Advent adventure: 2nd December

Today we opened the second drawer of our tabletop Advent tree. Inside, my children found a tiny trinket to hang on one of its branches and a strip of paper upon which was written a fun and festive activity. There's one of these for every day of Advent - I know that for sure because I came up with the twenty-four ideas, lovingly wrote them out and carefully placed one in each of the tree's diminutive drawers. Here's a photograph representing today's little Advent adventure.

Make and play with a fresh batch of winter-spice play dough

Advent adventure: 1st December

Today we opened the first drawer of our tabletop Advent tree. Inside, my children found a tiny trinket to hang on one of its branches and a strip of paper upon which was written a fun and festive activity. There's one of these for every day of Advent - I know that for sure because I came up with the twenty-four ideas, lovingly wrote them out and carefully placed one in each of the tree's diminutive drawers. Here's a photograph representing today's little Advent adventure.

Make your own Advent calendar

'Get Stuffed' - making Victorian versions of ourselves

We're a family that love a good outing, especially if it's something active and outdoors, it's culturally stimulating or it's got something to do with food. We love it even more if it's free, so when we heard that the Museum of London were running a Sunday session called Get Stuffed where families could dress up as Victorians and transform themselves into stuffed dolls - totes gratis - we were just about the first in the queue.

The session lasted an hour, in which time the museum's lovely Rosie Fuller gave us a little history lesson about Victorian photography and a few tips on how to pose in a manner appropriate for the era. After a brief explanation about how to use a couple of editing Apps on the museum iPads - we were off; let loose on a heap of replica Victorian costume; posing, photographing and printing images of our Victorian selves onto fabric with aplomb.

Unfortunately, we couldn't actually do the 'getting stuffed' part of the activity within the time - but we were each given a little bag with a kit containing some padding, backing fabric, pins and a little length of cotton to complete the job at home. Straight after the session, we visited the Victorian Walk and sang, still feeling a little Cockney in character, Down at the Old Bull and Bush whilst in the reconstructed public house.

We had great fun back at home trimming, pinning and using Grandma's sewing machine to make our little dolls. To make them even more special, and to go with the whole Victorian theme, we added some dried lavender in with the stuffing. 

Now we have four little Victorian-style, sweet-smelling, dolls; firm favourites with the children. They're so proud to have made them themselves - and I love that we had all this fun for free thanks to Rosie and the Museum of London. When's the next Sunday session then? We're keen, very keen.

Summer break?

We seem to have got to the last day of July in an awful hurry. How do I let myself get so busy when it's supposed to be the start of the summer break? I can already feel the end of the holidays looming towards me instead of stretching away into the distance. Others, according to the media anyway, have the opposite problem - they have the boredom of the holidays with which to contend, the coping with the kids, and the entertaining of them without breaking the bank and so on. Here I am, desperately trying to find two minutes together to just be with my children, and savour their summer. I can't be the only one who isn't dreading the holidays, but the speed with which they'll fly by, can I?

I had to turn off a BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour article this morning when I got very angry with Carol Vorderman of all people. She was promoting the use of her Maths tutoring website over the summer (well, she would, wouldn't she) and was arguing a case for keeping up learning standards during the holidays so our kids don't revert to 'where they were' at the end of the spring term - the so-called summer slide. She was implying that without using such websites or providing them with a holiday tutoring programme, our children would not read, write nor do any Maths, not really learn anything, over the summer. Really?

I shouted at the radio before switching it off that they learn all the time. Yes, Carol, even out of school - imagine that! Why doesn't she know that children don't limit their learning to within school hours - it's simply not how they work. It may not be formalised, classroom-based, attainment target-adhering learning, but it IS learning. And it's important to give our children this different pace. If we say that learning can only take place in formal settings with screens, or pen or paper or teachers and white boards then we have a very narrow and incomplete view of learning indeed. Learning in the summer vacation can be the most marvellous, unique, holistic, progressive, penetrating, enduring kind there is. 

