You need to keep in the sifted air from your flour.

Spoon big dollops into the pan. Don't worry about being tidy, these aren't delicate little cupcakes, they are big, floury, airy muffins.

Bake for 15-20 minutes. Yum. Great for breakfast!

Swimming

Since the slightly disastrous attempts to get Harry into the water whilst on holiday, we decided that it was time we started taking him swimming more regularly. I do have him down on the waiting list for weekend swimming lessons, but with no family nearby to look after the baby I can't manage to take him to sessions during the week. We used to go to fabulous lessons when he was little, but sadly I went back to work on Wednesdays, which was when they were, so we had to stop. In the mean time Harry has developed a fervent dislike of water (whilst Archie ADORES it) so we thought it was time that we 'jumped in at the deep end' so to speak...

So, we headed off to one of the local pools on Sunday morning - with slight trepidation on my part at least. We split up - Daddy with Harry and Mummy with Archie and off we went. I kept my ears keenly trained for the squeals of a reluctant toddler - but heard nothing. When Archie and I were ready we ventured to the door leading from the male changing room (why they don't have family ones I don't know). I saw Harry who came running towards me - and promptly stacked it. I guess the 2 year old has not yet had it drummed into him that running on wet floors is a BAD idea!! Amazingly he didn't cry much. We sat on the edge with our toes in the water and then we were in!

Our aims of the session was to spend maybe 30-45 minutes in the water - hopefully without Harry either screaming/clinging to us for the whole time. We were so pleasantly surprised! Harry really enjoyed it! The pool was very warm, which was great, and he made some great progress during the seesion. He was wearing armbands and we even got to the point where we could let him go to float on his own for a few seconds. He wasn't terrified and we didn't force him to do anything. He spent most of the time laid flat supported by one or other of us kicking his feet and splashing his hands. He also learned how to 'spiderman' along the edge of the pool with no support at all. He wasn't too freaked out when he got his face wet, and we are working on blowing bubbles, but I really couldn't be prouder. What a super star! We are already planning to go next week (although we may still be in Cornwall) and hopefully to make it a weekly occurence.

Hallow'een Party!

We had a brillinat time yesterday with our Hallow'een party. We invited Harry's NCT buddies(3 other children, J, E and A) and their parents. This included baby S who is only 7 days old today! So tiny, I can't even remember when my snuggly little bear was that tiny and it was only 5 months ago! We also invited our next door neighbour, G who is 16 months and came with his daddy.

The older toddlers had a grand old time playing with balloons and toys in the lounge, they were really good and as there were lots of adults we were able to take playing with them in turn. Meanwhile other adults chatted in the kitchen, eyeing up the buffet!

We decided not to do any organised games this year, as, in my opinion they are a little young at 2 1/2. We did, however, have sparklers (for the adults to hold) at the end of the evening and they enjoyed a run around the darkening garden.

On to the food...
I made spooky spider chocolate cupcakes with a minty buttercream icing:

Pumpkin cupcakes - these were supposed to be ACTUAL pumpkin cakes from the hummingbird recipe book, but I failed at making roast pumpkin puree so they were vanilla with orange glace icing and a small green buttuercream stalk.

Gingerbread skeletons - recipe courtesy of Mama Owl and including baby skeletons decorated by Ian!

 

Shaped sandwiches (ham bats, tuna spiders and cheese ghosts)

Sausage spiders - These are simply half a sausage taken out of its skin and rolled into a ball with half-twiglets for legs! I used to make these as a kid and they are really effective!

We also had spooky crisps and some un-spooky pizza, breadsticks and other bits and pieces.

The party was a great success, Harry was so excited to be dressed up, even though he is usually extremely reluctant to do anything like that. We bought some light up balloons and sent the children home with one each as well as some baked goods (I fear I made have over baked!) and it was great to catch up with all the NCT group. I was pleased that we didn't invite too many more people (although I would have loved my friend's lovely girls H and J to come - unfortunately they were away). I think the number we had was a great number for our house!


I definitely hope to have another Hallow'een party next year! It is such a fun celebration to enjoy with your kids. Maybe I have posted this in time to be some inspiration for someone - have a great Hallow'een!

Cakes

Another of our favourite activities is to make cakes - this is a dual purpose activity - we can make them AND eat them! Harry particularly likes using the new 'cement mixer' - KitchenAid. Let's hope he doesn't try to make actual cement in it :-/

First there is the measuring. I like to use recipes in cups because I think it's a little easier to understand. Harry can read all of his numbers up to 12 so he can help to read the recipe now which is lovely. He's not that dextrous at getting things into the bowl though, as you can see from the picture...

 

I did have a picture here of Harry licking the paddle (another key part of cake baking, I'm sure you all agree) but being the camera novice I am I couldn't figure out how to rotate it!

Once the cakes are in the oven, it's time to do some washing up...

...and to clean down the side. I'll be honest, I had to do it again after he'd finished, but he did a good job for a 2 year old and it kept him busy for the 10 minutes they were cooking!

Finally time to scoff a cake (and gloat at the baby who isn't allowed one...)

Painting Rainbow Footprints

Harry asked to paint the other day, so I got out our washable Crayola paints. we use a bun tin as a paint palette so we can get all the colours out and I recently found a pack of all different types of paintbrushes at Home Bargains. Our favourites are 'footprints' - little sponge 'stampers' on the end of a wooden stick. We have two sizes - the one used here is the larger one.

We dipped the stamper into different colours of paint to make a 'rainbow' effect. Rainbows are one of Harry's favourite things ever so this was very popular!

