Little green fingers

Moneysupermarket.com sent us an amazing children's gardening set to give us a new burst of enthusiasm for the garden and help us join in the Britmums challenge. The minute my daughter opened the parcel she was sooo excited about getting out in the garden and planting her new seeds! This post is an entry for BritMums’ #KidsGrowWild Challenge. 

So here it is – our gardening story.

This was pretty much the case when we moved into our new build – we lovingly called it "our blank canvas"! One month later our first baby was born and together, little by little, on a small budget, we made it our own. At about 40m2 our garden is compact but we have tried to make the most of it and it works. I love it, my daughter loves it and Daddy is quite proud as he did most of the work!

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So let us show you around...

...my little ones have put their stamp on things wherever you look!

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My little ones love the garden. Baby boy loves to sit under the bamboo with Mummy and watch the leaves blow in the wind, and to watch the windmills spin. My little girl loves chasing bubbles, building tunnels for Wiggly Woo in the stones, making fairy gardens, hiding dinosaurs in the flowers beds and making stone animals. This one is a crocodile!

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And of course my daughter loves helping with the gardening and she couldn't wait any longer to plant her new seeds. We don't have much flower bed space so we decided to use pots and luckily found some round the side of the house looking sorry for themselves.

She got on her gloves and forked the soil and pulled out the old weeds that had been growing in the pots.

Then we explored the seeds we had been sent. There was a mixed packet (she has named everything flowers), sunflowers and some pansies.

She was fascinated by the seeds and their different shapes. We spent a long time looking at them and deciding what they looked like!

Squiggle then sprinkled the pansy and the 'everything' seeds in their pots and covered them over with soil. Then she carefully planted a couple of the sun flower seeds in the last pot.

Last year we planted sunflowers but we started them off on the windowsill in the kitchen. They are a great thing for children to grow as they shoot up really quickly, so they can almost watch them grow in front of them. We had 3 sunflowers last year, so Squiggle, Daddy and I chose one each and had a sunflower race. It was great fun, and of course, she won! I hope these do as well after starting them outside.

Once the seeds were planted I cut out the pictures from the packets for her and sticking them to some lollipop sticks she stuck them in as labels.

 

A sure way to get any child interested in the garden is to get them a watering can. Once she had planted the seeds my daughter just couldn't wait to get watering. She loves being allowed to fill it up herself in the sink and carry it through the house (with mummy following behind with the mop). She watered all her pots well and instantly asked when they would start growing. Gardening is a great life lesson in patience for a 3 year old.
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One of the reasons my little girl was so keen to get planting is that I promised she could decorate the boring old pots. We took a trip to the DIY shop and I let her choose 3 sample pots of emulsion paint. At about £1.50 each it is good value and you even get a brush in the lid so it's pretty hassle free.

Mess and paint in the sunshine, what's not to love? She got to work planning and painting and soon our garden was full of smiles and laughter... and her legs were caked in blue paint! We have had a pit of rain since painting them and I'm pleased to say they haven't run. She took so much care and pride in painting them that I was terrified we would come down one morning to find pink puddles on the grass.

She has placed her pots with pride in front of her Wendy house, so that it now has it's own, special, vibrant garden. Every morning she is straight in the garden in her pyjamas to check their progress, so please don't let us down flowers! x

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Britain's Best Days Out – Woburn Safari Park

We were very lucky to be sent a family ticket to Woburn Safari Park courtesy of Money Saving Expert and Tots 100 and their 'Britain's Best Days Out' promotion. We jumped at the chance for a family day out together during the Christmas break. I was curious to find out how a trip to a safari park in chilly December would work out but my fears of shivering monkeys hiding in their houses were unfounded – turns out winter is the time to go!!

On entering the park we decided to explore the safari element first and started the drive:

On the look out for some friends for giraffe!

We saw rhinos, emus, buffalo and elephants all strolling about and typically my 3 year old was very excited about the ducks on the pond!

We had a great view all the way around, there were hardly any cars there so we could tour at our leisure and stop for as long as we liked next to pacing tigers, lazy bears and curious monkeys. The highlight for me as a child at safari parks was always the monkeys jumping up on the cars. They didn't disappoint! One jumped onto the bonnet then climbed round to the wing mirror to get a closer look at my giggling daughter. Then he jumped on the roof for a ride causing excited squeals inside our car!

We also had a touch of extra excitement at the lion enclosure as the keepers closed the gate and a jeep told us to follow him out the side exit. Oooo we thought... what could be happening??! Luckily as it was so quiet we went round again and this time were allowed into the lions den. Here we found the beautiful (and huge) lionesses up on the hill looking down, just as curious as us, to see what was going on. It seemed as though the male had been taken inside for some reason. Probably something mundane like tea time but we made up some great alternative stories.

We followed our way out of the safari drive but our day was far from over as there is a fantastic foot safari area.

Some zoos, are really spread out but as the animals who need the space here have the safari area, this foot section is compact and the perfect size to explore with little ones. It's nicely laid out for exploring and more like a petting zoo but with exciting animals!

A big fan of the film 'Madagascar' my daughter was desperate to go through the walk through lemurs so we headed there first to avoid any nagging. On the way we saw tortoises and snakes, and were followed along the fence by free roaming marmosets.

The lemur walk through is fantastic, you have to leave buggies outside these enclosures but it's a short walk to retrieve them. You walk down a wooden walkway which in itself is an adventure for a toddler! The lemurs were all lazing about on the handrails looking like they weren't all too impressed with the English weather. It's fantastic just how close you can get to these animals. When they do perk up they make such a racket you wouldn't believe it.

On exiting we were at the base of the penguin pool where we were able to watch them swim underwater, it's not a huge pool but big enough, and at this time of year we had it all to ourselves. We sat here, just us, eating our lunch and watching the penguins play. My little girl adored it - every time she sat at the window, one came down to chat to her!

After a quick walk through the goats and a look at the river hogs we decided it was time to warm up a bit and went into the soft play indoor area. I normally avoid these bits on days out but in the winter it seemed like a good idea! Daddy and I enjoyed a hot cuppa while Squiggle had fun playing in the ball pit.

We had a couple more walk through areas to visit – the squirrel monkeys and wallabies – so once we had finally coaxed her out on we went!

The walk round 'monkey business' area here has to be one of my favourite parts, they are so playful and the staff are happy for a chat and answer questions. Last time we visited we had a slight mishap when one of the cheeky creatures went to the toilet on my daughters head – this time I was prepared and didn't linger under any trees!!

When we had first parked up we purchased tickets to the sea lion and 3d indoor show. Had it not been winter I might have skipped this as there are plenty of other things to do in the park. The sea lion show was great though and the 3D film was Christmas themed so my daughter enjoyed it. If you do go in the winter though don't expect to warm up in there... brrrrrr!!

With an exhausted but happy child it was time to head home and we still hadn't fitted in the walk round bird enclosure where you can feed them nectar, or any of the bird shows.

We had an absolutely wonderful day, completely relaxing, interesting, and full of memories.

I absolutely loved Woburn, there's no 'exit through the gift shop' attitude, it's the perfect size for little ones to explore, and the animals seem well cared for. If you do choose to visit the shop it has a nice selection of relevant toys and there are a couple of places to eat available. I wouldn't rave about these but I'm more of a picnic person and here you are never too far from the car to head back for your sandwiches!

We will visit time and time again I'm sure and I am definitely going to do another Christmas treat visit next year.