On my 312th blog entry, I wish you all ...

From tonight, I'll be starting a fresh new blog under the name of Ellie's Treasures. I hope you'll be able to join me over there to continue to read about our family life, home education and my hopeful new craft business of the same name.

Have a very happy and healthy 2009.

http://elliestreasures.blogspot.com

My new blog is coming together ...

and I'm hoping to get it up and running from New Year's Eve! It's called Ellie's Treasures and you may reach it through this link for a preview peak!

More Poppy and Meg piccies

Meg is the lighter colour one, with Poppy behind.


The pair have quite different personalities. Meg is very inquisitive and roams around checking everything out. She's also very clean - stopping for a wash on a regular basis. This pic is of Poppy who always hides inside Katie's clothes, around her neck or in her hair! She's has a slightly smaller frame than Meg and is equally as cute.


Meg, nose to nose with Pepper who would just love to get his paws (and jaws) on her and Poppy! Allie didn't even want to say hello to them - he just didn't care at all!

A merry Christmas day

Had a good time. We managed to put off the big "pressie opening" first thing until after our cooked breakfast. Pressie opening started around 9.30 a.m. - I don't think Ben could wait any longer (he was climbing the walls)!

From the lovely happy smiles and surprised expressions, I think Katie and Ben (and hubby too)were very pleased with their goodies. Katie made an adorable felt snowman for Ben and Ben made a variety of paintbrushes using twigs and things from the garden (feathers, straw, etc., etc.) for Katie. I got a fabulously cosy fleece/hand knitted coat/cardi - very hippyish and very me so I'm very pleased (OK so I chose it, but I did put it away for P to wrap for me so it was still a Christmas day surprise).

This squidgy "stress" ball is hard to put down - changes colour as you squeeze it through all the holes.

Katie's main present from us was a couple of rats which she'd been after since the summer. We'd found the cage on Freecycle and then sanded it all down and carefully re-sprayed it ready for Christmas. With a bundle of toys/houses and other such things all placed inside the cage Christmas Eve morning, we headed out to choose a couple of rats. Pets at Home only had one male, one female and three very young Dumbo rats available which was a bit disappointing. She didn't want to split the Dumbo rats and couldn't buy just one of the others (they only house them in pairs so what happens to the odd ones left over?). Luckily there were a couple of female year old rats up for adoption the exact colourings that Katie had hoped for, so we bought them. She (well us all) are over-the-moon - they are so adorable. They had been named Poppy and Meg by the lady in the shop and I think Katie will keep those names, they seem to suit them. Poppy is very forthcoming and was happy to be picked up after her 24 hour settling in time. Meg was much quieter (and abit nippy too), but this afternoon she let Katie, Ben and my sister (who was visiting) have a hold and a play, so hopefully her shyness has gone for good.

Poppy

Yesterday lunchtime we went for a super Christmas meal at my s-i-l and b-i-l with b-i-l doing a professional job of the cooking. We had the full works. Huge slices of turkey, mash and roast potatoes, veggies, roasted carrots and parsnips, pureed parsnips (which were delicious), brussels, leeks in cream, stuffing, gravy and cranberry and port sauce on the side. A very moorish Christmas pud for dessert (not usually a lover but this was by far the best I'd every had) with rum sauce. Champagne and wine (although in tiny quantities for me as I'd picked the short straw (for once) when it came to driving home). Big pat on the back for J - THE Christmas Day cook who used parsnips and leeks from his own garden - you can do it again next year!!

P enjoyed his freedom to drink, but didn't enjoy me having a giggle at him. He is so different when he's had a few. He'll join in a conversation and then complete forget what he, and other, had said just a few moments before, or he'll misunderstand something and go off at a tangent. Katie and I stuffed his boots with Christmas cracker hats and he didn't even notice how uncomfortable they were! Needless to say he slept well - and snored for England!

We all had a lovely time. I got these very pretty mini fairies from P's parents. I'd first seen them on this website about 2 or 3 years ago but each Christmas I'd leave it too late for buy one. Now I've decided I'll add to my small collection every year. The photos are dark and so don't show up the lovely colours (but you can see their beauty on the website, although I think Orla is no more!), but they are truly lovely collectors pieces.

