Archive for the 'Home-ed' Category

into the realms of Sylvanian Families….

Published
by
pixieminx
on August 11, 2007
in Generally, Home-ed and Trips-out
. 2 Comments

we had a nice day today :-)

We all got up a little earlier than usual and mooched about all doing different things - except Hermionie who wanted to do whatever anyone else was doing! Natalie has been drawing some lovely chalk pictures - inspired by SMart - she drew a fruit bowl and lot’s of yummy fruit in it then she moved onto playing with her Moonsand and sculpting a ‘cliff’ out of it. Both Hermionie & Natalie spent some time on the LeapPad and the many books we have for it (excellent for ‘educating them’ on the sly :-)). We checked the caterpillars and all but one has now turned into chrysalises, some are still twitching which freaks me out!!!! We also seemed to have gained a bright neon green-ish caterpillar from somewhere - I can only assume that there where eggs on the cabbage we were putting in and it’s hatched??? - still need to try and find one of those cheap netting laundry pop-up hampers to put them in - our little 12″ x 12″ isn’t the nicest surrounding for the butterfly’s to emerge into. Girls played outside for a bit.

Anyway… we offed out to Fareham Town Centre today, which we haven’t visited for a while - more little independent shops have closed (and a few larger ones!!) - it’s beginning to look just like any other High Street, just like Chichester now does and Petersfield is going that way too! - Grrrrrrrrrr …so yes, Fareham - had a McDonalds (naughty - but always get them grilled fresh - so nice!), Alex took kids to look around Woolies (more transformer oogling me thinks!) while I tried to find more educational book goodness in WHSmith and found a pack of Horrible Histoies Sticker Books (6 of them!) for just less than a fiver - who doesn’t love a good sticker book from which to remember a cunning fact or two?  :lol: - saw lot’s of other lovely book goodness but me don’t like paying full price so always take a quick snap on my mobile of the cover and will scour the charity shops and school fetes for bargain copies!!

Both girls had taken some of their piggy bank money (we don’t give them pocket money - yet!) to treat themselves with - Natalie saw some lovely horse & princess figures in ELC, not much really going on in Woolies for them so after a quick trip to Boots to buy budegt blusher & lippie with my Boots Advantage Points, and a feet check in Clarks (OMG they both have bigger feet than I thought - must go shoe hunting in the loft!!) … we popped off to Toys r Us (another diversionary tactic from Alex to see if they have had any more Transformer deliveries  :roll: ) - anyway - Hermionie chose the Peppa Pig Swings to go with her ever-increasing Peppa Collection and Natalie spent 3/4 hour int he Sylvanian Families aisle doing all sorts of sums about what she could afford - but more importantly how much money would be left for another day :roll: ) - so…onto the slippery slope of Sylvanian Families we go with a Nursery and a baby something-or-other (I’m awful - I really should pay attention - shouldn’t I?) to go in it - I think I know what’s going to be on a certain 7-year old Christmas list this year!

Came home and made pizzas for dinner - kids (well mainly Hermionie!) watched some Peppa Pig whilst playing with her new bits and Natalie was trying to make a Nursery out of an old box (drawing wallpaper and making slides out of cardboard).

That’ll do me for now - nite!

Another lovely Summer’s Day

Published
by
pixieminx
on August 10, 2007
in Generally, Home-ed and Macs
. 0 Comments

All up earlier than usual to go round and babysit J&K. Alex had to go off and leave me with the four kids most of the morning - but they were all great and played very nicely together 85% of the time!!!

The littlies (Hermionie (2) & K (3)) played the usual babies, picnics & dressing up whilst the biggies (Natalie (7) & J (6)) PS2′d and tried to infiltrate the babies game with the littlies. Natalie made up a fruit festival in J’s room - not quite sure what that entailed but they were all drawing fruit commanded by Natalie (exerting her leadership skills :-) ) who stuck them on the walls later for when S came home.

Kids had lunch in the garden and some fresh air play in the gorgeous sun then S came home - tried to show her how to use iPhoto but since I’ve known S - she’s never been one-with-the-computers bless her! - will have to coach her! Dropped off some of Natalie’s old clothes for K who was super impressed!

