Chocolate Mint Milkshake

This milkshake is inspired from my favourite cookbook 'Deliciously Ella'. It is such a yummy treat and Archie is beside himself with excitement when I announce we are making a Chocolate Mint Milkshake! Ella uses avocado's but I am really not a big fan, I also prefer coconut milk to almond milk. So i've just changed the original ingredients slightly. Here is what I through into my version...

2 tsp raw cacao powder

2 Medjool dates (pitted)

2 ripe bananas

small handful of fresh mint

3/4 can of coconut milk

2 tsp ground almonds 

The fresh mint really makes the difference. It tastes and smells amazing. About 1 month ago I purchased some Basil, Mint & Chive plants from Tescos. Why did I not do this sooner?! They cost a couple of pounds and have provided me with a daily supply of fresh herbs. Perfect!

The remaining coconut milk is useful to make into ice-cubes. I always have a stash of these in the freezer to add to other smoothies to make them task more creamier and colder. I find smoothies always taste better cold, especially when you are having a more vegetable based one.

Making Butterfly Prints

After lunch we got the neon paints out and did some butterfly print making on the floor. The paints are fab, they have a narrow end so they can be used as squeeze pens to draw with or of course to use with a brush. They colours are fab as well and because they are neon they don't all mix together and make a yucky brown (which tends to happen a lot with toddler painting!). They were only £8 for the set and I got them from Ikea.

I pre-drew the centre of the butterfly with a Sharpie, which really appealed to Archie and he knew exactly what he was going to make. We actually spent more time looking at the pretty colours and pouring it out into the dish than actually painting. 

Eventually he got into the swing of things and decided all of a sudden that he want to paint with his feet. Thankfully I have my handy, large oilcloth tablecloth on the floor. I am so pleased I got one of these, it didn't cost much and it is the size of the lounge floor so I don't have to worry about mess. I just whizz round with baby wipes as I go. I do wish we had a studio we could just make as much mess as we like, but for now we are refined to the kitchen, lounge and garden... One day!

The final results are below. Archie was very proud of himself and showed his Daddy his creations when he got home from work. Together we do make a lot of art, so long term I don't think I can store everything but I am photographing everything and plan on making book/keepsakes for when he is older. I will also probably make some photo collages as well.

Handy tip... don't use paper for this activity because of the thickness of the paint will cause it to warp a lot and wilt. I just get cheap card from the Works. It does the job and they have a variety of colours other than just plain white.

A Bit of Sketching Before Breakfast

We start the day with a bit of drawing on Archie's easel. It's a great way to keep him entertained while I make the breakfast. The added bonus is the TV stays off! He loves this easel and plays with it every day in some form, be it using the chalk board, drawing or putting letter/number magnets on the boards. Although it's an eye-sore in the lounge there is just no point in packing it away as its used so much and so it remains a permanent fixture!

Today I treated Archie to a new pack of mini crayola felt tips. These are great as they are a smaller size and easier for him to hold. Today Archie told me he was drawing circles, balloons and the number 8.

I'm not sure if Archie is going to be left or right handed yet. He often uses his left, I don't encourage him either way. I think it's good for him to experiment and find his own preference.

I ended up getting a big ruler out and finally taught him to draw straight lines. He has been so fixated with circle motions up until now. He was very excited and after a few straight ruler lines he understood the potential and concerntrated hard on drawing lines. His finally sketches are below.

Don't forget its Friday so that means our weekly bike ride after dinner. We even braved it through the intermittent showers, much to Archie's excitement. Here we are hiding under a bridge when we got caught in a big shower. 

Tube Shoot Game

This activity is just a quick and simple one that kept Archie occupied for 20 mins and while I made the lunch. I saw something similar on Pinterest. I think I may have a slight obsession on Pinterest, I love it so much. I have got so many ideas and so much inspiration from there. Anyway, its pretty simple, I used the cardboard tube from some wrapping paper and the little pom-poms Archie was playing with the other day. Oh, also bowl and cellotape!

As always I tried to inject a learning activity and so while he was posting them in I kept asking him to count how many he was posting him the tube, how many fell in the bowl and how many bounced out of the bowl.

Gemstones Matching Game

Archie is obsessed with stones at the moment and I couldn't resist buying some tumbled rocks/gemstones yesterday. When I saw them I just knew instantly he was going to absolutely love them because they were colourful and smooth to touch. True to form, Archie was delighted with his little present. The stones were all kissed, stroked, lined up, taken in and out of the bags they came in and even put to bed to go to sleep for a rest!

The night before I made an activity sheet for Archie (quite crude I know!). The aim of the game is pretty simple, put the matching gemstone on the correct coloured circle. I also put the names of each rock on the circle to add another level and try to teach Archie each gemstone's name.

He got the game pretty quickly then continued to play it for 30 minutes! He was very proud of himself each time he had put all the stones on the correct dots, cheering and clapping in celebration. I even managed to get him to say right names for Dalmation Stone and Turquoise. 