I will not be fooled by the advertisers' boredom-buster solutions that insist we need to keep our children entertained or learning Maths or otherwise occupied to stop them from driving us insane. Most parents know that giving their school-aged children time is the best thing they can do for them over the summer. Time for sports and games, for playing outside till it's too dark to see the ball, for reading what they like for fun, for making and tinkering, or learning to shuffle cards. Time for perfecting their tying of bows, learning the rules of backgammon, for creating masterpieces with Lego, or for baking biscuits. Time for learning a few chords on the guitar or playing a harmonica in a hammock, helping with chores, or for taking day trips to new places. All these experiences can feed into their learning, and actually consolidate their school-gained knowledge and skills across all curriculum subjects and beyond.

This radio programme was a wake-up call for me; reminding me to take a step back and not feel guilty about the fact that I'm not tutoring or providing school-work for my children during the summer break. Instead, I choose to reflect on what my children are learning during their time off. When they're out digging in the dirt, collecting snails, counting how many times they can bounce that ball against the wall, or reading endless comics - they're learning. And when September comes around, I know they'll be ready - with their pencils sharpened, their shoes polished and with renewed academic energy. That back-to-school feeling can be great - but only if children have had a chance to actually leave the place, and that kind of learning, behind for a bit.

We absolutely love, love, love Hotel Birthday

When Daisy first told me that she'd like a hotel-themed birthday party - inspired by the stories of Kay Thompson's Eloise (a rawther posh six-year-old who lives in The Plaza Hotel, New York) - I must admit I couldn't quite imagine how it was going to work. But once we'd plotted and planned a while, we knew exactly how to temporarily transform our house into a rawther posh hotel, and we knew that all the party guests would absolutely love, love, love to attend its grand opening.

Hotel Birthday's exterior looked very smart indeed - with a bunting-style sign, a red carpeted entrance and a smartly dressed Bell Captain (actually Daddy) waiting to welcome everyone. All rawther grand, oui?

Once inside, the visitors were invited to ring the bell for service - *ting*, and sign the Guest Book.

Then it was out to the cool and calm Courtyard Garden for a drinks reception; classical music tinkled sophisticatedly in the background, and a make-your-own cocktail bar sat ready in the corner. The guests loved, loved, loved creating their own concoctions with fresh fruit pieces, sprigs of mint, ice cubes, fruit juice topped off with lemonade or fizzy water. And yes, those personalised glasses were oooooo - rawther popular and taken home by the guests at the end of their stay. 

Once refreshed, the guests played a few jolly team games in the hotel Lobby. First up was Over and Under - where sets of hotel keys were passed backwards between teams - over the head of the first person in the line, then between the knees of the next - and so on. This was all rawther difficult - especially for those guests wearing frothy skirts; the keys kept disappearing amongst the frills, frills, frills.

This was followed by a hectic and hilarious hands-on game called Towel Team. Here, the guests helped out Housekeeping by folding and piling up the hotel's fluffy towels as quickly as they could. The team with the neatest pile won, won, won the game. 

Then each team had a chance to make a tower of luggage in the Lobby - the tallest tower won the contest. The cardboard-box-suitcases were rawther light and tricky to stack - so the teams had to use their ingenuity to come up with a design that would win the competition, staying up by itself until the adjudicator had measured its height.

After a short general knowledge quiz in the hotel Lounge, the guests played a special version of Roll-a-Six. When a Six was rolled, the successful guest put on a hotel bath robe, shower-cap and a sleep-mask before trying to retrieve a hotel chocolate from a pillow without using their hands. Not at all sophisticated, but the guests had lots of silly fun and they all loved, loved, loved having a sweet treat or two.

After an elegant tea of sandwiches and the like, served in the Garden, the guests retired upstairs where they could enjoy a foot bath and cucumber eye-treatment in the Spa Room, and they could propahly prepare for the Dance; accessorizing and beautifying themselves in the Dressing Room.

At last, the happy and energised guests tumbled back downstairs and had a laugh, a dance and a well-deserved ice-lolly in the Garden Ballroom till the end of the party. All agreed that the whole affair had been rawther wonderful. Ooooo - we all love, love, love Hotel Birthday.

