Author Archives: Daddybean

That wasn’t a good plan…

Yesterday SB was going to an African Drama session with a local HE group. Both girls need new shoes and we’ve been putting it off, and weather is starting to turn a bit.. As we don’t have any decent shoe shops for kids in the nearest towns I planned to take the opportunity to go in earlier and go shoe shopping. got going, though a bit later than intended, but it would have been ok except? part way in it dawned on? me that schools go back next week, it might be a tad busy….

Shop was heaving with parents and children – half hour wait a sales bod said. I took a ticket, but wasn’t going to hang around esp with BB in tow, so we went out and ambled around the shopping centre for a bit, popped into ELC so the kids could play, SB was comparing the meits of various toy castles, she likes the girly princess type ones with lilac/pink bits – but did seem to think that the big ‘Castle of Doom ‘ was best – probably because it was the biggest and looked more interesting. Couldn’t face the heaving shoe shop and it was starting to clash with kids needing lunch so aborted the shoes for this time, so kinda waste of time and money really. You would think that with 6 weeks holiday, the schoolies could manage to not all go in the last few days – I ask you….

Anyway, SB enjoyed the African Drama – it’s not really drama – more musicy really, they were mostly playing on African drums this time. They were similar to the ones we used at a different group earlier in the year. I was impressed that SB remembered some of it, in particular how they were shown to beat a simple rhythm on the edge and the middle of the drum. So they had fun making lots of noise. BB didn’t want to be left out, and in between stuffing plums into her mouth had her own drum. mostly she just stood in front of it, but did eventually get around to bashing it a few times. Katy and kids from In at the Deep End were there, but didn’t really get to say much beyond hello. Finsished off with a visit to the park with SB best pal there M. Shame we live so far away so don’t get to see them to as much as SB would like. M was refusing at the end to leave the park unless we went round to their house :-)

time we got home we were all a bit tired, so there was a bit of flopping, a bit of reading, some playing with wooden trains (always leads to arguments over the trains), and a little simple wood/plastic construction toy thing (like a very simple meccano) that SB had for ages. Mostly now she likes to try making her own ‘designs’, whilst BB trys to eat the rubbery bits. I think she is probably ready to progress to something a bit more complex – the set was cheapy thing from IKEA, fine but it’s not extendable in any way. Not sure what though. Did some Explode the Code in the morning before we went out and some Exeter maths sheets when we came home before dinner.

Today was a pottering sort of morning, playdough was fitted in a round breakfast – BB is really into playdough at the moment so there is a lot of that happening as once one of them starts the other one joins in. SB was making ‘ancestors’ of various animals with the plastic sticking in playdough bug bits, so wandered into a bit of? conversation about evolution-y things again.? could we maybe borrow your Darwin book Merry? – it seems to be an area of interest at the moment, , we sat and read a couple of the ‘Wonder Why..’ series on history topics, which is always good for lots of little conversations about this and that. I fitted in domestic task such as washing up, some tidying, hanging up washing etc.. around all this.

Lunch , with some Little Toe Radio, followed by? a bit of quiet as BB napped, and SB did some Singapore Maths, then we tidied up the playroom? before we headed out swimming, which we haven’t done much of lately.. Home to find Helen home, some reading, and tea from the chippy.

Jane Tomlinson cycles across America

This morning in New York, Jane Tomlinson should be completing her cycle ride across the USA.

Jane (from Leeds, aged 42) was diagnosed with advanced metastatic breast cancer 6 years ago – the disease is terminal. Since then she has completed a number of long distance cycle rides, marathons and triathlons to raise money for charity (over ?1.2 million todate,) and also to show that people with such a diagnosis can still lead an active life.

Congratulations on your ride Jane and everyone else involved. You are one of those people who are truy inspiring.

You can make donations to the UK Charity and the US Charity.

Amazing – one i like!


Amazing – one i like!

Originally uploaded by Scrumbledelicious.

Roar! – Meat !

No we haven’t all suddenly turned into rabid carnivores. Been doing some Dinosaury stuff this afternoon and it finished off before bedtime with a lot of chasing around upstairs with everyone being Dinosaurs.? SB and BB were baby T-Rex, we had to go and get meat for them to eat :-). BB loves being chased so that was very noisy.

Morning was domestic stuff – washing and stuff. then once we were eventually organised off to do some shopping. Sb had been inspired by something on Smart – or whatever the older version of Smarteenies (SB was quite excited to see Kirsten O’Brien from the Little Toe Show on there) is called which reminded us we needed to buy some more tissue paper, so we went to the stationery/art shop. Got said tissue paper – though they had? miriad colours so getting SB to choose which ones, rather than just one of each was time consuming, until the lady showed us the mixed pack.? Bought a couple of packs of Berol felt tips. We have the nremains of various cheap and free felt tip packs around the house in various places, but of course half don’t work, have lost lids, can’t find the colour you want etc. , weedy colour when it does work, and generally just a waste of time.And BB is? total pain with felt tips at the moment. So have been meaning to get some decent ones for a while. I know from school use that Berol last ages, even with lids left off, and have decent colour etc. So found some at a reduced price, so got some. SB is charged with keeping them in their packs and away from BB.

Must now try to colect all the pens/pencils/crayons etc. together and to try and rationalise them a bit and remove anything not BB proof from the general pool.

