Max, his dad and his brother have gone to watch some rugby somewhere, so i’ve had a day at home with the kids. All of the big girls have got a musical theatre exams coming up, so we’ve practised that. They each have to do a poem with actions and then they have to sing a song with some dance moves to it too. Fran does the actions to her poem beautifully (i love watching her dance now, she is so graceful and starting to have a very different body shape, there is just no “little girl left” and the effect is stunning) but needs to really work on the speaking, Maddy sings her song beautifully but has an idea of the dance in her head, can’t quite do it and won’t accept any help from us, which is frustrating. Fran choreographed some steps for her which are just fab, but Maddy got upset. Oh well.

Anyway, we worked on it all for ages; Fran wants to sing “Colours of the Wind”, which is challenging to say the least, but Maddy and Amelie are both doing “If i only had a Brain.” I helped Amelie do her dance and she does look rather fab doing it; being able to drop into the splits is a definite advantage. She has a little poem about the sea, Maddy is doing the first verse of The Jumblies and Fran is doing a Flower Fairy poem about a Primrose. All that took up a couple of hours.

This morning we bummed about and then spent ages working on writing out names and addresses until they were neat (and in some cases until they knew them!) I’m fed up of seeing names scrawled on things that come home from groups It was time well spent anyway, they seemed to quite like having a set task to achieve.

This afternoon i read endless poems, mainly Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll, then Fran read some out and then i read an Usborne shortened version of Macbeth to them. As Fran had finished The Goblet of Fire this morning (and shot into my bed before daylight with fright at Cedric’s demise!), we quite like the parallel between Voldemort’s rebirth and the figures rising out of the witches cauldron. I’m quite impressed with her reading it in a week; see what a tv ban can do!!!! The Macbeth reading came about from me using the “Double, double…” speech as an example of clear speaking or changing your voice to make something funny or scary. I think the story lost Maddy, but Fran seemed to enjoy it.

Now i have to cook tea; apparently i told Amelie that i  would turn into a pumpkin if i cooked twice in one day. We’re about to find out if it is true….

There are a lot of balls in the air… i’m dropping about 1 a day – and i don’t like it.

I’d love to do a long and lovely post about trying to run a business that turns over what ours now turns over – but i can’t. I will be taking in work experience HE kids in the near future though

The kids have been banned from TV and computers except Education City for a week, for not tellnig the tyurth, not doing as they are asked and being utterly rubbish at getting organised for dancing. I think when their own stupid behaviour resulted in Max and i having a screaming row in front of them, it finally began to sink in that taking from 9am to 3.30pm to assemble 8 pairs of shoes, 3 dancing dresses and 3 sets of musical theatre outfits but only in fact finding 5 pairs of shoes, 2 dresses, 2 pairs of leggings and 1 dirty t-shirt, was a bit crap.

Apparently though, it was my fault for coming home at 3.40pm instead of 3.30pm. If only i’d been home that 10 minutes earlier, they’d all have been ready NOT.

So that was last Friday; if they manage to get to dancing on time, with all the right things tomorrow, they can have their tv back. Although, in all honesty, i’d rather they didn’t. They’ve been much nicer to be around this week; i blame Tracy Beaker Mind you, like i say, they have to get there with all the right things. I’m not holding my breath.

This week Fran has got most of the way through The Goblet of Fire, written a decently written and punctuated story (after we wept blood, swear and saline over it and nearly came to blows), her test date for The Academy has come through (conveniently at the same time she needs to be at Addenbrookes in Cambridge), she has finished the Yr 5 maths level on EC and moved on to Yr 6 (not before time, most of it was too easy but she needed to practise a few bits), done a fair bit of music but got into trouble in her lesson today for not actually practising the things she’d been asked for. She’s been worknig fairly consistently at anything asked for her, but perhaps not with that much grace. Hormones approaching i fear

I’m looking forward to Xmas being over and my sabbatical from work, so i can enjoy some topics with them all again but for now, just having them working away on simple things, reading and doing arty stuff suits me fine; everyone is fairly happy that way and brain cells are ticking. It isn’t perfect, but we’ve pretty much decided on a plan of action for next year now and it will mean i am more or less always at home i think. I’m looking forward to that.

Maddy is her normal busy self; her guitar is really coming on, she is reading Enid Blyton happily and just being her normal occupied little self. I really want to do more art with her next year. She got a huge sense of completion from finishing her literacy level on EC. She was still on yr 2 as she was so far from reading last time we used it; once i discovered she was repeatedly doing a section that expected her to spell things like cholera, chaos, mechanical and then various other wh- and ph- words of dubious use, i helped her finish it so she could gloat at a full box of gold stars and moved her on (What Yr 2 child needs to spell cholera, i ask you?) She’s already half way through the Yr 3 level.

Amelie is doing similar. She insists she can’t read but actually reads really quite well and is happily working away at her levels. She was delighted to get a new, larger violin from Josiah this week but then promptly freaked out. She was okay after her lesson today though; i’ve not been supervising any of them well enough though – just not got time at the moment – and i feel bad about that. Thank you to Sarah and Joe for the violin though – just lovely

Other than that, just ordinary stuff; they do have all their groups, so even when i am being rubbish about going out and doing stuff, i know they have that. I want HE to be more interesting though – and as of January, it will be.

Oh – but we DID have a very special moment all together on the floor of the kitchen today… i finally shot down Gulliver!!!!!

