Category Archives: photos

Vegan cakes and alum crystals

Posted on February 7, 2006 by HHaricot | 3 comments

luckilly not in the same mixing bowls. oh, and by the way, I have popped the Tate Modern photos on the blog and on flickr

SB and BB did the library crafts thing with Chris in the morning, and made hearts, the theme was valentines’s day. Unfortunately, they left the bookbag and new books there – cue much wailing, and only realised after library shut. So must go fetch tomorrow. luckilly the mudpud book bag is somewhat distinctive! Anyway, before lunch she whipped through 4 pages of explode the code without any difficulties [though I had to explain what a mutt was], and we went on a read a red nose reader, and the first of the letts active readers ‘ratman and the big cat’.

Whilst there, she ‘buyed’ a my little ponies video, we had a chat as she noticed I ‘bought’ so we might not hear buyed much longer. We then watched it. It was a little bit frightening TBH, and a very odd storyline [even if I was only half watching, with the guardian in the other hand!] about stolen shadows.

We were both relieved when it finished – though possibly different reasons! And decided to make carrot cake. No carrots – so chris sent out, and instead we started a crystal from tescos testtube crystals kit. Nice simple kit, and for just under ?3. Aluminium, so we had a good discussion about safety, washing hands etc etc before starting, and mixed it all well. the ‘stones’ appear to be plastic, and you have to sandpaper them to key them. The main problem though, si that they don’t sink!!! Not sure how this experiment is going to work with floating stones! Especially since we have one on string – which is also floating on the surface. If I bought the kit again, I think I would use garden stones instead. Interestingly, they suggest you put in food colouring to make the crytals cool colours. Obviously haven’t done that this time, but will def go for it another time. Anyway, thats 2 different tescos testtubes that are fun. Have 1 more to try.

Carrot man returned [oh, BB is asleep during this btw!] and we made an adapted recipe vegan carrot cake - hopefully it will be fine. one for Melrose, and one for saturday. [ps, they are being frozen, so won't be stale] Do any of the children other than mine like carrot cake? Otherwise can make a sponge too for sat. Then cakes for children and adults.

We also did lots of mental subtraction and addition. though the sums SB gives me are sometimes quite unusual – in the dame slap style! Started the origami kit she got at the tate modern, neede Chris’s assistance with the instructions though!

SB then did some starfall while I played with BB. Mostly peekaboo and pop-up animals. BB most put out though when got left behind and SB and Chris went to her swimming lesson. i made a curry [incredible mild] for tea. BB and I did more messing about together. It is nice to be able to give her undiluted attention. SB is getting better at letting me do this without taking over, but I suffer from parent-not-at-home-enough-guilt when we do it. Silly really, as SB gets all that time when BB asleep to herself.

This evening we have read a couple of just so stories, and about henry the 8th, Mary and edward in the tudors -history of britain. SB dissappointed that didn’t get to elizabeth, so will read that when she has finished her bath.

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, Cooking, General, history, literacy, numeracy, photos, SB-PE, science, writing

yesterday

Posted on February 7, 2006 by HHaricot | 1 comment

we went to grandpa f to say happy birthday [early] and had a lovely relaxed day there.

BB trolled around and practised waving and sayng bye bye every time someone left a room.

SB did some painitng, and helped nanna f decorate the birthday cake. in the afternoon she got to watch a lot of cbeebies as a treat, as we no longer have cable. We also played some games – cat in the hat and dancing!

they both slept at the wrong time, so evening and bedtime was not according to plan! SB slept with us eventually, but BB slept through.

other beans are at the library, and I’m about to have a shower to feel refreshed. Need to do lots of baking this week!!

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Posted in General, photos

Tate Modern

Posted on February 6, 2006 by Daddybean | 7 comments

Today, as advertised, me and the Beans went off on trip to the Tate Modern gallery with some other local-ish home edders. And ajolly good day it was too, though by the time we got back I was well tired.

