Proud moment

Chief Scout Silver Award

Er, yeah, me again.

Feel like I can hardly keep up with our weeks now. I have so many photos to post, but haven't loaded them up yet, so a quick whistlestop tour right now and then I'll get around to doing the photos soon. Promise. No more boring posts, after this one. Go on, sue me.

We had a day out on Saturday with friends at a little theme park to celebrate dd's 7th birthday (half-price voucher for tickets, always a bonus). Then she had her birthday with home-made hedgehog cake, a wolf suit (which was kinda purple when it arrived rather than grey, but she was dutiful enough to try it on) and a visit from her auntie. Then on Monday it was cinema in the morning (Schools Film week - free films) and her 'animal-themed' party in the afternoon. All surprisingly chilled. Today, cinema again, this time to see Ponyo, one of the Japanese animations by Studio Gibli that we love.

Previous weeks the kids have been creating knex crossbows at HE group, doing poetry (well, doing 'Mutant Wordsworth' more about this when I post up the photos), ice skating, and er lots of stuff. I find now if I don't keep a note of it all it's soon forgotten. Ds2 has done a long hike and overnight camp with cubs, ds1 has been film-making with a friend.

Part of me feels I should be booking some group workshops at museums, or doing some outings with the kids, but another part of me knows that I can't really take anything else on at the mo. If you read my other blog (http://www.the-idle-pen.blogspot.com/) then you'll know that I have other things to fret about, like Jane Austen and her literary chums.

Sigh.

In order for me to have time to tackle JA and Co, I've been trying to keep some structure to our weeks and a while back I came up with a plan to tick a few boxes. So, we do one week 'writing' (and anything associated with) and one week 'maths (and anything associated with). Writing has included poetry (Mutant Wordsworth), filling in a museum trail sheet, writing a letter to penfriends (it took a whole week for that) etc. Up to an hour a day max. Maths is less exciting and flexible...just workbooks until I can come up with the energy to do something else. Of course I could do cooking or some other sort of measuring, but cooking with kids is even more stressful than stapling them to the table to do a page of a maths workbook.

Saying this, I DO have plans to cook with the kids, using the River Cottage Family Cookbook which looks fab (have it on loan from library at the mo). Still at the planning stage though. Or maybe it will just make a nice coffee table book, or doorstop.

The kids started fencing lessons this week. Kindly offered at bargain price by another home ed family, my bunch joined others to have their first lesson on Tuesday. The best thing is that the teacher is a boy who was home educated himself, AND his mother was the first ever HE contact I ever made, about 8 years ago. Lovely stuff. Amazingly dd did not bark, or miaow or growl or make bear noises or crawl around the floor on all fours or hug the tutor's legs until he fell over. No she participated and cooperated and enjoyed. Miracles do happen.

Christmas is approaching. Am very aware of low funds, bulging credit card, and children's expensive tastes (and, more importantly, very few relatives left alive to meet these tastes, or even any to buy them some cheap tat so they have something to unwrap on Christmas day.). Oh and the small matter of nearly 2 grand's worth of course fees, still to pay this year. I'm going to blame it all on Jane Austen.

p.s. check out this wonderful explanation of the defence cuts:
http://archers-at-the-larches.blogspot.com/2010/10/defence-cuts-explained-simply.html

We've all been laid low by colds, coughs and - in my case - some sort of throaty earry headachey energy-draining hurty thing, so this post has taken about 3 days to come together.

I'm still avoiding the idea that I might need to make a doctor's appt, and instead I'm topping myself up with decongestants and painkillers and getting very familiar with the sofa. [Doctors and hairdressers come in the same category for me i.e. professions to avoid unless there is absolutely no alternative.] With ds1's birthday in 2 days time and Christmas snowballing towards us I may have to concede that I need to be off the sofa and functioning as a mother and organiser and birthday-and-Christmas make happener asap. Cos you know what it's like don't you? If us women don't MAKE it happen, then it just doesn't happen. Social niceties and all that; that's what we were created for. Men were created to avoid communication, start wars and take things apart and women were created to clear up the mess (physically and metaphorically), put everything back together, and make everyone a nice cup of tea and some scones afterwards.

Ok, ok, maybe not. But I'm yet to find a man who actually 'does' Christmas. Would family celebrations of Christmas and birthdays have actually died out if it wasn't for women? I sometimes wonder...

Anyway, talking of birthdays. We had an early birthday party for ds1. His idea, an open mic session for his friends and their families. We hired a hall and I ran around panicking about how I was going to feed lots of people and then, in the end, the evening went very well. With several guitarists, drummers, vocalists and a ukelele player the evening's entertainment was provided and we all ate hot dogs, gateaux and crisps. Here is ds1 on dh's purple guitar, with one of his friends:

And here are some catch-up photos. Our local 'switching on the Christmas lights' evening, when all the museums open late and there is entertainment (sometimes rather random) till late.

The kids waiting for the lantern parade, cameras ready:

The lantern parade:

Our local museum has been 'revamped' and reopened. Here are lots of museum visitors on the newly created stairs, looking down and listening to a community choir:

The community choir:

On the Christmas lights evening we had a look around a display of 'Steampunk' art creations at another local museum. Fabulous stuff. I'd never even heard of steampunk before, but if you want to know more check out the wiki info here

More catchup. ..ds2 dressed up for his first ever cub sleepover weekend (Peter Pan theme). Despite some pre-weekend wobbles he survived fine!

A trip to a science museum with a few other home ed families. Dd never got further than the water area, spending nearly 3 hours just playing in the water.

Dd1 has been doing more modelling at a home ed group. Creating scenery for warhammer, or - in his usual entrepreneurial way- making parts for the other kids scenes and then selling them to them!

The boys went with some other home edders for a snowboarding lesson:

And ds2 was 'invested' at cubs:

He reckons he's going to sew on all the badges himself!

There's lots more to post, but best to get this lot up before my laptop battery flags completely.