What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?

"I want to be a clown, in the circus, and swing on ropes and bars," said The Boy.

I love that wish and I hope that he fulfills it!

Now when I was a child (circa. 1988) I wanted to be a bank manager, because I thought it meant that I'd get to count money all day long, and at the time that was one of my favourite things to do. Never in a million years did I envisage myself becoming a teacher; I honestly have no idea how it happened or even why. I think that I might have been pushed into it during sixth form because the private school I attended didn't know what else to do with me. As it was I failed to get into the only two colleges I applied for, and ended up studying to be a nursery nurse before becoming a 'mature' student (at the age of 21) training to be a primary school teacher.

I love my job, but I'm still not sure it's what I want to do long-term (despite having done it for 11 years!)

Therefore when Innocent asked me what inspired me, I had to stop and think with the help of their gift…

And it's that little chappy there on the mug, it's my son that inspires me; to be the best that I can and to fulfill my dream. I'll let you into a little secret here; I'd like to have a craft shop which runs tutorials in a studio room.

One of the co-founders of Innocent (Richard Reed) has recently had a series on television, entitled 'Be Your Own Boss', where he selected new businesses with innovative ideas which he could invest in. As Innocent started out as a stall at a small jazz festival with the three co-founders selling their smoothies, it's great to see them paying it forward to other potential successes. They tested their audience by putting two bins labelled 'yes' and 'no' at the front of the stall, with a banner asking “should we give up our jobs to make these smoothies?”. At the end of the weekend the 'yes' bin was overflowing.

Maybe my craft shop isn't such an elusive dream?

I'll leave you with a few gems from The Boy:

  • Daddy, what do you want to be when you're growned up?
  • Mummy what would you like to be when you're tall like daddy?
  • Daddy, when you were three, you were my child and I was the daddy, weren't you?

Spring Has Sprung!

Last week, the doorbell went and, as usual, The Boy rushed to the porch door.

"Postman!" he shouted, and turned away. I went and rescued the dejected looking postman and the large box that he was carrying, which ironically was addressed to The Boy. When he realised this, he squealed with delight and was eager to open it up.

This lovely gardening kit was sent to him from innocent so that he could plant his own seeds and take part in the exciting promotional project that is going to be featuring for the next few weeks. Throughout March and until the end of April, every box of the innocent kids’ smoothies or fruit tubes will come with its very own pack of easy to grow seeds. There are six different varieties to collect including carrots, tomatoes, cress, basil, violets and sunflowers – all of which will show little ones how a garden grows.

So yesterday afternoon, we did some gardening. First we made some eco-friendly newspaper plant pots, the brain-child of Christine from Climbing Rainbows.

Then we planted our seeds into the newspaper pots, but we saved one set of seeds for a special pot to be kept in a secret place. More on that in a bit!

In total, we planted sunflowers (my favourite flower), violets, basil, tomatoes, carrots and cress. We'll be planting more seeds over the next few weeks; peas, courgettes, leeks, and seed potatoes. Gardening is an important activity to help teach your children about the world around them, how things grow, what is needed to keep plants alive, etc. While planting these seeds, we discussed that they needed water and warmth to start them off, and then once the leaves have appeared that they need sunlight. We counted the scoops of soil we put in, talked about textures and materials. Gardening is such a fun and educational activity, that really provides children with a sense of achievement.

While waiting for our seeds to grow, we'll be visiting the innocent gang's garden and uploading photos of our plants' progress. Join in with the seeds that you get from the innocent smoothies 4-pack boxes and learn some top gardening tips, upload photos andyou could be in with a chance to win cool prizes from innocent's friends at Rocket Gardens and the Royal Horticultural Society.

And so to the competition.

But not quite yet. In about a week's time, I will be posting on my blog, a photograph of one of my plant pots but in a secret location. I'll also be posting photos on twitter and instagram of the seeds as they grow, using the hashtag #innocentseeds. The competition will involve guessing where the special pot is, and what is growing in it. Correct entries will be placed in a virtual hat (otherwise known as Rafflecopter) and one of those clever souls will win a innocent smoothies gardening set like I received.

Veggie-Terror!

No, this is not a post about how The Boy won't eat his greens; far from it in fact!

We received a lovely orange box the other day wrapped in a hand-tied bow. Inside was a lovely selection of fruit and vegetables and a note from Innocent asking us if we could create a veggie-monster. The Boy had a good old look at the selection inside and was very intrigued with the kiwi! Wouldn't try it though!

Using the toothpicks which they provided, and spelling out the name with the special innocent glow-in-the-dark magnets (a full set; I almost jumped for joy!), we came up with this lovely lady:

Her name is Ms. Hel O Wyn and she was rather pleased to be visiting our house for the day!

However, she's now sat in a pot on the stove making a stew for tea tonight.

Innocent have a rather fabulous campaign on at the moment to celebrate Halloween and their new glow in the dark magnets. They want children across the land to get creating their very own weird and wonderful fruity freak or veg monster. It's very simple, just do the following:

  1. Cut, carve and create your fruity freak or vegetable monster from the weirdest looking fruit or veg you can find.
  2. Give it a name and spell it out in innocent magnets (how about 'Terry Able' or 'Aaaaaaaaaalan'.)
  3. Then take a picture of your spooky creation, post it in their scary halloween flickr gallery.
  4. When you've done that, email them (myfruitandvegmonster@innocentdrinks.co.uk) with your flickr name and a postal address (important so we know which picture is yours, in case you're one of the first thousand people).
  5. The first 1,000 entries win a very special set of limited edition halloween 0-9 number magnets which ALL glow in the dark (the perfect addition to your alphabet ones)

The competition runs until 7th November 2011.

And because we love food and hate waste, afterwards, why not use any leftover veg to make a stew like us?

We were sent a box of fruit & vegetables (& magnets, hurrah!) to take part in this campaign and help spread the word.

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