Fiesta Salad - good ways to get kids to eat salad!

I found this idea on the net and felt the need to try it and share it.

It was a genius way of getting the boys to eat what is basically a salad without realising!

It is layers of finely chopped peppers, rice, tomato, corn, black beans, cucumber, crushed avocado, crunched tortilla chips and cheese.

Re-purposed Cot to Garden Bench

I am feeling quite self satisfied! There is no better felling than a successful re-purposing! I took the side off the boys old cot, and reinforced the base. I painted it with Shades outdoor paint, scattered with cushions and bobs your uncle a garden bench for two!

Cake Pop Wedding Cake

This is the result of the conversation I had with a good friend nearly 2 years ago. It was at Charlie's christening when she tried her first ever cake pop and it blew her mind and she said 'promise me, if I ever get married, please can you make these as my wedding cake?' And I foolishly agreed! Little did I know there was no such precedent on the internet to copy! So I had to wing it and I nearly pooped my pants with the stress of it!

Not only was it the wedding cake it was also the dessert!

So I made 277 chocolate cake pop truffles (no sticks!) coated in either white, milk or dark chocolate. I used Rachel Allen's chocolate cake recipe from her Bake book for the base recipe.

I made them in batches - not all at once! And froze them.

They defrosted on the drive to the venue ready for assembly.

Then I was winging it completely! I made a cone out of silver thin card, it had a slight sheen to it. I put it on top of a cone shaped vase to give it additional support in case it fell in under the weight of itself. This wasn't necessary.

Then I assembled by sticking them on the cone with the correct coloured melted chocolate, starting at the base and working up. As it dried they were stuck fast. I filled in the gaps with some of the bridal flowers.

And gave it a feature at the top to finish it off!

It didn't use 277! It probably took about 120 so I could have gone bigger but I wasn't sure and didn't want to risk it. Fortunately it worked well like that anyway. There was enough for everyone to have pudding without disturbing the cake. Late in the night, after the partying, the odd pop started to be yanked off the 'cake' as people walked past!

If I did it again, I think I would make different size pops so that I could work down to the smaller ones near the top.

Coloured rice

This was a quirky alternative to sand for the sandbox. They loved messing up the rainbow!

You use uncooked rice, food colouring and vinegar to set it. Then let it dry out on baking trays.

My new 'therapy' w.c.!

I had been collecting sayings I like on Pinterest for ages and had no idea what to do with them. At the same time I was trying to think what to do to make the downstairs w.c. more interesting. I was hoping to go eccentric and then it struck me I could put them on the wall. I drew frames around the print outs with a permanent marker.

I love the result. It serves as a place to escape and read some phrases to 'restock' me for my next few hours with the mayhem that is looking after three young boys. I also hope it serves to 'indoctrinate' the children with positive messages. And I also love finding out which phrases have stuck in guests minds. It doubles up as a good excuse for however long they have spent in the loo!

Fun things to do when the boys get home from school. Hunting with water bombs.

This was waiting for the boys when they got home from school today. There would have been more water bombs but they took me hours to fill. They are tricky little beggars!

Lego party food & games & party bags

We had a little birthday tea for Max's birthday and it had a lego theme.

There is tonnes of ideas on the net. This is just the bits I pulled together for his little party tea.

1.Legohead marshmallow cakepops

Dip marshmallows in yellow food paste coloured, melted, white chocolate. And topped with a yellow smartie or skittle. Face painted on with black icing.

Lego head tophat/cakepops

2. Lego brick biscuits. 

Nigella's sugar biscuits covered in coloured water icing and 6 smarties or skittles would work too (with brighter colour matching)

Lego brick biscuits

3. Lego brick sandwiches

This idea went down a storm and I have made them several times since. By request for lunch boxes and for our early doors car journey to legoland! The photo isn't great but hopefully you get the idea. Make a simple sandwich, cut off the crusts and cut in half horizontally. Using a small  round cutter, cut multiple rounds from another piece of bread and stick on 6 to the sandwich using philly or spread. Easy and highly desirable by small and big boys alike!

4. Lego brick juice boxes/cartons.

I found a free printable on one of my internet trawls (sorry I can't find it to post it here) and printed it on coloured paper and wrapped around the juice boxes. Fab idea!

Non lego related food products were served in lego/duplo (sterilised) box/containers. That was a job I could delegate to the boys and kept their hands out of the way for a while!

Duplo made food serving vessel

Other decoration ideas I used;

1. Birthday message written in lego.

2. I found and downloaded a free lego font and  used it to make this backdrop sign.

3. The lego head made of cardboard. which was used in one of the games as well as for decoration.

4 And lots of print outs of head found on the internet.

Games we played

1. Pin the head on the lego man!

2. Throw the lego bean bag in the lego head.

Party bags included
1. Lego bean bags
2. Lego name plates
3. Lego erasers
4. Lego cake
5. Lego pop
6. Homemade lego colouring book

A home made bean arch

We made this out of the branches from the tree we had to have pulled down. I love that it is functional and  decorative.

