wicksteed!

Posted on July 22, 2008 by | 2 comments

whilst at the sports day we had a number of twitters suggesting that the planned camping weekend was not going to be quite so easy as planned, as it had run out of pitches for some late able to come families! a quick conflab with k and we decided to lend kirsty and jax our frontier to share and we would share with merry our ridgipod, whilst joanna was in our vango. we have never attempted to take tents with us, but 2 1/2 in our car an 1/2 in kirsty’s with the tent she had been planning to use, and eventually we were all packed, including all poles. [and lithuanians] much helped by kirsty on kid duty whilst chris and i wished we hadn’t stayed up till 2 am – rofl!

a quick drive and we got there. the khyam ridgipod went up in double quick time, and sb was fab at setting up the inner. both girls are getting good at helping the tent up process. kirsty came and we turned our attention to the frontier. unfortuately we snapped a joint and i got grumpy! possibly as i was tired, the kids were shrieking [needed diluting i think!] and the frontier isn’t as quick as the ridgipod. so sorry kirsty and family again. anyway, it went up. i like kirsty’s plan of not guying everything, leaving you with a bit more pegging if the weather looks bad for a psychological lift. left chris and kirsty at it to pop a few things in our tent and read a bit more riot act. it was drizzling and matter and antimatter were doing their thing… and then helped rejig the frontier so it stood right! we are def going to sell the frontier, so any interested parties email me before it goes on ebay.

frontier – sleeps 8 comfortably [had 7 all weekend] with a vis a vis style 4 berths each side and huge middle space. v tall, so no probs with stooping, v weather proof, so no leaking or worries in wind. negs, is that putting up in wind a pain as it is a bit sail like, but once central square pegged is v straightforward.

joanna and nic shortly followed, and i got the third tent going. this being our weekender vango venture 500 was a cinch, and prob took under 15 mins. left jo and bill to finish the pegging and got our tent porch up. phew, all tents done!! def wine time and relax!! and thats how we spent a lovely evening!

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sports day!

Posted on July 22, 2008 by | Leave a comment

we love the home ed sports day. it isn’t really anything like the sports days of my youth! chris – a rather nice chap that does the monday sports sessions – does it. he gets them all to warm up, and then is v inventive in the sporty games they play. he is fab at encouraging and cheering on the kids, so that all abilities feel happy and enthusiastic. he isn’t at all phased by drop outs, or drop back ins. he really seems to want all to enjoy sport and have fun with it rather than following any rules of games. its also a rather good gathering of a spread out group, and time for a good natter.

SB and A got right to joining in and racing about having fun. M was rather pleased to see J of the deependers so that he could have ‘boy play’ – rofl! BB joined in a bit, and then we went to the play area and bb mostly went into the pool there. we picniced, watched and kids had fun. eventually we went home with a variety of shattered children to shepherd into bed. we adults went to bed way to late, especially since we were supposed to pack.

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visitors!

Posted on July 22, 2008 by | Leave a comment

ok, i am going to alter the time stamp so they all appear right. amd i am prob going to add things, as TBH, my memory is a bit affected by the quantity of bloody migraine drugs ingested. i hate migraines. i hate their ability to suck away my life.

anyway, we tidied manically so kirsty and her family could see their way into the house. it still wasn’t actually tidy mind you! saturday was spent in eager anticipation of their arrival, so we did some home ed stuff to take away the constant are they nearly here yet chorus. SB and BB both eagerly did maths and handwriting – i think they thought if they did it quickly it would speed K’s car! SB also did a violin practice. no further memory of the day!! K and co arrived, so lots of playing and ds-ing! we had tea and wine. a v late night for the kids too!

the next day we went out to an rspb event to celebrate the opening of a new reserve. the worst thing about it was the prickles. they had just strimmed/mowed the field, and it was obviously v thistly, and k and i – and to a lesser extent the girls – kept getting prickles in our feet as crocs were really not the best footwear for us to have chosen! SB and A got facepainted. BB and M moaned at the lack of cake. we had fed the troupes before leaving, but obviously should have taken cake with us [we had loads at home!] as it was too temptingly on display, but ridiculously expensive. after a bit of discussion, we went towards the pond dipping and owl pellet zone. SB said it was owl puke, but he insisted it was not as the pellets were coughed up. i am sorry, but they still must be coughed up from some stomach affair rather than lungs! Anyway, SB and A were transfixed by the owl pellets, and found loads of bones in them. SB in particular found loads of skulls, and learnt the difference between field mouse and vole. the man was really friendly and knowledgeable so a great HE moment! we joined M and an extremely grumpy BB ponddipping, and found lots of damsel fly larvae,water beetles, water boatmen and a few fish. ALso a blood sucker – yuk!! We then played in some sand to find things, but most had been found already as it was getting to the end of the day, and then looked at loads of moths that had been temporarily captured the night before.

the mon i went to work, and BB and M got firmly fixed in matter/antimatter mode. mostly after rowing over the didicar we have. BB would try the patience of a saint at times, and M and her seemed to gravitate towards each other to shriek. not so restful! they also did lots of fab fimo-ing. i was so impressed by BB’s snowman – well, for a bit anyway, as she then overdecorated it into a blob! BB does seem to be v dextrous for these things. luckilly on the tues – when again i was at work – merry and girls came across, and all had a great time playing and bindeezing,

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean's HE, Cooking, daubing and making, early maths skills, General, language, music, numeracy, Out and About, pre reading, science, socialisation, Stringbean's HE

such a lot of blogging to catch up on!

