Lifeboat Open day on Hayling Island

We spent a wonderful sunny morning at the beach today. 

Watching the lifeboats being launched and racing around the waves. It was fun to learn all about them and try on the helmets and other equipment. 

We also enjoyed cooling off with a gentle paddle. It was Gmans first time touching the sea and  he hated it. Hopefully a bit of exposure therapy over the holidays will change his mind.

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A gardening sort of a day

 Today's activity was garden themed small world play. The girls enjoyed planting seeds (dried pumpkin seeds) and making artificial flowers pop up. I found a sweet children's gardening set in Pound land. They loved the little trowel and watering can.

After spending the morning organising their mini garden, we walked to the local garden centre to look at the flowers. The reduction table was full of chilli plants so I snaffled two for £1 each. I went for mild varieties, hopefully we should get lots of use out of them :)

I spent the afternoon reporting my aloe Vera who have had an abundance of babies again this summer. Between the two parent plants I found 12.

Hopefully I'll be able to sell the surplus plants shortly. 

The parent plants are now living in the two biggest pots I own. I will look out for a cheap planter when they start selling off the summer stuff in the shops.

With the parent plants now way to big for my windowsill, they have been replaced with two of this year's Vera-lings. Hopefully they will be a successful as their parents, it seems to be a prime spot for success.

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Picnic Prep

Just a quick post from me today, I'm afraid.

I've been busy in the kitchen baking cake, bread and sausage rolls to take with us tomorrow.

Nothing beats a nice homemade picnic.

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Welcome to nature week

Week one of the holidays has officially begun in the Random household. As we are all still recovering from yesterday so it hasn't be a hugely active, but we did manage a short nature walk in the local park.

I saw the colourwheel idea on Pinterest.

The girls really enjoyed collecting all the different colours and it made for some interesting conversations.

DD2; Mummy? Can I stick the sky in my diary book?

Blue and red proved to be the hardest colours to find, but we persevered. 

We also collected a handful of leaves and flowers (dandilions, buttercups and daisys) for Baby G.

Using some zip lock baggies and budget hair gel we made sensory bags for him to explore. 

Over the course of the day we all had a good squishing session or two. It has a really satisfying texture to plat with.

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A day out by the sea.

Today we took the train, with some friends, to Southsea.

The Red Arrows put on a wonderful show. The children enjoyed watching them whoosh overhead while us mummies had mini heart attacks at the close calls and last minute direction changes.

It was exhilarating stuff.

The girls were complete angels today. Barely a cross word from either of them. In fact they spent most of the day giggling and running around holding hands.

It made my heart sing.

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Caterpillar Success.

Today's theme went down a storm. The girls loved all the different activities and we made some really nice additions to the holiday diarys.

Tomorrow we off with some friends for a train journey. We're going to watch the Ted Arrows display locally. Followed by a nice picnic.

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The Hungry Caterpillar themed day

I had hoped the first day of the holidays would be a nice lazy pajama day.

So obviously the girls decided they wanted a Hungry Caterpillar day...ten minutes before they went to bed!!!

Thanks to Google and Pinterest though we have it covered.

Activity sheet avaliable HERE

Memory card game avaliable HERE

 (For DD1's number bonds we have written numbers on each card. As she turns them over we will write them down as a sum and solve it before taking the next turn.)

Cut out pictures avaliable HERE

Folding story book available HERE

The original story is of course a must have! And the girls holiday diary to collect all their writting and pictures in. We found these colourful exercise books in Wilkos for just 50p each.

A rummage in the toy box has uncovered some on theme paper placemats and set of jigsaw puzzles.

Hopefully Hubby will remember to buy some oranges when he finishes work tomorrow. I have the other 4 fruits in the kitchen currently so making a fruit salad will be no hardship at all.

I hope they enjoy it.

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Skoolz out!

School is officially over for almost 7 weeks.

We decided to celebrate this monumental occasion with a trip to a local ice cream parlour.

Sadly the heat was to much for our tiniest member and he napped through the entire thing.

Our first theme for the holidays is Nature. I've amassed a good collection of goodies through Wilkos, Poundland and Ebay.

Without school runs to take up my time I'm planning to blog most days about what we've been up to.

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A great day out

Yesterday was a wonderful day out at Paulton's park.

The only complaint about the say was the blazing sun, but there wasn't a lot we could do about it.

There was enough of us to ensure everyone could ride what they wanted, when they wanted.

Top favourites were the carousel and viking boats.

DD2 enjoyed driving us around the dinosaur jeep ride with Nanny. The new dinosaur park is so beautifully planned and set out. 

We spent most of the day exploring it.

We all really enjoyed seeing Justin Fletcher Live. He really is the best children's entertainer. It was a nice to find him exactly as you'd see him on TV.

By the end of day everyone was slightly sunburnt and exhausted. 

I'm looking forward to our second trip in a few weeks time.

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Building Survival Kits

They say the key to any survival situation is good prep.

With that in mind today's main job was to prep for a trip to an amusement park tomorrow. 

It's going to be a very long day with very long queues of people.

Each adult in our group is being equipped with one of these little Busy Bags. A pocket sized stash of time wasters.

Each one contains ;

A colouring or activity book

A pen or crayons (depending on book)

A few small lollipops.

A few boiled sweets.

A tube of bubble mixture.

I will let you know how effective they are when we return.

Wish me luck.

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Free Frame Fun.

A very kind friend of mine gifted me a photo frame today. 

I knew I had a few free printables pinned on Pinterest that I wanted to display so I snapped it up.

A quick dig in the 'to do' pile turned up a second frame that also needed filling.

So this afternoon while DD1 read to me, I printed out two rather amusing printables.

Both required a bit of trimming but it was an easy five minute job to sort both pictures out.

Now I just have to pester hubby to hang them for me on Sunday when he's off.

Who doesn't like a bit of free decor?

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Potting up the herbs.

I've reached that quiet stage in the growing season.

The plants only need minimal care and watering, and I've not yet started getting gluts of anything to start preserving.

I decided to use my afternoon in the garden to tidy up the greenhouse a bit and try growing some herb cuttings.

I'm pretty confident that the mint will survive the process. I'm not even sure it's possibly to kill a mint plant. The chives, however, seem to be a bit more of a delicate plant to me. I've separated the huge chunk I had into three. Fingers crossed they all survive and I will get plenty of chive plants to sell on my plant stall next year.

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Filthy Friday

I had lots of energy today thanks to the sunny weather, so I decided to give the girls bedroom a good scrub down. Hubby helpfully pulled out the various bits of furniture and tackled any spiders I came across

 Gman took care of the vacuuming. He loves the vacuum cleaner and happily pushes it around carpet most of the day.

I'm really pleased with what we achieved. The girlie's now have a nicely aired, tidy, dust and cobweb free room to enjoy. 

 The only problem is... now I feel like I have to clean all the other rooms too!

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