just another morning here

His tooth has been wobbly for ages, and fell out today on an ice lolly!

Nothing to say really. We went Christmas shopping yesterday with the children in tow, which was quite fun in a sadistic sort of a way – thankfully we have a babysitter booked in order to finish it off in a couple of weeks. Actually it was nice that they were with us; means that the pressies from our family are really from all of us – and in a couple of weeks we only have to shop for their stockings. Abbie had a wobbly tooth and spent the day pulling it out which caused some amusement for us all, too

Have done loads today, or it felt like it at least – two days’ worth of stories for the Jesse tree (Abram – obedient to being sent on his travels, and Sarah having Isaac as an answer to prayer).

Washed the sofas, hoovered the whole house, did the ironing that I’ve been putting off for days, made and wrote some more Christmas cards, wrapped the pressies from yesterday, did a violin lesson run, music practice all round, and some maths workbooks with the children.

We bought the girls a new CGP maths book each yesterday which Anna moaned and moaned about (no pretty pictures) but I insisted on, as even without the home educators’ discount they were still better value (and less likely to have mistakes in them) than any of Letts’ offerings. Anna was pleased because she ‘didn’t think it would be so easy’ today, so I’m on to a winner there.

Joe started a new Wizard Whimstaff maths book which he was really pleased with, because the girls have been doing them, so it felt grown up to him – the first page in it was counting and he amused me by not counting the groups of things, instead adding them up according to colour (ie, rather than just counting to 7, he looked at the spiders, counted 3 red and 4 blue and then said ‘so there must be 7′). All a bit easy for him but I’m finding that if he wants to do workbooks when the girls do, it has to be relatively easy in order for it not to require too much reading or writing, but there we go.

I have generally had a lovely day just being with them – gotta love the kids on days like these

Very smelly cheesy Cabbage, Bacon & Pasta bake for dinner, and the kids didn’t make it to Friday Fish because we couldn’t bring ourselves to drive them there and back, it was easier to buy them off with a tuck shop equivalent, which they completely didn’t mind. How terrible is that?

Have enjoyed an evening with friends, poker, Whitney Houston, Simon & Garfunkel, and Robbie Williams, plus some wine and whisky – a winning combination. Chris P, you really must come down for a pokerfest one of these days …

Promise to try and be more educational soon – in my dreams

Somehow I’ve managed to lose the photos I took of the van today. Ah well.

First thing this morning was Stage by Stage, meanwhile I took the younger two into town and picked up some black shoes for Joe, plus raffle tickets for the fundraising effort today.

After picking Anna up we went and met up with a friend from the Miscarriage Support Group and stood around for the next four hours collecting money, selling raffle tickets, etc.

To be honest (that was especially for Neil ), I don’t think it did much good in terms of raising awareness as no-one took any of our local leaflets or asked about the group – not even sure how much we raised but it was only about £50 I think. Felt like a bit of a waste of time, but there we go.

The children were complete pains for most of the time too, I’d taken loads of stuff for them to do in the van and they just wouldn’t settle down to do any of it, so it was all a bit stressful. Still, it’s done for this year, would be nice to be more organised about Babyloss Awareness day next year, which might make it all more worthwhile.

This evening we’ve had Junior Film Night Mark 1 (Anna’s), which has been pleasant enough, she really enjoyed it. It included four friends (should have been five, we missed Chelsea ), tea, a dvd, and then some playstation afterwards – all relatively grown up and civilised really

Junior Film Night Marks 2 and 3 have been promised, so at some point Abbie and Josiah will get to invite friends round for a film night too.

Only just getting round to watching Casualty on Teleport so no more clues, Joyce, please!

For ages now we’ve been waiting for Abbie’s other front tooth to grow down, and I’ve been joking with her that she must grow it before bridesmaid duty on 5th November. It has finally cut through, so might just about be visible in three weeks’ time! However, an added complication has arisen – the four teeth (top and bottom either side of the middle two) are now wobbly as well, a couple of them very wobbly!

We’re already the proud owners of a fair few ‘trying to conceal my gap’ smile photos! Over the summer we did try and encourage her just to smile normally and not worry about it, but it didn’t really work. Instead we have either an evil grimace or a soppy look!

So anyway, we’re on full tooth alert here. Corn on the cobs, apples, and anything too crunchy are off the menu, in a vain attempt to keep as many teeth in her mouth as possible!

While we’re talking about the wedding (I think I’m more excited about this one than I was about my own!), I must get on with the tiaras I’m supposed to be making – might go and start while the kids are watching ET for a second time They loved it!

This morning has been great, we’ve done some music practice, Joe’s done some reading (level 6 of the Flying Boot box, relatively easy for him with only the odd word prompt needed, so that was encouraging), and the girls have both done some maths (geoboard activities) as well as painting and room tidying.

Later on Josiah has a music lesson – at the moment it’s chucking down with rain so if it’s still wet later the girls will end up doing some reading or workbooky stuff in the car with me while he’s there. Hopefully it will have dried up and they can race around the park instead.

edited to add: or some kind person will read my blog then offer to take them off my hands for a couple of hours! Home now cooking lentil curry (definitely not too crunchy!) for tea, wonder how well that will go down?