Cooking together - pizza and apple crumble

Nate's favourite thing to do at the moment is to be involved in cooking. At nursery he has been practising cutting fruit and veg, and his fingers are never too far away from the chopping board if we are cooking.

We decided to make Apple Crumble, Nate had great fun helping me to peel the apples and then chopping them up into small pieces. After they had been cut up small he put all of the apple in a dish and we then covered it with our special crumble mix (75g of dairy free spread, 100g of flour, 50g of muscovado sugar and a teaspoon of ginger rubbed together) we then sprinkled a couple of tablespoons of oats on top. Nate really enjoyed this Apple Crumble and has been asking to make it again everyday.

We then made pizza, normally I make a pizza dough and make the pizza's myself but we decided to let Nate put whatever he wanted on his pizza so it would be his own creation and to encourage him to eat more. 

He started out by putting loads of courgettes on his pizza. So many we encouraged him to take a few off and put a few of the other things we had to put on the pizza's.

Nate's finished pizza contained courgette's, mushroom's, peas, sweetcorn and bacon on it. I also made some dough balls out of the leftover dough. Nate strangely ate all of the toppings on his pizza but not the pizza base. However, he enjoyed begin involved in the cooking process now to think up other meals we can make together. 

Krabby Patties

Nate is a bit of a Spongebob fan, and previously he had seen and had some sweetie Krabby Patties. However, I don't like him having too many of them but he wants his Krabby Patties, I have no idea why.

The loved Krabby Patty sweet

For a long time I've been promising we will make some, I planned on making them slightly differently to how I did in the end.

I made a cake batter, enough to make 12 cupcakes. I then split the mixture in half and Nate filled 6 cupcake cases with the plain batter, while he did that I split the mixture in half and one of those halves in half again. You should have three bowls of batter not including the mixture now in the cupcake cases with the smaller two bowls of batter I coloured one red and one green and the bigger bowl I put a little of both red and green, to make brown. I filled the cup cake cases with the rest of the mixtures and then baked them.

Finished Krabby Patties

Nate had great fun putting them together and I had planned on making some 'special sauce' but he was adamant they should be no special sauce. 

Nate putting them together

London Aquarium & Octonauts

The Octonauts have been at the London Aquarium (sea life) for the last week, so we decided to take a visit there while we were in London. The last time I went to the Aquarium was when I was pregnant with Nate so it's changed a bit. They have penguins now which Nate loved. We arrived at the penguin tank at feeding time, but the penguins weren't that interested in feeding. We were told the penguins liked playing and would play with visitors if they waved a piece of paper about in front of the tank, Nate had a go and loved 'playing' with the penguin but then decided the penguin wasn't allowed to steal his paper so tried to tell this to the penguin.

Sorry for the blurry picture but two moving things are hard to catch.

At set times Peso & Captain Barnacles were appearing in the activity centre and you were able to have pictures with them. Also in the activity centre there were a few Octonaut toys to play with, two huge floor puzzles and colouring in pages. Nate happily spent an hour playing in the activity centre and waiting for Peso to arrive.

Working on the second puzzle

Meeting Peso

Nate is quite a big fan of the Octonauts which was why we visited when we did but I was very surprised but happy when he correctly identified the Lion-fish which was thanks to the Octonauts. In fact he got lots of enjoyment from going to the Aquarium because of the Octonauts episodes he had watched. He knew exactly what he wanted to see, the turtles (because of a previous sea life visit), Sea horse, jellyfish, Octopus (we didn't see one) & a Shark. However, he wanted to look at all of the fish there and wanted to know what they were/their names.

The little Octonauts signs with facts and questions on kept Nate entertained but in places confused us slightly in one instance the Octopus sign was someone where I couldn't see/find an octopus. He'd go up to each sign and ask for me to read it and knew the fish on the sign (not sure if that's a good thing, may be a sign of too much TV watching).

All in all a good day out, the Octonauts are at London Aquarium until 16th November if you are around London and have a Octonauts fan.

Mumsnet Bedtime Stories

We were recently sent the Mumsnet Bedtime stories book which contains 10 stories written by Mumsnetters.

Nate hasn't had all of the stories read to him yet but mainly that is because he keeps choosing the same two to be read to him.

The Dancing Bear is one of the stories that Nate keeps choosing. We (the adults) liked the beginning of the story which is written beautifully however the story comes to a rather abrupt end. The story is poetically more than narratively pleasing.

We all liked the underlying moral of not to judge by appearances in Allie to the Rescue, especially pleasing considering Nate's mixed race background.

The stories were more for a slightly older age group than Nate, but this didn't effect his enjoyment of the stories, and think he'll enjoy some of the other stories when he's older himself.

All in all there is the feeling of the old stories I used to have read to me before going to bed as a child, and that same soothing atmosphere within the Book of Bedtime Stories should appeal to both mums, dads and their children.

