Waiter, waiter there's some sand in my soup!

Due to the recent 'Indian Summer' like weather - long may it continue - Amos and I have been back out in our wonderful garden. One of our most enjoyable, and for me immensely satisfying activities, has been harvesting our home-grown potatoes. Other than my hair, I have never grown anything before so it has been incredibly exciting to delve into a big bag of soil and find potatoes. Of course Amos just loves getting dirty so he's very happy helping me.
Amos has also been enjoying his sandpit. He is very lucky to have a daddy who is an excellent carpenter and has made him a really great sandbox. In it he has old pans from the kitchen, some bits of plastic guttering and his little gardening tools, all keeping him happy for a while - seven and a half minutes is a lifetime in toddler world!
I watch him with his 'sand pies' and 'sand soup' and wonder at what age does that suddenly become unappetising?

Hamley's online shop has some fantastic offers on really innovative sandpits like one that is also a picnic table,  click here to check them out - a stay at home mum's dream.

TV Dinner

Meals are a bit of a bone of contention in our house - not what to eat but where to eat it! I think it's important for us to sit at the table in the dining room and my husband would love to have his dinner in front of the TV every night.  We've compromised. No, we don't eat in the hall! We eat most of our meals at the table but on a Saturday night I make homemade pizza, Amos helps me by putting on the topping (and yes I mostly resist re-arranging it) and we sit together as a family in front of the telly and watch some kind of U (usually Disney) film. It's really special and I've started to look forward to it. Although, a two year old's attention span is akin to that of a goldfish so when Amos has had his pizza and gone off to play with his trains it's just the two of us sitting engrossed in a Disney cartoon....not something we had envisioned a few years ago:)

Birthday Cakes Galore

Being a fairly new mum who had absolutely no idea about the general workings of babies and children before having one of my own, this week I found myself swimming around in the murky waters of the birthday party.

A hive of cake decorating activity

Amos turned two this week and on his birthday my husband and I took him to the zoo, the weather was amazing and we had a fantastic day out. I thought it would also be lovely for Amos to have a party and invite some of his little friends around, slowly it dawned on me how complicated this could be - what with party food, party games and then the dreaded party bag! I decided to combat these complications in one foul swoop and we had a cake decorating party! We had it from 2 til 4 in the afternoon, I baked lots of fairy cakes (my friend very kindly joined in the baking frenzy), I provided sweets, chocolates, fruit, pink, yellow and blue icing and we had a ball. The children decorated as many fairy cakes as they could manage, eating their fill of sweets and chocolates as they went along until all the mums and dads flopped out on the lawn and the kids ran off their E numbers in the garden.

Amos' choo choo birthday cake  - done by my own fair hand

It turned out to be a great day and a fun, all encompassing activity.....I am also available with ideas for weddings and Bar Mizvahs!!!

Demolition - that was the end of that!

Happy Birthday Amos.