Den building and recipe testing

Can you see the children in the field? There are 5 of them up there :) They spent the day chopping down the dry thistles to make a den.
So I went up to investigate.
K started her den against the trees.
Here is the den that they have all been working on.

It even has artwork in it :) A stick sculpture that B made.

Gran came over to do some recipe testing with the children. They were testing cupcakes by using two different recipes and seeing which one they preferred.
They were judging on how easy the recipe was, how they looked when baked, and most importantly how they tasted.
While the first batch of cakes were in the oven Googs made some bread for lunch.

Doing the blind taste testing. The results were that the one that looked the worst, tasted the best :) Luckily neither of the recipes was as good as the cupcake recipe I already use which not only looks good but tastes wonderful.

Walnut picking!

We went picking walnuts for the first time ever! It was so exciting.

There were hundreds on the ground and on the tree. I haven't captured them on camera because I was way too busy picking :)


Aren't they lovely :)

Walking to find more trees. Googs found a ripe pear that had fallen off a tree.

After filling our bags, oh we could have picked so many more, we went for a walk.

The children were looking at a school of tiny fish


One thing I didn't mention was that walnuts stain your hands, big time!!! One of the mums was very organised and brought us all some gloves to wear. I still managed to stain my fingers :P I looked like I had some kind of fake tan disaster :)

'schooling' bits and bobs

We have finally got the organ to work! Turns out all it needed was a new adapter.
K was really eager to learn especially since B is loving his guitar.
Its funny how the kids go through phases of toys and activities. This week they've been obsessively making hamma bead creations.
Googs asks to paint often but when he gets his paints he spends his whole time just mixing colours to make new colours. He loves it, he never actually paints with all his new colours :) just uses them to make more colours.
Kiki is different, she loves to paint many, many, MANY pictures in one sitting. It is usually the same picture over and over again in different colours. At the moment she is into drawing trees, either coconut or watermelon trees :)
And while the younger two paint, the older two sit at the larger table and do their work.
We studied snails as part of our animal block. After the writing work was complete we made clay snails.





the dry clay looks like snail trails :)

Googs turns 6!

Early morning birthday hugs.
For each birthday the kids take hours making each other birthday cards. They draw pictures on three sides and writing on one.





umm yes, it looks a little dangerous from here but it doesn't have a pointy end.

Birthday cake!
Googs wanted a money cake ??? He likes to collect things and his most recent obsession is conkers and money :) So a pirate ship it was.
Singing happy birthday.


This is now his 3rd birthday that I have recorded on the blog! It is so great to keep this record for us all.