Halloween Half Term

My plans for half term were to spend a lot of quality time with the children, as on school days the time in between school pick up until bedtime just seems to evaporate. There is always so much to be done during the week, whether it's a school activity, swimming lesson or playdate, then cook dinner, reading and bath followed by the bedtime routine. The one thing which we never ever miss out is our bedtime story. We snuggle up into my king bed with me in the middle and each child either side of me, with their chosen story for the night. It's the favourite part of my day, firstly because I get lots of cuddles and giggles, and second it means that I am closer to my daily 'me time'!

One of the quality time activities I planned was baking of course! R had received a cookbook as a birthday present as well as a baking set, apron and hat so we decided to put these to use. She took her time poring over every pretty picture of baked goodies and settled on a few of her favourites. The next step was to find all the ingredients and this meant a trip to Tesco because R had picked some of the most intricately decorated recipes that I did not have all the ingredients for. Luckily I managed to go on my own to do the shopping otherwise R would have wanted to buy everything on the shelves. It was just as well, because I very nearly did this myself! There was a 3 for 2 offer and I just had to make the most of this and replenish my supplies of baking ingredients. I now have a huge bag of supplies in the middle of my kitchen and I need a whole cupboard for baking! This means a major reorganisation of my kitchen, which I have left for another day...for now we can use them straight from the bag in the middle of my kitchen.

So far we have made chocolate biscuits and vanilla biscuits. For the first effort, there were ok but a little too greasy. I accidentally added too much sugar because I measured the wrong quantity and realised just as soon as I had put it into to mixture, which is irreversible. But the children still ate what they made and were very pleased with them. Somehow I forgot to take a picture of the finished goods, but I did managed to get a picture of them in the process.

We also went to Bekonscot Model Village, which I have not been back to myself since I was a child. The weather was always going to be a nuisance as it is an outdoor attraction, but I had to take the chance as R has been asking to go for a whole week. As it turned out, the sun was shining on the way there, and when we arrived it started to rain. That didn't stop us as we had our umbrellas with us and we could carry on along the route through the village. Luckily the rain wasn't heavy and only lasted for 5 minutes and then stopped and for the rest of the time it was quite bright. The rain never dampens the children's excitement at whatever they may be doing. They were thrilled at feeling like giants among a zoo, funfair, castle, hotel, horse racing and mini steam train among many. We ended up going around the village three times and then they spent some time in the very pretty and colourful playground there.