We talked a little bit about how mixed colours make different colours - not sure he quite 'got' it, but never mind!

Then he got down to some serious painting!

 



I love watching Harryenjoy messy activities because for a loong while he really hated getting dirty and didn't find it fun. Now it seems like he takes a real pride in his 'work'!

We also found some time to do some handprints.

The chubby little handprint closest to you is Archie's! The others are all Harry's - he pretty soon covered the whole paper so I had to do another Archie-print to save. Archie's first go at painting!!

Vehicles and Sticky Faces

I thought I'd try to get down on the blog some of the things we regularly do to entertain ourselves - I love getting new ideas of thngs to do from other peoples' blogs, and I also think if I keep a record of things we do I can look back and glean some inspiration from my own blog on those days when it just seems impossible to think of anything!

As usual, you'll have to forgive the poor quality of the pictures as a) I am not the photographer of the family (you'll want Ian for that) and b) I was using my BlackBerry.

As is probably obvious from most of my posts, my boy is a little vehicle obsessed so our craft attempts are usually heavily vehicle based. I do try to introduce other elements into our play though - today was emotions. I picked up these great foamy face stickers from the pound shop one day. They are very tactile and also easy for toddlers to use - although Harry can't yet peel off the backing by himself.

First, I drew the outline of some vehicles with circular windows: a car, a bus, a rocket and a plane. Harry stuck the faces into the windows. As we stuck them in we talked about the different emotions depicted on the faces. He is very precise about where he sticks things, although as you can see his motor control with drawing and colouring is not quite there yet.

 

We usually use crayons to colour, but as a special treat today we got out his (extra washable) felt tip pens. They are much easier to make marks with than crayons, so he does find them quite satisfying! Here is his completed bus - he was very pleased with it!

Reasons to be Cheerful

It's Linky time! I'm excited to share this week's reasons to be cheerful... I just have to think of them first!!


1. I'm still getting that hopeful and happy autumn feeling, which is fabulous. This is no doubt helped by the fact we have had a fair bit of sunshine, despite a bit of a chill in the air so I have been out and about with the Bob and the Bear, manfully still having picnics in the park (even in the rain yesterday!) I kept getting reminded of an autumn holiday I took with my husband (then fiance) to the East coast of America the year I was pregnant with the Bob and feeling all nostalgic and wistful about the beautiful trees and the lovely time we had, so we have decided to embrace Hallow'een the American way and host a little get together for some of Bob's buds :-D

2. I realise he doesn't get featured much at the moment, but I just wanted to share what a little ray of sunshine the Bear is. This week he had his second jabs and didn't even cry, despite 2 days later featuring a bruise that covers nearly all of one of his (rather substantial I must admit) thighs. Poor little sausage. I love to have baby chats, baby snuggles and baby kisses. In all the excitement of toddlerhood I think I some times to forget to mention just how squishable and adorable he is.

3. And finally - this week's cold - the first of the season (oh, how I wish it would also be the last!) is just beginning to dissipate. I'm hoping to go out for  run when I gets in from work and also hope we will all be feeling normal again by the weekend when we have a cake photo shoot planned for a good friend who is starting a business as well as a bat walk on Friday. If feeling better isn't a reason to be cheerful, I don't know what is!

Brio Disaster!

Don't you just hate it when this happens to your Brio track? Must be some kind of metaphor for life going nowhere or something!

(Luckily I've ordered some magic double ended pieces that should be arriving tomorrow!)

Diaries of a Domestic Goddess...

Yesterday I was a domestic goddess - well, as close as I am ever likely to get anyway, ha ha! Of coure, first priority was having fun so we spent the morning at the Children's Centre playing, then came home for lunch and nap when I IRONED my BEDLINEN! I can't remember the last time I used the iron, but I suddenly had the urge to do it, as it was very crumpled after the wash. It looked nice and felt nice, but I fear the crispness will have worn off tonight. Oh well, once in a blue moon makes it all the more special, yes?

On the meal plan was homemade pizzas. It was time to face the KitchenAid - the most extravangent and wonderful birthday present from my gorgeouss husband (you may have seen them featured on the Great British Bake Off last night - first step pizza dough, second step miraculous piles of meringue... maybe).

Luckily with my powerful Google-Fu I was able to find a recipe here http://www.acouplecooks.com/2012/01/pizza-doughstand-mixer-method/ as my trusty-baking-friend is currently away on holiday (how selfish! Just when I need her most!) Equally luckily the recipe mostly consisted of 'Chuck all ingredients in and leave to prove' - this is my favourite type of recipe (hmm, on reflection maybe not yet ready for miraculous meringue concoctions a la GBBO).

After proving for an hour it was time to drag Harry out of the garden to construct the pizzas. The dough was super-cool to play with. I pretended I was a Pizza Express Chef by chucking it in the air and spinning it around between my fingers. Fun! Then we spread on the tomato and chose our toppings - we had a choice of mozzarella, cheddar, ham and chicken. Yum yum! Harry really enoyed this part, although he was a little stingy with the cheese so I had to help him out there.

Just in case you were wondering, the hand washing after we came in from the garden was rather, um... enthusiastic. Hence no t shirt.

I popped them in the over and they came out looking like golden pizza-y piles of yum. Which was the look I was going for, so hooray! I had forgotten to put salt in the dough though so it was a little bland but it was miles better than the non-yeast types of base I've made in the past and I am SO looking forward to making dough balls next time. I is buying garlic butter in bulk from work so we will be able to have the full pizzeria experience in our own home. Harry's looked like this - you'll have to excuse the quality of the photos, they are just quick snaps from my phone.