How to make a snow cake

If you're after a quick, cheap but entertaining activity, this one's for you.

My little fellas and I tried this out one morning after reading a kid's book entitled The Lemon Sisters.

Straight after breakfast, actually, as can be evidenced by the stack of bowls in the sink and the washcloths lined up in front of the sink. If I'd got the 'lil fella in a picture you'd see him in his footy pjs and if I got me in a photo, you'd see me in all my morning glory. So be thankful I didn't.


I think the author actually called it lemon ice, but somewhere in the book they talked about a snow cake and that's what stuck in our heads, so snow cake it was.

Now, in our hemisphere there actually IS snow around at the moment, though not close to where we live.
If you had real, clean snow you could certainly use it or you could do as we did and crush some ice instead.

If you happen to be living in the OTHER hemisphere though, this is a great little cool treat for a hot day.
Just sayin', ya know, in case anyone's HOT over there.

OK.

First up, gather some snow, or, crush some ice in a high powered blender.
Or in your thermomix, as I did.


Scoop some snow into a bowl and squeeze over some lemon juice.


Now sprinkle over some sugar.
Using white sugar obviously keeps it all white, but you could use brown sugar or rapadura instead.


Layer more juice and sugar and snow, as many layers as you like.
Scoop into bowls and enjoy.


Now chase the 'lil fella round the house to get him out of his thoroughly sticky, damp, lemony pjs and wipe down all kitchen surfaces that have lemon juice, sugar and melted snow drips on them.

Mmm mmm, ' twas tasty though...


Sometimes, the simple things are best


It doesn't take much to amuse this one sometimes,

a box of someone else's pencils and pens...
(we've been house sitting The Mansion again)


a big sheet of paper, a pair of scissors and the sticky-tape.


Though from now on, scissors under supervision only, due to casualties suffered..

my sewing projectS
library books
his clothes
his brother's trap-making venture


He really is quite talented with the scissors, for 2 1/4 year old!



One for your little Spiderman fan

This is another quick way to impress your five year old. Actually, it wasn't all that quick, but not too time consuming overall.

 And it looks so cool!


It's a spiderweb, in case you can't tell.
 It's not perfectly formed but when your 2 and 5 year olds are helping you out at every step along the way, you've just gotta go with the flow and give up that hope for perfection.

Here's what you do:

Cover a bowl in tinfoil.
(I blu-tacked the foil in place)

Lightly grease the foil.
(I used olive oil and a pastry brush)

Lay out string or wool in the shape you desire, on top of the foil.

Get your hot glue gun into action and cover the strands of string in hot glue.
Go over it at least a couple of times.

Remove creation from bowl.

Ta dah!


(I cannot claim this idea as my own, we came across it somewhere on the web while searching for other Spiderman related things.)

I'm on a glue gun kick now, must see what other projects I can apply it to...