Category Archives: writing

our blogs are getting confused!

chris’s wednesday blog was about tuesday! I’ll make this one about wed shall I!!!

lovely day, some nice weather. SB and I got stuck into some singapore maths – adding to go over the 10 – ie 8 plus 4. It took a while, but she got there [and consildated it today] some she just knew, but some she had to work out how to think about them.

She also did her explode the code easily [or, as she put it, exploding codswallop!], and we read I wonder why the stars twinkle, and assorted bits about dinosaurs. She’s quite knowledgeable about stars and pointed out that there are blue giants on webland. it must have been ages since she looked at stars on webland!

We all sowed some seedsnice big’uns so that BB could do it too. She was soooo rpoud of helping out. As I explained to an anxious SB, it didn’t matter she put loads in the wrong place, I coulsort that out later [and I did!] I obviously missed excess assistance from BB with the butternut squash, as some cells have 8 in!! – may well have an offer on butternut squash to grow to any visitors we might have in the next month!

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BB is totally gorgeous, her speech is well behind josies [no, I shoudln't compare] but she is very close to speech. rather funnily, she has started to wag her finger back at SB, when SB tells her no. She is very considerd about her actions, and knows where things should be etc. She totally adores SB.

We all went into the garden for a play, some weeding, and SB helped Chris chop up some branches. [very ineffectually!]

the a gradual winddown and games playing – mostly snakes and ladders and UNO – before bed. We also read all the stories in the barefoot book tales of wisdom and wonder!

Had 2 glasses of wine

so at least one glass over my tolerance!

Chris took the girls out for a walk today – so will let him do the blogging. I am fractious – hence wine! i had managed to lose 8lb on my diet, but all this stressing and chocolate and wine therapy has put half of that back on – sigh.

Oh well, read more from the usbourne encyclopaedia with SB, today she chose: art, diferent people and homes. She also did 4 pages explode the code 2 – she wondered how sam was so far ahead of her, and meanly, I said because he does it every day! i believe with Chris she did some singapore maths. She also finished her hama princess – somewhat amazingly, as she has redesigned it mumerous times. it is, well, faceless!
She was desperate to sow some more seeds, so we sowed the extra early purple sprouting brocolli ‘rudolph’ BB sowed some butternut squash seeds. Merry, when you do your allotment, if they all germinate, we may have some to offload!

Just gone and got more wine

More hama, and i permafed BB since she came home really. oh, and we read a new Mog book.They are having bath, and I plan an early night – though I do have a talk to write at some point this week.

SB back, and wants me to read more encyclopaedia – the travel bit!

Sweetcorn Saturday

OMG, I am 37! How time flies.

SO to the weekend, well my friend Shaula was visiting, but not due till the early afternoon, and then she missed her train, so in fact we had most of the day as ‘normal’. Sb did her explode the code 2 without a murmur, and even went on to do an extra page as ‘a surprise’ – so it can’t be that bad! We played a fair few games – snakes and ladders, uno etc. She chose some books for me to read – and I sunk into the loveliness of snuggling and reading. We did some more Greek myths and legends and some bits out of her DK family encyclopaedia – greece and giraffes!

During this time, BB had sole play with the ideal blox – and was getting rather good at manipulating them. She was also blowing the noisy things and dancing in her own wobbly style.

SB and I then went on to do her ‘sweetcorn experiment’. We sowed half direct, and are chitting half. they have all gone inot the propagator to see what happens. SB is enjoying being proprietal about lots of the seeds and their germination. I would defininately like to set her up a square foot garden in our patch – prob not this year at this rate though!

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Once BB was asleep we did some face painting. It was supposed to be egyptian, but after we had flicked through various egyptian books, SB changed her mind, and announced we weren’t going to have an Egyptian Afternoon after all. So I painted hers a sky with a rainbow as requested, and she painted mine a sea with fish.

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Wasn’t I beautiful! Chris set off to collect Shaula, and BB awoke, so we played with the coupe car we sprung from Merry’s garage.

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I think it confirmed to Shaula this was a madhouse! Shaula got to read copious books, and play pretty much every game we have. We did have wine though!

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I went to uni with Shaula, and allthough we don’t see each oither much – as both working – she remains one of my closest friends. Perfect really! Shame the girls gave us such an execrable night.

Manic day

well, I guess not really, but it felt that way as I spent the whole day wondering when my mediation request at work would be received. Only to find that it had accidentally been given early on Wed!!! Oh well. I do have a highly efficient secretary – winking at Su should she be reading this!

So what did we do, well BB was a pest last night, so neither chris nor I exactly full of the joys of Spring. Sb started her hama princess this morning – so far looking really good.