"Baird" - Autumn Fairy


"Mistle" - Winter Berry Fairy


"Orla" - Jewel Fairy

My sister and her family visited today for a large buffet lunch (so large we couldn't even finish off the food at supper time). Lovely to see them all. Katie enjoyed showing off her rats, and Ben loved have a long play with his two young cousins.

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas Day.

From us all to you all ..

A VERY MERRY

FESTIVE SEASON

A wonder through Winter Wonderland

on Christmas Eve Eve (as my sis and I used to call it).

The photos don't do it justice. The trees, flower beds, statues and pathways were amass with white lights and the fountains were multicoloured. They were so white and bright we all felt very chilly by the time we came out! It was quite magical, and a lovely start to the Christmas festivities.

Sandringham

Spent some time at Sandringham park today. Tried to get a peak at the house to see if the flag was flying, but the walls and trees were in the way. We were told that the Queen and Prince P. were in deed at home and had greeted the public that very morning (probably on their way to church). Felt kind of strange being just a stone's throw from them!

Katie and I had a horse and carriage ride with Katie sitting next to the driver for a chat about horses and horse driving etc. He wouldn't let her have a go at driving but at least she could sit with him and get an idea of how it all happens.

Picked up some lovely meats, cheeses and olives from the farmers' market there, then had a nice stroll in the woods with Ben and Katie having a scramble over various log piles etc. A lovely day out in all.

Acts of kindness

I was reading a post about an act of kindess on Harmony Art's blog recently and thought how lovely some people can be to do a random kind thing like hand over a free cup of coffee from one of these rather posh outlets. Anyway, yesterday we experienced a random act of kindess too. It seems at the moment one thing is getting broken after another. The flush mechanism on our toilet decided to bust a couple of evenings ago. P and I poked around, proded and scratched out heads, we couldn't work out what bit had disappeared (and where to) to stop the thing from actually flushing.

We headed off to a DIY store yesterday in order to try and find a similar flushing do-dah which P wasn't too confident about fitting. By chance we spotted a similar flush system on one of their toilet set ups and we had a bit of a peak inside the cistern! We quickly saw that the piece missing is a 1cm grey square that must have pinged off and fallen down the flush tube into the toilet. Typical! We were going to have to fork out £15 for a whole new do-dah just to replace this 1cm bit. I decided to mention our predicatment to the sales guy who promptly said he'd see if there were any spare 1cm grey bits that we could have (a kind act in itself). After much searching he couldn't find one, but did find a whole replacement cistern (which he said was £18), and told us he'd open it up and take the part out for us, letting us walk away with our much needed 1cm do-dah free of charge. There are lots of thoughtful people out there - he was one of them.

Enjoy! A bit rude, but very funny!

Last night's village social

Took the children along to this with some trepidation! Unfortunately P was in London so couldn't join us. As it turned out, the evening was a very big success. During the day, we used all the left over gingerbread dough to make more scrummy biscuits, icing them with royal icing, melted chocolate and that squeezy coloured icing you get in tubes. We took a plateful along with us to sit along a long table crammed with nibbles and bites. Stupidly, we'd all just had a proper evening meal, so didn't really fancy anything else to eat - did managed to drink a piping hot toddy of mulled wine (first of the season). Just love that stuff - warms you from inside and tastes so Christmassy.

This is the first community social evening the village has help (as far as I'm aware). I went along to the first of many community meetings recently, all set up to try and get the locals working together. All sounds good, but I can't really see it ending up like the fabulous and jolly community gatherings we witness on the Hugh Fearnley-whatshisname programmes on the telly! But, you never know.

Anyway, the do started at 6.30 and we arrived about 7ish. It was deadly quiet when we got into the hall as everyone was listening to three children singing a Christmas song to the audience - we felt a little uncomfortable bursting in on them! Things livened up a little after this as big "pub" games were put out like Connect 4 and Jenga, so we had a play on those and then started mingling a little. We knew one other couple and one lady from the village so I certainly needed to circulate and make more friends! The council playrangers were there too with crafts for the children to do; Ben did some of that. All the children had a good old bash at the Pinata precariously hung from a washing line! Everyone seemed to liven up after that - I also think the mulled wine helped alittle.

