The Incredible Sock-Making Woman and other tales...

Yes! Another pair!





I found this wool on my last wool-hunting expedition (the one that involved the unhygenic chip shop and a wind up toy rat). Only problem with this wool is that the repeat on the colour isn't very frequent, so I had to work really hard to get two socks that looked similar out of one ball of wool. They're very soft though. Shame I can't keep them - sent them to my mum as a belated Mother's Day present. Hopefully they'll fit. If not I'll have to do more knitting...


Other news?


Well dd has been seen in public sporting a very lovely hat. She even had a photo taken of her like this by a local attraction for her annual pass. Oh yes...it's those home educating nutters. You should see what they make their children wear.






Dd's fascination for millipedes and centipedes and other pedes is taking over the house. New tubs with their littlepede houses appear daily. Often with their lids left off. I am extraordinarily tolerant of this sort of thing, having kept various creatures in old Ferrero Rochet tubs under my bed, as a child. However when a dehydrated and rather crunchy centipede stuck to my sock yesterday and I padded around the house it did cross my mind that perhaps this isn't how normal families function.

Dd1 begged to do handwriting practice! (the alternative was a page of maths - God he must really hate maths). So he wrote some beautiful letters in beautiful handwriting...

And then put them to good use...

Don't you just love the eloquence of the English language?

Ds1 and ds2 designed their egg buggies for a home ed competition.

And the kids made puppet theatres out of cereal boxes. Well part-made. Dd was only mildly impressed with my efforts on hers, but she did enjoy the cutting out. Amazing the joy one can get from a pair of scissors and a glue stick.

And the boys were invited to a birthday party involving quad bikes.

Note the 'Oh God Mother put the camera away' look on my eldest's face...


And...so who invited the leopard to breakfast?

I hand made the costume about 7 years ago and NONE of my children have ever wanted to wear it. So what if it gets used to mop up Cheerios - we don't care. Go girl!

Cakes, the entrepreneur and the cam wheel

Today dd1 and ds2 finally got to make cakes. They've been nagging me for weeks to make cakes. I'm not much of a keen cook anyway, but for me cooking and kids just doesn't work especially 3 boisterous kids in a tiny kitchen! The people who say that cooking with kids is fun, obviously don't have kids - or have the patience of a saint and cleaners to clean up the mess afterwards! Anyway I confess that it wasn't me who finally conceded to their demands - it was their aunt who volunteered for cake-making duties (don't suppose she'll be doing that again in a hurry!). I took the cowardly approach, went and 'hid' in the garden, planting some beans and trying to get my wonky old bunch of bean poles to make some kind of a line.

Pussy cat cakes!

Some of the cake mix got into the oven,

but there seemed to be alot on the table and around faces!

Ds1 did some shopping today as he's starting up his tuck shop again. I'm sure all the other home ed parents will be cursing us as he turns up at the activities with his stash of chocolate bars, crisps, lollies and sweets to sell to their kids. However, despite my misgivings about feeding the home ed community's kids with junk food, it does have a lot of educational value. For ds1 this means maths, English, business skills, all rolled into something he actually gets a buzz out of doing.

There he was, going round Tescos, reading labels, adding up what was in the trolley, working out what products were cheapest, what would sell best, how much profit he could make. I leant him the money for his stock today, but he's going to pay me back from his 'business' account next week.

When we got home he was keen to get everything out and we went through the receipt with a calculator while he did division to work out how much each individual item would cost. [All those times I've tried to explain division to him with no success and there he was understanding it perfectly - there's alot to be said for learning with a purpose, in context, when it's relevant and appropriate to your needs!] He then decided how much to charge for each item, boxed them all up, wrote price labels for the boxes and stored them in the cool box. Then next he'll probably need to write out a price list to display for his customers. Perhaps we should have used this for his Blue Peter badge instead (though I'm sure Blue Peter are far too politically correct to encourage children to sell junk food to other children!)

Opening up the packages

Writing price stickers

In the meantime, ds2 was doing technical drawings today. I'm not entirely sure whether they are inventions or drawings of our car (one of them had a 'Cam wheel' labelled), but I can't help but be impressed by his enthusiasm. A little help with the boys' handwriting and spelling wouldn't go amiss perhaps (!) - I'm yet to find out how this can be achieved through autonomous education - but at least they have a passion to learn, design, invent and create.

(For some reason I can't get these photo to display the right way around)