With only a modicum of geeing-up of Stringbean we managed to leave the house on time and got to the station nicely in time as well. Got found on the train by one of the group, and after a little while I went off to the loo to find on return that SB, being the sociable creature that she is, had settled her self in with some of the other girls and spent the rest of the journey happily with them. Whilst I chatted to other parents, and kept a rein on BB’s wanderings. So the train journey, and the bus at the end were quite painless really.

Tate Modern is great, I love the building anyway, a great hulk of a building sitting across the Thames from St Paul’s catherdral with it’s great tall chimmney. You’d never build a power station in the middle of a city nowadays. And the conversion to art gallery has been very successfull, . To get to the main entrance you go down this big wide slope, – kids just can’t resist running down it., though the doors there is another great wide sloping concrete floor to the base of the hall, with the vast space of the turbine hall, going right up to the glass roof, it’s really breathtaking, SB was quite gobsmacked by it. I can see shy they say it’s such a challenge for artists who get to do something in there.

Rachel Whitereads ‘ boxes’ (Ok, Embankment), which are there at the moment were interesting , in pictures looking nothing like some much as a child’s constuction frorm sugar cubes, it’s both vast and subtle, bland and complex. They are made from some sort of slightly translucent white plastic, so there is quite an interesting quality to the look of them and the way they respond to the light. And where you first just see blandness and repetition, as you wander amongst them you start to notice more the little details of the boxes, lines, shapes of hand holes etc. The organised arrangement of some and apparent randomness of other, I could have wandered around for ages. SB enjoyed it, mostly I guess for it’s maze like nature, and BB managed to almost get lost in it, until I heard her wailing around the corner.

We also caught the last day of the Rousseau exhibition, which was good, though having a 4 yo and a 1yo in buggy meant I couldn’t really do it justice, and being the last day, and a Sunday meant that it was pretty packed so getting to view pictures easily was awkward at times, and it made it bit difficult to sit and talk with SB about them (or for her to see them). but she certainly did enjoy some of them, though did after while, say that she didn’t want to look at more pictures of animals But by now she was moping a bit becuase we had lost contact for bit with the others, and she wanted to be going around with some of the other kids. She was struck by the Emmanuel Fr?miet sulpture of a Gorrilla abducting woman (as they do) at the beginning as well. Enjoyed it it anyway.

By now SB was wanting bit of break, and I fancied some coffee, so we got drinks (I spilt hot coffee on her ear which went down well…. ) and sat and read couple of Roald Dahl’s Revolting Ryhmes – I love the one about Cinderella where the Prince chops of the heads of the ugly sisters :-), went to the shop for mild amount of retail therapy, then bumped into some of the others so we sat down some more. Well actually, mostly I chased down BB or wandered around with her, as she just wanted to head off in all directions. While SB sat and ate/chatted/played with some of the other childrens so she was happy.

Then off for some more browsing, SB’s favourite piece undoubtably was Anish Kapoor’s Ishi’s Light The inside of the ‘egg’ is dark reddy coloured and reflective. You walk into it and there is some weird optical effect which i’m still pondering which means the surfaceappears to be much closer to you than it is, so you reach out to touch it and it appears to not be there. From outside it can appear that the person sarm has almost gone into the surface. Very odd, not sure if it’s more interesting in it or outside watching others inside it. She was also taken by a piece whose artist/name I’ve forgotten, which had two birds, as if in flight attached to the wall with arrows through them above an almost sketched bit of city building/skyline. We spent bit of time going around with Holly and Steve who had organised the trip and SB quite took to Holly, who was good at getting her to think a bit about the works we were looking at. I found the room linking Monet and Absract Expressionism interesting The rest of the gallery was busy, but not crowded, so it was rather easier here.

Then it soon enough became time to head home , SB excited to be able to go up on the top deck of the bus with some of the others, whilst I was on the lower deck with BB On the train, kids all sat at one end of the carriage and tried to watch Madagascar on Steves laptop, well done that man Most of the rest of the adults sat a little bit further away and had good natter. BB slept all the way pretty much, so I had a nice quiet time as well.

And then we were home. Sadly SB woke up when put in her bed, but once we’d had some tea etc. they both zonked out again.

