Critters

I haven't mentioned the weather much.  It's been much more interesting than usual.  Lots of hail, thunder, fabulous downpours.  We've spent a lot of time looking out of the window, enjoying the drama of it.
It has meant much less time outside.  We got to the skate park this morning, and planned some time there and at the playground further into the park, but we got rained on so came home again.

Before that, we'd been to the pet shop to buy some pond weed for the tadpoles.  We looked at the fish and reptiles, rabbits and guinea pigs, gerbils and hamsters.  We're in the market for a new hamster as Whitey died a couple of weeks ago.  I think we'll get one next week.

At home the kids checked on the tadpoles and gave them their new plant.  They're noticeably bigger now, but no sign of any back legs yet.

I saw this great idea the other day on pinterest, where you put yarn out for the birds to use in their nests.  Meg helped put the yarn in the feeder cage, and we hung it outside.  I really hope the birds use some of it.

Putting things up

Rob spent most of the day replacing a bit of leaky guttering. It ended up being very complicated, and took 3 trips to Wickes. He was not happy!


Meanwhile I put up a house for the kids with one of the play frames, the granny stripe blanket, and two wraps. They loved it.




And then........

Freddie accidently pulled down the curtain track. Whoops. Another thing for Rob to put up!

A trying day

Meg has been a very unhappy baby today. She's been in my arms or on my back pretty much all day.

It makes it difficult to anything with the bigger two, so we made the most of any quiet moments we had.

Freddie made some playdough pancakes.


We created more volcanos and used up our stock of food colouring and vinegar!



Freddie did some of the writing and sticker questions in a Cbeebies Halloween magazine (and it came with these supercool scary glasses):


Jarvis came over after school, and they played Skylanders on the computer.


Rob gets home from work around 7.30, and Freddie and Betsy love getting some time with him. Tonight they played with lego while I popped to the shop, and folded some washing.

I'm glad it's Saturday tomorrow, and Rob will be home. I hope Meg will be feeling better.

Experiments

Today is our home ed co-op day. We went to Sujoyas for a quick play and picnic lunch before heading to the village hall.

Some us of had brought along science experiments and activities. Freddie and Betsy love making bicarb and vinegar volcanos, so we volunteered to do that. We brought some food colouring along and messed about making different coloured lava.



Joelle did something interesting with milk, food colouring and washing up liquid. I haven't a clue what she was doing, I'll ask her next time I see her!


Meg is teething and coming down with a cold so is a bit of a clingon at the moment. She did hang out with her baby buddies for a while though.

Later at home Freddie worked on some play dough and tried to play Skyrangers on the pc (it keeps crashing for some reason, very frustrating). When Rob got home he and Freddie insulated the worms with leaves, as it's getting pretty cold at night now. We went for a spooky dark walk around the block with the torch, and with Betsy in the wrap as she is scared of the dark.

Finally back to normal

This week we were free to leave the house, no longer contagious - hooray!

Monday was just bliss. Freddie did an impression of someone who was doing nothing:

In fact he was totally occupied - listening to a story on a CD, and observing the birds to-ing and fro-ing at the bird feeder.

Once his CD was finished we popped into town to run a couple of errands. The kids played in the fountains.

After lunch we went for a walk down the tow path. It seems we saw everything we'd missed in the previous week, all in a couple of hours! Moorhen chicks (tiny, fluffy, black, the cutest things), ducklings, an orange/yellow ladybird with no spots, a red kite flying low, a pair of dragonflys with unusual markings on their wings, huge fish basking in the warm water, and we picked half a small white (empty) egg and some iridescent duck feathers.

Freddie chatted to the fishermen we passed. There were 3, each fishing differently from each other. One sat on the bank, waiting for a bite, one was fly fishing, and one was walking along pulling his line through the water.


We stopped at the playground, had a play and an ice cream.


Later, at home, we were going to use this abandoned traffic cone in a police game.

But when I picked it up, there was an ants nest underneath. It was incredible - we could see the tunnels and the eggs. The ants went crazy. There were regular ants and flying ants. The white things at the bottom of the photo are the eggs. There were small one and bigger ones. We guessed the bigger ones were the flying ants, but must look it up.

After a while I replaced the cone and left them in peace.


Later in the week we went to the Buckinghamshire Goat Centre. There are goats of course, rhea, sheep, ferrets, guinea pigs, rabbits, hens, pigs, ponies, a donkey, a llama, chipmonks.

They had all sorts of activities on. Freddie held a week old guniea pig[let]. We watched a ferret race. We all helped feed some lambs and kids their milk.


The kids bounced, slid, swung and played in the playground.




Meg spent a lot of her time power crawling, and the rest of the time here:


On the way out as walked round the last field, Freddie spotted a goat had got itself caught in the fence. He ran back to tell the manager. It took her a few minutes to free the goat, as it had got its head caught twice somehow.

Here is the goat, free and happy!

Our holiday in the forest

We went to Center Parcs in Sherwood Forest, with Rob's mum and dad. I didn't really know what to expect, and was totally bowled over by the location. It was beautiful!

Close to our cabin was a lake, a stream, a couple of waterfalls, and the place was teeming with wildlife. As soon as we arrived, a young swan called by to let us know we were expected to feed our neighbourhood wildfowl.

The swan was soon joined by an older swan pair, some ducks, moorhens and their chicks, rabbits and squirrels. It felt like we were in a Disney forest (tra la la la la!).

Pretty much as soon as we were settled, Rob took the big kids swimming. They loved it! The pool had a waterslide for young children, a boat rapids waterslide that is really fast and enormous fun, a wave machine, all sorts. They went swimming every day, mostly with Rob.

On Tuesday it was Gerry's 79th birthday. We went out for dinner, to Strada. Betsy ate nothing, had a bit of a meltdown and left early with Rob. Freddie ate gralic bread and some chips. I hope one day eating out gets easier.



Wednesday was busy busy busy. Mave and I went to the spa. Mave had a head and shoulder massage, and I had a manicure. Lovely.

We got back in time to see Rob have a falconry session. It was amazing. He handled 5 birds - a barn owl, a buzzard, a caracara, a kookaburra and a bird we can't remember


Freddie loved it too, and was fascinated by the whole thing. Afterwards he said it was much more excting than he thought it would be.



After that we played crazy golf. Freddie and Betsy raced around superfast. Mave and Gerry took it a little more seriously.


Next up was a mooch around the lake on a pedalo.



Then the kids played in the playground. There were swings:


climbing frames:
very exciting water engineering set-ups:
and icecream:

Meg spent her time getting round either on the front of my bike (shame on us for taking no photos of this, she loved it), or in a wrap. Granny got to push Meg a couple of times in the buggy too.

Thursday we missed a thunder storm as we were bowling.

We left on Friday afternoon, after a marathon swimming session for F and B and a toodle around the village for M.

We had a brilliant time. We'd taken lots of food so didn't spend too much in the expensive shop. The activities on offer were fab. We've booked for next year (very kindly paid for by my in laws) so I think we'll book activities slowly over the year to spread the cost. Can't wait!