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!

Essential wear for parties...

...wellies of course.

All the best people have them.

They're the 'In Thing'.

Of course we have a good supply of hand-down wellies from the boys, in fine working order. But a girl just gotta have gurrl wellies, don't she?

And here's the complete party outfit (yeah, when it comes to clothes dd's as coordinated as her mother, poor girl):

And the 'dog' cake. Part daschthund, part chihuaha (part dodgy spelling?)...

Chocolate OD.

And I got to eat most of a huge pack of twiglets. Isn't that what parties are all about?

Blog catchup..i.e. stuff we've done

So, what have we been doing?

Well lots of stuff, really. I'll start with an allotment update:

Rhubarb, up and happy.

Strawberry plants looking chirpy after a bit of TLC

Jack the dog, providing musical accompaniment to our allotment work...

...and being pacified (or smothered with a hug?) by dd

Blackcurrant bushes with lots of flower buds.

Digging progressing well...

...But not so well on the kids patch. I think we're going for the 'wild' look lol.

We visit a local museum:

And ds2 tries on a costume

Dd finds something to examine under the microscope
And the kids pose in the museum garden

And continuing on the Darwin and Evolution theme, we make fake fossils:

And guess who forgot to soak the bowl afterwards.

I'm still chipping the plaster of paris out...

And ds1 finds something else to do with the plasticine!

I've had a splurge on the internet and bought in some maths stuff for ds2 (yeah, I know, the autonomous educator in me is having a big blip):

The kids get to grips with the base ten set

Er..actually I don't think they're meant to be used like Lego

And we went to a party:

Ds2 makes a 'train' from a cardboard box