Ikea and a Gingerbread House

Thank goodness for Ikea this weekend.  We are struggling with a three year old who gave his dummies to Sinterklaas and is now in a very bad mood, not sleeping well and definitely not listening to anybody but himself.  The weekend was tough.  On Sunday we went to Ikea and for the first time used the kiddie play area there.  You can leave your kids for an hour whilst shopping.  Andy and I had a coffee and cake together and managed a walk through the whole shop on our own...what bliss.  The kids were happy to play together in the ball pit and did some christmas colouring in.  We found a Gingerbread House kit there and some gingerbread dough and this has kept Cricket and I busy today whilst Tiger is at school.

Once the house was drying we rolled out the dough and made xmas cookies.  This is delicious gingerbread..mmm

Roasting marshmallows on a cold afternoon

We have bought a fire burner so that we can enjoy the odd evening outside with some wine and watch the flames...I would so love an indoor wood burning stove, but alas and alack we have no chimney so this will have to do..oh yes and so will the DVD we have of a fire burning (aren't we lucky).  :-/  It was about 8 degrees today in the afternoon so quite cold and so we lit the burner, did some raking and pruning and roasting of marshmallows.  Lots of fun was had searching for sticks to throw on the fire and far too many marshmallows were eaten.  We then retired to watch Arthur Christmas with hot cups of tea.  Here are the pics.

and wow, even one of me...

Christmas craft - Salt Dough Ornaments

Making Christmas ornaments from salt dough.

This is the one and only time we have made salt dough ornaments and I am sold.  The kids loved it from start to finish...mixing the dough by hand, rolling out, making shapes and the painting. 

Salt Dough Recipe:

1 cup salt
2 cup flour
1 cup water

Mix the salt and flour together.  Then start adding the water...you might not need it all.  The dough must not be too sticky.  Knead until you have a smooth dough consistency.  Roll out and cut shapes out with Christmas cookie cutters....if you  are making tree ornaments then don't forget to skewer out a hole which it will be hung from.  Bake in the oven 200 deg celcius for an hour or until dry...if thick it might be 2 to three hours.

Paint with acrylic paint and modge podge if you want them to be shiny.

Kids Book Bag

A friend has advised me I need to get busy and start posting some of the craft stuff I am doing.  Well, nothing much is getting done, but I am hoping inspiration will strike any day now.  One thing I have made recently is a kids book bag from Ikea material.  If you have fabric pens the kids can colour it in.  Perhaps a nice Christmas gift with a set of pens.

A birthday at the Pottenbakster

Tiger has turned 7...I know, hard to believe!  What a lovely young man he is turning out to be.  He had a party for his dutch school friends at de Pottenbakster or a pottery place in Tilburg with a meal at McDonalds afterwards.  He loves making things with air dry clay so I thought it would be a nice change from the inevitable indoor play area that we always do.  The kids really enjoyed using an actual potters wheel where they made a bowl and they also made mugs by hand.

 

I am really looking forward to seeing the mugs and bowls glazed and with colour.  We also had a small get together with some English friends and a pokemon cake

Loonse en Drunense Duinen

On the weekend we realised that the sun was shining - a rare occurrence - and we felt like walking and exploring so we decided to go the the Loonse en Drunense Duinen.  It is a nature reserve between Tilburg and Waalwijk and consists mostly of shifting sand dunes.  A lot of trees had been recently chopped down there as too many had been planted and it was preventing the natural shifting of the sands.  What trees there are, are interesting shapes and great for kids to climb on and many many big branches suitable for fort building.  We walked and looked for toadstools and interesting woody bits and had a nice lunch at the restaurant there, De Roestelberg.  Hundreds of people were out walking there with their dogs, but because the area is so large there really is space to have a walk on your own so to speak.  The topic of getting a dog came up again...clearly we have been in the Netherlands too long.  Never thought I would want to join the dog poop parade.  Here are some pics.

 

 



Baking Pepernoten

It is mid-November, which means that Sinterklaas is almost upon us once again.  I have to say, it is so hard for me to get excited about this with the kids as it is not my cultural thing...I just want to start planning my Christmas and getting excited about that.  Slowly and surely though I will get into it for the children's sake.  Already Tiger is singing Sinterklaas songs all day long, drawing pictures to go in his shoe and talking non-stop about it.  One thing I do love doing at this time of year though, is baking pepernoten.  They are small spicy biscuits.  We did some today for Christian's nursery class and here is the recipe..

Pepernoten

2 cups self-raising flour
1 cup brown castor sugar
100g soft butter
50ml milk
1.5 tsp spekulaas spice

Heat the oven to 170 degrees C.  Put all ingredients in a bowl and hand mix thoroughly.  Form small balls and place on a baking tray spread with baking paper.  Flatten the balls slightly.  Bake for about 15 minutes.