just another morning here

Haven’t felt like blogging really – as usual when the girls go back to school it takes Joe and I a few days to adjust, and I don’t want to speak too soon, but today’s been ok. Wondering if the new star chart in the kitchen has helped at all – probably, as he had done his workbooks, piano practice, and brought us a cup of tea in bed all before 7.30am! The kitchen was a complete tip but we’ll gloss over that

After saying goodbye to the girls we did his violin practice which went well for once. It’s been a long summer without seeing his teacher and it’s been hard to wind back up into regular decent practice (everyone, not just Joe!), but today he managed great posture/bow hold, as well as actually remembering his pieces, hurrah.

Then we started putting his Romans lapbook together, which involved me doing lots of cutting out and Josiah doing lots of sticking. Joe chose to complete a little flap thingy on Romulus and Remus, so he drew a picture of them as babies, and then dictated a very brief version of the story to me (there was no way on earth that he’d have been able to write it out, so better to go for the CM dictation approach than have a frustrated writer on my hands).

He played outside for a bit, got the guinea pigs out, nearly lost one of them in the garden but we managed to catch it again! Then played with a lego creation for a while, before Steve came home from lunch.

After lunch I had a lovely chat on the phone with my friend Liz, and then I taught Joe how to play San Juan. This took a long time but was worthwhile as it’s a game I actually like playing! I am so so bored of most of our board games, I really need some other new games that are enjoyable for adults as well as children. Literally the only games I really like playing are Yahtzee and Mastermind/Mindbender, everything else makes me groan when he suggests them. So we went off to PlayMerrily and had a look there – we like a look of a few of the games

By the time we’d done that the girls were home, ravenous despite having had school dinners, and Laura turned up for piano lessons. Tonight it’s Stage by Stage and Wind Group so a busy evening ahead.

We’re back down to earth with a bump here. Last week my sister was staying, which was really nice, but we didn’t get an awful lot done as we were still in definite holiday mode! We did do a couple of nice things including a mooch around town to show her the sights (or at least the good coffee shops!), church followed by a BBQ with friends on Sunday, a trip to Dartington Crystal (because we’d won free tickets) on Monday, and a fair bit of dossing around at home.

Yesterday we had Caitlin and Riona with us, took Esther back to the station early afternoon, and then the new term began with Anna’s first cello lesson later on in the afternoon. Incidentally, she passed her Grade 4 cello (108), don’t think I ever blogged that. And Abbie passed both the Grade 1s (piano 114 & recorder 107) that she took at the same time.

In the evening the girls both sharpened all their pencils and got their uniforms ready, and I think they even managed an early night – certainly they were in bed by the time I got home from an aborted Miscarriage Support Group meeting (forgot the keys, oops. still saw one person though and had a good chat on the stairs instead!).

Today the girls were back at school, and obviously pleased about it as they were both up and ready way earlier than necessary!

Josiah and I have had a relatively good home-ed day too. He did a couple of workbook pages from a music and a maths book, just to try and get back into the swing of doing something each day. He seems to have forgotten how to write all his numbers!

Then we did his music practices together, then made a picnic while signing up for Education City again, in order that I don’t feel too guilty about hours spent in the office, our next destination. By the way, does anyone still have a valid ‘refer a friend’ code that I could use when I actually have to sign up properly in 10 days’ time? Steve and I had a business meeting to attend together so Josiah amused himself with Education City on the computer at work while we did that.

The plan after that was to head to Home Ed group, which I assumed would have started back today, but the park was empty. Joe was a bit disappointed – I really should have checked beforehand as I probably had the info in an email somewhere. Ah well, there’s always next week. We had our lunch in the park anyway, and it gave us the chance to have a good chat about a couple of goals for home ed, which was good. Joe’s decided he’d like to try making a lapbook about the Romans, so that gives us something projecty to do alongside basic workbook things. He was only 18 months old when the girls did their first ever home ed project on the Romans so I don’t suppose he can remember much about it – in fact thinking about it, they did it with Aunty Jacky and I took him out to the park while she was there, so I can’t remember much either!

Anyway, then we headed back to the garage to get a few more things sorted; we’ve got a stand in the local shopping centre’s ‘Motor Show’ next weekend so there are some extra things that need doing for that.

