Sing Ho!!!!!!!!

… for the life of a bear…. sing ho!!!!!!!!! for the expedition!!!!!!!!!

Heigh ho….

A year ago it would have truly delighted me to see Fran sit down and do a bundle of workbooks but now i find it really odd. She worked through most of a bundle of previously untouched ones today (yep Jax THOSE ones!) and while its obviously perfectly okay, good writing practise, blah blah, i found it slightly dispiriting to watch. Still nothing wrong with it. She said “Is this what you do at school mum?” and in trepidation i said “yes, a fair bit of it!” but she thought that sounded fairly boring. Odd really that she would then do a load more!

After that she played in the bath for ages, then she and i made a puppet dog together, then she did a load of Reader Rabbit and we finished the Killer Whale book

Moo was very unhappy at nursery today, not sure why :~( I feel bad for having made her go now.

Scruff still being a monkey – i apologise in advance for her behaviour at camp – feel free to let your children clonk her back!!!

Starting to get there with the list- only 12 things left on it now – unfortunately one of those is tax return and the other is pack – gulp. Still , the kids have home made colouring books, activity sheets and so on done – might laminate some mazes maybe.

Booked my hotel in Durham today – that IS organised!!!!

Kids are so weird!

My lot never last long in the snow- to be fair none of them are that well but they only made 15 minutes tops. Still they liked it and Scruff was most impressed by it – it was her first snow! The other two snowfought for the first time – i have a little camera clip of that but i don’t know how to upload it – still – prolly only interesting for mummies anyway!

Most of the morning passed in a blur of trying to get a plumber round and chatting to an occupational therapist. She was most excellent actually and is lending us a birth ball type thing and a rebounder on a long term loan for Moo – i like THAT kind of input! Moo’s is often much happier for a bit of a roll or bounce so it might help with more difficult days. Although has to be said that she is loads happier since CP. She’s also got a very cute haircut – like Julia Roberts in Hook.

Anyway, she went out, Scruff zonked (having only been cornered once today for violent offences) and Fran and i curled up in hat coats and gloves to play. (It was blooming freezing!) She did a sticker book of Barbies from round the world and we decided to do a couple of flag/atlas sticker books tomorrow, then did another Peter Rabbit one while i made colouring books for the weekend journey. We watched a Peter Rabbit video as she really wasn’t feeling up to much and had coughed all night and then she found a couple of Schofield and Sims workbooks and started a load of writing practice. (Odd really – she did lots of pen control ones but shied away from the letter and numbers.) Still she seemed to have fun. Finished off with a bit more of the killer whale book. When we got back she and Moo took it in turns to play Reader Rabbit thinking games. I love watching Moo play the cookie part – she is so methodical! Centre first, move along the rows, right every time – bless her.

I feel a bit weary of everyone being ill – it dampens the enjoyment. Still – more hols soon!

I now have heating

And sleet.

Delicious! or as Moo would say “bit-lish-ous.”

Oh bother

This will amaze you. (Or maybe not actually!) We have one and a half inches of snow and my letting agency has shut “due to the weather conditions”.

Un-bloody-believable.

So i have no heating, its snowy and i can get hold of anyone.

AND…AND… i had to have a hard drive removed last night as it was draining power from my writer and A drive and he’s taken it away to fix it and it has dreamweaver on it so i can’t upload the cute pics of the girls in the snow.

Hurumphf!

The January Review ;~)

Well – i would say that January has gone pretty well really, in fact i would say that everything has gone well since we became “official” as it were. The rhythm of the week seems to work okay, Moo seems to be enjoying nursery, flourishing in fact. Today she took her scrapbook in to show her keyworker (“She kills me that kid, really she does” quote unquote) and was s happy as larry when i picked her up. Not that you can have the faintest idea what goes on in her head really. When we got into the car at Centerparcs to come home she looked up and me and said in this really clipped, prim little voice “I don’t like holiday, i don’t like little holiday house and i don’t like to go swimming”. Nutter. I wouldn’t mind but she clearly DID like all those things :~D

Scruff has been somewhat less hideous today although i have a feeling i am in for a rough night with her. I don’t think she much likes being unpopular with the masses and she has been with all this hitting and hair pulling. She made me laugh yesterday when i was doing a in-a-hurry-so will-attempt-to-jam-babies-shoe-on-quickly-not do-it-in-less-time-by actually-undoing-the-laces frenzie – she gave me this disapproving look and said “Shoe Stuck Mummy”

I’ve just looked out the window and about 2 inches of snow has fallen. This is not particularly good as we have had to switch the boiler off – it sounds like it has an angry wasp in it. I’d prefer it not to blow up as i sleep right over it.

Today Fran spent a fair bit of time on Joe the Dragon multicount – thanks for that Alison. She really enjoyed the patterns the numbers made and got very absorbed. Apart from that we read The Whale and the Snail and the first half of her Killer Whale book and then did some more sand pictures in jars. We made a couple of large ones with shell beads in them which sort of worked. This evening i read some pooh bear and alice to Fran and Moo. Frans got an awful cough, poor little lady. She is dreadful at being ill, really milks it. Operations, no problem – snot? omg its pneumonia! Of course, i am not a very good role model, but i really was very sick!!!! rofl!!!

She is getting terribly cross cos she can’t read but doesn’t want to learn – its starting to be a pain as its becoming a source of “argh”- i think she wants me to put her “reading cd-rom ” into her brain or something! lol!

I’ve been purchasing merrily because i had a good xmas at BM and need to start stashing cash ofr having to pay tax after this – so far we have a elc order (smallish but “essential”) a BakerRoss order (smallest EVER!) a GummyLump order (cylinder blocks!) a science museum order (gooze) and tomorrow its going to be amazon.com courtesy of a nice american and s-cubed!!! (SHOCKING all round!) Still – i consider myself to have done ever so well as i haven’t ordered enough on any of them to qualify for free postage! lol!

Round the Universe and through time

*Gives self mental shake*

So, after a morning of tidying, snoozing, playing and doing the “Writing and Calculating” cd rom, Fran and i sat down to read one of her library books so we can take them back before Scotland. We looked at the Usborne Sun Moon and Stars one and read it all – very interesting. Excellent book actually. Various bits of chat came out of it – space, sunspots, Venus and Mars being visible (and the fact that i saw Mars on its closest night from the middle of Dartmoor which was fabulous), eclipses and so on. Also climates, gas and seasons. The picture of an Arizona crater reminded us of walknig with dinosaurs and the end of that series, so we watched a couple of episodes of that, talked more about poison gases and heavier/lighter in things we can’t see easily like gas and liquids, touched on volcanoes, mammals, reptiles, parenting in animals, extinction etc. After that we looked at some of the Mars landing pictures.

Then we finished off with revisiting the 2=2 20+20 thing with number cards and a base 10 set – went quite well actually. She got as far as building number into their 100′s with the base 10 set and seeing the bars, flats etc corresponded to different “sizes” of numbers.

Moo did a gorgeous weather sticking today – lovely i was!