Katie won a £3 voucher to spend at the local sweet shop and we all won an out of date tin of biccies in the raffle! The tin is lovely though and will be used - it's Winnie-the-Pooh, who is one of my favourite children's characters.

The best bit of the evening though was when the lady (that I already knew), to be known now as "M", asked Katie how old she was and what school she goes to, showed much joy to hear she's HE as she'd taken her 7 year old out of school that very afternoon. How fantasic is that?! Not only have I recently met an HE family just outside the village, I now have another family in the village. It turns out she's HEd her other children in the past, up until secondary school, so she's a dab hand at it. The other funny thing is, her son and Ben met at the park in the summer and both were just a little too shy to hook together. Perhaps now Ben will finally make a much needed mate locally.

"M" is also into garden and is going to ask Katie to help her try and set up a new business selling plants. She's got a heap of veggie mags she's going to lend me too - yay.

All this, just from a couple of hours out socialising!

Gingerbread House recipe

This tastes fab, so I'm sharing it. We've made two small houses and loads of extra biccies with this lot and I'll pop the link for a house template on when I get back to my normal PC.

450g runny honey
4 eggs
350g caster sugar
1 kg plain flour
zest of 1 lemon and 1 orange
100g ground almonds
100g ground hazlenuts
8 tsp ground mixed spice
Pinch of salt
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Heat the runny honey gently. Beat the eggs and sugar until fluffy, add the honey and then combine the wet mixture with the remaining dry ingredients. Fold them gently with a wooden spoon and knead into a soft dough. Wrap in clingfilm and leave for 24 hours in the fridge (but it will keep in there for up to 4 weeks).



Gently knead to soften and then roll out onto a lightly floured surface until about 5mm thick. Use the template to cut out the different house sections. Place them on greaseproof paper rubbed with a trace of oil/margarine. Bake for about 10 mins at 180 deg. C/Gas 4, until golden brown. Leave to cool on a wire rack. It will cool to a crip biscuit (and taste very good).


We used royal icing to stick the house together. The children enjoyed using a piping bag, but got a bit frustrated when it took time for all the bits to stick together. We found doing it in small stages was best, otherwise walls may collapse and the roof slide! Giving the icing time to dry a little and actually harden before adding the roof made it alot easier, and we also found using small cocktail sticks cut to the right height and covered with foil to prop up the roof as it dried was a good idea.


Once that's all done and completely dry, use royal icing or similar to put snow on the roof and to stick on all the different sweets, hundreds and thousands or chocolate that you can find.


Apparently, the house will keep for months, but surely temptation will win and you'll eat it pretty quickly!

Katie's house is on the left, Ben's on the right.

I've joined Facebook

Don't I have enough to do?! Good fun I must admit, but there's so much on there to play with it could take up the whole evening!

Boiler man came today for his (hopefully) final visit. I'm dreading the bill. We've had to replace about 4 or 5 things now but boy, was it worth it. I had this stupid smile on my face and was jumping for joy when he showed me the new pressure on our kitchen hot water tap. It only went down a little when he turned on the bathroom tap at the same time - result! There's a good chance I'll be able to enjoy baths again now, and the shower is positively power-shower in comparison.

Took an hour out from gingerbread house assembling this morning to watch a Chinook doing a long flying and shooting display over the marsh. We even remembered to take the binoculars this time so we had a fabulous close up view, even of the two army guys sitting at the back! Sparked a little learning on the speed of sound and light, as we'd see the smoke from the bullets long before we'd heard the firing.

Delivered cards and small gifts to our two neighbours and had nice long chin-wags with them. Much overdue. Also met a lady who's on a new community committee who came collecting goodies for a raffle at a do on Friday. I gave her a couple of Christmassy bits that I'd made last year when I had good intentions of starting my mini craft website/shop. She was pretty impressed and has asked that I try to do more and perhaps start up some kind of co-operative with other crafters, preserve makers, gardeners etc., in the village. She's trying to start a gardening business and was keen to hear that Katie may be interested in helping her. All sounding very positive.

I feel 2009 is going to be a positive year for us all.

Hansel and Gretel

For our Christmas notebook this week we're looking at the fairtale of Hansel & Gretel. Found a lovely version to read to Katie and Ben on this website featuring Grimm's tales, but then found this Rik Mayall vid here - he read it 200% better than me, so much so that Ben wanted to watch it again!