We were sent the book in exchange of a review.

Time loop

On Friday evening I saw an event for children at Tate Britain being advertised. We haven't taken Nate to either of the Tate's previously, we decided it would be a good idea to go.

As we walked in we were handed a pair of glasses (cardboard) and a time loop booklet. The glasses were for viewing the artwork through time, perfect for imaginative children/adults. There were a few activities for the children to get involved in. My favourite was the children drawing while musicians played, the children were encouraged to draw what they thought the music represented and then draw something for the musicians to interpret into music. It was great watching the musicians looking at these drawings and playing.

Nate looking for something orange

There were tours going on as well. We followed one until Nate got bored and it was remarkably well done to engage the children. If you wanted lots of information regarding the paintings you were following the wrong tour but he encouraged the children to look at the paintings and have a laugh before quickly moving on to the next one often walk very quickly (& with a silly walk) to another part of the gallery.  

While at the Tate Britain, Nate discovered some sculptures he really liked. They were by The Chapman Brothers and were in a mock African tribal style. I originally thought Nate wouldn't like them as they were in a dark room so quickly walked on through the room and then realised Nate and his dad hadn't followed me so went back and Nate was pointing to the sculptures he wanted to see. There was one sculpture with Ronald McDonalds on that I had noticed originally and thought was strange but dismissed it when Nate asked who it was he thought we said Old McDonald so went around singing "EIEIO"

Nate's favourite room

Speedo's Underwater World Event

Nate's dad has complained saying he doesn't get mentioned in my blog very often, if at all, so with this post I'll be mentioning him.

We were invited to the Speedo's underwater world event on Tuesday, there was a swimming lesson to begin with and then a free swim. The swimming lesson was very different to the swimming lessons we are used to and contained a few new ideas for us to try while swimming with Nate on our own. However, there were huge floats in the pool so Nate wasn't that interested in swimming he wanted to sit on an Orca. So when it was time for the free swim, I had to find one of the inflatables for him to play with.

Nate meeting the Sea Squad (he was terrified of them really)

In the pool as well as there being inflatables there were also other toys which were being used in the course of the lesson, the Sea Squad squirty toys were being used in Nate's lessons to get the children reaching for the toys as well as the Sea Squad Water Balls which they were encouraging the children to throw and swim for them, we really liked the Water Balls as balls to play with in the pool, so will be getting some of those for Nate's swimming sessions.

Enjoying the inflatables.

It was great to see how the bigger children were being taught in some instances it was 1 on 1 tuition and the children were doing really well with the instructors from what I could see. 

Have a look at Nate's dad's drawing that was inspired by this event. 

Raspberry Pi

A computer for under £30. That's a raspberry pi, a basic computer built to run Linux and open source Operating System (OS).

The beautiful case it's in cost £10 and the SD card containing the OS costs £5 so a computer for under £50. However all of the above are optional. You can download the OS for free and go without a case (I wouldn't) 

Next to an iPad so you can see the size

I've had this sitting on our table for over a year thinking about what I should do with it. I still haven't decided what to do with it, I'm thinking I should build a laptop/computer for Nate.

iChild F&C Saving Superstar

I have recently been sent a huge folder of resources relating to money. The pack I was sent from iChild was for under 5's and I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of activities there were to do. All of the resources tie in with the National Curriculum (while it still exists) and in this case the EYFS (Early Years). The resources were produced by iChild in conjunction with F&C Investments.

Lots of activities

Nate enjoyed the first activity in which we looked at the different coins and notes and spoke about their colours and as we had a discoloured pound coin we put the two of them together and asked him if they matched. I think we slightly confused him with that but it was great to watch as you could really see him looking at the two coins and trying to figure it out. Some of the activities were a little hard for Nate to do but then he is rather young but the discussion activities such as talking about the different types of shops he loved as it meant he got to talk about his favourite shop. 

Cut out coins

There are even printable cut out coins so you can talk about and look at the coins without the risk of them going in mouths. 

There are a few activities that involve matching but most of them involve discussion about things such as shops, what you like to buy and where the money goes in shop. There are activities that involve drawing a £5 note, or colouring in a money bank, the activities are well suited to the under 5's although in the case of Nate some of them he will have to grow into. We have really enjoyed the activities that we have attempted and also have adapted some of the activities to suit us, they are a very good base for discussing money with young children.
All of these resources are available free here

I was sent the ready printed resources and provided with a Gold membership for the purposes of this review but all opinions are my own.

Early rider Lite balance bike

We got this bike for Nate for Christmas last year but he has only really been interested in it very recently.

It is a beautiful wooden balance bike. There are no pedals so no distractions from balancing. There are two settings for steering (restricted and unrestricted) we currently have it set to restricted although I think Nate would prefer it to be unrestricted as he spends more time picking the front wheel up to steer than anything else. The faux leather seat is height adjustable to can be raised so it lasts longer.

