Category Archives: photos

Whirl of a weekend

katy and B arrived for the weekend friday lunchtime, which was great. we were disorganised as usual and grabbed the little beans from nursery. Cue the girls disappearing smartish! SB gave a guided tour which involved redressng both of them as princesses and off they went. Much, much later on the resurfaced to listen to the twelfth night story from while the bear sleeps and some apple tree farm books.

A few other standoffs were eased with colouring,games: hungry hippos and don’t wake dad, but actually they got on extremely well, and the standoffs were low key affairs. What amazed me totally was that after an exceptionally rowdy baths they had fallen asleep by 9.30 – what a result! It gave me and Katy plenty of time to natter, discuss wish lists etc etc.

Next day – to our shame, Katy was up first to accept a parcel before either of us had surfaced. In our defence it was cos BB had been absolutely appalling at sleeping! however, it was our seed order = hooray! SB and I pored over the packets, and she decided which were her favourites – in particular the popcorn sweetcorn!

big girls ran around, and BB pootled at our side being adorable. She is definately saying an approximation of look -ook, and pointing at the same time. SHe is a very inquisitve girl, and loves pressing buttons, and also the wacky wiggler cogs. her dancing also improving, with bobs down as well as wiggles, swaying and head shakes! quite the mover and groover. She was also doing lots of drawing – at one point joining in with the big girls – and this was great! Funnily, B kept calling BB ‘Small’ [from making it up] for the first evening.

After lunch the big girls made carrot cake with me, with all the labour absolutely divided equally – I do love using cups! Amazingly it rose as well!!! i must finally be getting this cake making busines [Merry, I need a prairie muffin badge before I ruin it!]. They did some Hama whilst it was cooking and then iced the cake [rofl - would you like some cake with that icing?] and ‘decorated’ it with sprinklies. At some point the playdough came out too.

What else? well, more demonstration of their imaginations, a start at a wacky wigglers robot, hide and seek, excellent 10 number bonds with hungry hippos [ha ha] and some attempt at the 5 times table using all the hands available [maths then!], a show performed by the light of some of the wackly wigglers for us too. Lots of singing of christmas carols in particular.

they went to bed eaily enough but not straight to sleep, they weren’t particularly noisy, but certainly shattered the next day. BB not quite so awful at night – thankfully. Poor katy, spending her weekend with zombies in a shambolic chateau!

Next day SB voluntarily got out explode the code – amazing!! Though she did tell B it was boring. We finished the wacky wiggler, and then did Yoga for children – as Katy had brought the DVD. Thanks Katy, just what i was after! Lunch, some violin playing and the home time. SB was gutted when they left to go home, and wished they lived next door. A few melting moments due to extreme shatteredness! I had a great time nattering as well, so a succesful visit, and looking forward to seeing katy and family in feb.

After they had gone we unwound, did some explode the code, lots and lots of painting, read loads of books together – SB remembered she hadn’t had her 12th night present, so we did today as 12th night read the story again, and got the little token present to go with the story. [another dressing up dress 2nd hand from ebay]

she has had lots of bumps and accidents, so ether drop down exhausted or expecting a growth spurt. BB ecstatic that SB playing with her again, especially when she read BB 2 of her books. Both have been lovely and cuddly this evening. BB coughing at rattling a lot though, so have given her some ventolin that gp gave us a while back but wasn’t sure whether to or not. hmm, wait and see.

A quiet day

or so it seemed, with both girls at the lower end of their volume control.

I had refound the jump ahead toddler [with hopsalot] which SB used to adore, so she must have spent at least 2 hours over the course of the day engrossed in it. It is nice and simple for her now, and she was doing it without any input and feeling very confident about the ease she did these things.

We also raced trhough 6 pages of singapore maths – again nothing we haven’t done in different forms many times, as adding to number less than 10 – can be done in head or on fingers. Good consolidation of skills, and again she felt really confident there. It involved some writing, and she gamely tried to figure out how to spell all the numbers – rofl! I did help her as she is newly interested in writing, so want her to feel equally positive about that too. She did ten on her own.

