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Archive : October 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
Site of the week
I recently discovered this site and I have to say I'm really impressed. It's basically a site full of interactive games, videos and worksheets in all subjects (maths, the arts, language arts, thinking games, science, social learning and social studies) and covers pre-k through grade 6.
It's entirely free to register but if you don't like the ads you can pay a subscription for around £4.00 per month - to be honest, the ads didn't bother us.
One of the nice touches about this site (apart from the quality activities!) is the Beehive a sort of social chat-zone+ (I say + because there are actually extra activities there, it's not just a chat area). Your child's bee also has their own "cell" (not prison cell - it's a beehive remember *laughs*) which they can decorate and furnish with points they get from playing games.
A really lovely site which we're having lots of fun with :)
Kindergarten maths:
Grade 6 science:
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Pictures from our day and a file :)
We are having a fun Halloween/Autumn theme to our work at the moment. April did pumpkin addition - she had to glue the right number of small pumpkins on the large pumpkin worksheet I made her. Then she had to add them up and write the answer in:
She's also been doing some leaf rubbing with the set I made her the other day and sorting the leaf shapes - I made ours from craft foam :)
I've been introducing Rosie to the idea of algebra ... sloooowwly! We've been looking at function machines and I came up with a rather cute Halloween version of this - creepy spider web functions!
The file I made for this game is below - instructions are provided and you will need to have some dice handy. It's a nice idea (although not essential as you can just think up rules as you go along) to have some "rule cards" made up in advance, you can just write some by hand or (as I did) print some off at Mathwire.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Halloween Masks
The kids made Halloween paper plate masks today and I think they turned out really nice! :)
They decorated them with allsorts - April added ears to hers and Rosie used embroidery thread for hair and twirled some green paper round a pencil to make the top of her pumpkin.
Here they are:
Rosie's witch - I loved this!
... and her pumpkin
April made a cat - here she is with Rosie
... and a giraffe - very cute!
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Leaf rubbing activity
I got the idea for this activity from here, but instead of using rubbing plates I wanted to use real leaves. However, that gives us 2 problems - firstly April gets frustrated when the leaf slides around under the paper and secondly if you put a bunch of leaves in a basket then they are going to get tatty pretty quick.
To get round these, I cut squares of stiff card and then glued the leaves onto them. With a couple I had to weight them down while they dried because they kept curling up but once dry they were perfect. I then put everything in a basket (leaf rubbing cards, squares of paper cut to the right size and some Stockmar block crayons) ready to use.
April hasn't had a chance to use it yet but I had a quick go and they come out pretty good :)
Monday, October 19, 2009
Autumn cards
Here is a set of Autumn Things 3 part cards - print 2 copies and cut off the name labels on 1 set. Laminate if you want. Enjoy :)
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Chemistry calamities
Rosie, adorable though she is, is THE most clumsy of children (takes after her daddy who is the most clumsy of adults!). Hence, I approached our chemistry lesson today with a fair amount of trepidation. It was the first one we have done involving a spirit burner. Gulp.
My desire is to allow her to do the work herself but also keep a close eye on her. Despite doing this, we still had an accident. She SOMEHOW managed to let go of the tongs in which she was holding a test tube of hot water and sodium sulphate which bounced off the floor, splashed everywhere and caused me to shriek in horror and her to start flapping her arms about.
Now, sodium sulphate is generally considered non-toxic but it can be an irritant and that, combined with the hot water, potential of broken glass AND the burner still going induced complete panic for a second.
Luckily, I'm capable of regaining my equilibrium more quickly than Rosie so I sent her away, stuck a glass over the burner to put it out, grabbed the test tube (thankfully not broken) and mopped the floor clean. Phew.
Think I might leave the chemistry for a bit .... would delegate the job to Tim but like I said, he can be worse than her and the possibility for horror situations doesn't bare thinking about ....
So that's that. Over on NOT homeschool I've been writing about cute halloween costumes and "fun" with gas explosions. Can you have fun with a gas explosion? Probably definately not.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Off we go then :)
Since this is now an entirely homeschool related blog, I thought I would do a new thing whereby, maybe once a week, I share a favourite educational link of ours.
I'm not going to blurb on about these - just let you go explore for yourself :)
This week it's the Molecular Workbench - a collection of interactive simulations and learning activities. They are divided into biology, physics, chemistry, biotechnology and nanotechnology. We have been particularly enjoying the Tree of Life under biology.
