{reading} two very different books – The London Eye Mystery, by Siobhan Dowd, and Some Recollections, by Emma Hardy, with accompanying poems by Thomas Hardy

{watching} an excellent pantomime – Peter Pan at the Epsom Playhouse

{eating} Turkish Delight – one of my favourite Christmas presents!

{playing} Scrabble

{listening to} Gregorian chant

{snapshots} All the children made birthday cards for Granny, and Tiddler wrote his name himself.  To be honest, I can’t think what the others have done that’s new, which shows that I haven’t spent enough time with them perhaps.  They have been enjoying their last few days of holiday time, playing lots of Lego, reading and playing games on the computer.  Owl has been really helpful, even more than usual, and is showing a lot of maturity by recognising jobs that need to be done and getting on and doing them.

{enjoying} the company of our friends from 3 Kids and a Gluestick today – the boys and their daddy came over to our house this morning, and then all the family came with us to our church fair this afternoon.

{painting} glass tea light holders with our friends (very therapeutic and relaxing!), and then selling them at the fair.

{feeling} a bit stressed at the fair because it was overwhelmingly crowded and busy, but at least I hope that means a lot of money has been raised.  Also feeling grateful for the kind words and actions, and good company, of several friends today who helped me more than they will know.

{eating} very little food all day (me and Paul) / far too many sweets (the children) and then restoring the balance with Paul’s delicious kushari.  I must get him to blog the recipe.  I think the ingredients cost less than a fiver, and it fed seven people last night, and the six of us tonight.  And it is one of the nicest things in the world to eat.

{drinking} hot lemon and honey from Paul’s stall at the fair, and later one of the many bottles of wine he won on the bottle tombola (I assume they did rather well – I haven’t asked him how much he spent…)

{wondering} why we have such a big Christmas tree.  And also why Owl is still awake at 11.30pm, and does it mean we have to abandon the 8am swimming lessons in the morning?

{snapshots}Owl has raised £10 for charity by offering bottles of homemade lemonade for the auction of promises at church – it was his own idea to offer them, and he sold two for £5 each.  The children also raised £5.50 by selling the tea light holders.  We are very proud of them!  Monkey bought a knitted snowman on the toy stall to give Rabbit for Christmas.  He was very upset when she saw it and couldn’t manage to wait for Christmas, but he kindly gave it to her anyway.

In other news, Rabbit is happy because she has been asked to play Mary in the nativity play at the church we go to when we visit Granny (my mum).  All the boys are going to be in it too, and the big three will also be taking part in Scrooge the musical in January.  Tiddler is okay with the fact that he is going to be an angel in his preschool nativity, but he’d rather be Mary!

{feeling} tired and a little bit ill, but lucky to have such lovely children.  Owl has been really good at noticing when I’ve not been feeling well, and trying really hard to help.  Rabbit also offered to learn how to cut her nails so I wouldn’t have so many jobs to do!

{reading} Christmas poems with the children

{playing} Shopping List (Orchard toys game) with Rabbit

{cooking} supper on a fire in the garden

{watching} Strictly with the children – well, I mainly watched the three little ones dancing in front of the TV!

{snapshots}

Owl gave me breakfast in bed yesterday, and got the breakfast for all the little ones too.  He even made a menu and took everyone’s order on a notepad!  Monkey and Rabbit have been playing very imaginatively together.  I can’t claim to know all the details, but at one point, Monkey was Santa riding on his Trunki, and Rabbit was a reindeer pulling him along.  Tiddler has been playing with cars on his car mat, building train tracks without help and playing with Lego Duplo.  Yesterday he tidied up the playroom himself without help and without being asked.

{playing} with Edtoy Magnamobiles (a fire engine and a police car) and loving them – review to follow.

{relaxing} this morning while Paul managed to take all the children out to the hairdresser’s and the shops.  A long bath, a bit of laundry done, a blog post written and I felt much better.

{acquiring} quite a bit of random stuff at Granny’s church fair this afternoon, and having a lot of fun.

{tidying} the house and wishing it would stay tidy – I think another round of decluttering is needed before our church fair, and then Christmas.

{eating} Paul’s delicious homemade prawn curry and rice, and drinking wine while watching Strictly.

{snapshots}

Owl has been working sensibly and independently a lot this week, and is feeling motivated because he would like to go to Oxford University, to study Astrophysics and Maths.  He’s always loved Science, but the enjoyment of Maths is relatively new and I’m pleased – I’ve been telling him Maths is fun for years!

Monkey wrote an excellent letter at Beavers on Wednesday: “To other beings in space.  My name is…  I live on planet Earth, the planet with just about enough things I need to live.  Food, water, beds, Lego, air, TVs.  Visit if you want.  Bye.”

Rabbit is gaining confidence in reading, and she has been working on words beginning with “th” and “wh” this week.  She is good at sounding out simple words now so we are working on building up her knowledge of tricky words.

