Tuesday 30 October 2012

Spiders and pumpkins and skeletons...

We continue to make Halloween decorations.  Betsy drew a scary face on her pumpkin, and I cut it out for her.  Freddie asked me to draw a face on his, and he cut it out.  They both look great!  They're on the table tonight, and we'll put them outside the door tomorrow evening.
The rest of our crafts come courtesy of pinterest.  Spider webs from black bin bags, and cute cone-shaped paper dolls and their Halloween costumes.  I also made some spooky shadow puppets but forgot to take photos.

Sunday 28 October 2012

Betsy's book

Betsy had an idea to make a book today.  She drew the pictures (except the horses.  They're mine, and not that great!).  She dictated the story and wrote it out for her (with a spelling mistake - oops).  

The Princess and the Horse by Betsy Fielding.


Friday 26 October 2012

Getting ready for Halloween!

The kids are very excited about Halloween.  Betsy has been counting down the days (after counting down the days to her birthday.  I'm guessing after this we'll be counting down to Christmas!).  This week we took down the birthday bunting and cards, and started to decorate the house with spooooooky things.
I had ordered a load of bits and bobs from Crafty Crocodiles, and we've been working our way through them.  First Betsy did some simple sewing with a pumpkin decoration.  You can just see it in the window!

I found some stickers I'd bought last year, and she used a white oil pastel and the stickers to make a scary picture.
We picked up a pompom bat kit in Hobbycraft last week, and she made all 5 of them with very little help from me.
She had planned to hang them up, but once they were dry she had more fun sellotaping them to an aeroplane, a police van and a balloon, and gave them rides around the living room.  Maybe we'll buy another pack to hang up.  We did hang up some other things though - a glow in the dark skeleton the size of Freddie, some plastic spiders, a big spooky window picture.  I'm planning on making a giant spider web from a bin bag thanks to pinterest!

While Betsy and I were busy, Freddie was playing with a super-stretchy skeleton, and a 3 headed dragon we bought that morning.  He put it in a cave and it battled some playmobil people, along with his allies.
I was going to make the kids capes for Halloween costumes (vampire for Fred, Little Red Riding Hood for Betsy) but I broke my sewing machine the other day *sigh*.  I took us to Tescos instead and picked up costumes for £5 each, way less than I would have spent on fabric.  Annoying!  Fred chose a vampire costume, and Betsy chose to be a bat.  We already have a Meg sized pumpkin suit I bought when Betsy was little.  I only managed to get a photo of the bat, the vampire ran off to Jarvis's house.
When Rob got home this evening he spotted the glow in the dark eye balls on the table.  Look!  Gruesome.
Meg has been ill again.  She's on steroids again.  The third time in, what, six weeks?  
This was earlier in the week.  She's better than that now, but still not right.  Grumpy, tired, pale, just not 100%.  Today she enjoyed sitting in a box for quite a long time.
It's been quite hard work really.  I'm glad it's the weekend.....




Monday 22 October 2012

The busy week...

The birthday celebrations continued.  We had a party at the home ed co-op, with streamers, games and food.  Betsy had really wanted a party, and it seemed to tick her boxes thank goodness.  Birthday parties is a bit of home ed for us that is much harder than for school kids, I think.  Most of the people we know live quite far away, and the group is much smaller than a class or two.
On Thursday it was the pony riding lesson.  There were more kids this week, so the instructor split the class into girls and boys, with the boys riding first.  I knew this might not work for either Freddie r Betsy but for some reason I didn't say anything, I didn't want to rock the boat I guess.  Freddie enjoyed his ride, and Betsy didn't seem to mind waiting, so I thought maybe it would be ok.  When it came to Betsy's turn, she realised that Freddie wouldn't be riding with her and she got upset.  If I'd only listened to my instinct!  She decided she's rather not ride without Freddie, and I arranged that they'd always ride in the same group from now on.
On Friday it was the Skylanders Giants release day.  Freddie hd been counting down for weeks!  We were expecting the game pack to be delivered from Amazon, plus he's preordered two extra figures from Game in town.  Game opened at 8am that morning, so we got up early (no mean feat here), and were back home in time for the delivery at 9.10am.  Freddie played happily, and Betsy painted a tea set she had for her birthday.
On Saturday Freddie hung out with Jarvis while the girls and I went to the park.  Betsy packed a picnic for her little stuffed husky dog and carried it in a back pack.  It was very sweet!
On Sunday Betsy had her last birthday celebration, a tea party with my folks and a couple of her local friends.  Rob did a game of pin the tail on the donkey, and a treasure hunt.  The kids played, and we chatted and ate.  It was lovely, though I am glad the birthday week is over.  I made 3 birthday cakes over the last few days.  Last year Betsy was very shy when it came to the candles and singing, and hid away at the top of the stairs.  This year she's had loads of candles and singing and didn't mind at all.  A year makes a huge difference.
Today we were going to go and sail paper boats on the big puddle in the park, but Meg's boots are in Stoke-On-Trent.  We went to the playground instead.
I span the big kids in this cool bowl-shaped roundabout.  I alternated between giving them 10 spins, and helping Meg on the slide and swing.  Freddie said '7 and 5 make 12 don't they?'.  I said yes and asked why.  He said 12 was their age added together, so could I spin 12 times instead of 10?  Maths in action!
Later, Betsy worked on a wind chimes craft set she got for her birthday.
Meg gradually seemed to become unwell today.  More of the same - off her food, runny nose, cough.  By 4pm she was miserable and fell asleep on the sofa.  When Rob got home I picked up the prescription for a steroid inhaler that the GP gave me on standby last week.  Looks like we'll be heading back to the doctor tomorrow.......


Tuesday 16 October 2012

Birthday

Betsy's 5th birthday today, celebrated with presents, a day out and cake.  I don't seem to have taken a photo of the Giant Barbie House now in our living room!
She opted for breakfast on her new quilt (rather than in bed), and enjoyed playing with her new Fuzzy Felt, sparkly necklace beads, and a Hama beads set.


Monday 15 October 2012

Talons and beaks and feathers

We went to the Birds of Prey Centre in Bedfordshire today.  My mum got bargain tickets on groupon for her, Chris and Freddie to do a half day hawk experience.  Me and the girls went along to watch.  We had to fit Meg's GP appointment in first, so we were in a bit of a hurry.  It poured down on the way there, plus we got lost, so we were a little late.  Unfortunately Freddie missed out on flying the small birds - he had a go with one but it didn't really land on him.
The rain had stopped by now so we went back outside for the next few birds.  Freddie loved watching them, and didn't mind that he couldn't handle these ones (you have to be 14+ to fly the big ones).
After a cup of tea, the group had a chance to handle an eagle.  Freddie held a beautiful Chilean Blue eagle.  He so so enjoyed it.  I loved watching him with this amazing bird.
He chatted to the handler for ages, talking about the shape of the beak, how they hunt, the Deadly 60 programmes.  Betsy, Meg and I went for a walk as they were getting restless, but mum told me afterwards that Freddie asked lots of interesting questions.
Betsy really enjoyed walking around looking at the birds, especially the different types of owls.  She was also interested by the many mole hills dotted around the place.
Mum and Chris treated us to lunch afterwards, and got the kids some toys from the gift shop. It was a real treat!
It's Betsy's birthday tomorrow.  The bunting is up.  The balloons would be too, but one burst as I was blowing it up.  Bloody hell it hurt my eye!  The quilt is wrapped.  I'm very happy with it and took a quick photo after I finished it the other day.....