Yet another rainy weekend is ahead of us; lots of Guitar Hero no doubt, but I will tear them away at some point!
For alternative entertainment we are going to make our own clay for the kids to play with. For this recipe you will need:
3 cups of flour
1 ½ cups of salt
3 cups of water
2 Tablespoons of vegetable oil
1 Tablespoon of cream of tartar
A few drops of food colouring
Mix all ingredients in a large saucepan and cook over medium-low heat until the dough comes away from the edges of the pan and the spoon is hard to move. Remove from the heat. Cool until able to handle. Store in air tight container.
The recipe is so easy to make that the children were able to make it themselves and (I will step in to cook it).
The best part is that the clay never dries out and we will be able to store it in a container for a later date! Can’t wait for a crafty weekend; the kids are so creative!
Wow how is it December already? Time sure flies when you have a family going in every direction! As the winter months set in I thought that it would be a great idea for everyone in the family to grow a plant that they could put in the garden come spring. We went to the local gardening centre where everyone could pick out their plant of choice. We returned with three packs of sunflower seeds and three packs of rose seeds. When we got home we put the soil in the pots and planted our seeds and placed them on the window sill above the sink. We needed a place that received ample sunlight. I can not wait for the plants to start to grow! This will be great for the kids to learn how to care for something and to take pride in the growth of their plant!
After all the planting I was craving something sweet. I decided to make Naughty Chocolate fudge cake. It was extremely simple to make. Other chocolate fudge cakes are usually very heavy and rich, but this cake was very light and airy. A great pick me up for the dreary weather outside! Hopefully there is a nice say coming our way soon!
Lloyd is the most recent contestant to be voted off of X Factor, I can’t believe that there are only four contestants left! I have to admit that I did enjoy Lloyd’s voice and his stage presence; I think that we will be seeing more of him in the future! With his departure it made me realize how young some of the contestants were on the show. That is only a few years away for my children and I just couldn’t even imagine being in the spotlight like that! I wonder what it must have been like to be discovered at such a young age and how different their lives will be. Must be all the Guitar Hero I played this weekend that made me realize the calibre of talent that the contestants have!
Looks like a rainy weekend ahead of us so I doubt we will be heading out to London. Instead we have lots to do inside the house and I am sure the kids will love having another weekend playing some Guitar hero world tour and D.J hero! I think “being in a band” is just everywhere right now, and reflects on how much appeal these games have for the whole family. In this month’s AdventureBox for example the fun and games section was called “On Tour With The Band” and the kids really enjoyed that too.
Plus there is the X factor to look forward to; I guess it’s a musical home for us again – and I will be cooking a delicious roast dinner for us all on Sunday! Plus we will all be helping Ellie practice for her role as Dorothy in the school’s production of The Wizard of Oz.
As the weather gets colder the children become more and more excited about the holiday season, and as I’ve said before I love this time of year it seems that everyone becomes so festive.
The Winter Wonderland opened this past weekend in Hyde Park and the children can’t wait to go. The Wonderland team always does such an amazing job with this event. It’s a perfect outing for the family; there is something to entertain everyone with the rides, the shopping and the food. I’ll have to decide what the best day would be to take the family and if I should pre-order skating tickets… I will give my sister a call as she lives in London so it will be nice to catch up with her too.
I came across the most delicious recipe yesterday, gorgonzola stuffed chicken; just the name makes my mouth water! The chicken was so moist and the addition of the gorgonzola added a nice flavour. I then put the chicken on top of a bed of spinach and basil leaves with walnuts, drizzled with a little sauce. What makes the recipe even better is that it took me twelve minutes to prepare and only thirty minutes to cook! All the family loved it, although my youngest thought the gorgonzola was quite a strong flavour so maybe a little less of that for little ones.
I am ecstatic that the X Factor single made it to number one this week! What a great song and it is so fantastic that all of the profits go to Great Ormond Street Hospital. I am glad to know that my money went towards the children rather than to a large record company. I hope that the support continues and that the single stays at the top! Speaking of X Factor, I can’t wait to see what happens next week! I was actually quite sad to see “Jedward” go – who’d of thought it!
The weekend is nearly here and even thought it is going to be another cold and wintery one we have lots of fun things planned indoors so it is all good.
We are obviously all looking forward to the X factor this week; following Jamie’s shock departure last week who knows what will happen! I am starting to predict Olly, Stacey and Jedward being in the final. Then again I change my mind every week. I am hoping the single will be number one this week in the charts as all the money goes to Great Ormond Street Hospital, a very worthy cause!
We will also be playing lots of games and having lot of general indoor fun. I came across a new game from StoryBox as well yesterday which will be fun for the younger two. Plus it is totally free, which in the run up to Christmas is a winner for me! The game features the StoryBox Favorite character Polo and is very interactive for the kids. They can “hunt” for the Christmas shapes around Polo’s tree-house.
It is to be said I am a giant kid at heart and I really do love Christmas and all that goes along with it. Having started the week feeling a little glum I am now starting to do the odd bit here and there in preparation for Christmas; with four children and and a husband trust me it’s better to be prepared! Yesterday I did collect a few chestnuts but in all honesty it was a bit too late. I will go and buy some later today to make my chestnut stuffing mix. All the shops are now displaying all the Christmas goods and the lights are up around the town. I know we are barely half way throughout November but it is starting to feel more and more Christmasy by the day!
After my freezer clear-out yesterday I was left with a number of unusual ingredients to use up. This included some scallops and prawns, that rather embarrassingly have probably been there since last Christmas! So I typed in the ingredients I had into google for some recipe inspiration and a risotto seemed like a winning idea. So I had a go at it and wow, it was delicious! I should be clearing out my freezer more!
I am going to try and find some more chestnuts this afternoon to make some homemade chestnut stuffing for christmas (I freeze the mix and then defrost and cook on the day). I imagine most of the chestnuts will have gone by now but I thought it might be worth a shot!
