Thoughts

Loved by Everyone

Jack came home from nursery today with a certificate that he'd been awarded in assembly and the reason why he'd won it was just so Jack that I wanted to record it here. It was for "always being a superstar and being loved by everyone in nursery". It made me laugh as well as proud as it is so hard to describe why Jack is so special and loved. He is very affectionate, happy most of the time, pretty much oblivious to the world around him, loves to play with all the older kids and the friends of all his older siblings but adapts his play to suit whoever he's with (rough, tough and bundling with the teenage boys and gentle with little girls). He's totally secure in himself, doesn't really feel pain, always obsessed with a certain topic (was Power Rangers, now Ben 10) and lots more, but everyone just sums it up with "Well, he's lovely, he's just Jack". There's no one reason why everyone loves him except that he's himself. I'm going to miss him when he goes to school in September.

Childhood Favourite Books

I got caught up with this article about books we read as children and love still. I have whole bookshelves n the landing devoted to books I've kept from childhood and those I wished I'd had in childhood and bought since (mostly the latter). I used to visit the library as often as possible as a child to try and satisfy my insatiable need to read. I always felt hard done by that I didn't have that many books of my own to keep as Mum's rationale was that I'd read them too quickly and it wasn't worth the money, so I'd get on my bike and cycle down to the library. The hardest part of the week was from Sunday to Tuesday as by sunday I'd read saturday's haul from the library and it was shut Sunday and Monday. The thing is though that I adore reading books again and again and again so I'd have gotten my money's worth anyway. I did inherit classic fiction from my great Aunt which I will always cherish and have read over and over - the Little Women quartet of books and the five books that start with What Katy Did.

 A lot of the time I prefer to read something I've already read rather than something new. When I read a new book it is often by the same author as other favourites and it can take a bit of a mental shove to get me onto untried ground. What that says about me I don't know but in theory it should be cheaper than always getting new books though I've found I often have to buy the same book again as it's fallen apart from nearly thirty years of reading it. (I'm not joking - I've just bought books by Laura Ingalls Wilder and Noel Streatfield because my copies have fallen apart.)

So other favourites - Enid Blyton (Malory Towers, St. Clare's, Enchanted Forest and Faraway Tree, Wishing Chair, The Secret of... series, The .... of Adventure series, Famous Five, Secret Seven) though I don't read Blyton so often now, just keep them and try and persuade the children to read them. All of Anne of Green Gables, Pollyanna and Pollyanna grows up, all the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, Lorna Hill ballet books, Chalet School stories, Swallows and Amazons, Ballet Shoes, White Boots, Curtain Up, The Tramp and the Dog, Little Wooden Horse, Little Princess, Secret Garden and Little Lord Fauntleroy, Girl of the Limberlost - pretty much all of these I've read again within the last year for certain.

When I've finished typing this I'm going to look on-line for a second hand copy of The Scarlet Pimpernel too. I can so clearly remember g a trip to Bentalls in Kingston to spend a book token which I didn't get many of. After much decision making this was the book I chose and I have no idea where that copy has gone but I loved reading that. Time for some more nostalgic reading with that one. There were various sequels too that I got out of the library but I don't remember the names of them. There's another book I'd love but cannot remember the title, names of characters or much of the plot - just that it was set during the War of Independence in America and involved gold coins and a female main character. What I remember most is where it was kept on the school bookshelves when I was nine and the pleasure I got from choosing it to read on many occasions.

So what books do you still read (if any) from childhood? What were your favourite books then that you want your children to enjoy too?

As usual I’m blaming my very bad habit of procrastination for not having blogged for ages. The more guilty I feel about not having done something the more I avoid it. In the time since the last post I’ve been to Morrocco for a week with church (leaving the kids with Ian), spent a soaking wet weekend in a tepee in the Lake District, half term at Grandma’s visiting theme parks with our annual passes paid for with Tesco vouchers, taking my gold medals in argentine tango, ballroom and latin dancing and lots of driving around the city taking the kids to gymnastics, cubs, scouts, swimming, singing, dancing and acting lessons and more.  Thank you to all those who have faithfully kept loking for posts.

Firstly a crafty part of the post for those who faithfully visit here in the hope that I’ve gotten round to posting something creative. I made this bag ages ago but kept hoarding it rather than using it until recently. It’s made from the plastic fabric used for tent windows and was a nightmare to sew as it kept sticking so I had to add lots of chalk to it. I’ve also added photos of all the squares before I sewed them into the bag. There’s two lots of each square so the bag I the same on both sides. Whenever I take it out I end up in discussions with friends about which square they like best. For me it’s the green UTEE’d oak leaves or the sewn paper and fish.

 

Next random photos from Marrakech – didn’t do much touristy stuff there except a quick trip to the souk for presents and visiting Le jardin Majorelle which was beautiful.