Friday, October 16, 2009
The NOT homeschool blog
I'm well aware that my readership generally divides into those that are fellow homeschoolers and enjoy the homeschool related posts and those who aren't and just enjoy the general stuff. Of course, I'm sure there's some cross-over occasionally!
Anyway, I've decided to start a separate, non-homeschool related blog and keep this one for purely homeschool things - I like the idea of keeping stuff separate and the people who like the general things don't have to be bored rigid with the homeschool posts and vice-versa! You with me so far? *laughs*
Soooo, if you mostly want to read homeschool posts stay here. If you mostly want to read general posts go here (or the link at the top of the page!) - nothing is passworded, just go right ahead. I did try something like this before and had it passworded by Bravenet but I didn't like the layout and the lack of flexibility so this time I decided to code it myself (without the password) - I like to be in control of my own pages!
Obviously, you're more than welcome to read both although the homeschool blog is, by it's very nature, going to be more .... ahem ... restrained ;)
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Hemmy and Katie
Maybe Hemmy's getting himself a girlfriend - she's a might-be stray that comes into our garden. I say, might be because we know who she is. Her name is Katie and we first met her about 6 years ago when we first moved into this house and she was a kitten and her owners came into our garden looking for her. Well for the last few months she's been coming into our garden and ... er.. sort of staying there. At one point she looked quite tatty and we're wondering if her owners haven't moved and either abandoned her or she's run away and come back here. Anyway, we've been giving her a bit of food and water and she's started to look better.
Anyway, she and Hemmy largely ignore each other but that is better than they used to be when Hem used to chase her out the garden! Perhaps he has decided he rather fancies her although I'm not sure he can because he hasn't ... ahem ... got the necessary bits and pieces and I guess that stops him from from finding her desirable!
The thing about these two is that they look very, very similar! I've had a few occasions when they've been in the garden at the same time and I've had to do a double take!
Right, enough of this blogging stuff today - I've got some tidying up to do and this evening, once the kids are in bed, I'm going to have some lovely alone time because Tim has a church choir practice to do :)
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Problem solved
My maths issue with Rosie has been sorted ..... I've happened upon some Montessori albums with work for older kids (including algebra!) so, as we've used Montessori maths with her in the past, it makes sense to continue now I've found the lesson albums I need. We are still going to do little bits of maths notebooking though as it's so fun but Montessori will be the backbone of our maths lessons.
In homeschool today, April did a new activity - addition! I'd set up a little game for her with the conkers (sorry for the bad photo!). Basically, you have 3 little pots, addition and equals signs on card and a pile of 10 conkers (or whatever objects you want!). You also need a set of sums to complete - here, because it's her first attempt, we did 1 + 3 =, 1 + 8 = and so on (essentially, 1 + something!)
Yout set up the game with an empty pot - plus sign - empty pot - equals sign - empty pot. Then, you look at the sum - say 1 + 5 = and proceed as per my fantastic diagram! This demonstrates, in a very concrete way, the act of "putting together" (adding!) the 2 sets of objects.
Here's April using the game - she enjoyed it hugely :)
So what else .... Rosie went to trampoline class yesterday (actually, we all went and Tim took April in the swing park). Rosie's VERY nearly at the stage where she's ready to do somersaults - teacher is taking her time because she needs to be really "ready" before attempting it as it can be dangerous. She says Rosie seems to take a while to "get" something and then it will suddenly click and she doesn't look back. Yep, I'd say that was true!
Rosie also had an orthodontist appointment yesterday. She's got to have braces top and bottom and they will be fitted in November - she's got to have some other work first including removing a baby tooth that she still has from one side. What's really odd about this tooth is that she has NO adult tooth underneath! They're going to extract it and then let the braces close up the gap. Want to know something even more odd? Tim has FIVE baby teeth still remaining and no adult teeth underneath! Awww bless him, how cute! *laughs*. Dentist said that it is hereditary apparently - I guess, unlike Tim, Rosie won't be hanging on to hers. Remains to be seen if April has any of these now but she hasn't starting losing any yet so we don't know.
Anyway, must get on now ...... oh, just one thing - remember what I said the other day about Tim always getting lucky with the weather on his day off? Well, he's gone back to work today and taken the gloom and chilliness and grey cloud with him - *giggles* they must LOVE him there!
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
... and another post!
Look at this gorgeous sky! - took this a little earlier this evening. You only ever seem to get evening skies like this in the Autumn ..... absolutely beautiful :)
I have a problem .... a maths problem. Y'see, every now and again I like to take a look at our homeschool programme and figure out if everything is still ok. At the moment, it pretty much is apart from Rosie and her maths.