Got home just after 2pm and Natalie watched ROAR while boo (Hermionie) whinged for a bit (tired - but stubborn!!) I decided to take them to the library for Natalie to finish off the Big Wild Read - which I left her doing with the librarian while I watched over Hermionie & the entire box of Connors Toy Library Bits (it’s a library hun - we don’t come for the toys - what is it with other kids toys that keep mine so fascinated when they don’t really seem to ‘play’ with their own?) and rifled through all the lovely 5p each kids books for sale ( :-) ) - only came away with 11 this time, plus some Kipper & Wibbly pig (who must be referred to as Arnold - ‘cos Hermionie thinks it’s Arnold from Kipper!) books for Hermionie.

NanP  popped into the library to surprise us - I think Natalie finished the Big Wild Read thing OK - I forgot to check  :oops:  we’re supposed to go collect her medal in September I think??

Got home where Alex & GDadP were waiting for us. I had emptied the pool earlier and watered all green life possible with the water so it was time to fill it up again for the girls - lovely sunny afternoon for it!

Natalie, NanP & I tried to salvage what sunflower seeds we could from our strange 5-headed 2 foot high ‘Giant Sunflowers’.

Alex & I popped to Tesco due to the lack of foodstuffs for dinner around, NanP watched and played with the girls (while GDadP snoozed :-) )came home and had an impromptu little BBQ with Nan & GDad P. Girls had had lot’s of fun, swinging, in the pool, trampolining and building an impressive looking ‘farm’ in the sand pit with stones, shells & bits - all with NanP!!!

Lot’s of trampolining after Dinner and Alex joined them!!!!! - I think he’s only ever been on it once or twice! - I remember when both Alex & I were on it and we were in danger of needing it to be re-inforced!! - Alex jumped so hard it sent me flying!!!! So Girls & Alex had a good rough ‘n tumble session on the trampoline - until Alex got kicked in the head by Natalie (accidentally).

Tidied up the garden, got kids sorted - NanP read them a couple of books and put them to bed - both very tired I think, but after a good day. Arranged another 3 night sleepover for Natalie with them soon.

Lovely day :-)

Rant - of sorts

Published
by
pixieminx
on August 9, 2007
in Generally and Home-ed
. 1 Comment

Good job i’m not on a blog ring - lot’s sparadic retrospective postings! (just aleterd the date stamps!)

We seem to be ticking along ok - Alex & I have lot’s going on with fall out of our business and money troubles blah blah but who doesn’t?

I have feeling guilty about the lack of formal works especially writing with Natalie but she’s always asking questions - i’m sure that’s the best way she learns - at her own pace. She notices things I wouldn’t even dream of - we still need to finish off this year’s books though :evil: - although it’s more my sanity than anything else.

Still a bit nervous about educating autonomously - truly autonomous - how can Natalie learn maths autonomously??

Anyway the weather’s lovely at the moment and ‘offically’ it is the summer holiday - so we’ll try and hold off with the negative guilty thinking until at least September.  :lol:

More caterpillars

Published
by
pixieminx
on August 7, 2007
in Generally and Home-ed
. 0 Comments

I got downstairs to finding rotting potatoes in the kitchen cupboard which sparked off a spot of spring cleaning in the kitchen that lasted about 3 hours!!! - all clean now. :razz:  Anthea would be proud of me!

Alex tooks girls to Tesco for a top-up of bits (again - doesn’t it seem we’re always bl**dy there!), then came home to drop off and set off again for toys’ r us - to look at new transformers?? (don’t ask me why - it’s a boy thing) by then I’d started on Hermionie’s pit where she had emptied every item of clothing she owns onto the floor and had unfolded them all - thanks hun! Sorted lots of clothes out! And culled alot of toys - should help pay the mortgage!

Moved more of Hermionie’s stuff into Natalie’s rooms (mainly books).

We all popped of to S&G’s to say hi.

Came home and had pizzas and rice for dinner while kids (Alex being one of them!) watched ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ (so not my cup of t!).

Natalie told me that 5 of the Cabbage white’s have turned in chrysalises’. Gave S some caterpillars from our cabbage patch to do the life-cycle thing again in her big pavilion net with J&K. While we’re on it - we have released our butterflies (all except 2) and now have cabbage white caterpillars happily munching through what is left of my neglected cabbages as are the rabbits! We also have a cabbage looper caterpillar (a moth I think?). The stick insects are growing well, one male has shed his skin, although I’m not too sure about the look of his wings?? - will have to google that one.
Watched Holby & Heroes.

Another Sunny Day

Published
by
pixieminx
on August 5, 2007
in Generally, Home-ed and Macs
. 0 Comments

The sun’s here again!!! :razz:

Alex did a car boot sale (so don’t envy him having to get up early!!!)