Archie then asked to put the gemstones in his eggs (some cheap Easter Egg containers that he plays with most days!). We then spent a while putting the gemstones in the eggs and in the basket. Then he moved on to cracking the egg and pouring it on my tummy! Then Archie told me they were tired and they were going back to sleep in their bags. 1hr later the stones were out again and being shoved in his pocket and carried to the stairs to be lined up and knocked off the bottom stair. Who knew some pretty stones could be so much fun!

Yummy Yummy Family Smoothie

Every day Archie and I make a smoothie together and Pete joins in at the weekends. I have been doing this with him since he was 1 year old. Archie absolutely loves smoothies and the process of making them. I find its a great way to get some more veg in him! He loves spinach and peas, which I have been giving him with great enthusiasm since he was weaned. 

He helps me make the smoothie most days. I get everything ready that we need and Archie puts the contents in the container (while popping a few bits of fruit and peas in his mouth). Todays smoothie was a bit of a random one. Archie selected the fruit and Actimol, but 3 staples that are in most of our smoothies are frozen or fresh spinach, banana and chia seeds.

 Todays recipe (which was very tasty I promise) is as follows

1x Banana

1x Clementine

handful of blueberries 

4x frozen cubes of spinach

2x raspberry Actimols

1tsp cinnamon

2tsp Chia Seeds

topped up with water

Our smoothie maker is a Nutribullet and we love love love this. It is the most used item in our kitchen. It truly is awesome and so easy to use and blends up frozen fruit, ice and nuts no problem. I have managed to convince a few friends to get one this passed year and they are really happy with it too.

Just wanted to briefly mention Chia seeds. I only heard about them through a friend a few months ago, but since then they are used every single day. They are tasteless and tiny and they get sprinkled or mixed in just about everything in our house. They have 5x more calcium than milk, high levels of omega-3, omega-6, potassium, antioxidants and fibre.

Sometimes Archie has his own cup and the rest of the time he shares mine and Daddy's : )

Finally, when the drink was over, Archie decided that Baby Doll Alex want to drink some! 

Pom-Poms & Lollie Sticks

Hello day 1 : ) I will begin by just briefly mentioning that Archie was born in Jan 2013 and right now he is just over 2 years 4 months old. I'm a busy Mum, who always likes to have a project on the go. So off of the back of photographing 365 days of self portraits last year, I now feel ready to take on something new. My aim is to as my bio states "record of our journey to enrich our family life through art, food, exercise & time spent together".

Well Archie and I have had a lovely day together. My Nan and Granddad (Nanny B & Pops to Archie) came round for coffee in the morning. The we met two lovely friends for coffee and one of my friends has just had a gorgeous little boy so we got to meet him for the first time. Then we stopped off at my Mums (Nana to Archie) house to relax for a bit and eat chicken! Then we ended the afternoon with the following activity...

Today the pom-poms and multi-coloured sticks arrived in the post, much to Archie's delight. We spent the afternoon playing together in the lounge and making a big mess : ) Something that our family is very good at he he! So, we started with the sticks, making shapes. Archie enjoyed this a lot and learnt two new shapes which was a pentagon and a hexagon (success!). He then lost interest when he was very frustrated that I could not produce a circle for him at of the straight sticks!

As you can see from the pics, we upt the anti and progressed on to putting matching colour pom-poms into the shapes. Archie loved doing this but got frustrated when he had nowhere to put white and pink pom-poms. So the hunt for pink and white sticks is on. Failing that I shall paint some. 

Archie ran off to the kitchen and returned with a couple of Ikea kids cups and decided he wanted to fill up a cup. I told him he could cram in as much as possible then shake them up in the air which he loved doing.

We ended the pom-pom and sticks activity by having a bit of quiet time at the coffee table. I got some googerly eyes for him and there was a lot of concentration trying to fix them to the pom-poms. He named one of the little creatures 'Dave', which is the octopus from Penguins of Madagascar! 

I didn't capture the final game but Archie decided he want to make a big gate on the coffee table out of the sticks and I had to control the pom-poms, who were each asking Archie for permission to come through the gate.  Archie was intermittent in his willingness to let them through sometimes the gate would slam shut and sometimes they would be sent away because they were too big for the gate : ) We did this until Daddy came home and took the opportunity to feed Archie a bowl of sweetcorn while we played the came. Peas and sweetcorn are a great afternoon snack for Archie i've managed to convince him they are a treat!

So as its Friday, that means Pete (Daddy) gets home early and so after dinner we went for our Friday bike ride. This lasted for 1 hour around Willen Lake. The weather was absolutely gorgeous. Archie enjoyed it immensely and it was really relaxed. Archie has a Weeride seat, which is positioned in front of Pete, between the handle bars. It is perfect and so great as we can all talk together and he feels more part of the bike ride. He rings the bell and points in the direction he wants us to go. We took the opportunity to do some number counting with him as he is an absolute star on a bike and loves having tasks to do while we ride. We were asking him to shout out all the house numbers. To our amazement he was shouting out numbers we have never told him, like 30, 32, 41!