Category Archives: Butterbean

the week so far

good news on mon, and SB has the plaster cast off. this should help wound heal more quickly as not so hot and sweaty, negative is that it is far more easy to bash – so a mixed blessing really!

tues the girls and chris went to a roman event and enjoyed it greatly. sb was apparently a good hopping legionary! and both girls enjoyed clay pot making

today we had a far to early false start ith SB waking at 5. eventually got her to sleep again, and we had a second wake at 9. we all had a snuggle and a read downstairs – dinodoors with BB, history of london with SB. we read a french story, and did some numbers in latin. the girls have got the latest RSPB mgazines and read those. BB wrote on hers too. she is v keen on the idea of forming letters – usually AOUC.

both girls were v keen to do something crafty though, and BB had decided that this should be with some left over glass paint from suncatchers, so we spent a lovely morning decorating jam jars, and were all very happy with our results. the girls shared and got on well [which was a bit of a relief!] and we chatted and enjoyed.

after lunch, SB and BB did quite a bit of playing together, both with the castle stuff, and playing vet, with lots of giggling and laughing. i enjoyed listening and watching, and in boredom clicked often on H2Opia on facebook! – didn’t want to disturb! WOuld have liked to go out and weed, but knew my mvt would signal bickering. when it started slipping, SB and I went off and did some piano practice, and BB watched something. SB’s piano coming on nicely, she has got the notation fixed in her head now, allowing some really good sight reading.

i was surprised by chris’s parents arriving [though he wasn't!] and i was still in pj’s, so a quick change and chatting before SB off to rainbows. she took chris with her, as didn’t want to be left, and BB and i played dinodoors, building houses for them [and they knocked them down] and reading. bB really into rhyming at the moment, in pretty much ever sentence she is trying out rhymes, Both girls are execrably making up jokes! violin practice[short and seated] when SB returned, nd then more castle and vet games until tea and bed.

BTW, there were many good moments on holiday. it was v hard work though. i realised i wasn’t projecting enough joy though when SB sobbed for ages over me not being happy. i am making a concerted effort to be happy. when we came back we watched child of our time, and i was v sad for eve, and the loss of her mother. [we also watched a waking the dead about bosnia/serbia - neither of these programmes being a particularly good choice]

Getting on with it

Which is pretty much what the kids did today.

Up, a bit of screen time (Pingu and Magic school bus) before getting dressed so we could go across the road to buy bread, milk and marg to have breakie with a bit of Hama beading on the side.  After breakfast SB went off without the smallest reminder and did some maths (subtracting things like £6.13 – £4.85) and piano practise – though had to be reminded a bit how to borrow when subtracting. BB moslty played with the Geomags – she is really into them at the mo, we finally need to get some more I think. That and random 3 yo games with random objects, checked on the mushrooms in the mushroom kit – does;’t like to eat them, but fascinated by growing them.

Then SB started on some more Hama-beading, with BB also doing a bit. Whilst all this was going i was assisting in various ways, and being domestic – washing up, and cleaning out the fridge, cooking chickpeas etc. Sb then moved onto finishing off her T shirt that she was decorating for Amelie (late birthday present) . finished off the design on the front. Decided to write on the back – i wrote it down on paper for her, she spaced it out ok and then finished it off by writing Birthbag instead of birthday ! :-) – it was funny, but I tried not to laugh as she was really upset by it. Helen laughed even more when she got home which didn’t go down well. Will try to rescue it – it hasn’t been ironed to fix it yet. Helen was trying to convinve SB that Ams wouldn’t mind, SB not convinced. all the morning passed without too many arguments
They both went off and did some bits on the Starfall website until lunch was ready.

After lunch I sat down for a ‘five minutes peace’ cuppa and to write an email in my role as Merry’s tech support ;-). BB wanted to do a craft kit she found floating about – making bugs out of pom poms or some such. I said I’d do it once i’d had my tea, but then SB said she would help, so they went off to the kitchen to do it. Not sure how much BB did and how much SB, but they were both happy when I went in to see how they were doing so left them too until they stopped.

They both did some skating about for a bit at some point, so maybe that was now, then Sb helped me start to cook dinner – cutting up the Paneer and onion until H came home.

They played a Dinosaur ludo game – Sb didn’t like getting sent back it seems. Before long it was Ballet, more cooking, home from ballet, playing in the garden, feeding birds, Swimming, home to eat the curry that H finished off  – a treat of cookies that SB bought from the shop (with her own money)  when we got home. Bb to bed, while Sb and h played a game I think. Then I weeded the fruit bed, then time for coffee, chocolate and the last episode of Heroes Series 2 (a bit odd as it was cut very short by the writers strike.

and I’ve even blogged ! :-)

I’ve still got to blog my photo meme day from Friday, maybe tomorrow?