It was a great trip, though by the end of it I was kanckered, not helped by endlessy chasing after BB. SB had a great time, and as ever loved to make some new friends, she really is such a sociable soul. I too found it good to meet up with some new people, and as most of the kids were a bit older than the usual Muddlepuddle crowd we hang out with it was sort of interesting to see a slighty different dynamic going on, and to see maybe glimpse of SB in few years time. Special thanks I think go to the two older sisters (about 11 I think) who were really good with SB and took her under their wing a bit.
She’ll be wanting to meet them all again I think

I thoroughly recommend the Tate Modern, We don’t really get round to visiting a lot of art galleries it must be said, but I do enjoy it when we do. And I do like the way modern/contemporary art challenges you and makes you think (well soem of it, like any other art, some is boring/rubbish/’waht is the point’ wetc.
A now, much later than intended, I’m off to bed, but I wanted to write this whilst fresh in my mind.

Didn’t take many piccies, but some will appear in the usual place of course in due course.

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, Out and About, photos, socialisation, Stringbean, Stringbean's HE

Pirates and Princesses

Posted on January 30, 2006 by Daddybean | 8 comments

Which is what we have had here this weekend – well pirate singular I guess really.

We of course have been ‘Rained on‘ – (sorry, or should that be Raine-ed?)) with a visit from Home Ed friends Barbara and the kids – sadly Chris wasn’t able to come as well. It was a lovely visit, Stringbean already had herself and Butterbean prepared, she insisted on the BB outfit

Her and E spent pretty much all weekend in the Princess outfits, they just swopped outfits the second day for a change. B spent most of his time in the pirate outfit. They all played beautifully, hardly any contretemps, much of the time we didn’t see them as they were playing upstairs, with those endlessly convoluted and ever changing kids games. SB did get sulk once because the others ‘were being horrible to her’ – or some such. It transpired that they weren’t doing what they were told I did wonder how B would get on, but he was great and he and SB had good fun playing together. When we’ve been away together with them at HE camps they’ve not played together much as B has been off playing with other boys a lot, so it was nice to see them getting on so well. So apart from coming down to eat, read the odd book

or play the odd game,

Or just prance about,

that was their weekend really, and a good time was had by all. There was even a bit of education when they used the stethoscope to listen to their heartbeats

Meanwhile R and BB did some bonding , it was so cute to see them playing together.

R showed great ability in the food scavenging stakes, appearing with oranges, apples etc. that she found in the fruit bowl, or just wandering into the kitchen to blag some more food with a hopeful look she is very much at the ‘Cheeky chimp’ stage. So her and BB did the toddler poddle about to great effect.

And the grownups sat and drank tea/coffee/wine as appropriate and chatted about HE and this and that, and that was about it. Barbara drooled over our Story of the World books. We would probably have gone out some where for bit today, but Helen wasn’t feeling up to much with a migraine, so we didn’t. And that was all jolly nice as well. The nice grown up evening in the sitting room, sans child clutter with wine and a nice log fire was a little spolit by BB waking up after 1/2 hour asleeep in bed and not wanting to go back to sleep until we went to bed. She did then sleep all night though.
It was lovely to have them stay, and everyone (adult and child) pretty much ate whatever they were offered, so that was probably a first as well

Suppose I’d better go to bed before BB decides to wake up….

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Posted in Butterbean, photos, socialisation, Stringbean, Stringbean's HE

The hours before the dawn…

Posted on January 21, 2006 by Daddybean | Leave a comment

Well, the positive first. Butterbeans endless desire at times to feed away the night has been somewhat controlled the last few nights, but dint of BB not getting to see Helen.Wed night when she started to fuss I just took her off to the spare room, when she settled down again without to much fuss. Moved her cot yesterday into another room (the ‘spare bathroom’) ok didn’t actually sleep in it a lot, but she was in it asleep when we went to bed. Sadly she woke at around 3.30 am and I gave her a cuddle in the bed in the room but she didn’t overly make? fuss, but didn’t feel the need to go back to sleep until I took her back into Helen and 6.15 when of course? she then felll asleep when getting up time was going to be 7.30…….