I had her list all her favourite stuff and her favourite ways of learning and here's what we ended up with:
- Lapbooks
- Drawing/painting
- Science
- Nature Study
- Experiments
- Writing things on the computer
What she doesn't like:
- Workbooks
- Pointless maths (not sure what she means by pointless!)
The thing is, I have NO idea how to get her to do her maths in a way which she will enjoy given that she hates workbooks and doesn't like maths in general! We do use a little Montessori stuff with her and also I make some notebooking type things but that is not "complete" enough and I'm concerned about her having gaps in her education.
I keep looking at the 2 lists and thinking, thinking, thinking how to work her maths into what she DOES like ........
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Tis done
Oh god I'm soooo tired! Got up really early this morning so I could re-paint April's room and I've worked on it all day and just finished putting everything back. Now, it has to be said that this was not a full redecorating job and the room is pretty small which is why I got it all done. I didn't do the ceiling or anything just literally re-painted the walls to try and cover up the green pen. I say "try" because it wasn't entirely successful - see this bit above Tigger's head (and a little to the left)? This was after about 6 coats!
Luckily, I've been able to cover up the worst bits with the Winnie the Pooh stickarounds that she insisted I put back up but there are still some bits showing :(
She is also not best pleased because her walls were originally pink (her favourite colour) and because she had to have whatever paint I had in the garage, she ended up with pale peach. It looks magnolia in the pictures but it definately is soft, light peach.
I've got to say, it looks really lovely in there now and I took the opportunity to rearrange the furniture into a more pleasing layout AND hang up her coat hook which we've had lying around for ages and not done:
Cute eh? .... buuuuzzz :)
Monday, October 12, 2009
Many conkers!
It was a wonderfully sunny warm day today (Tim ALWAYS get's amazingly lucky with the weather on his days off) and, as I've got to spend the day decorating April's room tomorrow, we decided to go for a walk. We went into Christchurch because they have THE most brilliant conker trees near the priory carpark :)
First, we wandered down to the river to feed the ducks and there was some old man waffling on his mobile (very loudly!) ..... thought no more of it. A while later we went down to the harbour and there was the same old man again shouting into his mobile (by this time Tim and I were sniggering). We wandered around for a bit looking at boats and swans and stuff and then slowly made our way back to the carpark via the Priory churchyard. We got back to the carpark and guess what? The old man was there STILL bellowing into his phone! Of course, we now burst out laughing especially since his conversation included (honestly) "I'M JUST WALKING ALONG NOW!!!" and we were wondering if it was the same conversation. Tim said maybe he'd just got a mobile for the first time and was excitedly calling everyone he knew *laughs* His wife or whoever he was with looked a bit embarrased!
Anyway, we hunted around on the grassy bit in the middle of the carpark and found absolutely stacks of conkers :) I also got donked on the head by one falling from a tree which hurt a bit! We came home with a big bagful ..... beautiful colours!
We've stuck some of these on the window ledges to keep the spiders out (they hate them), some have gone on our nature table and the rest April is playing with and we're using for autumn maths manipulatives.
Rosie went to Guides tonight and came home with a leaflet about a 24 hour camp next year (not until August) - she's really excited!
Off to crash in front of the telly now .... wish me luck with the decorating - I've been known to drop entire tins of paint of the floor in the past .............
Monday, October 12, 2009
Publishing on Lulu
Rather than making myself redundant *laughs*, I've decided to carry on publishing/selling my materials but I'm going to do it through Lulu. This will make it much easier to upload the files and keep track of who's brought them AND my finances! Also, when someone buys a file they get an automatic download link to it rather than me having to physically email them the file - obviously this reduces the time I have to spend sending things to ...umm.. nothing. This sounds like I'm being terribly lazy but it is, in fact, better for the purchaser - some people's email boxes just can't handle the size of the files and I got a lot of bouncing emails. This way ALL customers will receive their purchase instantly without a problem.
It's going to take me a day or two to get all my files listed but you can still go and see - the first (introduction to the periodic table of elements) is here.
Spread the word please? :)
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Lovely green felt tip
April was clearly a bit bored today and decided to ... ahem... decorate her bedroom - with a green felt tip pen. Luckily, it's mainly limited to one wall but even so it looks terrible :( I guess I'm going to have to rummage around in the garage, find some spare paint and get decorating. I'm all for encouraging free creativity in my kids but I'm VERY intolerant of this kind of "I'm bored so I think I'll just scribble on the wall" kind of stuff. She has access to loads of paper, collage stuff, glue, paint ... everything - there was no need for the graffiti.
