i was fairly surly today. i desperately needed a lie in and didn’t get it. i had a crap week at work last week and next week is on 9/10 of the stressometer. anyway, got potatoes planted, did dandelion printing with bb [which was effective and fun!] made more cupcakes with bb and just about interacted [bless her, trying so hard] i played monopoly with SB. scored negligibly on parenting - feeling even crapper.

I think I’m just going to get round to upgrading to the current version (2.51), since it works on that, and there is some weirdness with this install anyway.

got up nice and early. merry had stayed over last night, which was also lovely, so we had got to do some gossiping and general chatting. she left pretty early this morning [well for us anyway!] so we were at least up with the larks. BB was anyway, SB stayed asleep and was much put out to find our guest gone.

no time for slacking though! a quick whizz through maths on her part, and BB doing dots to dots on poisson rouge. then piano and violin practice, then some crafting outside. we seem to have rather a lot of unfinished crafts, so will perhaps attempt to finish some before we start new ones!! There are the crocodiles still in progress. today we used 4pt milk to decorate up as animals - gleefully nicked idea from the pig at the manor borns. BB has done [drumroll please] a dinodoor!! SB is in the process of making liz the lizard from MSB. we sat outside on a rug. oh, i do like the outdoor HE!
a picnic lunch outside - woohoo!! then to the church where they were doing a bit of history of the village. more interesting for me and chris, moderately so initially for sb, and minimally for bb. they all liked the aerial shots, and spotting our house in photos though. on return we did a bit more french words - this time la maison book. TBH, these are v basic, with little context, but we pop a sentence around them and think the french sounds, so i am sure they are going to help! BB did some alphabet work as well. We also looked at a DK 4 book about dinosaur bone hunters.
Back and chris sorted out the paddling pool for the girls and they had a splash around for a bit. rather cold water though, so not enthusiastic for a great length of time! then a bit of tv whilst they warmed up - charlie and lola made a comeback! when I went outside, the pool seemed to have half emptied, and yess, huge hole!! it is the first time it has been used. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

we had tea infront of dinotopia, which both girls really enjoy. i think it is confusing the extinct thing for BB, oh well! she has been pretending to be a meeteater dinosaur and grring from behind furniture - rofl!

Anyway, the girls had a busy day, going to nots and tots, with a bit of french and a bit of latin amongst other things. SB did a piano practice as well.

when i got home they both wanted to do a craft, so some cards for fran are half made! Sb has used a stamping kit, and bB and i have done wax splodges so far. we had candles out for a bit of demonstrating that there was air and you can use it up.[bb is particularly keen on speriments] SB also did some maths. we all read a bit more of these baby french books [they are v much for 2's but they are quick, and we try and do a sentence with the words, today we were eating or not eating various foods!] SB and BB watched some how things work based on the DK books, which they both enjoyed [and yes, some MSB] . Sb playd some chess, and read some 3rd grade detectives books.

Anyway, we all got up, CHris to SB to drama, unfortunately he was running late and they went to the wrong venue. it is far enough away that there was much sighing! she got to half of it anyway.

meanwhile BB and I were having a much more satisfactory time. we started off playing silly games - hide and seek frog etc, then did some seed sowing. BB quite keen to do more experiments with seeds, so we have put some different ones to chit and we will see which one germinates first. [more details on gardening blog] after we had done that we did some ‘match and sort’ with singapore 1a. she enjoys this as v easy!! [though she did say she wanted to do SB's book...] and we read one of the very starter french books on colours again.

Still desperately keen to do ’speriments, i got out an air book, so we saw how we could blow air on each other [degenerated a bit!] and then [b******, FORGOT ABOUT THE LINK THING AND JUST PUBLISHED. THIS IS WHERE I LAST SAVED!] i impressed myself with making some really good aeroplanes.

lunch and SB home. she wanted me to show her her piano hands afterwards, so we did a piano practce, then a violin. BB joined in the violin practice - always tricky! Both girls did afrench book with me on clothes and then ordered crystal experiments, so we set them up - very brave of me to handle chemicals with BB! SB read all the safety warnings v carefully. she remembered that we had hung the rock from string before, and wanted to repeat that, so we did.

Rainbows for SB - feels that there is no time for me in her current wed timetable, so will have to change that. A surprise visit by chris parents, so i made tea and dinner at the same time [grin] and got them to read [and i won't link this time!] Katie and the dinosaurs and Digging up dinosaurs. we then read a red nose reader together before she wanted to bake pink cupcakes with smarty eyes. so we did. SB returned in time for the lickings, and we said goodbye to grandparents.

Bath, tea, BB bed, SB playing in garden, me potting up seedlings. SB bed. Apprentice, apprentice you’re fired and BB awake. playing drawing birds and dinosaurs with BB and looking at flickr pics of her as a baby. the end!!

his parents came and supervised. SB quickly rattled off maths, handwriting and piano. lots of games then with nana and grandad.

when i came home she got out a fossil find kit we had picked up from a museum, and enjoyed doing that. BB separated sand and iron filings using a magnet [maganet] and v much enjoyed that. she suprised me by using the word evaporated correctly. she also used her maganet [maginfying glass this time!] to look at plastic spider in more detail. SB off to ballet, BB and i read books and played games, and then stuc straws together to make panpipes. SB off to swimming [where her stroke has gone back to 'unusual'!] came home to find nina and neurons in progress.

At SB request, box books have swapped from explorers to science books with experiments in.

we did have a wonderful weekend though, as we went and stayed with the manor borns, went to st georges day at wrest park on the sat and geocaching and bird walk on the sun. i would link, but blog being awkward on those kind of things! so thanks to our host family
so, st georges day [actually don't even dare a bold!]. we were eonly 30 mins behind schedule, and although later than the manorborns, we were still one of the first arrivals. and no surprise because it was COLD. I felt v sorry for re-enactors and EH, as they must have made a massive loss. we still had fun though. SB and Chloe were actors in all 3 performances from rosie bottom and the variously named male actor [will ilink to their company eventually!]. they were excellent as usual, and the children all had great fun. SB giggled her way being lots of diff roles, and Chloe was a v proud horatio. I think they were the best bit of the day! Though actually the fire jugglers were great. SB had some fun dancing with some re-enactors, and also messing about with pikes etc. We watched some displays, and did some sheltering from cold and wet in the orangery. EH did a roaring trade in gloves and hats, and sold out! BB not so enthusiastic, so we spent quite a bit of time playing races around the rather beautiful gardens. kept me nice and warm anyway!

went back for dinner, cheffed in style by marcus. the girls played loads of games, and mostly kept themselves happy. following their bedtime, we played carcasonne with river, and really enjoyed that until 2!

so we were all rather subdued the next day! but did geocache walk - and found it! so our faith in marcus’s gadget using is undimmed. we then were going to do a customary walk around bird place, but decided to make it a bit shorter, like parental tempers! [i improved after flapjack]. lovely walk though, bluebells nearly out, lots of discussion on growing things etc, lots of bird sounds and some nice photos. we also eventually figured how to do that one game 2 ds thing [shame they have such hopeless parents, we did twitter, but none of the obvious experts twittered back, and we eventually had to be resourceful!]
home our separate ways, so we collapsed into a little chef as thought girls would keel over, and met the deependers having a similar thought following their warmer version of st georges day. car games there and back were in french - shouting out colours of cars!

this growing up thing is hard on parents