Girls spent morning watching The Slammer and some other CBBC stuff (which is the current trend at the moment - usually they watch ROAR, SMart, Blue Peter and the Slammer if they’re on :roll: )

They spent the afternoon in the pool/sand garden with lots of thirst-quenching ice-poles.

2007-08-05_12-27-14.jpg 2007-08-05_12-38-04.jpg

Natalie read lot’s of books last night and is more than ready to finish off her Big Wild Read at the library.

Alex & I nipped out leaving GDadF babysitting for an hour to pick up Hermionie’s new bed - a bargain! (from eBay!) and set it up in Natalie’s room - both kiddies in one room - sleepless nights ahead then! It’s just temporary until we figure something out - like whether we might be able to keep the house and whether it’s worth doing anything here.

I spent ages cleaning Natalie’s room before the additional bed move-in - Hermionie really did a number on that room, Polly Pocket mixed with Bratz mixed with Barbie mixed with Baby Bits mixed with clothes mixed with books - ugh! - all sorted now though :razz: one of those jobs that’s been bugging me for a couple of weeks now - everytime I’ve had to enter that pit - it’s been brief - if something needed putting in there - sod doing it carefully - just throw it in!!!!!!

Natalie also has a strange habit of stuffing all sorts of items down the sides of her mattress - books, dirty pyjamas (which she really doesn’t need ‘cos she always ends up taking them off and sleeping in just her pants! (OT Hermionie now says pantsees for pants - v. cute!)) - also toys, a sonic screwdriver, bouncy balls, hair clips and ties, and so on…..

Anyhoo, finished it all and Hermionie was very pleased with it - have had to put a big blue bean bag between the 2 bed, in-case Hermionie forgets where she is in the middle of the night and ends p on the floor - won’t last long though - it’s a pain in the bum trying to clamber on a bean-bag to get to the beds!! She went to sleep almost right away - only problem is I can’t kiss her goodnight - I’ll have to get a stool so I’m tall enough to reach over and kiss her.

Natalie & I have had the Hedrin treatment due to this:

2007-08-05_13-30-13.jpg

agggggggh!!!!! - thought home-education would mean a big goodbye to little bu**ers - but no - Natalie’s and my hair seem to be the perfect breeding ground. Doctor only gave us a 150ml bottle though - so I suspect I’ll be phoning later to get another bottle to finish the second application - need to order some soapnuts - apparently headlice don’t like it - we use tea-tree (with lavender) to spray our hair before detangling but I don’t think it has deterred them so far!

Alex & I watched more Heroes and now he’s tired bless ‘im and here I’m sat blogging and getting far too carried away with reading Apple-related rss feeds like appleinsider, macgadget, macnn etc, all those home-ed blogs and some flickr-ing.

Nite all.

Normal…ish service resumed….

Published
by
pixieminx
on July 23, 2007
in Generally, Home-ed, Pregnancy and Trips-out
. 5 Comments

So, the bleeding turned out to be the start of a complete miscarriage.

:cry:

Not much to say really, having lost baby no 2 (Kaitlin), I don’t see this as being ‘quite as bad’ as that experience. I sound so blasé about it but I’m not - inside I really am not - but I’m sitting here at the other end of the past week having survived - so on with life. We’ll try again - soon - and pray (something I don’t often do but really should start!) that we can have a healthy 3rd addition to our family.

Over the past week we have:

• Visited S&G (you didn’t see that one coming did you?) - (((hugs))) to S&G for looking after the girls and putting up with us. Their butterfly’s have hatched (10/10 sothat’s not bad!) and have been released. We acquired a home for our chrysalis’ and they are still waiting to hatch. We have also gained what looks like a Cabbage Looper Caterpillar - found him in the garden when I was pulling weeds (and supposed to be resting yes I know…) out of the back garden (which over the past weeks has transformed into the back garden from hell!), he is in a lovely little jar (with airholes!!) munching on cabbages and getting very fat! Their loft is all finished now so I’m all jealous about the fact they now have a house twice as big as us! :mrgreen:

• Natalie had her last Brownie session for the term at Queen Elizabeth Country Park on Thursday 20th - she also got enrolled - so now she’s a fully fledged Brownie with lot’s of badges for me to attempt to sew on her sash over the break. She managed to remember the Promise word-for-word and had a lovely time with all her Brownie & Rainbow friends. :mrgreen:

