Winter

The first day of December, and it's frosty, cold and most definitely winter.  

Eric the Elf arrived with the advent calendar, we're looking forward to seeing what he gets up to over the next few weeks.

All the autumn things have been put away until next September.  The nature tray is quite empty, waiting for us to make some new wintery additions.  We have painted some wooden snowmen and Christmas trees so we've put them in now.

I wanted a new jam jar lantern as the autumn leaf one has gone away, so Betsy and I cut up some jewel-coloured acetate sheets and Mod Podged them onto a huge jar I'd squirreled away.  It looks beautiful.

Rob's making chilli jam for Christmas hampers, tomorrow we're getting some outdoor lights for the front of the house.  Love love love December!  And it's my mum's birthday today - happy birthday mum! xxx

Feeling better

Meg was much better today thank goodness.  We actually made it out of the house this afternoon, running some errands in town and stopping at the playground on the way home.
It was cold and frosty, and the winter sun was low in the sky.  We found some ice near the slide and all three spent some time breaking it, picking it up, watching it melt in warm hands.  Betsy made a nest for her little piece!

I downloaded a stop motion app to my phone last night, so this morning Freddie made his first animated film.  I was camera operator, he was creative director!  6 seconds of dino gold...

He followed it up with a sequel:

I think we'll have a lot of fun with it.

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....

A chink of light

It's been quite a tricky day.  Meg, miserable.  Betsy, unwell this morning though thankfully better this afternoon.  Freddie, bored and wanting me to play with him.
An order of glow in the dark Hama-type beads arrived this afternoon, so Betsy and I made a couple of patterns and we got the black light out.  A fun hour in a long day!

 Betsy has a glow in the dark dummy!

Tonic water glows in UV light (no gin, sadly).

The girls had a glow stick bath while Freddie played his current favourite game on the Nexus (Dragon Vale, he's building a village and hatching dragon eggs).

Back again!

I took an unscheduled blog break there!  We got a microscope, Meg was ill again, the kids did pony care at the stables when it was too wet to ride, lots of things I've forgotten now.  Whoops.
Now it's nearly December.  I'm crafting madly for Christmas, and planning Elf on the Shelf shenanigans, and advent activities.  I love this time of year.
Today has been a very relaxed affair.  I had hoped to go to a new group nearby but Meg woke up with a very runny nose and a case of the grumps.  So we stayed in a did lots of cool things.
Betsy has been asking about knitting for a few days, so I suggested we try finger knitting.  I did it using her fingers and between us we made a short scarf for her dog.

Betsy also did some sewing using one of her sewing cards.  I told her that the needle should go up and then down, and she drew herself a diagram as a reminder.  Brilliant!

All three kids did a foil art craft, borrowed from Jarvis next door.  They all enjoyed it, at the same time.  This doesn't happen all that often, and I loved it!  I've ordered our own kit so we can make some more.

Freddie played a game with the Playmobil people, involving a lizard, a shark, parrots and pirates.  I filmed it for him, he loves doing this.  I'll stick it on youtube later.  Meg watched it on my phone a few times, she was fascinated.

Freddie looked through the boxes upstairs to find something to do, and stumbled across the science box I put together recently.  He wanted to make a potato clock, and chose a sound experiments kit.
The potato clock is ace.  He chose to use apples.  He stuck the wires in as directed, and hey presto!  An edible battery.

Then we got to work on the sound experiments.  First he measured and cut some plastic tubes to make panpipes. We saw some musicians in town last week playing panpipes, so this was a cool connection to that.

And just because I can, here's a quick video of the panpipes in action!

Unfortunately, by the end of the day Betsy was feeling rough.  Two sick kids, I'm tired just thinking about it...

To the zoo (again)

We met up with a home edding family at the zoo again today.  It was a wet day, so the zoo was pretty quiet.  We hung out at the play centre for a couple of hours before heading over to the Discovery Centre.  We had it almost entirely to ourselves.

The boa constrictor was more active than usual, unfurling itself to show us how long it is.  It was following the kids fingers on the glass, and actually knocked its head on the glass.  It was a bit intimidating!

Meg liked looking at the turtles, and we saw a green anaconda, the crocodiles and lots of butterflies   The leaf cutter ant colony has gone though, which is a shame.

When we got to the activity at the end, there was a chameleon to look at, and the keeper to answer our questions.  The chameleon was 6 months old, and the egg she'd hatched out of was tiny.

I'm very excited - when we got home the blacklight had arrived!  The batteries are charging now so we can have lots of UV fun tomorrow evening.

Two playgrounds

I took Meg to the doctors again this morning.  She's had a rash for a week and it looked really horrible.  Turns out she has shingles.  Shingles!  The steroids seem to be the culprit, lowering her immune system which triggered the dormant virus to reactivate.  Poor Meg, it's hard to pick her up as she's in some pain on one side of her body.  Time to start building her resistance up, thank goodness she's still breast feeding.

I was able to take her to the GP without Freddie and Betsy as Rob had the day off.  They went to town and Fred had a haircut.  After lunch, we went to Wycombe Rye, a gorgeous park with a lido, a river, a mill and two playgrounds.

The autumn colours were spectacular, even on a gloomy grey afternoon.

The first playground is your standard metal framed play equipment set up.  Swings, slides, climbing frames, that kind of thing.

After the kids had had enough there we walked along to the next playground, past the very pretty mill.

The playground is set under the trees, and made of wood.  It has a network of raised wooden platforms and rope bridges, and lends itself to all sorts of games.  

We spent much longer here.  We played a game where Freddie was a dinosaur to be captured, Betsy was a puppy, Rob was a dinosaur catcher.  Lots of fun!  We watched some teenagers doing the most amazing acrobatic feats on the outdoor sunken trampolines, somersaults and all sorts. The kids span on a very fast little roundabout.

We walked back to the car park along the river as dusk was falling.

Rob is taking *all* of the kids to his parents tomorrow.  My first night not in the same building as Meg.  I'm staying home to reorganise the entire bloody house.  I'm itching to get started!  But also worried about my Meg.  I anticipate a huge nursing session on her return on Sunday....