We had a brief look at DK eyewitness world atlas – she was interested in the Africa section. Its for adults though, and having not looked at it before, I couldn’t really find what i wanted to, but still a passing interest. We went on to view pretty much all the mini films!

She briefly helped Chris look at the blocked drains – yuck! An then we did the dig out the dinosaur she had got as Xmas pressie – good fun. this one was one you then joined the bones together of. of course they aren’t joining, so are glued and hoping for the best! It came with pictures of 6 dinosaurs, so as we dug it out we looked for the things that would help us identify ours. SB a bit upset ours wasn’t the tyrannosaurus!

What else? well, colouring, making up songs, singing, playing with the toys BB got for Xmas! playing with Sindy’s – the usual stuff really. lots of books – but she chose jason and the argonauts as here greek myths. Only a few minor whinges. We continued the evening games theme, with Chris and SB playing the pipe game [round the bend from elc] whilst I cooked a moroccan influenced root veg stew with couscous.

BB today has had a lot of attention due to SB self sufficiency! We have stacked and demolished cups. doen the cylinder and sphere in the shapesorters, and then tried to ram everything else through those holes! We have played with the click clack caterpillar and the noisy footsteps, chase, bouncing songs and action songs. A fair bit of chase, and sticking stuff in the mouth just as mummy lunges to remove it [sigh!] She has been most intrigued by SB on the computer – and very keen to get a look in. Was enthralled by suasage rolls [veggie] and enjoyed peeling off the puff pastry to get at the sausage. not so impressed by the amazingly bubbly bath though.

Didn’t quite manage to finish this blog in bath time, so have special dispensation [from me!] to finish with a glass of wine whilst the girls have some fruit. Jax’s fault, as she *made* me do an extra blog [rofl!] Might add to it after pondering.

Oh, and I finally managed to order the veg seed – hooray! Sb and I looked at the catalogues together.

oh and barefoot has a sale, and while the bear sleeps is 3.99 I have been so pleased with this book – it tells various winter tales and traditions from various cultures

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Back to normal?

well, sort of. We have ar least done some obvious home ed!

SB thrashed Chris in a game of tubes that have to build across the board [logic and creative thinking!] – twice. They went to chemists for assorted hair bobbles and slides. I got to play hairdresser [which I love] as SB wanted them all in – yep, will flikr!] We did some colouring of pictures and then some hama beading. While SB doing that, I went and found the magnets, so she shew me how to make iron filings faces, and I shew her how to make a compass. so discussions on earths magnetism, magnetic fields, north and south etc.

We did a bit more story of the world [ we have left it awhile, so only on to theIndia bit, but she likes that - looked for india on globe and chatted about climate etc.] Some more fun as I got to paint her face – she wanted it to be a ballerina flower fairy. I had to paint it as a dolphin yesterday [and she painted mine as a lion - rofl!]

We have done more work on tens and units, using jojo in numberland, and just measuring things around the house with the tape measure. Also looked at webland chocolate and played some of their gamesShe has gone around all week sounding out words as well.

What else? eaten lots of chocolate, watched Stuart Little. played with BB – stacking things
, hoops on the pole, feeding mummy game, her click clack caterpillar, and draw on mummy. She slept better last night too, which was fantastic.]

SO a lovely day playing with the girls. Arm still very painfuil, so a bit worried, as I really need to get better soon. Work is keen for me to return, and as I don’t actually feel sick, I feel guilty. However can’t drive, can’t lift things with left hand, and can’t rest on it so not actually able to do much. sigh.

Shopping for a new carseat tomorrow. fun!!

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and for yesterday

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They’ve gone.

Best clear up then…..

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Coming and going

Two left yesterday, two have just left, but this morning we have had two phonecalls from friends in the space of about 10 minutes.