• Natalie, Alex & I went to see Twelfth Night at the Chichester Festival Theatre on Thursday 19th (Hermionie stayed with Nan&GDad P for some Nanny-Time!) - not as good as Midsummer Night’s Dream (I think that’s just because I studied Midsummer Night’s Dream a bit more at school so was more familiar with it) but seeing Patrick Stewart rolling on the floor in cross-gartered in yellow stockings ‘meowing’ was not a sight to be missed. Poor Natalie - I wanted to introduce her to the theatre & Shakespeare - don’t think Twelfth Night was the best way to do it! - a bit heavy for her I think but still, she coped fantastically with having to sit relatively still and quiet (and not be able to ask questions every 2 seconds!) for 2 1/2 hours - think the huge cup of sweeties after the interval helped! :lol:

• Visited the hospital on Friday 20th for a check-up & scan to see if my body managed to cope with miscarriage itself and not need a d&c (which I probably would have refused anyway!), which it has so Yay for that I suppose … anyway… took the girls with us and while we were waiting Natalie was purusing through the leaflets and turned to me and said ‘Mummy….what’s an STD?’ :roll:  made the others ladies in the waiting room laugh and left me with an awkward silence whilst trying to figure out how to answer.

• Saturday 21st found us at Ford Cumberland for English Heritage’s National Archaeology Event there. We went last and it was fantastic, this year was just as good - although there were a few bits missing that they had last year - we missed the blacksmith and bronze man, the old fashioned scuba-diver in the tank and the cave-painting but this year there was still enough to keep us busy. Natalie had a go at an archaeological dig and processed her finds afterwards, spent ages looking through very powerful microscopes at pollen and seeds and cave-man poo to see what we can learn about our surrounding area and about what cave-men ate, knocked a couple of stained glass paintings (ok, they were only glass-paints on acetate!), spent alot of time watching the alchemist perform his experiments - creating fire, making blood, making posion - turning something red into something yellow, making it froth and then made it fizz a bit! (I kept asking him what he was using but he kept referring to the ingredients in old language and never broke character so no go there then - will have to Google it - there was definitely vinegar involved though!) He also had a baby dragon in a jar - which Natalie kindly informed him that it was indeed a Large Prickly Stick-Insect that he had pulled 2 legs off! :mrgreen: - These experiments were not as groos (and dangerous!) as they sound and they kept a huge crowd of kids quite entertained for a long time! Natalie also felted a pebble. Hermionie & I ground grains into flour on rocks. We all had a go at making some clay pots. We wtached the Roman Gladiators fighting for a while - Natalie joined in and slayed a few! We all spent ages in the tents there looking at animal bones, sorting pigs jaws & teeth, tring to assemble a fox’ skeleton, determining the ages of trees, looking at aerial survey photos that appear to stand up through a device whose name escapes me right now - it’s a-something-oscope I think! There was just so much educational content for all of us (with the possible exception of Hermionie, who bless her, at only 2 years old - she could only really grind flour and play with clay!) and everyone around was very enthusiastic about helping the kids discover something new and pass on their knowledge…and did I mention it was free!! Excellent.

• Sunday 22nd found us back at Fort Cumberland for the 2nd day of English Heritage’s National Archaeology Event there. It was so good, we went back with S,G,K&J. Repeat of yesterday with a good dose of kids larking around on the grass!

Add in doses of DS’ing, drawing, DVD-watching, Education-City & playing with J&K.

and so to Today - Monday. Spent a quiet morning with the kids playing My Little Pony’s, I took the girls out for a MacDonalds and a look around MFI, Homebase and Town for some ideas on the soon-to-overhauled-bedrooms. We picked up some bargains in Primark and I spent some of my gift certificates in Boots. More Education City for Natalie in the evening.

Bored now. Bye!

Flying Ants all around…..

Published
by
pixieminx
on July 15, 2007
in Generally and Home-ed
. 0 Comments

Large cracks of thunder and pelting rain, followed by sunshine with lot’s of flying ants - guess it’s Summer then!

Natalie has been doing lots in her busy books, crosswords and number puzzles, also PS2-ing on Cars that she borrowed from J and we all watched Cars.

Hermionie called me a princess when she found a wedding photo of Alex & I (that GDad F had left out after looking through the filing cabinet for his papers - hmmmmm really must go check up on well he’ tidied’ up after himself!!), she said it so innocently and matter-of-factly ...’that Daddy, that Mummy, you pincess Mummy’ - thank you sweetie - you made my day. :razz:

Alex attempted poached eggs with toast for Lunch for him and the girls - went down a treat! (with help from Delia! - never got on with her recipes - is it just me or is the ‘Delia way’ of cooking a lot more complicated and expensive than it should be?)

