Snow dough

We made it out to our home ed group this morning thanks to Piper's ingenuity. She left the boys' clothes and shoes all ready by the front door, and Bean was so excited about his "present" - new batman socks and pants - that he got dressed there and then by the front door with no help or encouragement needed! Thanks Piper!

The boys were delighted to find snow dough (cornflour, oil and glitter) at the group that they spent the entire morning playing in it. Bear did a bit of snipping practise with scissors too, but only a bit, before he found the diggers and introduced them to the snow.

As we were now closer to Ikea than home we decided an Ikea lunch would be a good thing but I couldn't find Ikea quickly enough and Bear fell asleep in the car. Bean had to persuade me not to eat Bear despite being very very hungry. He said he would be sad, and so would I... We found Ikea eventually and after a lovely lunch Bean said he wanted to play in the kids play area while I went and found the bits we wanted. Astonished! I had to call him back to give me a kiss before Bear and I went off hunting. Forty minutes passes seriously quickly, even with Bear singing at the absolute top of his lungs the whole way round (interspersed with trying to bite my fingers while laughing his head off as I tickled him) but we found all the bits we needed, didn't spend a small fortune, and were only a couple of minutes late to collect Bean at the end!

Back home I vetted the listings for the afternoon's cbeebies and let them have the tv on for a bit. Then it was out for a nightwalk to the shops to get bits for tea which they were both quite excited about. When we got back, Piper was waiting in the wreath again and Bean said "mum, there's stars!" There were indeed some gold stars now in the wreath. And gold hearts, and gold pinecones. He said Piper must have put them there :)

The Christmas tree arrived just before tea, delivered by an old friend! Great to see Daniel again, glad we could buy our tree through him this year! After dinner and the great tree unveiling the boys went to bed and Steve and I set about getting the tree ready for the boys to decorate in the morning. Part of that involved going through the box of decorations that mum and dad had got out for us as when I opened it to put Piper in I realised it was nowhere near suitable for the kids to rummage through in the morning!! As much as I am missing my own boxes of Christmas decorations, there's something quite fascinating about going through the decorations box you remember from childhood and seeing what new weird and wonderful things your parents have put in since you left home :) After sorting it out, taking out all the unsuitable bits and binning the actual rubbish it was a great big christmassy sensory bin! So can't wait to decorate the tree in the morning :D