Christmas is coming

and the mincemeat is being made.

AArgh to christmas coming. why do i get so behind with christmas thoughts! pressies to get etc etc. its at our house again this year, we were going to have a break, but i’m working boxing day, so no point going to my parents to come back late on xmas day!

ANyway, I digress – well, i don’t really digress, as i haven’t started. I just am not feeling bloggable. I want the blog to just write itself, i like a record of what we do to look back on. i am barely using the camera either. obviously something is not quite right!

SB is more cheery these days [ or else i have got used to her wails and abrupt emotional changes/fragility] she is more stroppy as well. perhaps this is an age and growth thing. i do love having my mostly happier girl back again. She is talking ten to the dozen again, it is often like being in a wind tunnel! [and yes, I do know pressure of speech is a psychiatric term!] SHe tells me her ideas, what she has done, how tshe thinks the world works, and is alive again. phew. I am sure we are not out of the doldrums completely [as her wail about not going to the shop to buy a magazine shows, she is v quick to be desolate], but i no longer have her tell me she doesn’t see the point of being alive. BB is a squirmy armful of self confidence, bounciness, determination and joy. she is grasping the world around her and making it work her way! i love how she has such a clear way of describing things, and using her older sisters vocab to strengthen the emphasis on what she wants to say, and also the gestures and facial expressions! nearly 4! how time flies.

SO this weekend i have been working, but not too busily. The girls have done a fair bit of playing and also HE stuff. we are castle reading in our history at the mo – always a fun thing to play and recreate! SB is doing lots of spelling practice and maths – she hopes to finish her 2B book in time for when the MPAH 3A arrives [she prefers the MP as opposed to the primary maths which i prefer!]. She has also done music theory and 2 violin practices with me. BB is really grasping sounding out words as they are said. she doesn’t know the alphabet and scanty letters, but is good on the sounds and joining them together. we have done a fair bit of the before the code book 1, and today when we were going to do it together she told me she could do her home ed stuff by herself, and did!

thurs was a divali day at nots and tots, which they enjoyed. SB mostly played with L and E, and BB mostly did the crafts. they went on to a fun playdate afterwards, which both were v keen to tell me how much they had enjoyed it. So that was good.

fri was already blogged by chris – SB was v scary i think. she had been desperate to buy the mask, and I agreed as long as she made the costume to go with it out of an old sheet – she had the idea to bespatter it with blood. Was so excited to have the costume and rarred at lots of people in it, and was most impressed with the squeeze the heart thing. BB got fed up with her costume, so we tore the eye holes so that she could poke her whole head through, and then she was a much happier little ghost.

SB got this book from the library.The Magician of Samarkand
i would strongly recommend it [as would SB] and we will look for more books by that author. it is one of our favourites on junior jackanory, and the book itself is written beautifully. we love!!

we have done some french reading and conversation. following a recommendation on another blog, i purchased some more french resources, and we are doing the l’art de dire. I like it. i guess this bit could easily be made up and done with someone confident in french – which I am not! and there may be cheaper alternatives [luckilly i bought before all the currency turmoils through canadian relatives!] but actually i think it is deceptively simple, in that initially i wondered what i had spent my money on [ i bought the lire ones at the same time, and they are more obviously a good buy for that kind of thing] but as i use it to formalise our conversation, both SB and BB seem to be getting on well, and I have more confidence to extrapolate and experiment. you know, by the time i have finsihed home edding, i might be able to speak french! i did suggest to deepend Katy that she could prob write a home-ed conversational french package and have a market ready! I think she may be lacking in time though!! we are still using a various books and reading lots in french.

today we started making mincemeat using Delia Smith’s Christmas
. it worked well last year, and smells gorgeous! unfortunately with the nutmeg grating, there was a small amount of SB grating… never mind!!

what else? ermm, both girls have done lots of playing. BB loves her little things to play with, so will no doubt love her sylvanians – though still tempted by those rather glorious anamalz for her birthday! am thinking what to get other children for presents as well, and yes, christmas is coming!! [i think that may be where this blog started!]