Continued via the fair trade shop in a local church – where BB entertained the woman behind the counter by singing various songs to herself – such as Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush and Row, Row Row Your Boat – words not exactly intelliligible, but the tune is clear. BB seems amazingly good and picking up such tunes, I don’t remember SB being like that, -? their cafe for a snack stop – where I explained what Fair Trade was all about? and then went to see upstairs where there was an Art Exhibition by a local Art Group. Didn’t get to look at much as SB went to touch one of them, and the man who asked here not to (quite mildly) scared her apparently, so we left. She likes the stained glass windows though.

Next via the market stalls for some fruit and veg, where BB (again…) entertained the woman behind the stall by spotting the Strawberries and shouting ‘Strawb, Strawb, Strawb!’ (or somesuch) at the top of her voice :-), finished off with picking up some things in the supermarket.

Once home it was a lateish lunch with Little Toe Radio Show on listen again. Some Maths – Singapore Maths Weekly Revision book some bits about completeing number sequences. Then we looked a bit at some books/web pages about Dinosaurs as SB has been into them recently from watching the Walking With Dinosaurs series on DVD. Printed off a? few things from Enchanted Learning, while SB went off to draw a picture of a wobbly house made of Jelly with her new felt tips…… Then it was time for a bit of Explode the Code followed by colouring in a Dinosaur maths puzzle – T-Rex, her favourite, of course, which Helen joined in with as she got home about now.

BB’s milestone of the day was to ask for something on the TV. Doing her shouting, push/pull you thing she got me into the living room, pointed at the TV, pointed at the ‘on’ button, pointed at the DVD box :-). So I settled her down with the Clangers DVD. I went toff to get one with dinner, but she evidently wanted me in there becuase she kept coming after me shouting ‘Back, Back’. so in the end, I put it on the laptop in the kitchen. Which was ok until she started hitting keys and buttons…….

Which is where we came in really.

Homeschooling Country Fair

The 6th Homeschool Country Fair is open.

I liked this quote from What Did You do In School Today

‘creating an education that meets the child where they are instead of one that makes the child meet it’

Ruby Wedding Anniversary Party

Had Helen’s parent’s Ruby Wedding Anniversary party here yesterday, and a good time was had by all. Weather was looking wet and dodgy, but as forecast it dried up and the sun popped out at 12 as the first guests were arriving. It stayed dry until quite late so that was good. Helen’s mum was stressing quite a bit about the weather as she so wanted it to good enough for us all to be outside.

Was plenty of food – mixture of homemade and Waitrose Entertaining stuff (no we weren’t buying it) – which was pretty good.. Been quite a lot of preparation gone into the whole thing, so glad that it all went smoothly. Usual sort of eating, drinking, family catching up, chatting, laughing, kids playing, photo snapping, chillin‘ , sort of gathering.

By the end of we were absolutely knackered. So rather a shame that BB decided that once SB had gone to bed (rather late and very tired at about 10.30 – 11) she would wake up and wail and gnash and fuss for the next two hours…… :-(

Plenty of photos to sort out, so have just posted a few as a taster.

‘Chips! chips! Chips!’

Getting dinner for the girls ready tonight, I put a bottle of tomato ketchup on the table. Butterbean (who was pottering around in the kitchen) pointed at it and started shouting ‘Chips! Chips!’ (Ketchup mostly comes out when we have chips – it was lamost I suppose – sauted potato)

Quite clever really I thought, as well as rather amusing. :-)

the quality controlled cake!


IMG 7353

Originally uploaded by Scrumbledelicious.

It does look very sad doesn’t it!

Anniversary

Every time I listen to this I still get goosebumps up my spine – esp. the bit about 30 seconds in when were walking back through the assembled guests. It was the music (Overture from the soundtrack to the Kenneth Branagh film Much Ado About Nothing ) played at the end of our wedding ceremony – 9 years ago today (just about still) we got married. Though we’ve been together for 18 years. After 9 years we figured we were grownup enough ;-) to get married.

It was a wonderful day, great location, beautiful weather accompanied by family and friends, it couldn’t have been better really.

Love you as much as I ever have done Helen.

Musical wedding anecdote: THe DJ for the evening disco thing tried playing slow smoochy stuff near the end but there weren’t many takers. So he gave up and finshed of with ‘The Prodigy’ :- which was much more welcomed :-)

Duck

One of BB’s early words has been ‘duck’ – as in ‘stuck’, not the animal. Duck in the high chair, duck in the car seat, duck in your arms, duck getting out of buggy etc.

Well she really got duck today. Hear shouting and knocking on her door this morning about 7.15,, went up to find she had managed to lock herself in. (She sleeps in what is basically a bathroom, so it has a lock on the door. It ones of those lock/catch things that screw on the ouside of the door, rather than being fitted into the door, and it has slidy catch thing, that I’d forgotten about as we never used.

A bit oworrying as BB was the otherside wailing by this time. The bit the catch goes into was only screwed to the outisde of the frame, but it took a fair bit of kicking to get it to open (if it has been in the frame it would have been much harder). Helen was wondering about taking SB up a ladder and putting her through the window…..

The door did open rather forcefully, as part of the bit fixed to the frame broke rather than the screw pulling out. Luckily, BB had had enough sense to go back ino the room with the banging on the door so it just missed here.

time to check other possibly locking doors methinks…

SB was in the room next door asleep, with the door open. Did she notice a thing…..?