Main event of the day was the Puddlers group, where there were some rather good actvities arranaged on the topic of Healthy Eating . I particularly liked Lydias blindfolded fruit tasting one.

Stringbean made a beeline of course for the sticking activity – it was supposed to be ’5 a day’ maybe she’s forgotten how to count to 5? And she doesn’t even like mushrooms. She wasn’t really to interested in anything to educational, she wasn’t even sure what the theme was when Helen asked her at home

As Merry has mentioned there were some new families there today as well as plenty of the regulars, so there was a good buzz in the hall. I’m just quite useless at getting around to chatting to people, or remembering their names, lots of babies and littlies as well. Plenty of running around and playing tag etc. A nice time.

BB was entertaining in Sainsburys on the way home, she’d see things she would like the look of and recognise – such as oranges, bananas, cherry toms and she would start making such a fuss , me and SB had to hide things so she didn’t see them until they were in the trolley. She wanted a magazine as well (fimbles, Tweenies/thomas etc.) Had been a discussion at home the other day about getting ones with enough stories as she likes that. So she sat and looked through everyone to check the story quotient – glad there were only eight.

Nothing really more interesting to say really. Photos are in the usual place.

Getting going

Posted on January 17, 2006 by Daddybean | Leave a comment

a bit of a slow start to the morning due to feeling tired and lethargic, nothing much really happened between getting up and getting girls into the car to go to my parenst house. Had nice time there SB did some painting, sat with Nanny making some little William Morris cardboard boxe, A bit ofreading, playing with a few toys, such as some of the old toy cars from my childhood. Butterbean beaning around as usual, trying to sneak up the stairs – open treaded bare wooden ones so not very toddler friendly.

She even got my Dad to read bit of a book to her, which is pretty unusal, not because he doesn’t really want to, but becuase he finds sustained reading a bit hard work as this ability was affected by the brain damage he suffered with his botched operation (years ago when I wasn’t even 2) and he finds it hard to concentrate on the words. Bit unfortunate that the book she had picked was a rather wordy one rather than nice simple book with not so many words. Anyway, it was nice to see.

Had nice lunch there, went out to help my Dad measure up their garden. BB insisted on coming out as well, so got rather wet tights as the grass is damp and she has no shoes yet, she also kept scampering down the drive, where there is no gate yet. Guess it’s time to get some shoes. Got home with just about enough time to get swimming stuff organised, then off to swimming lesson for SB. home, pasta tea, Helen home, happy children, bath and bed. SB is getting to sleep much better recently.

Re BB and sleep, plan is to move her out into spare room /bathroom – it has a bath and handbasin, but shower doesn’t work and proper guestroom has a handbasin so not really used as a bathroom anyway see if that will help.

Alison and the gang are here tomorrow along with Merry and co – upping the ante on last week there will be 10 kids here – kitchen and play room in particualr are disaster zones, half wonder if there is any point in tidying them up

Dare I go to bed…….

Posted on January 17, 2006 by Daddybean | 2 comments

BB is alseep at last I don’t want to disturb her.
Yes I know I should have been in bed but I’m not. Though Helen was in bed at 7.30pm and asleep before the girls – some sort of first I think. Butterbean enterntained me this evening by not wanting to go to sleep……

Left her having a feed with Helen while I put SB to bed, hoping she would drop off . But she was as perky as, well, a very perky thing afterwards so I took her off downstairs got coffee and blobbed on front of TV while trying to convince her to sleep. She dropped off ok after a fuss, but wouldn’t settle into a proper sleep, but whinged if just put down to potter about. been in and out of sleep a few times, even ahd a bit of milk from a bottle, had another feed from Helen, fell asleep but then woken by SB wailing on the landing becuase she had woken up. But has finally been asleep on the sofa near me for the last 30 -40 mins or so. so I haven’t done the tidying I needed to do (playroom and kitchen a disaster zone), haven’t gone to bed as early as I intended, etc. etc. – But I do need my post child-gone-to-sleep time before bed. Lay bets now on the first waking time of BB, how long I can put up with the woailing before I crack – or Helen does.