Another silly thing she did was to, apparently, drink some bubble mixture (!!) She SAID that the bubbles blew into her mouth when she was blowing them outside but judging by the amount of the stuff round her face I'd say she decided to have a little sip. Mad. So, she spent a while feeling a bit sick and being forced to drink gallons of water by me. Honestly, the mind boggles.
Apart from that, today has been pretty quiet. I turned a pair of old (much loved!) jeans into a skirt - they were soooo holey on the knees that I just couldn't get away with wearing them any more so I just went for it. I thought that if it went wrong then it wouldn't make any difference because I wasn't wearing them anyway but it actually looks really good :) Will get a picture when i've got some new camera batteries.
Also found a notice in our local newspaper today that they are starting a branch of the Young Archaeologists Club in Poole Museum. This is something I think Rosie would love but, unfortunately, it's on a Saturday morning and Tim works then and I don't drive. The bus service from our little town is pretty shoddy and, in any case, it's for 2 hours and it would leave me wandering around with April for the whole time with not much to do! It's quite annoying because it's only once a month and I think that, surely, Tim could change his days with someone just that one time a month so that he could be around to take her. I've mentioned this to him before though and he always says "oh I don't think I could because I was employed to do Saturdays". Maybe I'm missing something important but I actually don't see how that matters (he was originally employed to work on Sundays too but they don't do Sundays any more!) but he won't even ask. I'm sure Richard or whoever it is that deals with these things would be happy to sort something out if it was at all possible but I guess we'll never know. Annoying because Rosie would love it.
Anyway, off now to get some clothes ironed and whatnot - we're going round Tim's mums tonight for dinner as it's his sisters birthday (or was on the 8th).
Byeeee for now :)
Thursday, October 08, 2009
We got rhythm :)
Oh yes! And it feels good! We started this school year pretty well but we've had to make a few minor alterations to curriculum and whatnot along the way which have resulted in things being a bit ... bitty, if you see what I mean? However, we've finally got into our groove and things are just going swimmingly :)
Here are a few piccies from our homeschool day today (Rosie cunningly managed to avoid the camera but I did get a picture of her science experiment!)
April's back with the Montessori beads! First she counted and numbered them:
..... then she filled in a bead worksheet, traced the numbers and coloured the beads the right colours. She went off first and collected all the right coloured pens and laid them out next to the beads before she started. She's nothing if not methodical ;)
She also did the autumn initial sound file folder game I made. Tbh, she's beyond initial sounds now (see below!) but this was fun for her. Check out the appalling mess she's working in! The Lego! The books! (including one of her much loved Richard Scarry books).
Now for the proper reading :) We're using Starfall but I've adapted it slightly to make it more how we like it. I cut up the workbook they give you and made some of the pictures into word matching cards and the rest I gave her so that she could make a word book (see below). Here she is working with the word/picture cards after practicing with the reading book. Being only 4 I wouldn't be particularly bothered if she wasn't reading much yet but she's picking up a lot of phonetic and sight words pretty easily:
Now here's the little blank word book for short "a" I made her with the first page done. Her writing is getting rather good :)
Fractions! That is, fraction pieces turned into dragons (apparently) ... and why not? :)
Finally, Rosies's experiment:
We are doing physics with Rosie properly for the first time this year (and chemistry for that matter!) Up to now, we've just done nature study and she's learned so much about the natural world around her. This is just my opinion but, with science, I think that's how it should be - I cannot for the life of me work out why they teach stuff like physics to really young kids when I'm pretty sure they don't a) understand what the heck is going on and b) enjoy it very much!
She did this today and we BOTH really enjoyed it! She's starting right at the start with the basics and today we did about air pressure. You can see in the picture how we put the funnel in the flask and stuck plastecine all round the neck. Then, Rosie poured water in the funnel and ... it kind of stayed there, which is when I took the picture. Having been particularly hopeless at physics at school and never given the subject a vast amount of thought since, this even amazed me (doesn't take much does it? *laughs*) Of course, when she took the plastecine off, the water poured through. She was so taken with it that she did it several times and it was just incredibly lovely to watch AND she understood WHY it was happening. Had I done this with her a few years ago, she might have enjoyed the fun of it but almost certainly wouldn't have "got" why it happened like that.