There is not masses to say at the moment except that even if we aren’t doing anything flash, we’re doing a damn site better than we were doing this time last year. Kids are working, playing, dancing, music-ing, reading, writing, crafting, drawing and being and we’re mainly trying to oversea the packing of parcels – at least they aren’t in our house and i’m doing admin at 2am, not packing.

Today Fran had her first gym competition; luckily her gym is only round the corner from work as i absolutely HAD to work but her coach rather sweetly let her carry a phone around with her and gave her 10 minute warnings so i could nip back to see her; i managed to see her do the beam and the floor. I felt awful for not being there the whole time but she was very understanding about it all.

She’s only been in Novice for 6 weeks or so but she’d learned the Level One routines; nothing fancy, nothing amazing but having primed her for being much less able than others who have been there ages and not to get upset, it was good to see that she certainly appeared to have it all under her belt. She looked very calm and poised. I thought she did great on the beam; it was a simple routine, nothing much more complex than a forward role, some balances and some turns and a jump off but she looked very elegant and together. I can imagine her liking doing that, she has always had great balance.

Rubbish photos as no flashes were allowed but for posterity anyway.

She also did great on the floor; i wish i could do this!

She was being very good, but increasingly disappointed as the medals were given out and she hadn’t won any; her group of about 12 had an otherwise even spread of them – but then she got Silver for Beam. She was SO excited, she nearly flew on to the podium

The coach spent quite a while chatting to me about them, we were lurking in a “fellow business owner” fashion during the medal ceremony and he was telling me his thoughts on all 3 of them. He thinks Fran’s strength is her power (which i’ve always known, i remember the look she got from the first coach she ever had on her first run up to a vault!) and thinks she’ll do well. I hope so, she looked very at home there.

Josie was extremely thrilled this week when we bought her a sub to Education City;i put her on the nursery level (lots of rhymes, some letters and numbers and basic computer skills) and she has loved it all week. I think it is mainly the opportunity to do some “education maffs” that appeals to her but they’ve all indulged her thoroughly and helped her do bits, or joined in. It has been very cute indeed.

We had an uneventful week i think but then on Friday, Fran and Maddy went off on Brownie camp, Fran’s 4th (and last as a Brownie but i’ll be an owl by next year and hopefully she’ll be able to pop in and see everyone) and Maddy’s second. I went for the first evening and helped set up as Grey Owl had concussion and i wanted to be willing; ended up wishing i had stayed all weekend really as it had a great atmosphere. The theme was Victorian Christmas, so we decorated and then took them carol singing around the village; i’ve not had a chance to talk much to them about it yet, but i think they had a lovely time. Amelie and Josie spent the weekend with my parents, mainly with my Dad and have come home very happy and very tired.

Max and i spent the weekend working on BM/PM (i think it is really PM now, the beads are rather squeezed out these days!) It is busy (cue instant retail death) but seems to be running smoothly; staff are happy, it is mostly quite organised and we’re keeping on top. But we are sending out well in excess of 250 parcels a day now, which is quite scary. We are already more than 25% busier than we ever got last Xmas and the big weeks are probably still to come, though i think people are spreading their spending more this year (not me, i haven’t started!) We got lots done, enjoyed working together and it felt positive. If we can just bring ourselves to believe we can definitely trust it to keep going (and this economic climate makes that scary) we really could work together so well because our skills complement each others perfectly. I can’t believe the GBP/Euro price; i’ve got 1 supplier i have to pay in Euros now and i’ve just been watching the cost of the bill rise by the day….

Speaking of such things, i don’t often do this any more but if you want an unusual doll for a present, i heartily recommend these Rubens Barn dolls; i absolutely adore them. I can honestly say i have never seen dolls so loved in this house. Josie and AMelie take their everywhere, sleep with them, play with them and love them. The are wearing beautifully; for dolls  that spend every night in bed with thme, they still look lovely and the hair isn’t matting at all. They are so soft, have such adorable faces and really seem like friends. So hard to explain unless you see them, but they are incredibly personable. I find them charming.

I’ve just bought up the last stock of my UK supplier so i’ve got quite a few (at a good price) which i’m passing on and lots of thme have discounts or a free one attached. Honestly, i don’t do mad plugs any more, but if you are at a loss for a present, i really do recommend them. The mid range ones are lovely, the smallest are cute but harder to interact with and the big ones sit on your hip like a toddler. Try one, they are just SO beautiful. The new ones are ones i’ve imported specially from Sweden, the loveliest in the range i think but blame the Euro rate for the difference in price

rubens barn

Anyway, what else. Oh yes, Max and i went to see the Bond; i’m not a huge Bond fan, except for the history of them being such a THING but i loved it (stupid theme tune though) – and was glued to it. Enjoyed every moment. Love Daniel Craig as Bond and loved the Bourne-ness of it, the darkness and thought the plot more than adequate. Enjoyed the idea of his character developing and becoming more and thought they set the stall out for a more modern day set of Bonds to come. 9/10 from me

Fran started in April (i think) and in total has had 12 lessons now (i think) as that 6 months has included the summer holidays. She’s taught herself this, this week, which feels like a great thing to me, because i very quickly turned into a “do the bare minimum to suffice” type of music player and never did anything for fun like this. I’m really proud of her. It certainly isn’t perfect, but then she has probably only played it 15 times or so and some of it is the first time she has used certain notes.