Nan&GDad P visited in the afternoon to play with and pay attention to to the girls and took them to the shops for sweeties as Nans do  :roll:  and stopped at the park, even had a go on the trampoline in the garden with the girls.

Hermionie has been hanging on to the Dummy a bit more than usual - don’t know whether to go Cold Turkey?? - maybe just make sure she doesn’t have any to hand other than when she’s actually in bed.

..and you’re going to put ‘them’ on the walls???

Published
by
pixieminx
on July 14, 2007
in Generally and Home-ed
. 0 Comments

Bet you can’t guess where we went today…

…that’s right - 5 points - S&G’s.

We were supposed to all go to the Play Festival at Southsea this year (all - that’s right - we’d even kinda pursuaded the ahem..’men’ to come parent the kids outside - even G!!!! - but only ‘cos Alex caved in so quick!!) but with S’s back which is still painful and the amount of painting that S&G have to before having the carpets are fitted on Monday, we opted for playing at home for the day. Alex & G managed most of the painting - with advice and helpful hints from Sarah & I (well you can’t just leave them to it can you????)

The rest of the day for S & I was a blur of kids playing, arguing, laughing, painting, eating, moaning, crying, pulling potatoes & carrotts and putting chrysalises into their new home to hatch. (ours are at the chunky-pillar stage - about a day or two off getting ready to hang and begin turning into chrysalises).

…so - the painting - S wants some ‘artwork’ in the new bathroom and spare room upstairs so she went along to the Grange and bought 5 canvases, I came armed with bottles of poster paint and brushes and we launched it all out in the garden with the kids for a really nice hands-on let-yourself-go painting session. The kids (and we talking ages 7, 6, 3 & 2) really got stuck in and painted some lovely (and slightly disturbing depending on your angle!) pictures. S & I had a go on one together as well, I think we all did quite well - will have to piccies and post them - I was especially proud of Natalie’s - she kinda made mistake (well, technically there shouldn’t be ‘mistakes’ in art - but at point there was some lovely colour with a huge swirl of black that just got blacker!!) until she dripped colours on top and totally saved it!).

All had BBQ as the weather kind of held out for us, kids went to sleep watching Chicken Little and adults watched some funny telly.

Friday the 13th

Published
by
pixieminx
on July 13, 2007
in Generally, Home-ed, Macs and Trips-out
. 0 Comments

Started off the day with brekkie in Tescos, followed by shopping at Tesco and ASDA because we’re going through the ‘I’m bored with Tesco’ phase again. Got a new pair of shoes at ASDA

I’m not a traditional girlie where shoes are concerned - I’ve about 3 pairs that I’ll wear, one’s a muddy pair of mountain climbing boots, the other are several times repaired brown calf-high boots and now these - they’re soooo comfortable I”m never taking them off!

We all went to a local school fayre in the afternoon and picked up a couple of bargains:

Pink ‘n stripey hats & gloves for Hermionie -

gorgeous aren’t they?

And black kinky barbie boots and a tartan belt for Natalie.

And lastly lots of lovely books…..

&

…which will end up here…..

…our living room bookshelf - we also have one in the hall, dining room and both kid’s rooms - I need more book shelves- you can never have too many books!!!

It’s also about time to officially hand over my fav cardigan of Natalie’s to Hermionie. (Sorry rest of family, I know I’m supposed to pass it all to you and wait for Hermionie to get it but there are a few items I’m hanging onto for dear life - this being one of them!) It’s soooooo soft and cuddly. Natalie’s been wearing it for about 4 years now!!! We’ve finally decided that cuffs up to her elbows aren’t fashionable, so Hermionie can wear it with folded cuffs round the wrists.

Took the kids to the park (Inside Out Park was Closed again???) for a bit then headed home for dinner. Natalie & Hermionie read through the books I bought and played in the living room. NanL popped down to see and play with the kids and gain a bit of technical support for WinXP - Grrrr!!, GDadL popped in for a bit (on the way to the pub!!)

Alex’s MacBook is running a bit screwy so I’ll spend the best part of the evening sorting that out - will probably re-format it and make it all new - whilst he falls asleep on the sofa watching Click. :roll:

Socialisation Article….

Published
by
pixieminx
on July 12, 2007
in Home-ed
. 0 Comments

….just chucking out old www links and came across this

http://www.nhen.org/nhen/pov/editors/default.asp?id=157

I expect most of the ’seasoned’ HEdders have seen it but still….