just another morning here

When we were home educating I used to love Crealy, it was a haven of peace and quiet during school hours, and I could spend ages just sitting reading while the children played. Now, however, it is school holidays and weekends when we go, it’s so much busier, and it’s pretty awful! But the kids still love it, and so when Josiah asked to have his birthday party there we agreed. He invited four friends from school, plus him and the girls, so seven children to keep track of – plus Robyn, who thankfully came with Adam and Emma which added to the adult-child ratio!

Anyway, it was loud, chaotic, we mislaid various children at different times, but I think everyone had a good time. And now it’s over, no more birthday parties for a good six months. And no more at Crealy ever again, if I have my way! At least now they’re all over 7 they can go on rides by themselves!

Came home for Father’s Day roast dinner with Steve’s dad here too, played Joe’s new wii game together, and now have slumped. Kids have a non-pupil day tomorrow so they’re home with Steve while I still have to work so I’ll be up early on my own for once.

Started the day with presents, as you do on a birthday. Josiah was up early but the girls kept him waiting by staying in bed until 7am, meanies!

We were sad last night to hear that the orchestra conductor was ill, but rather relieved that it meant that the planned concert was cancelled, it was really nice to have a relaxed morning. We headed into town and on the way stopped at the garage to visit Grandpa – Josiah very pleased with the gift of Ticket to Ride from Grandma & Grandpa, and equally pleased with birthday money from Great-Grandad, to add to some from my parents.

In town we successfully found new sandals for Joe (last year’s fell apart), trainers for Anna (hers 2 sizes too small) and school shoes for Abbie (hers 1.5 sizes too small). Abbie will have to make do with hand-me-down sandals and Anna will have to buy some cheap ones! I got some trainer-style walking boots as my choices for walking are old DMs that leak, or wellies, neither of which are that great for walks really. We ended up in the toymaster shop where Josiah spent a bit of his money on a Dr Who Sonic Screwdriver, and he’s had great fun with it all day.

Home for lunch, and then Steve went with the kids over to the field where they played frisbee and boomerang (another birthday money acquisition), while I cleaned out the guinea pigs and made a rather nice looking (even if I do say so myself) chocolate cake for Joe’s party tomorrow. Anna looked at it as I took it out of the oven and said, in surprised tones, “wow, it worked!”. I’ve obviously baked too many cakes that haven’t worked recently

After that we all went out together to Josiah’s group violin lesson so that we could go on from there to do a walk/cache hunt. The group lesson was good, it’s so lovely to see Josiah with so much more confidence than he had in the same situation not that long ago! Found the cache easily afterwards and then mucked around with self timer shots but we are rubbish at them!

Home for dinner which was a Pizza Hut style tea at Josiah’s request – pizza, dough balls, and then Ice Cream Factory for dessert. Terribly unhealthy but we did drink fruit juice to try and compensate

Am not popular at the moment for calling quiet time in bed after Dr Who, but we have a long day of partying to get through tomorrow so I needed some! Can’t quite believe this is the third 7th birthday recorded on this blog (here’s the first and here’s the second), are they growing up too fast or have I been blogging for too long?