Now we’re home for piano lessons. Still chasing my tail with lots of paperwork to catch up on so better stop blogging and get on with it!

We got home very late last night (early this morning?) from a good week away. We were incredibly grateful for a week of fantastic weather, bar one night of very heavy rain at the beginning of the week it was great. Finally!

The wet night did make the whole site a bit muddy for a couple of days but nothing too terrible on our side of the site anyway. My parents did have a bit of a Kessingland week in their awning though, and ended up throwing their groundsheet away rather than cleaning it! Think swamp mixed with cowpats and you have the general idea, yuk.

We were camped with friends from one of the other churches in the network, which was nice, because we were the only campers there from our own local church, so it meant that the children had friends to play with, I had more hair to braid (!!) and we had friends to laze around and share coffee and wine with

Saw a number of old friends throughout the week which was nice, and we also saw rather a lot of my youngest brother as well, who clearly had too much time on his hands and kept coming back to be clambered on by small girls – lovely to have him around though.

The organised ‘churchy’ activities (for want of a better word!) consisted of various meetings most mornings and in the evenings too, as well as sports and other stuff going on during the afternoon. The children all had groups to go to, which they really enjoyed and got lots out of. I was on a team helping with the 3 and 4 year olds during the morning sessions, which was a lot of fun.

Managed to get to most of the evening meetings as well, and generally felt like it was good for me, the spiritual kick up the backside was long overdue.

We had a couple of free days as well, where we escaped the site (it was *so* noisy!) and did our own thing. On the first day we went to Herstmonceux Science Centre where we met some of the Screamteam and most of the Monsterteenies, and had a fab day there. (I didn’t ever get my email from the Art Machine by the way, what happened to that I wonder?!)

From there we found a swimming pool in Hailsham – decided that was the easiest way to clean all our children at once

On our other day off we ended up in Eastbourne visiting Ros & Tony at Bonners Music Superstore. Steve made himself at home immediately and made a long phonecall but for some reason didn’t want me to take a photo Anna made herself at home too We didn’t spend too much money though!

Mooched around Eastbourne for a while, then went swimming again, then ended up at Pevensey Castle on the way back to the campsite. Fab castle with lots of interesting different parts added over the years. Tried desperately to get a picture of all three children looking nice at the same time but after four attempts I gave up!

We spent a fair bit of time enjoying Ashburnham again; it is a gorgeous site. Tried hard to get the camera to do things it isn’t really cut out to do with the lens I was using but the results weren’t too bad, all things considered.

As an aside, my Flickr post bar has miraculously sprung back into life tonight after months of not recognising me as a user – don’t know what happened there but I’m very glad to have it back!

Got a bit of washing done today but generally lazed around as we were fairly exhausted. Our wonderful neighbour(s) had done a fantastic job with the guinea pigs which was an extra blessing.

Really nice to have all the children around during the day

With the exception of a difficult violin practice with Joe first thing, and explaining to Anna early on in the day that I am not going to argue with her over ridiculous topics of conversation (like ‘why do we need to go to Sainsbury’s?’, or ‘why do we have to go on holiday?’, honestly, it’s like having a 2yo again, sometimes ), it’s been a lovely day and they’ve all helped with a bit of clearing and tidying up as well as dossing around a fair bit, as one should on the first day of the holidays. Steve and I viewed a couple of houses (as you do), and I popped into town to fill in a CRB check form. Oh, and we went to Sainsbury’s.

The girls did some music, just because they enjoy it (yippee, we are making progress here! although drums at 8am was a bit much!). Anna’s drawn a montage of Sonic the Hedgehog characters, copied from game box art, and she’s got a ballet lesson later on. The other two have played together on the gamecube, then outside when it finally brightened up, and even managed not to have too many arguments

Right, must go, I have a huge pile of paperwork (rubbish!) to sort through which really should have been sorted a long time ago, these piles of paper just have a habit of building up, though, don’t they. And some washing to fold, and dinner to cook before friends arrive for the evening (wine, nibbles, and Wii party games!) … but hooray, it’s the holidays, even chores aren’t bugging me today