December 2006

we went to CHEF Christmas party. SO lots of fun and making things, singing carols, [playing, eating - all in no particular order!

Got home late and adjusted SB's character skirt for her to twirl about in, then had roaring fire and watched some History of Britan [or whatever its called] with Alan Titchmarsh - SB really enjoyed it.

Read some of the cutaway transport book to SB, and then mostly chilled and wrapped a few presents, listened to chtismas songs etc.

a day earlier than last year!
now to write Xmas cards

well, we did quite a lot of hama deeds. SB had to do hers twice, as B ‘helped’ her. The first version was better, and so never mind to the receiver of the gift! I also did 2 hama stars as presents, so will remember to flickr them to Merry’s group. i have now run out of christmas green though.

A bit of general mayhem, and book reading and the BB went to sleep. SB and I had been going to do something fiddley then, but she prefered to get stuck in on the baking, so we made Delias chees and olive scones [where she tipped out approx half the egg, so we made up with milk and it is fine]

and then some choc choc chip cookies for CHEF tomorrow. I didn’t get them out of the oven earlier enough though. I just am no good at cookies - they are either biscuits or soggy. Anyway, they are edible. Bb helped with the end of the cookies, having woken up. She mostly ate the choc chips, but did wodge some of them in. We have been using the great big solid balance scales, which are rather lovely, in oz! SO SB adding, doubling etc like mad all by herself.

We have posted out the early years HE cards at last - sorry everyone. I still have my own cards to do.

bit of relaxing with the yoga DVD, SB definitely getting much better at it, and then more general mayhem. lots of singing carols - i quite liked BB’s jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells my legions [to the bring me back tune - rofl] Bit of ad hoc talking around the chinese calendar from the restaurant, and the years of thing. Chris and I are apparently totally incompatible! I have promised to celebrate the chinese new year.

Dinner and now bath. How does the day go so quickly? we were supposed to be making yoghurt pot bells for the Xmas tree? AH, wailing from upstairs - shall I see what Chris is doing?? [it sounds like SB is saying BB bit her nipple? def one for chris to handle]

well, it is for me OK, as off until thurs after xmas! So, got home from work and huggled the girls with great relief. We got stuck straight in with reading, snuggling and playing together. Lots of drawing - BB loves her etch a sketch, the wacky wigglers are still a huge hit. SB has begun to be more imaginative herself, working out how things might join and what might not work. Both girls are rather sweet at making up imaginative stories with the christmas tree decs in the playroom. Even BB has got the hang of making them kiss and fall asleep. 2 trees may be a frip, but it seem to be money well spent. Straight into Xmas crafts and we made coconut ice. SB and BB - so the mixutres may not be exact! SB is quite able to do it herself, but we still do it together as fun. BB made a huge mess but enjoyed it!

After lunch, we did some making stained glass windows with black paper and tissue paper - glue city! i cut out a snowman shape for BB who stuck bits on it, and then demanded I did it! SB liked the snowman idea, so she did one too.

We read the hannukah section of while the bear sleeps and then watched Disney’s Aladdin, strictly come dancing and Planet Earth ['cos I was steamless at this point!]

i fell asleep, but BB woke me up, so now I have insomnia!!

A lovely first day of the hols though.

…..and we are far behind. But we do have last years list

Helen is now off work until Xmas, so much making and baking etc. on the horizon. Carols are on repeat play

Happy Christmas

Well, I am anyway. Perhaps in common with a number of others on this blogring Chrsitmas has snuck up on me. I have a craft cupboard full of good intentions. We do have trees up, and SB has done lots of Xmas cards - even if not posted [first 2 handed out today though] and I am mostly done on pressies. no cooking/baking preparation. House a mess.

I have also been letting the side down with spending so much time at work. 2-3 days a week I don’t make it home in time to see SB, which makes me feel very dislocated from family life.

I have been appraised - and passed. Wait to see how job planning going for next year [AKA how many hours they think they can wrangle out of me for nothing]. I just missed being excellent enough for an excellence award - but a miss is as good as a mile [or something?], so feeling grumpy.

SO onto better things. BB is weaned, and failry happily. A couple of feeds snuck at Barbara’s but none other now for a month. Kind of sad and kind of happy, but def right! She is a total cutie, and talks beautiful toddler talk, and has wierd dancing shuffle runs and mooch walks that she does to show her mood - saying OTay as she goes off to do something. Still very edible.