Spooky Spoon Bread

Thursday.

Off to Tots and Nots groups in the morning. Just in time for SB to take part in a French game with Katy. I sat with BB and did a picture with her made from different shapes cut out of paper. Bit of general playing and snack eating. SB did a picture as well. Drew a portrait of Helen. Gina whose does various music teaching there brought along some flutes. so they got to have a go with those. BB was interested, but didn’t want to try. SB managed to get some sound out of it without to much effort. Bit of singing of songs, then SB had her first recorders session with Gina. said she enjoyed it and wants to do some more. It should be becoming a regular thing.

By now BB was pretty grumpy – she wanted to go and watch SB playing, said she was hungry but didn’t want to eat any of the things  I had in the bag. Didn’t want to do anything I suggested etc. – probably tired (had woke me up before 5 am, though went back to sleep later) and hungry (only had eaten half a slice of toast and a modicum of yoghurt ).

Headed off home via Tesco’s for a few things – which was a bad idea – it’s a big Tesco Extra store and buying just a few things seems to involve walking miles. BB was amusing by the bakery counter. I was with SB a bit further along whilst she chose her bread, BB was sat in the trolley shouting out ‘ I want Spooky Spoon bread’ ! :-)  Spooky spoon (from the character in Numberjacks) bread being her name for a French stick – ever since we had one that was vaguely spoon shaped at the end and they kids dubbed it Spooky Spoon.

They both amused a mother at the veg bit. They were both begging me to buy a bag of Peas in their pods because they love eating them straight from the pods – but they were imported and rather expensive so I didn’t. Good to have kids who like consider buying bread and vegetables a treat though :-)

Escaped  Tesco and got home to a late lunch of mostly Spooky spoon bread accompanied by a dose of Magic School Bus. SB did piano practice, and handwriting. BB got out her violin and played with that, couldn’t find her maths book which she wanted, so did some leap-padding. then they both got out the Geomags. BB got upset because they kept on sticking to each other :roll: and they bickered and argued over which Geomags they each had, could do with more really. I cooked some soup, which neither of the kids seem to like much – probably a tad too spicy for them. Helen came home and read some books with them – I caught one about Alexander Graham Bell.

Then off to bed.

summer is here – now official!

well here anyway, as SB and BB had a row about it!

before i start, why is it that as soon as i friends ans family flickr due to an overly persistant re-contacter, chris links to our blog from an everone view photo!! sigh!

anyway, it was another hot one today! started off in the cool with piano practice with SB. she wants to do more piano than violin at the moment, so i am hoping to facilitate that, but keep the violin ticking over. certainly her piano playing is coming on in leaps and bounds at the moment, and i guess this increases the enthusiasm. i’m going to try and find an easy duet book as well for that. [actually if i did more violin duets with her that would prob be a good thing too!]

SB then got on with some maths and handwriting whilst BB and I made some cheese scones [had to hide some so we would have some for tomorrows picnic!!]. we then did some lucy chat books at the beach – v helpful i now know the word for shark! and BB did some alphabet recognition.

All piled out into the garden under the gazebo to do some more crocodile making. SB has embellished hers so much with papier mache that hers is more of a thorny devil. bB’s was more minimalistic, and then she wailed because it was too wet to play with :roll: general outside play. chris and i both did bits of hoeing fruit bed, chris weeded some veg patch, i planted and SB watered. we have started hacking at the yew trees as well.

had some camping pancake mix left, so added cocoa powder to it for a chocolate pancake treat [bB's idea] we all prefer plain! Then put up one of our tents in the garden for the girls to play with [the cheapy 2 person 'festival tent']

cooling down now – phew!

bank holiday camping!

i am going to ignore the fact that i have a migraine, and that we are behind on blogging to say that we had a really fab ban holiday camping.

weather was excellent, camp site fab – with sea views and no midges!. great company. we loved our new tent, and the porch addition worked really well. we had a porch inner for our proper tent bit, and i noticed although it was a khyam ridgipod classic porch, it also had motordome classic badging, so poss good for both – for anyone else with a khyam! BTW the porch addition isn’t made for our tent, so a wind vent space – pics to follow – but worked v well and easy to put up!

our neighbours seemed v happy with their new tent, and certainly the outwell brand in general :smile: but i’ll let them say all that when they return on their blog! my new sleeping bag was truly fab, i never felt cold, and was in fact too warm on the last night ad de-layered!