Y'know what? I might even start to enjoy the subject myself - my physics
teacher at school never inspired me much. He was an ANCIENT, tweed
wearing, terribly posh and pompous old so and so who thought he was
side-splittingly funny but was in fact just tedious. He used to call me
Topsy for some reason best known to him and which I'm not going to dwell
on and used to look at my work, sigh in an over exaggerated way and
THROW my exercise book in the bin in front of me! Charming! We did kind
of understand each other in the end though - I couldn't bear the subject
and didn't make any effort and he just gave up trying to make me make an
effort - he just seemed tired and old and past it. I left secondary
school with my mind fully made up that anybody who is "into" physics
must be a boring old fart ..... but I'm quite sure that can't be true 
Anyway, after the kids finished their work today they disappeared off outside in the sunshine and blew bubbles for a bit and since it was so windy they wafted all round our neighbours houses to give them something pretty to look at :)
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
A parting of ways
I think my days of producing educational materials (at least for sale at any rate) have ended. Me and business just don't get on *laughs*. The problem is, as I put in a blog post a while back, I can't do my stuff as pdf any more because it gets stolen and fobbed off as being made by someone else. However, having attempted to try the other way recently (sellings as pre-printed) I can see that, that isn't necessarily going to work either as it just requires SO much of my time to produce and is incredibly expensive.
It's problematic as it was a handy source of extra income - ok, not a lot but certainly enough to mean that I could pay for the kids homeschool stuff myself (what I didn't make for them obviously!) rather than having to go to Tim for the money all the time which I LOATHED doing.
I'm not a particularly business-minded person anyway - at least not from the point of view of "being in charge" and I'm hopeless with the money side of it as I lose track too easily (a few months back I was doing incredibly well with sales but, rather embarrasingly, I've got nothing to show for it now). It's weird "shrugs", I was always a brilliant secretary - deeply organised, terribly efficient, could deal easily with accounts and whatnot - you'd THINK that would mean I could cope with running my own particular little show, but no. Obvisouly not! I'm better at "looking after" Mr Boss than being one myself I think!
This is not a cry-baby, self pitying thing, I'm just being realistic. It does leave me with a couple of quandries though - firstly, I'm not going to have any pennies any more! (that does want to make me cry if I'm honest!) and secondly, what on EARTH am I going to do with the folders and folders FULL of Montessori pdf stuff I have?!
Part of me wants to stick the whole lot in the recycle bin and hit delete but I'm not going to do that - too many years of hard work there!
I'm still going to do the free stuff because I like making things and it's fun. I'm not so bothered if those things get nicked .... not sure why, should bother me but it doesn't! Talking of which, I've been re-organising the Box.net account and added descriptions to things to make them easier to find. Will also be updating the materials page SOMETIME soon.
Anyway, what else today apart from my work-related decisions? Well, we've had HUGE amounts of birds flocking around our feeders! Not a minute goes past without someone shouting "hey! a robin ... or a blue tit .... or a nuthatch ... or a dunnock!" or whatever. Tim even noticed a rather cheeky dunnock perched on the tailgate of the car and peering in at us through the living room window! I had to go out in the rain today and refill all the feeders all the time being eyed up by a big fat pigeon who then attempted to get food out of the feeder hung on the washing line! Of course he was much too big and just ended up making an arse of himself before flying off looking rather crestfallen!
Finally, me and April have had a quiet afternoon as Tim took Rosie to her trampoline class and it was too rainy for the swing park. April, decided to have a little pretend tea party with her toys and I took a picture which I then played around with in Photoshop and gave it this rather nice drawing effect and put it in black and white - quite sweet I think :)
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Pumpkin cvc words
Here, as promised, is the little pumpkin word game I made. You need to print, laminate if you want and then cut along the zig-zag line down the middle to make puzzles. I also wrote the correct word on the back of the picture side so that April could check herself to see if she was right.
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Bizarre bird feeders and lovely friends
I received a wonderful surprise in the post today :)
All this (apart from the Special K!) came from my unbelievably lovely and generous friend Nats .... maybe she read my last post and thought I was in need of a little surprise - the cat was gorgeous and the choccy and tea was EXACTLY what I needed *laughs* ... how could she know? ;) Whatever the reason ... THANK YOU Nats! x Jingle (as I've called the cat) has now taken pride of place up next to my pute :)
Yesterday (after the tedious start!) things got a little better and I cleaned out our birdfeeder which hangs outside the kitchen window and refilled it with fresh seed. Within minutes the thing was swarming (although I don't think that's the right term - should it be flocking?) with Nuthatches and Blue Tits. Some birds (like Dunnocks and Robins) won't use the feeders and need a bird table so I decided to try and construct something. I happened upon our old mini-barbecue ... hmmm. I stuck it on an old table - again, near the kitchen window so I can watch - and sort of decorated it with branches to make it more bird friendly. It looked ridiculous but I was rather proud of my inventiveness :) Then I put some food on the bottom tray and waited .....