SB has been reading more, and enjoying a number of books from the library - including a good transport Xray book, and ocean book and archaeoloogy book. should have done another story in while the bear sleeps tonight, but she preferred the xray transport as a bedtime story! She’s enjoyed watching robin Hood as well as various of the David Attenborough natural history DVD’s. I need to spend more time with her, as I also miss our reading and craft sessions. She had her dancing thing last before week - which I did manage to get back for [terrible temporary camera!]

today we went to Merry’s. I am glad she lives relatively close, and we really should see each other more - maybe when I am made redundant or summat… instant disappearance of SB with the older girls. Fran tried to encourage them to put on a show, but SB and Amelie weren’t being very thespian! They then all disappeared off pretty much for the whole day. SB did look gorgeous in Fran’s skating outfit though. BB and Josie mostly played together - though BB did terrorize her a bit - she is obviously getting a nasty habit of face scratching - not often, last infact with R at Barbara’s. mostly over a Dora laptop though!

Merry and I gossiped a lot, Looked forward to Melrose and did a bit of fimo - Merry made a very beautiful statuette and I did some fiddly angels that fell apart in backing and made me stroppy! The bordeaux red in the classic range is a perfect angel colour. Merry intervention and they are now hanging on our Xmas tree! [they look rather brill actually on the tree, the white one looks best, we used superglue with no ill effects]

oh, Chris went out and did his usual timewarp thing, but did return with camera. Didn’t get the paper i asked him too though! oh we got SB’s mug back, and it looks lovely [from that painting place] and SB’s choice of colours works really well.

Anyway, thanks Merry for a lovely day. Everyone should have a fimo angel or 2 on their tree, and listening to carols is good for lifting the mood! [as well as spending the day with friends]. I am now going to watch telly and make a few angels. I am sure I have bought this colour, so will search it out!

woohoo! will blog about lovely day at merrys making fimo angels when the girls are in bed!

We got given this by a friend of Little Nanny’s (Helen’s Nanny), as they didn’t want it anymore.

I love it, I could never go and buy such a wonderful piece of Christmas tackyness, but every time I see it it makes me smile.? Though I don’t get the butterflies.
It needs video, a photo would never do it justice

[vimeo]123156[/vimeo]

Just realised that there was a draft I started last Monday morning, but never really any further than that blogging last week….. Mostly after the disaster that was the week before with BB being ill, it was nice to be back to normal, though I think it has taken a while for BB to get back to her normal sleep patterns.  It’s slightly awkward at the moment though as she finds it hard to get through the day without  nap (yesterday, she fell asleep while we were reading on the sofa at 4.30 and didn’t go to sleep until we went to bed.) Even if I get her to take nap earlier in the day she still takes  awhile to get to sleep at night. If you wake her up in the middle of her daytime nap to stop her sleeping to long then she is just grumpy for about an hour until she wakes up properly.

The girls spent ages this morning putting glitter onto the cards they had made with Helen last week. Well, SB mostly, BB spent ages spreading glue over the sheets of newspaper. (BTW, those upside down squeezing ketchup bottles make good PVA bottles). This seemed to take up much of the morning.  Other than that, in the afternoon, spent a good while on the sofa with SB reading and looking through one of those cutaway type books about modes of transport. So much talk about motorbikes, engines, the Orient Express, ships, why the Titanic sunk

In between there has been lots of playing - esp. the animals and the toy shop stuff, though there do tend to be arguments over the till, they are both playing together very nicely a lot of the time now, and SB has spent ages playing with various decorations from the playroom Xmas tree, standing by the tree whilst long impenetrable stories are enacted

“Pider”

“Nake”

“Efant”

“Chips”

“Biccie”

“Cake”

“Dairyleeeee”

“I want more chocat”

“I want more orange”

“I need tuddle”

“Breakie”

“Bumpy de head”

“Pardon-dee - burp/bottom”

“Hama-deeds”

”I like gannet” - came out with that one the other day - gannet = Pomegrante

“I like Mudder Goose” (Leapad book)

“I hadding…..” (whatever- as in  I had)

“I do it, I do it” (most likely something quite impractical)

Don’t yer love toddler-speak

It was our 2nd blogiversary on the 20th November and our 1000th post all the way back in September.

for me anyway. I have been working hard. I have my yearly appraisal tomorrow, so have been busy finding excellence in everything I do - always a hideous prospect - and filling in huge pointless forms - even worse. I guess the forms are pointful to SOMEone to say I have been duly processed for another year. I still have about 4 hours of finishing some online learning module, and somemore form to do.

Our local hospital is still up for grabs. Due to politics, they aren’t likely to shut it, but are doing the death by a thousand cuts option - i guess oping we all leave without being paid redundancy money. Think again! I have earmarked that money.

Anyway, in case chris doesn’t blog, they went to CHEF sports and played on Monday. We have done loads more Cnristmas cards monday eve and lots of education city, read the usboune starting point science under the earth.

Not entirely sure what they did on Tues as I got home at nearly 11.

