O loves to build with Lego - Over the past year he has bought his interests in Mario, Roblox and Undertale to life with Lego. I am piece finder hence my nickname of Lego Ninja. We have a log cabin with over 40kgs of Lego collected over a decade to help facilitate this.

We love Legoland and generally aim to visit twice a year using the home educators discount, we have also been to Lego Mania at Milestones Museum at least once a year every year since 2011!!

Above O's Roblox skin in Lego - A great use of those black mini figure base plates

The death star in the log cabin where all our lego lives - A lego base and our cats!

Some lime green creations O made Summer 2017

During a sort out of the crates

One of E's more recent solider and star wars set ups

The roblox man in his crown and two knives from the Roblox game Assasin as imagined by O

Lego land Summer 2017 visit

O makes Bowsers Koopalings from Mario as Mini figures

Some minecraft weapons O made

Lego Mania at Milestones 2017

Inspired by Minecraft and Minecraft lego O made a roller coaster

For 6 years I blogged every single day at The Gallivanters about our home education journey. That blog is now password protected as is my new daily journal. My Minecraft Mum Blog is open to all readers.

Here I bring out some of our most popular and useful posts for public view.

We have 3 home educated children. 

S is 12 and has never been to any kind of school, nursery or institution. Her interests and passions have changed over the years. The current crop are cooking, Sims 4, Hamilton the Musical, her weekly session with a fantastic English tutor and cats.

S learnt to read at 4 and adores stories. She'd read all the Harry Potters by six!

E is 10 and has been assessed as dyslexic. He has also never attended any kind of institutionalised learning setting. He enjoys being social with his friends online and IRL playing PS4 Overwatch, Minecraft and Roblox. Because of E's interest in Clash of Clans TD (the children's short for The Daddy!)  both play and run a clan for E and his friends. E also likes nerf guns and watches YouTube clips to learn more about them. In the summer months we run a weekly Nerf Club. E also likes Lego specifically lego Star Wars. He also enjoys helping out at the allotment and is chief exec of the hose pipe.

Parenting E was a huge challenge for many years but these days he's a joy to be with

O is 8 and exclusively home educated like his siblings. He likes engineering and often recreates his ideas across mediums - sometimes drawing them and others building in Lego or Minecraft. O loves to draw and often draws in the evenings whilst I read stories aloud. O likes to play with his online friends on Minecraft and Roblox and recently recreated his Roblox skin in Lego. O loves Mario games and in many game and movie franchises the baddie is his preferred character as with Bowser and Boba Fett.

I am married to the amazing TD. Engineer by day and allotment holder and Overwatch and Clash of Clans Ninja by night and weekend!

Pizza Recipes

Pizza Recipes

The subject of home made pizza came up at during #HomeEdHour last night and my responses exceed 140 characters so here they are. Cooking a huge percentage of our food from scratch is one of the main ways we save money as a homeed family. 

We love pizza - A meal that all 5 of us enjoy is cause for celebration!

E enjoys pesto, salami and bacon on his, I go for pear and dolcelatte or egg, mushroom and sun dried tomato, S has hers as garlic bread or dough balls and O likes a plain cheese and olive. TD likes combinations of all of the above plus capers minus egg :)

The more often you make pizza the better it gets as you have left over toppings in the fridge so it gets quicker.

I use the Jamie Oliver dough recipe but I don't let it rise - I find it much easier to roll it out super thin when it is warm - this will make you a Pizza Express style thin base - If you are after a Pizza Hut stuffed crust or Dominoes thick pizza this probably isn't the right dough recipe for you.

A 1kg bag of Tipo makes about 12 pizzas so half the bag makes us a pizza each  - I use Waitrose own - At £1.10 it is more expensive than other kinds of flour but at 10p ish a pizza base (inc sugar, oil, yeast etc) I am not quibbling over pence when I'm saving pounds.

Our faithful 16 year old Kitchen Aid makes the dough with its hook attachment

Onto the tomato layer we use sieved tomatoes as the seeds and skins don't make a great base in our experience - For some of the year we make our own passata using tomatoes from our greenhouse at the allotment and this machine which we'd had for several years now and probably should have bought sooner  - TD grows San Marzano from Franchi seeds as they make the best. Otherwise Pizza Express passata when it's on special offer and Waitrose own brand are both good.

I cook our pizzas on screens for thin crispy bases - I used to have big 12'' ones which were excellent but when we switched to a dual fuel range style cooker some years ago they didn't fit so I switched out to these 10'' ones which make individual pizzas rather than large ones to share - I brush the back of the dough with olive oil to ensure they don't stick. There is a photo of them in action with a double yolker here.

To replicate the cheese of shop bought pizzas I cube Provolone and mix with pre grated mozeralla - I do use other cheese combinations but Provolone seems to be the closest to commercial pizzas. Again it is not cheap but then Dominoes for 5 is often £50!

My daughter really likes pizza Express dough balls - they are £3 bought from the supermarket whereas I can make them at home for around a 10th of that - The key to replicating their butter is to very finely chop or press the garlic with salt to soften it then press it into a dish and refrigerate before serving.

If I've forgotten anything feel free to ask.