Idea's on nice things to do with my 9yr old dd please?

[LoveMyGirls]

I've been really busy lately and I'm about to get even busier which is great work wise and money wise (we've very overdrawn) so I'm looking for idea's of things I can do with dd1 that we both enjoy. We do baking but other than that what else could we do?

She has been doing really well since being back at school and I'd like to treat her, we did have a family photo shoot last weekend which we all enjoyed and we are going to a theme park next weekend but that is for dd2's birthday.

My DD (also 9) loves pottery painting. If there is a place near you it's great fun. You can sit together and chat away while you paint. It's one of the cheaper activities but you do have to pay studio fees and buy the items you want to paint. The one near us is also a cafe so we had lunch after. I think it ended up costing me about 20 quid.

She loves it because DS who is 3 is too young to go so she feels like this is something just for me and her.

HTH

Just going to a cafe and chatting over a treat can be wonderful and bonding. Make a point of not doing any errands along the way - it is jsut an outing for the sake of spending time together.

Bookshops with cafes in them are great for this.

Or do the opposite: take her grocery shopping with you, and then (apparently spontaneously, but of course you've secretly planned this) stop for a treat at the cafe. I'm the middle one of three, and I used to absolutely love it when my mum did this with me.

Good ideas, thanks loving the pottery idea, I know there was garden centre that did that but not sure if they still do.

My sister took my 9 year old dd out for the day in the holidays. She had her hair and nails done (hilarious since she bites them to the quick) and took her to lunch. DD absolutely loved it and felt very grownup.

I met a nanny recently who was telling me about babysitting a young girl about the same age and I wish, wish wish I'd had a baby sitter (or mother whod done this for me! They had a girly night in, so she'd organise a bath with bubbles and candles, maybe music. Then into nice clean, prettiest pjs etc she has and maybe moisutrise and a bit of scent/perfume. Then do toe nail painting, special hair drying and brushing etc. Maybe plaiting hair to get waves in the morning or putting in curlers and drying it. (You can get curlers dead cheap at pound shops).
Basically nothing too grown-up, though if you did day time could be make-up if you don't mind that, but a nice girlie time. Doesn't have to be for the evening of course and you could get her to do your toe nails too. My instinct is that it could make for a nice precedent as they get older and could easily run into adulthood as a key way of spending time together.