SO today I had a lie in. When I got up, SB was helping Chris with the washing, and BB and I did painting - she is very keen on painting. I will pop here before I forget that one of her newer tunes is the Hallelujah chorus from the Messiah. very funny. She loves painting and her talking is getting more and more obvious - except when she has a strop. SHe has rather enjoyed the whole idea of advent calendars - she has a chocolate one and a sticker one. She’s not so keen on the waiting for it idea though.

SB also joined us painting, then we did an usbourne puzzle book - school before she moved onto general playing and building things with BB. BB and I read all the red nose readers as she is very fond of them. Ahe has obviously remembered her birthday as sang the first line of happy birthday fairly interminably when she saw the birthday cake.
SB did some more education city - definitely something that she is much more keen on this year, whilst BB and I looked at pictures and messed around. Some lunch was had, and I was rung 3 times by work - sigh.

After lunch we did one of those science test-tubes you can uy in tescos. we did the gravity one which was fun. SB had a good memory for gravity and its effects, and we talked about defying gravity and ways to do it. thrust/lift/ energy etc. the popper was fun, though BB lost it. Our staircase was perfect for throwing the parachutist down the gap and seeing it work. Also good for the experiment was seeing what might happen if BB packed your parachute. The extra boingy ball kept all 4 of us amused. A quick revision of the key ideas and how flight worked and then we went to the next activity prepared fby chris

Which was mincemeat making. Lots of raisins scattered across the kitchen. BB mostly played games scooping the nutmeg around in a bowl. Smelled gorgeous. has to settle overnight [a delia recipe] and then jarred ready for when we make mince pies.

A calm down reading roman gods in story of the world leading into a discussion of the planets again, and ranking them to likely gravity. The a day late we started the barefoot books while the bear sleeps. Chris also picked up something called christmas soup for the soul, with a small story for each day of advent, and we started to catch up.

The girls had a wild bath with the jacuzzi bit on and then have done a dancing show, eaten curry for tea [tea was running late] and now BB has done some more sticking Xmas cards. SB is still eating - she is very slow at eating! Bed any second now. Am contemplating reading The Hobbit as a bedtime story now she has finished Charlie and the chocolate factory. [BB shrieking that she 'Hadding a bath' - as in she has already had it] . yep bedtime. just finished in time!

raterh cutely BB has been singing a Josie song - as in for josie i think! SB said we were supposed to be sharing pomegranates, so that is what all 3 of us are doing before bed. really juicy pomegranate too

something to do with a game of risk.

last week did have some redeeming moments - one of them being SB saying we were best friends… like Becky and Barnaby !!! And actually, we have had lots of spontaneous home -ed type activities and conversations all over the place, from ordering counting and using multiplication to work out how much money she had in her purse, to how to make money! Bits of history, science and anatomy thrown in for good measure.

But the week really got to its high point when we went off to Barbara’s. We went fri rather than thurs due to an appalling night. this did mean that her and E missed skating, which was a shame. Lots of adults nattering and children playing with all sorts. i liked their showing off what they had learnt! They conversed in French, did multiplication tables, counted, read danced etc, all not quite competitively beacause of the year gaps between B, SB and E [youngest to oldest] Though SB was a bit panic struck when she thought the maths on the table was E’s, when in fact it was from an A level tutoring!!!!!! [that would have been scary]. BB and R got on very well most of the time as well, though BB seems to be acquiring a delight with scratching that we are going to have to deal with.
the next day Jax and co popped over in the afternoon as well and stayed for dinner - I have to say we were treated to gourmet vegetarian - yummy - from someone who said she had only one dish to her repertoire. SO anyway, lots more adult chatting and children playing.

Having access to children’s channels on freeview, SB also watched a fair number of adverts whilst we adults had a lie in, so now she HAS decided what she would like for Xmas [a baby Annabel and accoutrements] . Humm, so I told her all pressies bought, so she needs to think earlier what she might want for her birthday [not really that far away] whether it be towers of doom and knights or yet another baby. [oh, her hair tangler had arrived when we got home - fab!]

they mostly played imaginative games, with the dolls house, pattern blocks, hama, lego, trains and infact everything and anything, and without fuss[much] on tidying! so a great time was had by all. I was impressed by E’s handwriting books. We must get on with handwriting - our getty and dubay is languishing in a cupboard!
Us adults were not AT ALL sensible though, as we started a game of risk [which I had never played before] at 9.30, and at 4am decided to just all retire!!!! TBH, I think Barbara had a slight edge, but after a rocky start from me, and some mistakes - and some appalling dice throwing! - there wasn’t much in it, though the lads [helped also by appaling dice throwing] were in decline.

Unfortunately we woke BB going to bed, so i am fairly sleepless, as Chris was driving back I elected to be the early riser - aarrghhh. So, am about to watch some Robin Hood with SB and then to bed.

oh, education city is being a real hit at the moment, and they have added lots more since we last trialled it. I am going to buy it this time when the free trials run out!