1. From friends from Leeds heading South who want to call in.

2. From Jax who is heading North and wants to pop in.

More the merrier we say :-)

They won’t be allowed to leave if they don’t eat enough food though. Time to defrost a couple more litres of that soup.

And it’s been snowing :-) but not enough for fun :-( (still an inveterate snow lover, who still gets that little rush of childish excitement when they see the overnight snow first thing in the morning)

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Another busy day

But didn’t get through list even though early start!
Sb woke up at 5 am, and after her wriggling around in our bed, since I had migraine and awake anyway, took tabs and carted her off to here bed. Numerous made up stories later, and also some story tapes the sunlight was well and truly pouring through the uncurtained windows, so time to get up!!

She played with Sindy’s for ages whilst i tried to be asleep. Chris got up, so she cadged brekkie from him, and I descended at around 10am!

So stright into the fray – we finished the jar painting- hooray! so wrapped and labelled them all.
Next on agenda sweeties – always such a hardship to make. Last year we made fudge, and I was told it was tablet – very nice too. This year we have made fudge from an usborne book recipe, so no worry about setting points etc [though I do have a sugar thermometer]. Also courtesy of usborne, white and dark chocolate truffles. If anyone else making them, add 25g more cake and 15g approx icing sugar to get the dark to be as firm as the white – otherwise a very squishy mess.

Question: for the sweets – do you think I should freeze them untill xmas or leave in the fridge – usborne plays a week shelf life in fridge game.

massive diversion – listening to favourite Corelli Xmas concerto grosso, and just must get violin out and then join something local. I miss the yearly xmas concert ritual.

Quite a bit of drawing from SB whilst i gave BB alot of attention. She really is a giggly heap of a girl, and enjoyed chase and jiggles, then some putting things on head and laughing games. She also did a bit of making marks with purpose [rofl!]

SB and BB then turned the large chopping board into a wobble board, using a masking tape reel as the fulcrum – kept them both entertained for ages. BB sat on it and wobbled her bottom, giggling, and SB – well, she was just mad!

Tea of couscous and morrocan stew, some help/hindrance in the starting off of the dundee ckae, and it popped in the oven as they had their baths.

As I type [after a considerable delay!] SB is asleep – shattered, no fuss tonight. BB is pottering around at my feet, having woken up after 30mins and very awake. She likes tongue wiggling talking to me, and has been pointing out the cat. She also shared in mine and Chris’s meal of spaghetti – very amusing!

i have wrapped SB’s pressies, and the dundee cake is out – piccie to join the other one. Hmm!!!

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a decent bauble shot!

well, more or less in focus, could have done with some cropping, but at least thats one!!

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You can put it on the blog

Stringbean is getting the hang of this. Twice in the last few days she has got me to take photos, and told me that I can ‘put them on the blog so that everyone can see it’ :roll: :-)

Firstly on Friday when she did this at the Puddlers group:

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Never knowingly under pom-pom-ed our girl…..

Then today, after she had been clearing out the melted chocolate bowl:

Chocolate chops

Dundee cake

Couldn’t decide on title – a misquote ‘just say a prayer for me now, don’t leave it till the morning after’ or ‘a prayer to the kitchen god’s wife’

Anyway, having only made muffins [which aren't really cakes] and carrot cake [ditto] before, I have made my first foray into real cakes with a dundee cake – help! to make matters more scary, due to broken arm, I have done quite a few of the beating type stages in the mixer. PLEASE let it come out OK – find out in 2-2.5 hours!

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Flickr post

For the first time in ages i have looked at most viewed

1. 950 views
2. 247 views
3. 116 views

wierd choices [my christmas list comes in at 54 at the moment!]

How do they choose the interesting ones?
1. 50 views, 2 facourites and 2 comments
2. 3 views and 2 favourites, no comments - but a very nice shot!
3. the sun one again