just another morning here

Weird Lasagne in the oven (probably more weird than ever as Steve bought egg lasagne, WHY he can’t just buy normal dried pasta I don’t know, he thinks if it’s off the fresh pasta aisle it must be better for some bizarre reason but they all moan about egg pasta); kids are playing gamecube (younger two) and watching tv (older two), so all is relatively peaceful.

Have had a bit of a naffy day, here. All started fine with kids getting ready, a pleasant hour with Merry here (internet fix ), then I hustled my lot into the car to take the big girls to a museum workshop. Slight technical hitch, flat battery again. So we ran down the road to the bus stop (had to dash into house to pick up more money, dump car keys, blah blah, meanwhile kids had got covered in oil pastel in the two minutes it took me to do that so needed hands washing, etc) and ended up at the museum only 15 minutes late but I felt exhausted!

Couple of errands in town – library, returned an ill-fitting item to H&M, and visited Boots (spent Advantage points on hair bobbles for kids) and Poundland for crappy noisy plastic toys of the children’s choosing (some kind grandma gave kids £1 each the other day ).

Home on the bus for lunch with Steve who arrived with the cavalry (okay, just a new battery), then we were *supposed* to be going to the park for a home ed open afternoon. Abbie didn’t want to go, but Joe did so I came down on his side, he really values his HE friends – Abbie is just weird and doesn’t seem to need to do the friend thing as much as the other two. So, at this point Abigail decided that she could *only* go out wearing purple, as her Poundland flashing noisy ribbon wand thing was purple. It then took her a whole hour to find and dress herself in purple clothes.

Eventually got to the park and hung around for 45 minutes or so but I must confess to feeling a bit out of things there – I just can’t keep up with the amount of local HE stuff that goes on, I can’t fit it all in, don’t know how they all do it.

Popped back into town to pick up the big girls from the museum, had a nice saunter around the exhibitions (particularly liked the wildlife photography one – might see if kids want to enter accompanying competition), then ended up at Juice Moose for a smoothie and a piece of cake, which was a nice end to the day. The museum workshop went down well by the sounds of it – relief printing – couple of paintings as a result – want them for tent decoration or shall I send them the usual way of paintings in this household?

Picked up another vid on the way home (Magic Roundabout – kids’ choice) so we have that for tonight. Or maybe tomorrow morning if I decide everyone’s too tired and stroppy, it’s a close call at the moment, with Joe doing his best little brother routine!

Love this toy (and I like the look of the Mosaic Maker too, one day might do one of those if and when I have enough photos on a theme to do it with). I wish I had a sense of humour to use with it, I’m hoping to see something suitably inventive from Nic, Joyce, Jenny L, Helen & Chris, or even Chris P soon (in fact, surprised I found it before Helen Haricots, she’s the flickr addict!) … it is great to have stuff from Steve on my flickr account though, I’ve even changed my little icon thing so that it’s less me and more us, how romantic. Not.

Anyway, I’ve been at work. Kids have been at home with Grandma while we had our new ‘team meeting’ first thing this morning, then they’ve done usual Steve-day things like shopping, getting films, walking in the woods, and watching said film (Napoleon Dynamite. Someone said it was good. They were WRONG! I’m taking it back and exchanging it tomorrow, it was utterly rubbish.)

Abbie also had a museum workshop that she went to with Fran today (thanks Merry & Max for taking them!), and she said she enjoyed it, but was more excited about the piles of *new* Charlie and the Chocolate Factory books she’d seen in a bookshop. I hated to burst her bubble and tell her that it was the same book, just re-published to co-incide with the film in order to make more money, she seemed slightly shocked at this

My spaghetti bolognaise (I think I make a pretty mean one, even though I do say so myself) was deemed to taste weird this evening Oh dear, because I saved half of the sauce to make lasagne for tomorrow (the other meal request!). They’re not starving, anyway, they had popcorn

The four biggest girls practised cartwheels, handstands etc., on the beautiful Killerton lawn, while Joe and Ammi can just be seen in the distance, running races … this was after a brief meetup with Jules and some of the girls taking part in a storytelling trail. A perfect day indeed

Anna nicked the camera and I’ve found it full of a study on Josie – both my girls are rather taken with her, and understandably so

It was a gorgeous afternoon. Almost sad to be going on holiday at the weekend, when we have Devon and friends here!

This evening have got kids through baths and hairwashes, polished shoes, and got clothes ready, hoping to avoid the teenage style ‘but I can’t wear *that* with *those* shoes’ strops from Anna in the morning.

I admit to being slightly stressed out and I may have raised my voice once or twice tonight. Noticed that Anna had tidied up her room by stuffing all her clothes into drawers in a most higgledy piggledy fashion, and commented that she was a nightmare. ‘No, I’m just a normal eight year old girl, living with a stressed out mother and a deaf father’, came the retort. She’s not far wrong; as well as having got it spot on in my case, Steve has a propensity for taking at least ten seconds to even register that someone’s speaking to him, giving the impression that he is, in fact, stone deaf. A trait which he demonstrated admirably at dinnertime this evening.

Have procrastinated everything I possibly can this evening, put it all off, and now having early night instead, hoping that will make me super-efficient tomorrow afternoon/evening.

Pictures below are a snapshot of yesterday, which was just a chilled day. More pics on flickr if anyone’s interested Today I’m planning for us all to go to Killerton this afternoon, once Merry’s had her internet fix for the day

Feel as though I have a lot on my mind; I’m aware that I still need to shop and pack for our holiday, I’m not at all ready. Also Steve’s Gran’s funeral is tomorrow, which, while I’m not involved personally, Steve is being a pallbearer which he’s slightly apprehensive about, and I’m also concerned about how the kids will behave/take the whole thing.

I guess it will all just happen …