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but obviously a way to go! We then read Hercules and Jason and the argonauts from USbournes Greek legends. SB and BB had a lovely time playing with the ideal blocks, sometimes cooperative and sometimes not, and also with the dolls house.

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Today we did Singapore maths 1A – the practice book 1 was finished, as SB on a roll, and wouldn’t stop till it was. With such sterling effort I decided not to mention explode the code! SHe did it all easily and correctly, so we will move on to the next bit. TBH for some of it, she was already moving on – counting 8 by 2,4,6,8 etc. I think my general levels of stress at work for the last 2 weeks, added to some kind of ‘you are official’ compulsion have definitely skewed my parenting/educating style. SO I am relaxing! Will still encourage normals though, but not get so uptight!

After lunch, SB saw me potting up the plugplants we had got [lavender] and said she wanted to finsih them, so she did a nice job of the remaining 30 or so. Chris remembered to put a cd on – Louis Armstrong, loverly! Having played a fair amount of chase, and read numerous times that’s not my dinosaur, BB settled for a nap. I did a fair amount of seed sowing, and SB moved on to jump ahead on the ‘puter.

As Merry pointed out, BB has a weird spotty tongue at the moment, not seen anything like it before. wondered if it was hand foot and mouth, but can’t see any other blisters. She does have 2 of her canines coming through, and is very snotty. Anyway, she has played alot on the ride along, stacking bricks and dolls house today, as well as chase and cuddles with me.

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SB now a lot better, but still very quick to melt and cry – which drives me up the wall. being as unsympathetic as my mother! Both girls are singing in the bath. it may amazre you to know, but I hardly took any photos today!

Not such a muddle

TBH, I expected Merry’s house to be full of boxes and in total disarray considering how soon they might be moving, but didn’t look too panicky at all! obviously Chris and I are the worst for that!

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We had a lovely day there, but I am glad we saw the older 2 when they got back from their stage thing, as it did seem quiet without them. I had a lovely hug from fran, and maddy shew me the egyptian things – very nice indeed!

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SB and Amelie played together, and a lot of messing about with the Ideal blocks. i have bought one from Merry, but she warned me people usually come back for a second!

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As I left weighted down with hama – well I needed to top up so much has been used, SB bought the princess, and I couldn’t resist an egg board after seeing Merry’s designs , though I did manage to resist the chick as well. So thats the educational budget blown out of the water! BB and Josie had fun playing together, and I even saw some patting and not just poking and pushing! In fact, they got on so well, we were able to have a nice natter.
Before we went, SB sat down and easily did her explode the code 2. I was rather proud of her, as when she got cross with the sled [instead of her preferred sledge], she decided it was a sledge, so wrote slej. i was so proud of the sounding it in her head and writing, I didn’t have the heart to mention the real spelling, but just congratulated her on working out it was a j, and actually writing one! I do get periodicvally grumpy with the American, like slip – and its a petticoat!

When we got back, both beans were tired, i read to SB whilst feeding BB, and then we had our treat chip supper. After that, BB played with the winnie the pooh stickers that she had got way back for her birthday, and SB and I played build a beetle. Nighttime was again thomas the tank engine stories and hopefully asleep!

Have taken a couple – but not many – photos.

Time Out

has been had – thank goodness.

Am behind on blogging, well this blog. the gardening blog going great guns.

Anyway, yesterday the beans got me up by 7.30! makes such a diference to the day having all that time! I can’t remember in my usual technicolour detail though.Our plans changed first thing as we were going out, but a doublebooking and I took the chance to relax.

So we did some hama

SB is getting more inventive with hama patterns so grown up - hama-in on my own table!

of course, the problem with hama is…

the trouble with hama beads...

Oh well!

We painfully did explode the code – not sure why it was so awkward. set myself into a corner and ‘had to’ carry though. I think work stress and newly ‘official’ is affecting my parenting. Hopefully a temporary derailment!

So we de-stressed by sowing the pepper and squash seeds from last weeks aztec meal. 48 of each!!! hmm, I wonder how many will germinate. BB took the opportunity to pull up a few of the sunflowers – sigh

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While BB slept, I did some more mute apologising, making a dairy free sponge. I have never baked with soya milk before, but it was fine. Not vegan as I used eggs. SB wished it to be purple!

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We went outside to enjoy the sun, and SB played hide and seek and I made stories for her to enact. BB awopke and the cake was out and cooled for some family cake decorating. SB wanted the cake cut to be Xmas trees and pressies – always seasonal here! I was amazed how keen BB was, and how much she concentrated.

