Back with renewed energy!

I've enjoyed my blog break, but now I'm back!  It's still freezing, it keeps trying to snow, but spring is in the air at last.  

Since I last blogged, I've decided to step back from our regular group.  It was evolving into a more structured set-up, and that doesn't suit the kids.  We'll continue to meet up with the families we made friends with.

It changes the dynamic of our week, but that's no bad thing.  Thursdays have become our busy day, with pony riding and the opportunity to meet up with people at a National Trust deer park.  

Freddie and Betsy have both recently joined after school clubs.  Freddie is going to martial arts with two local friends and loves it, while Betsy has joined Rainbows and is very very happy too.  Big changes for us!

So, today.  Zoe and Billy came over today.  Billy likes Skylanders, so he and Freddie played for a while.  Freddie ordered a new giant yesterday - Thumpback - and it arrived today.

Betsy, Meg, Zoe and I played Pop to the Shops.  Freddie joined in with Thumpback!  It was quite hard to keep track of who was doing what.  Meg kept removing her piece from the board, knocking her money onto the floor, and changing her mind about what should be in her shopping baxket.  Freddie and Billy both came and went from the game, is was all very confusing!  In the end, Betsy won, so it was worth it.

After they left, Betsy asked me to draw around her.  We have a huge roll of paper that my step dad got from work, and is perfect for the job.

She added a dog to her picture.

Meg wanted to join in.

Tomorrow we're off to ThinkTank in Birmingham - time to get busy making lunches and getting clothes out ready for an early (to us) start.....

Another day at home

Meg's still unwell (worse today, back on the inhalers) so we had another day at home.  

Betsy had a marathon sleep and didn't get up until 11.30, so Freddie and I watched White Fang.  What a great film!  While we watched we chatted about the wild west, gold mining, animal cruelty and dog fighting, Native Americans, pioneers, wolves howling at the moon.

Later, I got Rob's childhood train set out.  Meg looked slightly interested, but in the end sat near the track holding a train and looking sorry for herself.

The Hexbugs came out for the first time in a while.  I need to buy a job lot of batteries for them.

Freddie got the microscope out.  I tried to get a drop of blood for him to look at, but despite me jabbing a pin in my finger a dozen times I didn't get any!

Games came into their own today, though to be fair they usually do here.  Betsy played World Of Zoo on the Wii.  They've unlocked all the animals now.  Freddie continued with Dragon Vale when Rob got home, as he has the Nexus during the day.

I need to plan another home day tomorrow.  Umm, painting, marble run, make a birthday card for my mum....I need inspiration!  Off to pinterest I go....

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.......

Painting without brushes

I pinned this yesterday, and loved the idea of putting out a load of different tools to paint with.  I thought it was right up Betsy's street.
I set it up once Meg was in bed having a nap (the amount of carnage she would wreak was too much for me!).

Betsy did enjoy it.  She painted two table lengths of wallpaper.  She especially liked printing with the cucumber and the washing up sponge.

I hung it up from the shelves when she'd finished, and she loves having it on display.  

I couldn't entice Freddie away from his new Wii game -  he bought Cars RaceORama and is busy winning races and unlocking additions to his cars.

Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin

Betsy and I made a three little pigs puppet set yesterday, inspired by this blog post at innerchildfun.  I offered her different materials to make the puppets from (card, felt or craft foam).  She liked the feel of the craft foam and chose that.
Betsy cut the straw and the sticks, and drew the bricks.  I helped with the pigs and the wolf, and she drew the eyes and mouths.
The play set turned out really well. We waited till today to play with it, once the glue was dry.
Freddie played the wolf, Betsy the pigs and I worked the houses.  I think we'll make another set, maybe the Billy Goats Gruff.

Freddie's been playing a lot of Dinosaur Strike on the Wii, with a spillover into us all playing fighting dinosaur games.  I have been defeated many many times!


I dug out some games that had been waiting for a moment of boredom.  The kids had a bendy straw building kit for christmas.  Freddie and I made a sort of double wheel with spokes.  It was one of those things that only diverts for 10 minutes, but seems to bring different elements of previous experiences together.


We played 3D snakes and ladders, and made some paper aeroplanes from the book I bought at the weekend.  


Betsy did some painting.  She said it was the best painting ever done in the world!

Our Grow Your Own Potatoes pack arrived last week.  This is our third year of doing it.  Today we put the seed potatoes on the window sill for chitting.

We just need to get some compost for planting them out in a couple of weeks time.  We'd better start thinking about the allotment soon too, growing season is fast approaching!

Longing for warmer weather

I'm feeling a bit meh about winter.  I usually feel this way in February, watching for signs of spring.  The days are longer now, which is very welcome, but I'd like a little warmth to go with it.


In the meantime, Freddie continues to play on the Wii *a lot*, and Betsy has been baking *a lot*.


Mum came over one day last week with a Dora the Explorer baking magazine.  I came with a Dora plate and some muffin cases.

Betsy was very excited and we made the muffins from the recipe inside.  Well, sort of.  We added cocoa powder as Betsy will only bake chocolate items!

We baked a few more chocolaty treats over the next few days.


We have this childrens cook book.  It's got a good brownies recipe in it, that isn't too rich.

We don't often use it for much else, but we tried a couple of the other recipes.


First up, biscuits.  They were meant to be ginger, but we ditched the spice and added cocoa!

They were very tasty.  Betsy cut out lot of hearts in honour of Valentines Day.  She wanted to do the dinosaurs for Freddie, and the 2s for her.

The next day we made a cake, from the same recipe book.

It's meant to be a sandwich cake, but as Betsy (and Freddie ) don't like icing or frosting or anything like that we made one layer only and left it plain.

It was delicious!


We did manage to get out of the door today.  It's been difficult - Meg's been sick, it's been so cold and the lure of the fire has been too much to resist.  But this morning the sun was shining, it was slightly less cold so we went to the playground.


The ice on the canal is slowly thawing.  Today we noticed lots of cracks and puddles.

We fed some very hungry ducks.

The playground was empty, which surprised me as it's half term.

We headed to the supermarket to pick up some batteries for the Wii remote (an essential purchase!) and stopped at the cafe there for a mid morning pick me up.  Meg made a break for the kitchen but I caught her before she got in a pickle.  Freddie and Betsy had their Costa snacks of choice (Freddie - biscotti, Betsy - chocolate brownie).  I may have eaten a caramel shortbread....

Although it was cold and windy, I was so happy to be in the sunshine!   Roll on the spring.