This could be my last post before I go to jail. A solemn occasion, therefore, because once I enter the local Correctional Facility I doubt I will emerge the same person. It is Harry who has introduced these Draconian threats and warnings, as he passes through a very literal phase where life is governed by rules, warnings and consequences. Thus it is he who will exclaim loudly in shocked tones in a restaurant; ‘Mummy!! Are you talking with food in your mouth?? We don’t do THAT in our family!’. He’s right of course, and I hasten to add that I don’t make a habit of it – but still, I am ashamed. My latest misdemeanour was to switch off the television and refuse to say sorry for doing so. ’If you don’t say sorry’, Harry announced, staunchly and a little regretfully, ‘you will go to prison with lots of naughty men’. Now, naughty men may occasionally be appealing, but jail is less so, so I am attempting to distract from my shortcomings with a new family game; Pick An Apple.
12 small paper bags hang from this eye-catching board, each with a different mystery seasonal activity and the equipment we need to do it. On weekends or days when Harry and I are free from work and nursery, Harry gets to choose an apple bag at random and that’s what we’ll do for the day. I’ve picked a number of age-appropriate and interesting things – mostly outdoors but with a few bad-weather alternatives – which include collecting leaves, choosing and carving pumpkins, apple-bobbing and helping Daddy to make a big bonfire. The content of each bag varies accordingly; for our pumpkin picking there are just enough coins for Harry to buy the right size pumpkin, and a list of tips I found online about how to choose a good one, which will require us to squeeze, juggle and weigh our way around the field as we discard lesser pumpkins in pursuit of the most magnificent. For our toffee-apple making activity (below), the bag holds lollipop sticks for Harry to push into each apple, wipes for sticky fingers and the recipe itself.
I bought the brown paper bags cheaply at a local stationery store, then cut out apple and leaf shapes and glued together with a small piece of twig to form each apple. Tiny wooden pegs hold these on the bags and keep each bag closed to avoid peeping. The bags I hung from pushpins on an old cork pinboard which I painted black and stencilled. If you don’t have a convenient pinboard or canvas, the bags would look equally good strung along a wall or fireplace like bunting, pegged to a piece of ribbon.
And here’s the result of our first activity; making windfall toffee apples. No danger of talking with your mouth full with these beauties; our industrial-strength caramel effectively seals your jaws together and prevents conversation for several minutes after consumption…genius! Perhaps I should market these as a budget-conscious and appealing alternative to the gastric band. We’ll work through our activities between now and Halloween as the days grow shorter and the seasons change in technicolour. I’d love to hear what your favourite activities are at this time of year, and anything we should add to our list…
How funny Im just picking myself off the floor now ,Bless Harry he is just so so bright Jake being a week older and 6 months behind in all other ways .. We also made toffee apples this weekend but I like that you have an amazing ( as always ) board wonderful idea ….
please ….
need you to help us
My god woman you are amazing….”On weekends or days when Harry and I are free from work and nursery, Harry gets to choose an apple bag at random and that’s what we’ll do for the day”. On weekends or days when we are free from work or school in our house we all collapse on the sofa!! Love the post as always – keep them coming!
Thanks Kate
And yes, we do that too, more often than I care to mention!
This is such a lovely idea Kate – can I join in these cute activities please? I promise to be good because I understand the jail term sentence for adults who are naughty! Also, have you ever thought of becoming a primary school teacher? A lot of your crafts remind me of my (brief) primary teaching days. You have lots of excellent ideas classes of children would absolutely love.
Hi Kate, funny you mention teaching – I don’t know quite what I’m going to do with all my pre-school creative ideas once Harry is old enough to roll his eyes and declare them to be thoroughly lame.. I think I’m in denial that that time will ever come… My real day job is very, very different… a be-suited strategy role in a large company – not a glue stick or pair of scissors in sight!
Oh my goodness, this is soo cute. Cute enough, that I think it should definitely be a “get out of jail free” card. = ) I will have to do this!
Thanks Caroline
Such a fantastic idea. I may do something similar when half term arrives and the kids are looking like the might be bored.
We love collecting leaves, conkers, acorns and pine cones at this time of year. Depending on the age of the child (or adult!) you can sketch the leaves, create a nature display, use the pine cones for dipping in paint and rolling on paper, look at the colours…all great fun. x
Fabulous ideas as ever Gillian; I’ve never tried dipping pine cones but have immediately scribbled that onto our ‘to do’ list and added it to one of the apple bags! It sounds like they’d also look lovely hung and strung around the house – will report back! x
Just a fabulous idea! Equally fabulous, if not mind blowing, is the baseboard molding! Is that original to the house?! Dear God, it goes up to Harry’s waist! Just beautiful! Claire
Haha, I know!! It is original, and I’ve never seen anything quite like it; when we laid the wood floor in the kitchen we asked the builders to remove it, piece by piece, so we wouldn’t have to use horrible modern beading and could run the floor under the original baseboards (skirting boards, for those in the UK)… it came off in 68 individual sections – count ‘em – and I don’t think the builders have ever forgiven me for it, despite copious amounts of tea and donuts – they did a beautiful job in carefully numbering and replacing the baseboards when we were done. They probably cursed me with every nail they hammered back in…
Your builders are true artisans, what a beautiful job they did. What type of flooring was under the original carpet? Renovating your house must be like unraveling bits & pieces of History – if only your walls could talk! Thank you for answering all my questions about your reno. I love it & devour each and every detail.
Our builders did do so well… we held our breath because they looked at first glance as if they could break a china mug just by looking at it from a distance, but they were insanely careful and I’ll forever be grateful to them for it! When we pulled up the carpet we found a whole mishmash of floorings; a couple of achingly beautiful planks of original wood, some parquet and then masses of concrete from where the floor had been cut up, the cellar restabilised and so forth. With such a mixture of things – and all the unevenness it created – we decided a new but aged looking wood floor was the best way to go (and I’m very glad we did!). And please don’t ever hesitate to ask questions; it’s lovely to have someone so interested and immune to boredom about all the details which obsess me so much
Good Morning! I’ve nominated you for the One Lovely Blog Award.
Here is the link.
http://shinyinlove.com/2012/10/02/one-lovely-blog-award/
Thank you so much, what an absolute honour
)
Hi Kate, Thanks for answering my question about the original flooring. Did you happen to keep any of the original planks that you did find? Please tell me you did, that would be an amazing museum quality piece of art!
This is beyond adorable. I hope you don’t go to jail before you can enjoy all of the activities!