we got there fri eve, and managed to pitch v quickly. SB placed and pegged out the groundsheet, put poles together and cliped them in, and was generally v helpful. bB handed out pegs and poles, and was potentially v helpful, though not quite if we didn’t actually immediately take them and use them! anyway, 30 mins saw tent up, and sleeping stuff allready, and since it was nearly 9pm… quick pasta tea then bed. next morning saw us adjust a few bits in the light…

we went to east runton beach. sunny but v blowy. SB got herself drenched in the sea after saying she wouldn’t so no need to swap skirt for sunsuit… chris made numerous runs across the pebbly/stony bit and up cliff on toilet runs. and we finally went back to campsite for lunch and arrival of the manor borns. As said, we were impressed with their new tent, it looks great. girls all played, including an ‘extra’ girl from a tent a space or 2 away [that is what i like about camping!]. BB is getting v proficient at like-a-biking. and the campsite had a handy concrete track bit on the nearly flat for her to whizz along just by our tent. also appreciated by the 3 bigger girls who all had scooters. the dynamics needed some tweaking, and unfortunately we hadn’t packed craft stuff for me to do with BB, and she wouldn’t be interested in any of the games, but the older ones were pretty good at including her, and i tried to give them breaks as well!

SB has restarted animal crossing – we wiped the last town!

nice curry tea and chatting till late. girls all dropped off successfully. perfect camping

next day weather was more variable. we got v blown about at the beach and abandoned. then went to cromer in pm, which the girls all loved as they got to go on some fairground rides. BB in particular was ecstatic by both bouncy castle and teacup rides. SB got far more bouncy castle opportunities when that age – must do better!! SB waited for ages for bb to stop bouncy castling so that they could both teacup together – aw what a fab big sis!

we goy blown around the pier, saw the crabbers and went back for another fab meal.

final day for us, and we went into sheringham for lunch out [at a v quaint local restaurant stuck in basil fawlty timewarp, but good food!] and then a ride on the steam train. scorching weather, so we should really have done the days the other way round, but we were sort of going with the fact that bbc and metcheck might be vaguely right weather wise! we all got hot and bothered. i in particular, as taking tent down in heat does not suit my constitution! final meal chez manorborn tent – yummy stirfry, and home.

i love camping. looking forward to festival of history, and must organise another weekend jaunt to norfolk coast – well, maybe more than one! other attendees more than welcome!

Honey, I Set Fire to the Cake

While i was at Rainbows, H was at home with BB making her birthday cake (me and the girls were going to make it this morning, but it didn’t happen) we were going to make a marble cake, which after BB saying she wanted to make two cakes, they ended up doing.

Looks rather like a volcano to me.

Anyway, after dinner me and the girls were doing the candles etc. on the cake. we were going to make the digits 39, but BB was helping, so we decided just to put as many candles as we had on.

35 Candles

I lit them, it all looked good:

All Alight

and then the of half the candles which we had lit first had ot so hot from all the candles being together they were melting and collapsing, which ten set fie to the ruff round the cake :lol: all rather entertaining.

Opps, too hot.

So, we had cake with added wax decorations

A bit of extra decoration

Just another Tuesday

Morning, off to the Library. SB on her inline skates, BB on scooter. So took much longer given SB’s skating speed at the moment. BB very funny, she is very much into mad scootering at the moment. Zooming along shouting madly, she was scootering along, going ‘look I can steer’ when she crashed straight into a telegraph pole :lol:

Library, storytime for BB – SB sits and reads other things now, a bit of craft sticking making tulip pictures. which BB insisted we bring home and put up over the cooker taking down old artwork. Finding some more books – SB brought home 9!! Mr Men books. I told her she would have to read them all herself as i wasn’t going to read them (really dislike the Mr Men books), a bit of nattering and home.

Met Trish, other HE mum and child C in library, and they came back a bit later for coffee/lunch and playing. Trying to play indoors didn’t quite work, but decamping to the garden and the sun was much more successful.

After they’d departed they made birthday cards for Helen, and wrapped presents. SB had to go over the road and buy some more wrapping paper. except for crossing the road (which she can do fine at the zebra crossing, but just likes you to watch her in case she isn’t sure about it) she manages such shopping trips OK. BB stuck a strip of paper together and wrapped it up to make what was apparently a fish for Mummy.

SB got on with some more Getty and Dubay handwriting, followed by some maths. Stuff on money (Dollars and Cents – it’s Singapore maths, but it’s all decimal so she’s happy with that) all pretty easy stuff. Was a litle stuck on what writing say 65c in Dollars meant and why it was $0.65 – she got the hang of it though. Though I mad a bad job of trying to explain decimal points. which reminded me we need to do stuff stuff on fractions reallys.
Meanwhile BB played one of those impenetrable 3yo kiddie games with a seemingly random selection of objects, in this case something like a teaspoon, a plastic dinosaur, a plastic tub, a pair of nail clippers and wooden lolly stick.