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And then we all went outside to rampage about again, and Chris finished panting the fruit trees

our newly planted fruit tree walk! IMG 1565

So, tuesday a great day!

Shall blog today seperately!!

Calm before the storm…

well, for me anyway.

Lovely day today. Sun shining and all is well with the world. Sb happily did her Singapore maths 1A – we are still in term one allegedly, though doing this for some time. Not in a hurry. SHe’s confident enough to do the subtraction on her own, and was getting grumpy ‘cos it was all under 10 answers. So time to jump ahead! She then did a bit of a jolly phonics workbook – but said it was too easy. So after that mostly played with the dolls house and snappit donkey until lunchtime. sometimes with BB, and sometimes most definitely not.

After lunch she wanted to use the egg shells to grow cress in – no cress, so they now have basil. I didn’t supervise/help at all, and she quite happily got it all done, watered and ready for the propagator. i potted up a couple of the toms. She said she wanted to take a ‘window picture’ so here is one by her.
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She then fancied going to the park, so we all got dressed, and she cycled there with the stabilisers on, got to the field, they came off and have stayed off. BB stayed for ages in the swing – SB hated swings at this age, but BB loves them. SHe was also particularly thrilled with the slide. She clinbed up with chris’s supervision, and I made sure she didn’t fly off too fast – well, i took a puiicture once and she did…

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they both seesawed, and then Sb had a great treasure hunt game, and we lefted righted and walked 6 ‘places’ etc to find the fruit snacks. BB had a whale of a time running about and trying to climb up.
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SB was grumbly at home, and BB asleep, so some book reading went on, and another snack. We then decided to cook for tea, and she chose aztec tortillas. Like a good HE Mum, i went to find various books with Aztec bits in them, so she read the romans pages! [ok extrapolated from pictures!], while I got the stew going – beans, corn squash and pepper. When she started doing the tortillas, I the read various Aztec facts to her, and she remembered a few to tell Chris. DInner was a resounding success anyway!

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We have finished the day watching the planet earth on video, and it was a great one, all about caves. I was lucky enough to study in borneo for 3 months of my training, and have seen the bats exit and swifts ingress into the caves. We did race all the way back to the hut in the dark absolutely terrified though [4 girls without guide!]Now i know that bloody huge wierd thing was a giant centipede! luckilly didn’t have to climb the guano mountain, though did have to throw away a daypack, as never got the guano stains out of it… Confirmed my belief that even if I was thin, I could never be a caver.

Now going to watched a videod Apprentice [I fell asleep with SB...]

Oh and this having more than one blog business is a nightmare!

oh dear

I think i may have a touch of Nic’s recent problem…

the beans went tp Chris’s parents today, and seem to have had ajolly time – SB made some biscuits and watched cbeebies [all she can remember!] And BB was a bit grumbly – well, she should have had some sleep! SB did a nice hama car with the big beads.
When we all met upm SB confessed to doing no match and sort, so she did 4 pages explode the code 2, and 4 of singapore primary maths 1a. we are certainly not rampaging through the maths at the mo! However, there is no rush, and i think she is happier that the match and sort is a bit easy, and she gets tested with the sweetie games we play – and seed sowing multiplication! Anyway, she is mostly consolidating 10′s and units, so needs to play her jojo in numberland some more. We did various imagination games, musical statues – BB lost!

I ‘felt unwell’ so bailed out of high interactiveness, but Sb wanted me to read her some of her waiting usborne young readers – and being mean I refused. I reminded her that they are going to be our fun books together when she reads. So she read a red nose reader cover to cover. I offered to get her the yellow ones, but she said she will read all the red ones first. TBH, i am not sure at what point you announce they read, but she certainly does. just needs practice!

I really have 2 most gorgeous girls.

Sunny saturday – well mostly!

life is a bit manic for me at them moment, with lots of really late evenings at work – mostly because I got co-opted into being the union rep. Hmmm. Bad move, except that there is huge need for someone of my mouthiness. I just hope that I don’t end up with a dreadful troublemaker label for my efforts.

Anyway, so to today. SB started by making another mothersday card for Nanna French. The sun was shining so we were out into the garden to plant and sow. Obviously planting and sowing with just me trying to keep an eye on 2 girls, jollying one along, and preventing the other from random unplamting and eating was not always straightforward. particularly as SB took it rather badly when her planted broad beans were unplanted and trodden on. We did manage to get into a rhythm, with me and BB ‘sowing’ broad beans [imperial green longpod] at one end of a row, and SB planting them [jubilee hysore]at another. Sb wanted me to help her though, and was put out that if I did, BB would surely rampage. The sooner we have the wendy house for independent pottering about in the better! [it is going in the veg patch.