Enough of that, a quick summary of today, then I am off to bed. SB was up with me first so she sat and watched some Milkshake on Channel 5, packed Helen off to work which was a bit sad. We slipped into a different routine really and I was quite happy with us both being here, so missed her once she had gone and felt a bit lost as I’d sort of forgotten how we did stuff.

So drunk tea and sat with SB for bit while I woke up properly. Then breakfast. BB then woke up once we had had breakfast so got her up, and gave her breakfast whilst read bit to SB, then she did some drawing, experimented with different effects with crayons, some Hama-ing:

BB came up with a new game with Hama beads – popped them in her mouth then looked at you expectantly, you put your hand out and she spits it out into you hand she thought this was great fun. so we pottered like this for a couple of hours, whilst I looked for afew different recipes to cook and made a veg list. WQe were then goign to take the Beanmobile (aka tandem and trailer) up to the farm shop but BB decides that 2 hours was enough and she needed some more sleep – so deferred that until the afternoon.

Did a bit of Maths 1A weekly revision book, it was about spotting, working out patterns of numbers going up and down. bit slow to start with, but was better by the end.

bit vague after that, lunch happened, Helen came home, some more Explode the Code got done , me and SB did the veg run – they were technically closed as they were putting a new shel unit thing, but he let me in and I got most things, there was some Cbeebies website going on, some rather nice saucepans came (Ebay of course…) – a couple of medium largish ones, decided that all we need for now is a proper steamer as that is how lots of the veg get cooked (or stir fryed) I took too long cooking the rather tasty dinner so BB fell asleep before tea (probably leading to the problems later….)

Time for my bed I think……

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, General, literacy, numeracy, photos, Stringbean, Stringbean's HE

A game of 2 halves

Posted on January 15, 2006 by HHaricot | 2 comments

I know, I’ve used the title before, but it was.

had a migraine on waking – actually almost certainly stress induced about returning to work – wondering what the chaos will be ike, and the penalty for being away.

So, CHris took beanies for a swim while i took the meds and slept it off. At least it worked! on returning, I could hear Chris doing the ulysses story, and perhaps a few fairy tales as well.

So i got up at lunch time full of resolve! So we had a fun afternoon. In no order, we face painted - rofl! me as Im not quite sure by SB, and her as a piggie and CHris as a bunny [mpre rofl] by me!

did some drawing and colouring and sticking. Read various story books, played with the fuzzy felt faces, did 4 pages of explode the code [in under 10 mins as allowed her to choose which writing bits to do, but she had to do all the rest - she did half the writing]

She then told us her present best friend at nursery lives in this village. Now I’m not sure exactly how best friends they really are, as you don’t hear loads about her like we did about rosheen in leeds, but… we have decided to see if her mother would allow her to come to tea after nursery one day, or around to play – so the mum can meet us, or mett at the park etc. Seems a logical place to try for a village friend who she can meet up with perhaps when stops nursery. May well not work out as time so short, but worth a try. SB doesn’t really want to stop nursery, so we may well keep her there until Easter [last possible] – particularly if cements some sort of local friendship.

So SB then wrote a letter to the girls asking her if she would want to come and play, and we will write a more detailed one for the parents. if i’d have known they were local, I’d have made an effort to say hello at the nativity.

over tea SB keen to do some mental maths as well, so we were exploring the concept of adding in tens for the first time, as she seems to be getting there with her understanding of tens and units. Otherwise I told her a few stories and then she chose some cbeebies rather than playing a game, having tidyed p without any fuss. We had a lovely and easy bedtime, both are currently asleep, so Iwill watch the videoed child of our time. Missed the stephen poliakoff thing though as forgot about it – grr.

BB as pootled about quite happilly today, highlights are always the ramming things into the wrong holes with increased frustration until she puts them in the hatch – in fact she would go for this option first if my hand wasn’t there! A bit of drawing at the same time as SB – though a fair bit of crayon chewing too. She loves the mini keyboard toy, and is very certain of which buttons noise she likes the best. She also makes a special sound for whiskey cat – if i was truly besotted I would say she is saying whiskey, SHe isn’t but…

Can’t find id card for tomorrow, which includes the carpark chip. Unless i find it, I will have to pay ?10 in the visitors carpark!!!!!!! [over 4 hours you see] they prefer you to park and ride, and i might do that if actually get out of the house early enough = always a problem!

