just another morning here

Yesterday Abbie came home having visited a couple of pet rescue centres with her Uncle and Aunt, and almost in love with a little kitten called Daisy. What emotional blackmail, for her very reluctant-to-own-a-proper-pet father When they told me as they left that they were going to visit animals I thought they were joking! Anyway, Steve finally relented and said yes!

So today after the Sainsbury’s shop which we got out of the way early, we went back out to have another look. Unfortunately the rescue centre wouldn’t let us have the kitten, as she wasn’t really suited to being with children, in their opinion. It was that kitten or nothing as far as Abbie was concerned, so she was a bit disappointed, but only for a moment, as we settled on getting another hamster instead, which is something she had wondered about spending her birthday money on in any case.

So we’ve come home today with a little honey coloured hamster who is very sweet, and has been named Haffertee after the star of the Haffertee Hamster series of books. Photos to follow tomorrow when he can be handled

Don’t know if you could get a more diverse pair of things to blog about!

Steve phoned this evening to say they’d arrived in Troyes safely. Apparently Anna had been really good with the meal – one of the things we’ve been trying to impress on her over the past couple of weeks is to eat things she’s given without any rude noises – and there were a number of things Steve thought she’d normally moan about and struggle to eat, but she cleared her plate with no fussing. Good to know they can manage it when they have to, eh? Just wish she’d do the same at home!!! Anyway. And Bob (one of the friends they’re staying with) had taken her out to the Boulangerie on her own, so she’d enjoyed that.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, Abbie and Joe decided this evening that it would be fun to put the hamster inside Steve’s didgeridoo. He has a proper, 4ft long one, which, to be fair, does look like a rather nice hamster tunnel. Of course they failed to think that if Charlie decided to stop in the middle, that we wouldn’t be able to get him out! So we spent a fair bit of time trying to coax him out of it before bedtime tonight – eventually we gave up and read stories with ‘traps’ set at either end, and he came out of his own accord, thankfully. Well, the piece of fruit at each end probably helped, too. Ho hum!

As well as all that, Josiah fell asleep while we were reading stories earlier in the afternoon, so Abbie and I did some workbook stuff together – English pages about capital letters, full stops and commas (for some reason they didn’t include the use of – and … on their pages, I wonder why?!!), and some Maths pages working on adding and taking away ten. It was really nice to spend the time with Abigail on her own – as well as concentrate on a couple of academic things! She enjoyed doing the English book as she just had to ring letters and put in commas and full stops. When it came to the Maths she asked me to be her scribe, as usual. She seems particularly bothered by the fact that she can’t write 5s! She’s fine on all the other digits, but for some reason, 5 presents her with a particular problem. Anyway, I don’t mind doing that – it’s the mathematics I’m interested in, not her writing abilities. We had fun together

I’ve been out for a meal with friends this evening, then back home for a natter with my friend and babysitter. It’s never the same going to bed on your own though, I’m rubbish at it, I’ll have to try not to stay up *too* late!

Oh, and NEWSFLASH! My brother actually wrote something on his blog, *and* it’s relatively amusing!!!

We had a very lazy morning here recovering from our weekend away (and I’m sure the kids haven’t adjusted to BST yet!), Abbie did some writing and sums in an old book she found, Joe played on the computer, and Anna didn’t do much at all! Eventually we all got ready and went out, Abbie to spend the afternoon with Steve at the office, Anna to school, while Joe and I hit town! It actually felt really strange, being with just Josiah – I suppose that’s how it would be all the time if the girls were at school. Nice to go into the ELC without them for once though!

The main reason for going was to get Josiah’s feet measured, as he’s been moaning about his shoes hurting. Turns out it’s a complete fabrication, his feet haven’t grown at all. So we went shopping instead. Came home with a random collection of things … from a new (more grown up) children’s bible, an Easter storybook, a (nother) new froggy knotty for Joe, and a few hamster things – including this cardboard castle maze thing, which Josiah spotted and wouldn’t leave behind … given his current passion for playing fights etc with playmobil people I thought it could double up as a playmobil castle when the hamster isn’t in it. Which, it seems, will be most of the time ;o) .

Took this photo about 5 minutes after putting him in it!

The Science fair photos are up too, but scroll down to find them, I changed the date to put them in the right place chronologically!

I feel like my feet have hardly touched the ground today. For some bizarre reason I got up early this morning, and Abbie and I were at the table reading and doing a Flying Boot worksheet by 8.30am. Unheard of! Anna printed off another book from Enchanted Learning and did a fair bit of colouring/handwriting before she got bored. Joe also did some lovely colouring in his book. Anna’s was Chinese Animals, this time. Then we were led down a bit of a chinese theme for a minute, and looked at the Zoom School China pages, then ended up making tangrams, then playing with them and the pentominoes, too.

Actually realised that some of what we’ve talked about has gone in, last night Anna was chatting to our friends and reeled off the seven continents, and held a reasonable conversation about what she’d learned, which is always encouraging. The faces she pulls if I ask her to do things, sometimes I wonder if she learns anything at all, but it seems she does! (Oh, she still knows her 6 x table, too!!)

Oh, and I forgot, sometime before this Anna made our pancake batter – Pancake Day is a huge thrill in this house! While all this was going on I was fiddling with a family tree maker on Genealogy.com – just for Merry I posted it on my brother’s lovely blog (just don’t look at the rest of the posts, they’re getting worse I’m sure!)

Abbie and I started a little ongoing activity, looking to see where our food comes from … we’re collecting stickers from fruit, and labels from other packaging. So far we have tuna from Mauritius, corned beef from Brazil, sweetcorn from Thailand, and Tabasco sauce from America. Not bad for a quick raid of the cupboard. We’re planning a supermarket trip for the fruit stickers though, not much of our organic box fruit is stickered so we drew a blank there! Both girls enjoyed looking on the map to see where things had come from, and how far they’d had to travel before ending up in Tescos/our cupboard.

After lunch we started our next science kit. The kids always approach these with such enthusiasm, they love them. In fact, I often try to split up the experiments over a couple of days but they don’t like it when I do that … anyway, it was all about bacteria and fungi. So, in the kitchen we now have a couple of petri dishes growing things – one is meant to demonstrate the effect of antibiotics, and the other is just for interest – we’re comparing the bacteria (eek, Joyce, don’t read this!) from our bathroom and kitchen sinks, and then from Anna and Abbie’s fingers!! I dread to think what’s going to grow in that dish! Anyway, this time I’m going to be organised and take a photo of them every day, but I’ll only post them when there’s something to see! There were some yeast experiments too, demonstrating the need for sugar and warm water, but by that time we were all losing it a bit!

Later on Anna had a dance lesson (changed to Tuesdays this half term), and we took Steve to pick up some cars. Once home the excitement over pancake day rose to fever pitch, thank goodness Steve made it home relatively soon. The kids weren’t the only ones who enjoyed the pancakes though – we made a special little one for Charlie Hamster with our last drop of batter, and he absolutely gobbled it up! Usually if Abbie gives him treats he stashes them in his pouches and runs off, but today he sat in their hands for ages eating this bit of pancake. Hope it doesn’t kill him! Made for a sweet picture, anyway.

Planning to chat with a friend this evening, then watch Faking It - gotta love that programme. And I’m psyching myself up for the next round of website making – I’ve agreed to try and put something together for Steve’s Mum’s new business site, which is somewhat more serious than a poxy family-for-fun site, so I’m going to have to pull my finger out! It will be a challenge though, and a good excuse for spending more time on the computer, as if I needed one ;o)