Valentines Toddler Activity

I was keen to get Boris involved in Valentines day this year so found a fun activity on Pinterest that I thought he would like, it took a bit of forward planning but I was pretty pleased with it.  It's a sort of Valentines heart lucky dip come family identification game.

I got photos of some members of our family printed then cut heart shapes round the faces and stuck them onto pink card.  I then followed the heart shape of the photo leaving about a cm gap all round.

I then cut a few more hearts out of the card with no photos on and chucked them all in a plastic box.

I added some faux rose petals that I bought off ebay and some heart shaped marshmallows for Boris to dig out and we were ready to go.

He had a good time looking through the photos and we went through naming them all and did this a few times on valentines day and the day after.  I then stuck the photos on the wall and my husband and Boris played with them, pulling them off, naming them, sticking them back on then putting them back in the box.

I think it was worth doing because it got Boris involved and was a fun game (although surprisingly he wasn't fussed by the heart shaped marshmallows).  I am trying to think what I can do with all the bits now, might make a little book with all the photos in it for Boris to identify.

I also made a Valentines day cake for my husband:

Our Candlemas Celebration

You may remember me saying at the start of February that we would be celebrating Candlemas by making and eating a candle cake, making an earthen candle and eating a candle lit dinner, amazingly I did actually manage to do all these things on the evening of Candlemas.
In case you don't know Candlemas is a Christian feast day celebrated 40 days after Christmas day to make the day that Mary presented the infant Jesus at the temple, as was the tradition. It is also they day when churches bless the candles, which represent Jesus being the light of the world. Historically the date has been celebrated as the mid-point between the shortest day and the spring equinox, and thus seems an ideal date to celebrate light.

I like cake (a lot) so when I saw this candle cake I decided it would be a great excuse to combine the celebration and my love of baked goods.  It was pretty easy to make, literally covered a Swiss roll with water icing (it makes lots of drippy marks giving it an authentic candle-like feel) and I used a heart shaped marshmallow turned upside down and stuck on a kebab skewer for the flame. If I did this again I would make my own Swiss roll because, no offence, but Asda own brand Swiss roll is a bit minging.

The earthen candle idea came from here,I thought Boris would really like it and he did.  I made mine by melting some paraffin wax in a Bain Marie 

Then I filled Boris' little bucket with soil from the garden and formed a heart shape in it, I suspended a wick in it then poured in the melted wax. I left it o set whilst finishing dinner and laying the table.

And Voila!  Our Candlemas dinner was complete. I apologise for these photos, it was too dark really and no amount of iphone filtration was going to make them look any better!

After dinner we played shadow puppets in the candle light, it was good fun.

Sensory rice

My friend told me about this idea, I had seen it before on Pinterest but couldn't visualise how the food colouring would spread through the rice and without the rice going soggy, I thought there was some magical ingredient or process you had to go through to make it, turns out it is totally easy for anyone with more than half a brain. 

All you do is put some rice into a zip lock bag then put a splash of food colouring in, close the bag and give it a shake.  I was told adding a bit of white vinegar makes the colour brighter, so I added a bit to the pink but it took much longer to dry so I didn't bother adding it to any of the other colours.  I then spread the rice out on a tray to dry overnight. 

Unfortunately I actually have ever so slightly less than half a brain (the other half came out with the placenta)  I forgot to zip the bag up before shaking when I dyed the blue.  Cue a kitchen with rice E.V.E.R.Y.W.H.E.R.E!! 

Boris was very interested in the rice (and I was absurdly excited about giving it to him) he scooped it and mixed it and let it fall through his fingers, he didn't get very far with it before a parcel arrived for my husband FULL of packing noodles (those polystyrene and starch foamy packing things, I call them noodles) and he became totally distracted from the rice.  I didn't mind too much because he was sooo engaged by the noodles, he loved them and spent a long time sat in the box swimming in them, pouring them over his head and generally having a ball.  He did return to the rice later, and played a bit more before starting to spread them around the whole room.  At which point I called it a day on the rice because I didn't fancy spending the rest of the afternoon picking up rice.

Yep, the packing noodles were a big hit!

The rice was the cheap as chips own brand from the supermarket and cost only about 40p, I already had the food colouring, I didn't have to use much except for the pink which I had intended to be red but ran out.  

Have you used sensory rice?  How else did you use it?  I am thinking collaging when he is a bit older.