just another morning here

Had a lovely weekend, very chilled. Apart from Animal Crossing we really didn’t do much other than drink tea, chat, and the children played happily in various combinations all weekend. In a token attempt to look as though we’d done something with them ( ) we did get the needlefelting stuff out this morning. I can see why this was such a hit at Muddle Puddle camp, shame ours was a bit rushed today as we needed to leave!

Erm, there *really* isn’t much else to say! The drive home was LOOONG, nice to see Steve and Anna again, and now back to normal, boo.

I think a good time was had by the whole family, but I’m just blogging about our half of it … Abbie and I went to stay with Merry and her family for the weekend

Had a lovely time there despite vomit and lack of alcohol! The toy fair was a fantastic way for Merry and me to spend a day out, and Abbie had a fantastic time playing with Fran, Maddy, Ammi, and Josie. Max seemed relatively sane considering he’d had 5 small girls to look after for a day – and dinner was delicious as well

Actually it was very reassuring that it just felt like being friends as normal, and that the school thing hadn’t got in the way too much (yet, at least!). I know it’s silly but I do worry about friendships changing both for myself and the children, so it was nice to just feel normal and it didn’t seem to me that it had made much of a difference. Slightly gutting not to be able to fantasise about buying all the lovely toys we saw and pass them off as educational resources, though!

We took all day to get home on Sunday, stopping at my sister‘s house for lunch en route, which was good too. Abbie enjoyed seeing her kittens again, although I’m not sure the feeling was mutual – they were both hiding from Abigail by the time we left!

I think I told someone last week that I liked driving – and it *was* nice to be driving a normal car instead of the van for once, but by the end of the weekend I’d had enough of it!

Got home around 6pm on Sunday to find Josiah already in bed! He and Anna had a good weekend here with Steve, too, I think – they went to the Chinese restaurant *again* and apparently this time were given children’s chopsticks (special ones that are somehow joined together?) and fortune cookies, as well as being amused by a first-time waiter! Then Steve was invited to his parents’ for dinner on Sunday, so, what a surprise, he managed not to cook all weekend! No comment!

We have been loafing around the house today. Early on we took the decision that we’d stay at home and have a ‘normal’ (whatever that is) home ed day, avoid traffic and Bank Holiday-makers, and have our Bank Holiday next week sometime once everyone’s back at school.

Josiah got our Mr Bean Encyclopedia folders out first thing this morning, so everyone spent half an hour or so finishing off sticking stickers into the Sticker Atlas and looking at the magazines.

We gamecubed, and said goodbye to Max, Merry, and their girls …

Then Joe went over to Mollie’s, so I took the opportunity to make a start on Narnia things with the girls. We read the first chapter of The Magician’s Nephew, they drew pictures, etc. A very short, gentle introduction. However much Anna says she’d like to do projects on things, when it actually comes to doing any ‘work’, she becomes strangely reticent! As one of the things I enjoy doing is fiddling with blogs, I decided to set up a new one, which will be reserved for Narnia stuff – I think it may end up being a slowly ongoing background thing, and as I’ve got particularly bad at categories here, I thought if I kept it separate then I’d have a good record of it somewhere else. No, actually I just wanted another blog. Some people are so greedy . Many happy hours to be spent tweaking that one, text colours being next on my hitlist …

Pizza Hut came home for lunch; Steve took the girls shopping and they bought pizza, pasta, ice cream and dolly mixtures. Why we couldn’t have gone to Pizza Hut I don’t know, it would have made less mess in the kitchen, but there we are.

This afternoon we watched Ella Enchanted – a perfectly watchable family film, quite funny in places. If I hadn’t just got going on Narnia stuff I’d be tempted to print out the Film Ed. resources for that one and throw it in front of the nearest 8yo, might still do that, in fact.

Anna & I have done more music practice together, too.

Right, must be off, I want to get another chapter or two in if I can round up the children …

Flop: a good word to describe today. Worked this morning for an hour or so, just running around on car-related errands. Was planning to get to our Puddlers group today, but it didn’t happen, mainly because Josiah has been on a strop-bender and I couldn’t face taking him out to have the prospect of dealing with him without a bedroom to send him to. Abbie had gone off to play with Little-Neighbour-Mollie (and ended up there pretty much all day) and didn’t want to go, and Anna had a friend round anyway, who we were going to take with us had we gone, but they weren’t really all that bothered about going either. Perpetuating the feeling of being out of it locally, but at the same time, if none of the children want to go it does beg the question why do I bother. I guess it will be different when the rhythm of days that comes with termtime kicks back in, I’m looking forward to it. Surprising that it still makes so much difference to us even as home educators, or perhaps it’s just my mindset that hasn’t changed, I don’t know!

On the not-quite-so-floppy side, Anna has been lovely today, and we’ve had a good bash at some piano playing together, and she also made cookies and iced them on her own/with the friend she had here.

Follow Up: I achieved perfect town status in Animal Crossing today Decided I couldn’t be bothered to maintain it for two weeks though, so cheated and got a code for the golden axe.

Ordered ‘Further Up and Further In’ unit study guide from Ichthus Resources. Not usually my style to be buying curriculum but I’m not planning to follow it at all, just use it as a resource book for myself, being slightly inept in the Literature/Language Arts/whatever you want to call it area. I suspect it will be a bit too involved for my children right at the moment anyway, as it’s intended for slightly older children, but I thought if we bought it now we could use it in dribs and drabs over the next few years, depending on how Narnia-involved we get. Also thought I’d mention it so that people know I’ve got it, as I’m sure I’ll be up for lending it out in due course.

Piano lessons – found this Piano Teachers website and have contacted a few people from it, so will see what happens.

Must go, as Max & Merry have just arrived, they’re here for tea & film (kids) and grown up dinner (adults – well, we’ll try), as a last evening together before they go home at the weekend.