This morning an inquisitive little robin turned up, looked at it as if to say "erm... what on earth?" but then seemed to take to it :) I grabbed a quick picture - not very clear as it was through the glass of the patio door but you can just see him stood on that branch at the back:
Other stuff - Rosie thoroughly enjoyed the Guide campfire last night - she said it was hilarious because the marshmallows kept bursting into flames! I'm just in the middle of making a cute pumpkin word match up game for April but will post it here when I'm done. In fact, I've got a load of materials which I need to list but I been sooo lazy!
Monday, October 05, 2009
Monday morning, in which ....
...... we get mad because it's properly raining for the first time in WEEKS on the VERY day that Rosie is going to a camp fire thing with Guides. Perfect.
...... I get mad because April gives me no end of grief during her lesson time - she kept rocking back and forth on her chair causing the following "little chat":
Me: April stop rocking on the chair.
April: Why?
Me: Because you might tip back and hurt yourself
April: (still rocking) so?
Me: Do you want to hurt yourself?
April: (still rocking) I won't
Me: You might and that wouldn't be nice would it?
April: (still rocking says nothing)
Me: (through gritted teeth) STOP rocking
April: (still rocking) why?
Me: BECAUSE YOU'RE ANNOYING ME!!
Good god!
..... I stubbed my toe on the bed. Again. I think my toe is now completely dead.
..... Rosie shows me up by working out a maths sum that I am (temporarily) having a total mental block about.
Tim is quite lucky that he went into work this morning and missed all this stuff. I think if he'd been home to witness his (let's face it) grouchy wife, I'd have probably got a ticking off by now *laughs*.
I'm kind of hoping that the afternoon will be a little better! Off now for Options chocolate drink - always handy to have around in high stress days! Oh, and borrow one of Tim's jumpers to warm up a bit - I always look waaay cuter than he does in them anway ;)
Added later: decided to have a more autumnal blog look (had to since it's my favourite season!) so made a cute new logo picture in Photoshop :) I'm slightly not happy as, despite changing the code for the main text colour in the rest of the blog, it's stubbornly staying black! *Confused*.
Friday, October 02, 2009
Cooking and sewing
Mmmm, what a creative day :) I finished off my "cat" - he's called Ramses and I got the pattern here. To be honest, mine has not turned out quite so well and April says he looks like a bear! I did do something a little different with mine in that I half filled him with toy stuffing and half with dried chamomile flowers which smell lovely and are supposed to help you nod off. I should have given him to my insomniac husband in the hopes that he might get a puuuurrfect (*groans*) night's sleep. However, April seems to have adopted him so I guess I'll have to make another.
Anyhow, here he is ..... he's a bit ..umm.... weird! I also took some short cuts with the sewing which is naughty, naughty ;)
I also baked today - firstly apple crumble cake. This is a first for me but it turned out very yummy - the topping (dark brown sugar, oats and cinnamon), in my opinion, could have been left off. It tastes nice but is soooo messy!
I also made cheese scones - now I LOVE these (remember them being about the only thing my mum ever made that vaguely resembled anything edible). Tim enjoyed them (or at least he SAID he did - he could have been trying to humour me), Rosie ate them but said she was confused because she's used to them being sweet (doesn't take much to baffle my kids eh?). April made so many disgusted noises and had so many coughing fits, you would have thought I'd fed her arsenic for her tea *rolls eyes*.
Right, off now to get the kids in bed, have dinner and then settle down to sigh over Chris Packham - sorry! did I say that? I meant enjoy the beautiful nature - in Autumnwatch. Actually, the beautiful nature is what I love - I've been looking forward to this for ages! :)
Thursday, October 01, 2009
I'm still in September
Holy cow, I wish I had something interesting to blog about but I don't! Things have been a bit quiet since Rosie's birthday - in fact, a bit slumpy. I actually still have September's calendar page up! Yep, I'm THAT slumpy!
I tend to go through a bit of a phase like this every year - end of summer, real start of Autumn. I actually LOVE autumn but, for some reason, i always get a bit dragged down to start with. I'll soon pick up though :)
Trying to work in some hobby time at the moment amongst the homeschooling and housework stuff - I'm making a cat right now (funny looking thing!), will post him when he's done.
See archive index for other posts