Like Free Books?

Little Splodge loves books and at the tender age of 17 months has over a hundred books on her shelf. But, no matter how many books we seem to have we’re always running out of books to read that we haven’t already read and reread.

So, to keep up with Little Splodge’s love of stories, and in the interest of being thrifty, we’re big fans of our local library here. It is literally round the corner from our house which makes it very easy to get to … even for tiny toddler feet.

Despite popular belief libraries aren’t the draconian halls of silence we’re led to believe and our little library even holds a baby and toddler group where the littles are encouraged to take part in simple arts and craft activities related to a story they just heard.

Sadly, since I’ve been back at work we haven’t been able to get to the group but we still make great use of all the free books to help Little Splodge learn to read and to provide us with a wide range of bedtime stories.

This is this week’s haul of books. At first glance the majority seem somewhat advanced for a one year old but having read two of them at bed time last night they’re proving to be excellent for story time.

12th August 2013 – Meal Plan

Since finding out that we’re expecting our second baby we’ve been on a bit of a money saving drive and every part of the budget that could be cut in some way has been. The food bill has proved one of the easiest places to save some money.

Up until recently we have been guilty of wandering somewhat aimlessly around the supermarket putting things in the trolley that “might be nice” or “we could maybe have that for dinner one day”.

So, the first thing we did was take stock of exactly what we had in the cupboards, fridge, freezer etc and started to come up with meal plans that would use up what we already had rather than buying more food that would inevitably just end up sitting in the cupboard for weeks, if not months, on end.

Once we’d used up the majority of the food in the house I started looking for recipes that were filling, nutritious, family friendly and easy on the wallet. I did suspect I was asking the impossible but as luck would have it at the same sort of time I was really starting to get serious about cutting the food bill there was a lot of media coverage about food banks and families living below the poverty line and the BBC started airing the Great British Budget Menu which suddenly flooded the BBC website with many many recipes that, for the most part, fitted all of my criteria.

The outcome is that for the last few weeks our food bill hasn’t been above £20.

I’m so pleased with how it’s turning out so far that I thought I’d share my weekly meal plans so you too can get a taste of these deliciously thrifty recipes.

All of the recipes in the meal plans link through to the relevant recipe on the internet.

Here Come The Aliens – Colin McNaughton

We first discovered Colin McNaughton and this wonderful book when we borrowed the slightly different The Aliens Are Coming! from our local library. Little Splodge loved it but we were unable to find another copy anywhere. As it turns out the book was out of print but Here Come The Aliens! was it’s replacement.

The story is simple to follow, the writing beautifully bouncy with lovely rhymes and the descriptions of the aliens hilarious.

Little Splodge loves this book and it is always a big hit when it comes out for story time.

We have had to stop reading this book at bedtime though as Little Splodge gets much too excited by it and then won’t sleep.

Overall Here Come The Aliens!  is a fantastic book that introduces children to a wide range of vocabulary while being just disgusting enough for young children to be captivated.

As Little Splodge gets older I’m hoping this book will help us with some messy play activities. I’m already planning something along the lines of creating her own alien using papier mache, lots of paint and plenty of things to stick on.

Patio Pictures

We finally had a day where the Great British summer blessed us with weather that was dry but not a million degrees with too much sun. (I don’t mean to complain about our recent heatwave but when you have hair as fair as Little Splodge’s too much sun can be a problem.)

We got out onto the patio with the giant chalks we’ve had since Christmas but no opportunity to use.

It was Little Splodge’s first experience with chalk and I can honestly say she loved it.

She wasn’t completely sure what to do with the chalks at first but it didn’t take much encouragement before she realised that she could use them to colour on the patio.

She’s still very much in the stage where things haven’t been properly investigated unless they have been tasted and so she was very quick to ensure that the chalk got a good lick. I didn’t join in to check but it seems the decision was that the blue chalk tasted the best … and she went back for several more licks throughout the colouring session.