Nate loves his bike and is always asking to go out on it. He has dropped it a couple of times and there isn't a mark on the bike. I loved the look of this bike which is why I chose it in the first place and I'm glad I did as Nate as has stood on it, dropped it, I've been made to sit on it and its not got a mark on it.

Baking Focaccia

This weekend I was looking at Kimberley's (from the Great British Bake Off) website and came across a recipe for Roast garlic and red onion focaccia and I had to try and make it.

As always Nate wanted in on the action so he helped knead it

Poking 

Really kneading it now

Nate really enjoys baking so it was great to try something different from the bread we normally bake or biscuits. I cooked the red onion topping while Nate was kneading. I find getting the dough to the stage where it is starting to lose it's stickiness first before letting little fingers loose is best.

Finished!

This was so lovely we will be making it again and it didn't last at all long. There was a little left for breakfast the next morning. 

London travels with a toddler

Last week London Graphic Centre held a Moleskine event called Analog cloud, in which you choose items that mean something to you and then choose your favourite Moleskine items and this compiled your profile. When we arrived Nate happily spoke about the Moleskine event from last year in which we created a story out of stamps.

I'm a Wandering Seeker:

Nate is a Sketching Dandy:

This was great fun, choosing the items and seeing what your profile came out as. Nate loved being given his bookmark and was very decisive in what items he wanted. He happily came home and told daddy he was a Sketching Dandy.

While we were in London we decided to visit a few other shops and we had a snack and drink at the Roast + Conch, which is Hotel Chocolat's Cafe in Covent Garden. I had their Cocoa Infusion which I'd describe as a mixture of tea and hot chocolate. It's not as creamy as hot chocolate but I had it without milk and some chocolate spread on toast. 

Cocoa Infusion

Nate is loving chocolate milk at the minute so had soya hot chocolate. It wasn't the best place to take Nate with him being dairy free but they were accommodating and we will go back to try the food another time and get another Cocoa Infusion for me.

London's Southbank

Over the weekend we decided to wander around the Southbank being Nate's dads  favourite places in London. Over the weekend there is the lovely food market. Which has Churros for the dairy free option we have them without the chocolate sauce.

Nate woke up just as we walked past Beano Town which has been open since May and will close at the end of this week. There wasn't much to do for children as young as Nate however, he liked just climbing through the huge letters. 

I have no idea how he got through there

Outside of Beano Town there are two kennels. 

Gnasher time

For us Beano Town was the perfect place for Nate to run about and burn off some energy. Ready for us to continue walking along the Southbank. 

There was a stall that showed children and adults how to make pizzas and allowed them to get hands on and make their own pizza

Nate was a little small and barely could see above the table but he loved it. The lovely Vincent was amazing with the children, we watched as he spoke to the older children who came just after Nate and he was incredibly patient and humorous in how he explained why you do certain things.

Unfortunately I don't have a picture of his lovely pizza as it got a little burnt in the wood fired oven. I think we will be making pizzas at home after seeing how much he enjoyed choosing his toppings. 

Butterfly exhibit

While we were in London we decided to take Nate to the Natural History Museum. When we arrived we saw there was a Butterfly exhibit, Nate saw the butterfly poster and immediately said "look butterfly".

Into the Butterfly exhibit we went for £4.50 (including a donation to the Museum) for us adults and Nate went free. It was hot inside the exhibit but there was lots to do for a slightly older child. Nate loved looking at the butterflies so long as they didn't fly too close to him, in which case he turned his head into whoever was carrying him.

On a table there was fruit laid out for the butterflies to eat which had various butterflies on. This was Nate's favourite part as there was a "butterfly with a monster eye" which he is still talking about.

Can you see the monster eye?

Within the exhibit there was lots of information regarding the three stages of the butterflies life cycle and examples of each as well to be spotted (especially the caterpillars).

We spent about 30 minutes in the exhibit and probably could have spent longer in there, although it is better suited for slightly older children as they had questions for children to answer and stamps to collect.

App review- Endless Alphabet

Their is one app that Nate loves and he constantly asks for it. It's called Endless Alphabet, or as Nate calls it: letters (it used to be numbers).

The app is designed for slightly older children than Nate (who's just turned two) it displays a word, says it out loud and then the letters scatter around leaving the letter outline there. When you touch the letter it makes it's phonetic sound and when placed in the right place it says the letter. Once you place all the letters in the right place it says the word again and what it means along with a little sketch.

The menu

Letters getting knocked out of place

It's got an American slant so some of the words are spelt in the American way (ie odor). However, Nate loves this app and he has learnt the phonetical sounds of most of the letters. He sat on the train identifying the letters we were making with play dough quicker than we could make them.

Matching the letters

The little sketch giving the definition

The app is £2.99 on the App Store and has had about 6 words added to it since Nate started using it in June.