We found some useful worksheets and pictures here; Ben chose to print out the ginger bread house with all it's fiddly bits and bobs so he could decorate it. I've asked the children to produce character boards for Hansel, Gretel, the witch and the house by the end of the week. Katie's made a start on Hansel and Gretel and so far they look very imaginative. We did this a year or so ago about fairies, and I was really pleased with the thought and effort put in to it.

Today we started making a gingerbread house using a recipe from the Daily Mail magazine that had huge amounts of ingredients - 1kg of flour, 450g honey, 350g sugar! Quite amazed to see there's no actual ginger in the recipe, just 8 teaspoons of mixed spice as well as almonds and hazelnuts. Sounds yum though. We've ended up with enough dough to make two houses. It's now sitting in the fridge waiting to be rolled and cut into shape tomorrow.

Bread and cake science!

Have decided to take the easy option next year and use the Krampf science emails for the children's science work! This week's one was all about hygroscopics.


Ben baked a yummy cake to enable us to do the experiment! I'm quite impressed by Ben and Katie's abilities to make good food without any (or very little) assistance.

Anyway, we used a piece of fresh sliced bread and a piece of freshly baked and buttercreamed Victoria Sponge and put them out in the airy kitchen for a short while. Both were springy to the touch to start with but after 15 mins, the bread began to go alittle hard around the edges (whereas the cake remained edible). After a good hour or so, the bread was well and truly ready for the ducks outside, but the cake continued to be edible and became too irresitable to remain on its plate!

The cake, containing more sugar than a slice of bread, was absorbing moisture from the air resulting in a softer texture, even after an hour. The bread, with little sugar (or maybe even none), lost it's moisture through evaporation. The same thing happens with salt. I think we'll extend this little experiment a bit further by putting out small bowls of sugar and salt to watch them form clumps when left out to suck up moisture.

Frosty mornings and Christmas pictures

We've been having the most beautiful frosty mornings this last week. P nearly slid the car into a lamp post the other morning and we've seen at least 3 cars or vans in the ditches near us.




We all had good fun listening to Christmas songs and putting up the decorations this afternoon. Love the warm, candlelit glow and the fairy lights of course.





The two cats took to the Christmas tree in different fashions. Allie snuggled for a short nap under it and Pepper had a field day throwing himself at the tree, scrambling up it, playing with the decorations (and his tail at one point) and have a good old chew of the branches and fairy lights! To Pepper, Christmas is the next best thing to a decent Whiskers meal!

Positives for Saturday and Sunday

I'm already behind with this aren't I!!?

Saturday

Katie was at her stable club Christmas pony day so it meant I had the day with Ben as P was in London taking a 4 hour exam, poor dear.

(1) Had one of those lovely educational/thought provoking conversations with Ben while driving home from the stables, all about space, planets, "little green men", and life out there in the big wide universe. P and I watched the film Contact a few days ago and I know Ben would really enjoy this film - that's how the conversation sparked off. He has very grown up ideas and opinions for a 9 year old.

(2) Ben had to help with the the damned rabbit hutch cover which had blown off again in the wind (how much string wrapped around it does it need?). Anyway, he was busy doing something or other but willing came to help me out, just like yesterday it was cold but also very wet this time, and he didn't grumble at all.

(3) Katie was in a hugely positive mood when she came out of her pony day. Very chatty about all the games and what have you that had gone on.

Saturday was a lovely day - very positive all round. We drove down to the in-laws in the evening to pick up P and stayed for a curry - the best positive all the day!!


Today - Sunday

(1) Put up all the decorations this afternoon. Stuck a Christmas music CD on and stuck in to all four boxes of goodies which we've accumulated over the years. Katie insisted that we all decorate the tree and house, not just her and Ben, to make it a family event. It was lovely

(2) Bath and PJs were done this evening without any of the usual hassles. Not sure why, but I'm not going to grumble!

(3) Went out this morning to get a few DIY bits and bobs for our bedroom (no, it's still not fully completed) and Ben (the usual suspect) didn't keep asking me to buy things for him (well, not as much as usual anyway) - so a sort of positive there.