Take the bait and create

I'm rather excited to tell you about our latest card-making project; just look how cute it turned out. It came about when I asked my children if they might make some baby congratulations cards for our friends' new arrivals, and they happily accepted the challenge. 

They told me that they wanted to make cards that would also be a sort of present; a kind of toy to look at. So, I collected the materials for the cards a few weeks ago - when the babies were brand new. My children know that new-born babies respond very well to black-and-white, so they approved of my selection of collage materials; craft foam, card, cartridge paper, tissue paper and a few googly eyes - only in black and white. 

I arranged all the materials on a large tray along with some scissors, a couple of pencils and a glue-stick, and left them out in a kind of no-pressure-but-look-what-lovely-thing-is-here-for-you-to-do way, hoping one or both of my children might take the bait and create. But still no-one took up the challenge. Until tonight, that is - when my daughter suddenly appeared in the kitchen to make her cards just as I was loading the dishwasher. 

I had no idea what she was going to make, and I just let her get on with it as I cleared up after dinner. But imagine my delight when I finally saw what she'd created. As you can see, she made two cards, one with a rather striking gentleman on the front, and another featuring an elegant lady. This is ideal, because two of the new arrivals happen to be a boy and girl pair of twins. Perfect. I really hope they like their card/present combos. 

Now to work on my son - I hope he gets round to making his card before the baby in question starts appreciating colour; otherwise we'll have to re-think the whole thing. 

Honeymoon revisited

Last week, as part of our tenth wedding anniversary celebrations, we took the children to our honeymoon location - Italy's Amalfi coast. Rather wonderfully, nothing much had changed; the coastal hills were still laden with lemon groves, rose gardens and vegetable patches. The air was warm and sweet with jasmine, the turquoise Mediterranean sea sparkled as the sun played with its waves, and the luxury yachts were still to-ing and fro-ing from the harbour just as they had been ten years ago. What had changed, of course, was our situation - we were no longer the childless newly-weds of 2003; rising at midday, sunbathing and reading by the pool, boldly trekking the cliff-routes fancy-free and often map-free, or feasting on fabulous local food and wine till the early hours.

However, our honeymoon-revisited was actually far from hindered by the presence of our children. They really were brilliant company; they loved the idea of relaxing whilst reading their holiday books like Mummy and Daddy, they had the stamina to walk for miles - often up and down hundreds of hillside steps  - and they got the whole 'lying-in' thing brilliantly. And of course, as is the wondrous thing about children, they saw the whole holiday as a series of new and exciting opportunities to play. And for me, that alone made going back absolutely worthwhile. Our children helped us see it, and experience it, through their playful eyes. We reminisced a little, yes - it's impossible not get a little misty-eyed when returning to such a paradise - but there wasn't time to let wistful memories bring us down, or make us feel old for too long. Our two full-of-beans lovelies soon brought us back to the present; wanting to show us what they'd found, or to tell us what they were doing. Here are a few of the invitations to play they so cleverly discovered during our holiday:

Amalfi's fountain turned out to be a very classy outdoor water-table...

Atrani's piazza floor, with its distinctive design, was great for all manner of running and jumping games...

... and the winding footpaths leading to and from the piazza became an exciting spot for many a game of Sardines and 40-40.

Amalfi's beach was perfect for paddling...

...and for treasure-seeking - there were some amazing sea-ceramics to be found.

Al fresco dining was made hilarious with fun and games with napkins...

... and walking up lots of steps was almost easy-peasy when looking out for lurking lizards.

With rose gardens aplenty, fallen petal collection was a must for perfume-making sessions back at base...

.... and a boat-trip to the isle of Capri allowed Daisy to stay up front, and in an imaginary world of her own no doubt, for the entire journey.

A beautiful garden provided a chance to become statues...

...and a crystal clear swimming pool was an invitation not to be missed by my little water-baby.

I know going on a honeymoon with children isn't everyone's cup-of-tea - but revisiting the location of ours with our kids was simply fantastic. Who knows what we'll all be doing in ten years time, maybe our children won't want to go anywhere with us by then, but I'm pencilling in Honeymoon Part III to Amalfi in my diary anyway. From here it looks like a fine idea.