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, General, literacy, numeracy, photos, SB-PE, writing

Not so bad in the end.

Posted on January 14, 2006 by HHaricot | 2 comments

Just a few moments of teeth grinding [see both posts below]!!

Started well [after a poor show of a night, but not our worst] with Chris bringing me breakfast in bed – croissants in fact!

i got up, after reading the guardian magazine cover to cover, and pluged into reading Sb archeologists dig for clues, and persephone again from usborne’s greek myths. We read this earlier in the week, and she got the night and day stuff with the globe, but had to be reminded of seasons. Today she did both straight off after the story. We agreed that the persephone one sounds nice, but not so nice for persephone!

meanwhile BB was quite happily playing with the maths cubes, bringing them to me to be joind up, and having some incomprehensible sprinkle and collect game! So SB wanted them, and did a bit of number bonds on them, so we got out the singapore maths… We are supposedly slipping into the routine slowly, and this bit of singapore maths 1a doesn’t challenge her at all, the whole idea is she whps through it, feeling very good and gets the hang of doing it without it being a struggle. She has always liked match and sort books, and what we do here is far less complicated than the mental/verbal maths she likes to play all the rest of the time. sigh. Oh well, BB was pottering with the aeroplane from the porticos, so SB learnt a new word – aviatrix. [my father wnated me to be called Amy, but veto'd by my mother!]

Sp after lunch, I thought I would rescue the day while BB was asleep by making the much wanted lemon curd. After all, Jan promised home made stuff tastes nicer, and not lemon crud at all. She is right -n my opinion. Will get SB to try eating it for breakfast!

However, as I needed to regroup, she and chris went outside and ended up making lovely sandcastles and decorating them with things from the garden.

I got BB up and had a play with her. BB is finally starting to follow a pointed finger now to find things, so we were sort of playing this game. When SB came in and helped we changed tack!! She is so vocal, and very easy to understand, even if her only word is OOK – shouted, and a pointed finger if you are in doubt what to OOK at. Child of our time is on this evening, and I will watch. Reminding me to find the wooden bricks again for building with.

Finally SB and I did something easily without a fuss! We told stories around her hama glow in the darks in the pantry – taking it in turns to make up alien stories. She then did a lovely sticker picture for me, and wrote on the back of it. I think for us, not doing much of the writing int he workbooks, and just doing it as required outside of them is working well. It means she is happy to do the explode the code, and will sometimes volunteer the writing, and is happy to write SB mummy and daddy [even if mummy had no y]. Her pen holding skills have always seemed a little behind her peers, and since she can do this much, i can’t see any reason to try and push her forward until ready.

As a final regroup. we made from the usborne fairy cookbook mini fairy slices – well, nothing like when I had finsihed adapting! but rolled out puff pastry with pizza type top. Yummy though. SB and BB both hoovered up all the spare ingredients – mozarella, frozen peas and sweetcorn, and the ever popular olives. i have promised SB that I will have a recipe pages bit on this blog.

They are now in the bath, and we will again try a cot experience early as poss for BB. might work one day.

oh, and we finished off with a bit of the yoga DVD as well. Sb quite likes the salute to the sun. I can’t weightbear on broken arm yet.

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Posted in art and crafts, Cooking, General, history, literacy, numeracy, photos, SB-PE, Stringbean's HE, writing

A bit of Flickr-ing

Posted on January 12, 2006 by Daddybean | 1 comment

Bit behind with the old Flicker-ing – all this socialising

However, first batch are up, of the visit by the ‘Puddles and Muddies‘ yesterday.My favortites:

Playing Cindys/Barbies, like most compact digicams ours doesn’t do so well at natural light indoors, so liked the light through the big stairs window here. shame about the clothes on the banisters.