Posted on July 21, 2008 by | 2 comments

never mind flickring!

so i have to blog:

Kirsty  and family visiting, which was great, thankyou for coming.

matter and antimatter

owlpellets, pond dipping and face painting

chef sports day

wicksteed park with friends

festival of history

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Posted in General

musical monday – beethoven emperor

Posted on July 21, 2008 by | 3 comments

i love this particular piano concerto. one day i need to practice enough to consider playing perhaps the slow mvt… ihave a lovely recording of barenboim playing them in one take, mistakes and musicality and totally brilliant. here is barenboim playing the ‘moonlight’ sonata which i do love playing, but obviously with less skill!

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Posted in General, music to love

2 seconds after hoovering BB decorates the floor with tinsel bits

Posted on July 12, 2008 by | 1 comment

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Posted in Butterbean's HE

Molly Cule

Posted on July 11, 2008 by | Leave a comment

whilst science kit sourcing, i saw a v cheap set of moly mod kit [ex OU] on ebay and it arrived today. so we made H2O and CO2 and looked at a few pages in the kingfisher science chemistry book about atoms and molecules and the periodic table [mostly the pictures] and we finished with watching molly cule magic school bus. A success.

The girls have [obviously] come back from Nana and Grandads and had a great time. I think BB has watched back to back nick jnr, and now is having withdrawal tantrums – hey ho! SB was proud of the fact she did some maths and handwriting whilst there. they also baked and did colouring.

edited to add that BB stayed awake till 11, so we did some maths – at her insistance, and she was desperate to read a letterland book, and looked for the letters she recognises. go BB!!

got to the end of battlestar galactica, one last half series to go. have really enjoyed itv- must keep remembering to suspend critical thought and reality checks!

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modified yew shape!!

Posted on July 10, 2008 by | 1 comment

modified yew shape!!

not quite so ‘manly’ now!!

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the trouble with brownies 2

Posted on July 10, 2008 by | Leave a comment

how did this happen?? the whole post totally lost?? all i clicked was the allow comments and i lost the lot!:

Edit from Chris:

Now reinstated, weird, it totally got deleted from the database But was able to reinstated from the nightly database backup, and a modicum, of MySQL jiggery-pokery.

I do like it when a backup procedure actually works :-)

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the trouble with brownies

Posted on July 9, 2008 by | 1 comment

BB is just a little too lark like at the moment, and SB and owl like her parents. i think this house prob only has 3 hours of all asleep inhabitants, so chris and i are a bit on the zombie side at times. i felt i had had a lie in by 9am, and went down to join the fray, actually, i think the fray came up to join me!! we did jigsaws on the bed, played imaginary games about frogs that hide in the duvet etc, until my imagination was worn out and we went downstairs. you know, i was far more imaginative with Sb more easily. i must work on this!! SB did piano whilst i was still in bed!
we did some ‘normals’ as it were, with SB enjoying handwriting practice whilst BB and i had fun with an ancient first alphabet workbook that sb had not done at the time. BB is getting to grips with at least considering what sounds might start a word. and she also has much more interest in writing – sb had none at all at this time, but bb is having a go writing letters and numbers – not often recognisable to anyone but her!. she has a runic signature that she does all the time as well, which has a near capital A in the middle.

SB had a bit more of a struggle with maths, so i sat her with me, and with prodding she did it all fairly painlessly. we thought of different ways to make a quick guess to see if the answer was right. i like singapore maths, as i think it makes manipulating numbers easier.she borrows and makes up to hundreds and tens in swirls as it were, and gets it right. ie in 4.25-2.35 she was quite happy to add ten to the 25 to make the answer 2, and then remember to take it away again for 1.90, yet at 6.60-4.90 she borrowed 1 from the 6 and did 16-9=7 so 1.70 . bb was playing quite happily with a bus, being the magic school bus!

we then did some more imaginative play, involving me walking the girls round the house on ribbon leads and pretending to feed the doggies. bb quite often needed to do a poo… i decided i didn’t fancy playing any more, so the doggies had to go to puppy school and listen to some french about a monkey wanting a banana!

some point after this [o think] the girls went to get dressed [it is lunch time obviously!] and after lots of kerfuffling i went up and read riot act AGAIN about bedroom such that both girls wailed, bb inconsolable and i tidied half, bb made a slight effort and sb a reasonable one. so only 1/3 bedroom left to go…

lunch and i became reasonable again!! we did hand painting – because i really didn’t want my face painted. my left hand was done by bb, and my right was a poppy field by sb. we had a lovely time. i painted a rainbows rainbow on her cheek ready to go to said rainbows. it was her last rainbows today and she was quite sad. also because we had got some treats to handout, and she forgot. bless.

whilst she was out, bb and i baked some chocolate brownies, and though i tried and tried to get the timing right, this time they are raw in the middle – sigh. i just can’t time brownies. please, what should be the optimum moment for pulling out? they wer for the guests this weekend, and the mixture yummy!! so we watched magic school bus.

Cuddled sb on her return and more mSB before bathtime before dinner. after dinner she was searching merry’s website for aquabeads. i have told her that if she wants jobs to earn money, they will only count if playroom and bedroom tidy! and after bb going on, she has the same deal if she wants a longneck! i have to asy, i adore the anamalz range!

anyway, where were we?? oh yes, bedtime!!!!

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Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean's HE, daubing and making, General, language, music, numeracy, pre reading, science, socialisation, Stringbean's HE, writing