Lego party invite and thank you letters

Hidden design lego brick cake

 Max's fifth birthday and a birthday treat of a trip to legoland meant the obvious choice for the cake was going to be somehow connected to lego.
Trawling the internet for ideas, I couldn't find what I wanted which was a lego brick, but that looked like it was built of lego bricks when you sliced it. I was excited by the success of the polka dot Mr Tumble cake and wanted to experiment more with hidden design cakes. So I had a think and this is what I came up with.
A 'sixer' and a 'fourer'. Basic fondant icing covered rectangular and cubic cake but....

 ...with the hidden surprise of looking like it was built of lego cake bricks!

First I baked 4 food paste coloured cakes. I used Nigella's buttermilk birthday cake recipe from Domestic Goddess which promises a stronger shape holding/weight bearing cake, which I confess I can't dispute!

I divided a square cake tin with parchment to save time. I cut off the browned edges after they had cooled.

I then cut into pieces trying to think what it would look like cut in one direction. And stuck them together with buttercream icing as mortar.

I built up three layers like this.

 This is a close up of the building brick lego, inside cake design.

Colour mixing and mess-free mark making in freezer bags

This is another common idea from pinterest (see Teach, Play, Love- my boys here) adapted to what I had available.

I used large ziplock freezer bags and paint (a lot use coloured hair gel but I don't have any hair gel!). I wanted C to learn to how colours mix to make other colours so I used 2 colours in each bag, and sellotaped the top shut, after expelling any excess air.

C got a lot more from this activity than I expected him to. First of all was the fun of 'squishing', and the fun of 'spreading out' the paint to fill the bag. He used his hand and cars for that.

Then he 'drew' in the paint with an empty pen shell on the table and then we stuck it on a sunny window pain and had a long session mark making with the empty pen, his fingers and even the sellotape roll.  The resulting 'rainbow' looks so lovely on a sunny Spring day!

It was a great success and I recommend it to anyone.

 
 

Bicarb and Coloured Vinegar - Artistic and Scientific!

This was an exercise in trying to improve Max's fine motor skills and strength by using pipettes and syringes to transfer coloured white vinegar into a tray of bicarbonate of soda to make little fizzing mountains of coloured fun!

Crazy Digger flapjack

This is a recipe from a friend who came to stay bearing gifts of a whole tin of these yummy flapjack type cocounutty thingys, which she called Diggers. 

I added some craisins and we renamed them Crazy Diggers;

Mix together 120g plain flour, 225g caster sugar, 100g oats and 80g desicated coconut and 80g cinnamon coated craisins. Melt 120g butter with 1 tbsp golden syrup. Mix 1 tsp bicarb with 2tbsp boiling water and put this into the melted butter mix. Combine all the above and press into a lined baking tray.

Cook in a preheated oven at 160*c for 20mins.

Allow to cool a little before cutting into small squares, then allow to cool completely before removing from the baking tray. 

Homemade Gift - Sightly rubbish (but made with lots of love) macaroons for Mothers' Day.

I decided to make macaroons/macarons for Mothers Day. I followed this recipe from Macaron fetish blogspot. I made one big batch and sub divided into multiple colours to make a rainbow of flavours.
These included;
Pink with strawberry jam
Pink with rose water scented white chocolate ganache
Orange with marmalade
Orange with orange flavoured dark chocolate ganache
Yellow with lemon curd
Uncoloured with speculoos paste
Uncoloured with almond flavoured white chocolate ganache
Uncoloured with almond flavoured white chocolate ganache and raspberry jam (bakewell tart flavour)
Uncoloured with toasted coconut sprinkle and coconut flavoured ganache
Blue with raspberry jam
Light green with mint flavoured dark chocolate ganache
Light brown with coffee flavoured chocolate ganache
Brown with chocolate ganache

I think I was over ambitious for a first time macaroon maker! Some worked and got 'feet' and didn't crack or fizzle or stick to the parchment! Most Did Not! But.... they did taste good non-the-less. They just had 'faces only a mother could love' which was just as well!

Fun things to do for when the boys get back from school - Duplo puzzle- ing clue.

This was another idea I found on a late night pinterest hunt. (See my pinterest board entitled Teach, Play love - my boys here for original source)

Today seemed like a great opportunity to actually do this rather than letting it fester, unacheived on the pin board. A parcel arrived for them so I quickly built a duplo tower, stuck some paper on with pritt stick, wrote my clue and then cut the paper on the brick joins so that they separated into a puzzle.

The boys were so excited to find something so fun out of the blue and even more excited when they realised it was a clue! And then when they found the 'surprise' (a box of lego from the internet, paid for with Olly's birthday money!) - well the roof nearly lifted! Great fun!

Things that entertain a 1 year old - part 2

1. Feeding pipe cleaners into colander holes

2. Joining two colanders together

3. Picking up cut up bits of pipe cleaner with a big magnet

4. Putting all the little bits of pipe cleaner in a bottle

5. And emptying them all out again!