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like a ray of sunshine, Chris came out with coffee, but more importantly cake. We all sat and picnicked, and even BB must have agreed that cake was more tasty than compost. SB then ran about like a proverbial loon and bounced on her bouncer, climbing on the frame, and bouncing BB on the trampoline.

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When BB went in for nappy change and snooze, SB and I sowed a row of mixed carrots [nantes frubund] and radish [scarlet globe]. This being so much fun, we sowed another. We usually have bog all luck with carrots – but that was in Leeds, so lets see how we do here! [I miss Leeds!]

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i then hoed approx 1/4 of the veg area, and popped in half of the onion sets [names!] other half to go. I started cleating the asparagus bed of weeds too, but was happy to pass that over the Chris, as SB getting ravenous.

We made more tickabilla creepy crawlies for lunch, and she then spent ages on the Nick Jnr website for games. Getting bored, I went off and did some seed sowing indoors for the propagator. Lots of things, as getting to peak sowing! Mussleburgh leeds, spring onions, Pea [misty and rondo], artichoke green globe, second sowing of mangetout [oregon], and a tray of salad leaves [mixed]. SB seeing what I was doing sowed some sunflower [russian giant]

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BB woke up and was fed, so SB did some sticker maths, and had a go at the easiest Kakuro – thanks Alison for the link. She got the hang of it quickly, but lots of scaffolding!

We all played rampaging games together, fuzzy felt, and making lots of noise with the noisy toys [my poor ears!] and whatever came out of the box really for the rest of the afternoon. Chris has done a bit more tidying up of the veg area.

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Since we are planning to watch the ice age on tV tonight, the girls had an early tea – through which SB nick jnr’ed again, and are now bathed, so I better go. SB is now doing a guardian sudoko – rather well.

will add photos after bedtime, and perhaps get that gardening blog going!

Just another manic monday

I will let chris add in the morning as he and the girls went to the local[ish] home ed group for an egyptians session.

Your wish……

Good start to the day, BB slept through which is the first for a while – but of little benefit to us since we didn’t got to bed until 2am…. First thing SB wanted to do was finisish of the last bit of the end of the book ‘test’ in the Explode the Code book 1. So she sat and finished that and had breakfast. could cope perfectly well with the sentences they finished with. she was pleased and wanted sticker becuase she was such a good girl :-)

Then it was quick scurry round, getting dressed and ready to go out, we wer wout by 9.30, as we had to go via Tesco for some sugar cubes, for making sugar cube pyramids. Of course i forget that it is ginormous Tesco extra and so of course buying half a dozen items require a mile walk or somesuch. so were were about 10 -15 mins late to the hall. But all got set up, pyramid building was popular, even if some were more of ruined sort – authentic I guess. Unfortunately BB nor totally perky as she has had nasty cold and wanted a carry much of the time, which when you are trying to keep and eye on what SB is doing, help out what the pyramid builders are doing, chat to soem other parents etc. was bit tiring. Sb also made a hippopotamus out of dough, and a mummy/cask mask. All good fun, and a nice ‘potluck’ Eyptian (very -ish) lunch to finish. A few photos, not brilliant as I was more often than not distracted by something else.

On the way out we bought a sort of Triops Aquapolis from an US family who are moving back home and getting rid of various bits?

While the girls went home with Helen, I went via a couple of shops. I bought soem clocks in Argos. A couple of basic ones for downstairs and Disney Princess one for SB’s room. Relaised we didn’t really have any proper dial clocks around now, and so it’s bit harder for SB to actually learn to tell the time so easily. The two downstairs clocks are both ‘radio controlled’ – they set their time by the rugby time signal or whatever it is. Rather spooky, turning them on and then watching the hands turn to the right time. It wasn’t a feature I’d gone looking for, but the chips must now be very cheap, to find in in the mechanisms of cheap Argos clocks.

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This was the Hippo

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I had a fairly crappy work morning and then hurried to join them as BB very grumbly, not at all well and ravenous for a feed, so I said hello to everyone cleaning up as i gave sustenance. It is only 5 mins from where I work on Mon, so convenient for emergency feeds. Anyway, nice to see SB in the middle of a gaggle of children having great fun, playing all sorts of games together.

In fact I fed BB all afteroon, or she slept in my arms. SB a good lass though, and we played some games, read 3 different books about egypt and ancient egyptians. She also started explode the code 2 – woohoo! I read some of ulysses, and she then nick juniored.

I had a brief respite from permafeeding and sowed cauliflower autumn giant, and sweetcorn.

We finished the evening with chips from the chippy, and watched the planet.

BB has come alive a bit now – little hope for a good night!!