As is usually the case Little Splodge’s interest in the chalk quickly infected her daddy who was quick to embrace his artistic side and proved that he can draw flowers with the best of them … even if Little Splodge wasn’t too impressed by the pink and yellow colour scheme,

As the colouring progressed the chalks had to take more and more abuse from Little Splodge as she got more and more excited by the colours and especially once she realised that she could use the chalk to not only colour on the floor but also her clothes and, perhaps most excitingly, her skin. Eventually, despite their giant size our resident toddler managed to break the yellow chalk clean in half by exuberantly launching it across the patio.

Luckily, this didn’t phase her in the least and she carried on playing as though nothing had happened.

Even though the pictures on the floor were mainly created by mommy and daddy the giant chalks were an excellent opportunity for Little Splodge to practice her mark making and hand eye co-ordination as well as giving us a chance to talk with her about colours.

 

Pumpkin Patch Kid

We’re not really what you’d call green fingered in this family.

We try to be but we have a rather relaxed approach to gardening where if it grows that’s great, if it doesn’t well never mind.

We do however eat an incredible amount of fruit and veg for a family of 3. (I swear we can buy a trolley load of fruit on a Saturday and by Monday our house is basically a fruit free zone.)

In an effort to cut the food bill as much as possible we have been trying to grow some of our own food.

Last year we were quite successful and had a magnificent haul of potatoes, parsnips, broad beans, spinach and lambs leaf lettuce (although these ran a little more rampant than we ever imagined.)

This year, for various reasons, our veg plot has been all but abandoned so in an effort to redeem ourselves and teach Little Splodge where food comes from we decided to have a go at growing some pumpkins.

We put them in the ground a little while ago now not really expecting very much to happen but so far this has happened in our tiny little patch.

 

It’s even better than it looks because as well as having a mass of leaves and flowers we’ve already got our first pumpkin growing and we’re hoping it’ll make a nice jack-o-lantern and a delicious pie come Halloween.

It’s still a dinky little thing at the minute but we have high hopes for it seeing as only a few short weeks ago it was a tiny bud and is already about five inches wide.

As if all that wasn’t exciting enough for Little Splodge when we went to do our morning check on our pumpkin we found these little visitors making themselves at home and helping themselves to some lovely pollen.

 

So far we think our pumpkins are proving to be a bit of a success story.  We’re on track to get a nice big pumpkin, Little Splodge has a chance to see where her food comes from and we’re encouraging mini beasts into the garden.

We’re really rather proud of ourselves.

Splish Splash I Was Taking A Bath

Little Splodge has a bath pretty much every night.

I’d like to say it is a nice calming part of our evening routine that lulls her gently into a state of sleepiness ready for bed.

This is not the case.

Little Splodge is something of a water baby and enjoys nothing more than a good old splash about.

We do encourage a certain amount of play time in the bath and provide her with ample bath toys to help her learn about full and empty, cause and effect and other very important life skills that can only be taught by squirty turtles and colourful buckets.

Tonight, however, little splodge decided that her bath toys just didn’t cut it anymore and instead decided to give our calm and serene already chaotic, plastic octopus filled bath waves large enough that we probably registered as a tropical storm.

Obviously, as any good mother would I got a photo of it.

I would have got video but, in all honesty, I was too busy trying to avoid being completely soaked.

A Little Late To The Party

I am the first to admit that I am a little late to the party with this whole mommy blogging thing.

Little Splodge is already 16 months old and has a little sister on the way. I should have made the effort to do this months over a year ago but alas the joy that is motherhood got the better of me and ever since Little Splodge came along life has been a little bit upside down and I never got round to blogging in any proper way.

But now I am no longer mommy to a tiny newborn whose biggest news was 3 poops an hour for nearly 4 months but am instead mommy to a very inquisitive, very hands on, very playful toddler who has an incredible ability to eat like a horse.

This leads me to my reasons for starting this blog.

1) I regularly find myself having to come up with new, interesting, healthy and low cost recipes for dinner. Not as easy as it might sound.

2) We have discovered the wonder that is “messy play” and it’s incredible ability to entertain a toddler’s mind for more than 30 seconds. Also not as easy as it might sound.