Tiddler has been building Tomica roads and playing with his cars a lot this week.  On Friday, he went on a Bear Hunt in the garden at pre-school which he loved.  He told me you have to run away from cross bears but you don’t have to run away from friendly bears!

{testing} the Zu3D Dinosaurs in Space animation kit and loving it

{buying} new wellies for Owl and Daddy, and some charity shop bargains too

{visiting} friends and enjoying some relatively uninterrupted conversation as our five boys between us played nicely together (Rabbit went shopping with Granny)

{discovering} new apps on the Kurio

{playing} Frustration with the (smallest two) children and Scrabble with the grown-ups

Owl and Monkey have made their first Zu3D animation with Daddy and are excited about making another one tomorrow.  Rabbit is very good at playing Frustration and seems to win every time.  Tiddler has been woken by fireworks and is in bed with me now (at 11.30pm), chatting, and distracting me – he is quite good company though 🙂

{driving} to Reading for the #MMWellyWalk

{feeling} happy to see some very good friends again but wishing there was a different reason for the friendships

{enjoying} the beautiful surroundings of Beale Park

{listening} to wonderful music from Classical Babies, and my lovely friend who stood in at the last minute when they were a viola player down

{testing} Zu3D animation kits

{throwing} wellies

{eating} a very late roast dinner at Granny’s house after watching Strictly

{thinking} of Jennie this evening and remembering Matilda Mae xx

{snapshots} It turns out that Owl is very good at throwing wellies a long way.  This may or may not be a useful skill in the future, but today it won him a Kurio tablet!  He and Monkey have also been improving their stop motion animation skills with Zu3D, and are very excited to have received a Dinosaurs in Space kit to review.  Rabbit enjoyed the hook a duck, lucky dip and tombola stalls, and spent a long time (and most of Daddy’s money) making sure she won several prizes.  She and Tiddler also had lots of fun playing with some excellent toys, including Haba wooden ball track which they particularly loved.

{feeling} ill

{surviving} on lemsip

{playing} with our new Design and Drill set (review to follow)

{writing} Autumn poems

{eating} Middle Eastern Mezze for supper

{watching} Strictly (and loving Tiddler’s attempts to copy the dancing)

{snapshots} Tiddler enjoyed his football lesson with the big ones this morning – it’s nice to have an activity that all four of them can do together.  In other news, he wrote his name for the first time today.  Rabbit made a six day countdown Halloween “Advent” calendar yesterday.  Monkey has been writing various versions of his “Daily Odds” newspaper which is very funny, and definitely needs a blog post of its own.  Owl has been building ever more complex Lego structures, making use of his Technics pieces, and he really wants to do some more Lego animations – I need to learn how to do it so I can help him, as there’s never enough time when daddy is around.

{enjoying} the peace and quiet of an unexpected day at home alone and getting lots done, but not quite shaking off the feeling that whatever I do is not enough

{feeling} thankful but exhausted and unable to find the words to get things out of my head

{snapshots} Owl built two Lego Technics models without any help and modified one of them using the motor from his Lego train, Monkey read a bedtime story to the little ones, Rabbit did some lovely work on 3D shapes and Tiddler has built some really good train tracks.

{driving} to Watford, slowly on the M25 with a 40mph speed limit

{chatting} to bloggers at the Junior Scholars event this morning, while the children tried out some great toys and educational resources

{missing} the chance to meet up with Jax and feeling a little disappointed about that

{relaxing} with our cousins in the afternoon, playing in the park, foraging for more berries and then nipping back into town to visit the Lego shop, and Junior Scholars again

{arriving} home at half past nine and managing to do day 12 of the 30 day shred after 10pm – it was hard to get started but I felt amazing afterwards!

{snapshots} Owl can tie his own shoelaces, Monkey can wash his own hair, Rabbit can read more words than I realised and Tiddler can count to 22!

{recovering} from a busy week with a much needed lie-in this morning

{feeling} a bit more positive after a day of housework – the mess was getting me down

{managing} to complete 5 days of the 30 day shred so far

{drinking} Gin and Tonic – haven’t had one for ages, and I really enjoyed it!

{eating} a rather good bacon and bean stew (and wishing I’d made enough to have leftovers) followed by stewed apple with cinnamon and raisins, and custard

{reading} The Adventures of the Owl and the Pussycat (review to follow)

{snapshots} Owl made plastic yesterday, using milk and vinegar.  He wants to try it again, with food colouring next time.  Monkey, Rabbit and Tiddler played a very imaginative game this evening, inspired by the Owl and the Pussycat book.  They made a boat out of two chairs, a blanket sea, an island of cushions and a cave out of more chairs and another blanket.  They sailed to the island, encountering a pirate ship on the way and found some treasure in the cave.  This all took a very long time, so they were rather late to bed!