January?... Where is January???

So we haven't posted for a while. It has been a challenging month, getting over the festive period and re-acquainted with the routine of nursery runs, music and sports activities, play dates and weekends with family. Phew! Just writing about it exhausts me. I will share here some of what we did, but I'll keep it short. Promise.



For Three King's Day, we made three wise men puppets out of empty toilet paper rolls and felt. The boys had fun fitting the pre-cut pieces of felt together to make the three wise men, who bring the gifts to baby Jesus. We talked about this story at length while making this craft.

Our three wise men, blinged right up

We also made a gluten-free and sugar-free Galette des Rois to share with our friends on Sunday 6th January; although I was quite pleased with the rough puff pastry (which you make with Philadelphia cheese, or if you live in France: Petit Suisse), I was a bit let down by the filling - it was a tad too dry... I'm sure I could improve on it though, so I won't give you a recipe until I have. The other let down was the fact that none of our friends or children found the "feve", the little ceramic ornament hidden inside the cake, which makes a king (or queen) of whoever finds it in their piece of cake. The tradition which is very popular in France, involves a crown, which Ju was really pleased to make and model.

Gluten and sugar-free galette des rois with our homemade crown

Then we finally had some decent snow and made a real - albeit small - snowman in the garden! This prompted more repetitive reading of The Snowman story. Lilo now says his special word for snowman every time we go outside, in a very sad and forlorn way, as if he is mourning the melting of our snowy friend. The special word: "mao-mao".

Mao-mao

We received our Makedo kits and got making with cardboard boxes. Although Ju can't use the safe saw provided to cut cardboard, he is quite good at making holes with it and can therefore put the "nails" provided through the holes. We made a doll's house last week, and today we made a robot outfit, which both boys tried on eagerly.

I AM A ROBOT!!!!