I did stuff like get dinner going, hanging up washing etc.

Sat and read a bit (of one of the numerous new Book People books) of a book about Rainforests, which some how involved a conversation on rabbits eating their own poo :? They then sat and read some of their library books before dinner.

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And breathe…..

Someone pass me a handy wall.

Butterbean’s replacement Leappad arrived (seller just sent a whole replacement one in the end, works fine), so get that sorted out, SB get’s out hers, offers to use the starter book on hers as well so that they can do the same one together. But BB doesn’t seem interested in that and just faffs about, so SB, get’s out other ones to do.

At which point of course BB wants the book SB has and then just spends time annoying SB (BB has plenty of books for hers, SB gave her some of old er simpler ones).

Move onto baking cakes, as SB needs to take cake/biscuits/fruit etc. to share at Rainbows camp. She wanted to make the Choc Spread Cake. decide we’ll make two, so BB gets one of her own to make and we have one here to eat. Does not of course stop the bickering or BB doing things deliberately to annoy SB or (things I’ve asked her not to do (dip finger in choc spread, lick, repeat. or brush all the spilt flour, sugar etc. onto the floor)
Just about made it to the end of baking without banishing them both from the kitchen 8O. Licking of bowls and spoons was only allowed on pain of death if there was arguing.

I’ve made coffee and sent them upstairs to get dressed (or at least quiet). I need five minutes peace :-)

a blog filled day

we are awaiting the ending of an ebay auction which we would have liked to have won. we have placed a max which is low, but reasonable, but is obviously lower than the reserve. i hate reserve auctions. i refuse to ‘bid up’ to see where the reserve is. And I think in this case it was obviously at something unrealistic, as we are nowhere near our max bid yet. grumble grumble moan moan!!

we had a playdate today with rainbows friend [RR for short]. she was obviously in a bit of a weird mood from the start, dropped off by her mum early in a tearing hurry [our girls stilll in pj's!] (Note From Chris: Early here was 10.20 :-) )they started playing ok, but after a bit our girls keen to go outside and enjoy sun, couldn’t understand why RR not so keen. but apparently she had watched a film on volcanoes. we prob live in one of the least likely areas for a surprise volcano in the world! it was oK if she wore S’s clothes though, and I went out too. fair enough, i sowed some seeds and interacted in minimalistic reassuring fashion. [a tsunami would be much more of a worry really]. SHe’s a lovely girl really though, just caught on an ‘unusual’ day – and no more off planet than SB can be. However, she did graze herself on slide, so i carried her in and settled her in front of magic school bus, and upset mine by insisting they watch it with her. pizza decorate yourself for lunch perked things up, and then after lunch i did an ad hoc weaving with scoobido fish dreamcatcher thing – which sort of went ok, BB and RR both gave up, and i finished theirs, but they tod me which colours and when to put pony beads on. SB did hers beautifully, but with a fair tension on it, so it is more of a tube fish!

BB showed RR her magnets, and a long discussion about magnets ensued, and a bit of iron detectiving. am planning to do some magnet stuff tomorrow. wish i had sorted out stuff to make an electromagnet, maybe next time. the older ones prob know it all already. hmmm

they went off and played happily for a bit, then a something or other, and I ended up hugging RR and chris SB whilst watching magic tree house and eating apricot scones [lovely] . so peace and happiness returned, chris and sb walked her home, and played for a bit there, as she was much happier back on home turf [obviously being about 200m away, no risk of volcanoes!]

BB and I did other bits and pieces together during the day. she was still wailing about lost dinodoors [if anyone goes to magna, or anywhere else that sells them, could we pay you for a 50p stretchy lizard?] so we made some about of fimo – a t -rex and 2 babies, that could also be eaten! we then went on to make the yummy apricot scones. mmmmm. We read alot of books together, and did some counting and guessing starts of words, and lots of singing. we also made a fish out of airdrying clay, whcih she insisted had a sad mouth [like prunella scales in that supermarket advert!]
Chris picked up BB from the floor at some point in the afternoon, and she really hurt her arm. not a dramatic pick up or anything, but she was really tearful, and held it as if broken. i checked all over and it seemed fine, so calpoled. after an hour of no mvt i decided we should go to have it xrayed, and she wailed and stormed she wasn’t going, and suddenly it was fine to push me away with it etc. yep, it isn’t broken!

anyway, relaxed bed time. chris has started on peter pan with SB, and we played battleships for our evening game.