Playing Pooh sticks at Grandma's

Philippa lost her top two front teeth. We’ve developed a habit of pulling them out when we stop at the motorway services on the way to Grandma’s. Very odd. This photo’s after the first one came out.

We visited down south for the dedication of Kaleb – Ian’s sister’s baby. Even though I took over thirty shots of my fur with their only cousin I still had to photoshop two photos together to get the end result.

This is it for now as typepad crashed on me once so I’ve had to redo the whole post. If any words look funny there will probably be an ‘o’ missing as it’s not working properly anymore and I’m too tired to read through again. Bye for now, I promise it won't be quite so long next time.

We've had a variety of tummy bugs, colds and stuff here. Unfortunately everyone got things one after the other rather than all at once so it 's been a while. We had Philippa's birthday party on saturday as I'll be away for her actual birthday. Due to the manicness of the day i forgot to take my camera with me and wouldn't have had time to take any photos anyway. Thursday is our one day of the week when we don't have any activities on after school so P got dancing clothes on and we all watched back to back episodes of "So you think you can dance" and danced around. P has lost a lot of weight over the last week as she didn't eat for five days due to the shared tummy bug. She looks lke she's grown up now she's about to turn seven.

Jack came out of nursery on tuesday and they explained that they thought he'd fallen off the climbing frame as they'd noticed him covered in blood and realised that he'd split his lip open. He hadn't noticed. That's our Jack.

Masks

The craft this week at Sticky Fingers was these scratch art masks - a very low prep craft for the first week back. The kids absolutely loved doing it - thought it was magic the way the colour was revealed as they scratched the black off. Then they all put on their masks and went nuts running around the room like superheroes. It was amazing how much fun they got from something so simple. Jack was "Ninja Jack" for the rest of the day.

Tidying

     Well the last couple of weeks have consisted of bad colds and tummy bugs, egg decorating, end of school, egg hunts, and a lot of tidying and sorting this last few days. We finally got the kids' rooms sorted and tidied today whch is a major undertaking. Mum asked for a photo but by the time I'd gotten up there with the camera they had discovered the joys of a tidy room and lots of space. The new table and folding chairs had become a castle and the younger three set up base in there with William opposing. (Note that the fold up chairs could fold up to protect the defenders and fold back down for attacking) They started off with beanbags and continued with every soft toy they had as ammunition. I managed to get a varety of photos despite the danger. You'll notice that Jack is covered in red marks from being hit by beanbags etc., not that he cared. Philippa,  as you can see, reacts a little more when she gets injured, not that she gets much in the way of sympathy. At one point the action even moved up to the top bunk. Jack is phenomenally accurate with a bean bag or cuddly jungle animal. He had the whole ducking and dodging thng down pretty good when he could be bothered too.

AS far as egg decorating goes each year there is a competition at school for an originally decorated egg. William won last year with "eggsecutioner" - a somewhat macabre entry with a decapitated egg and executioner with axe and cloak. This year we were rather over ambtious and went for a whole zoo. We had a penguin. flamingo, parrot, porcupine. elephant, lion and snake. It took five hours to make, complete with base and is actually fab. It didn't win whch i suspect was something to do with the amount of adult help it looked like (and had) it had received, but it was floads of fun to make  even though we succumbed to our usual problem of over complicating things. 

Just three more photos of the oldest three on the second night of the Cats performance. They all had full make-up the second night as there was  a little more time. James also prefers these photos as he and someone else had the wrong costumes on on the tuesday night so he wanted photos of him in the right one. I'm printing these larger to frame I think, though I thought about using the three portraits and some of the action shots and getting a poster printed. They all loved peforming in this so much and are looking forward to starting on Joseph which will be their next project. Pure Creative Arts School are trying to start a class for younger ones too so Jack will be able to join in as well. 

This just sums me up nicely

Whilst I appreciate the many beautiful arty / crafty cards I have received today (my 35th birthay) the card which I will be sticking up somewhere to continually chuckle over is this:

Thank you Kirstin

  The oldest three kids were in their performance of Cats last night as they all do singing  / dancing / musical theatre on a tuesday evening. The dress rehearshal was patchy with lots of forgotten lines but the performance was great. James sang a solo  as well as being in the rest of the performance and Philippa sang beautifully loudly and clearly as well as doing beautiful dancing. William had various lines to say as well as singing and dancing. He was really hard to take a photo of during the performance as his dances were so fast. I managed to make myself the official photographer so I got to take photos through the dress rehearsal and performance. I'm going back tonight to finish the portraits and sit on the other side during the performance to get close-ups of the other half of the cast. I was really pleased with the portrait photos I took as the black background etc. make them look fab. I love the Canon 1.4 50mm lens. Have started to hanker after a wide angle lens though for my Canon 400d. Any one have any recommendations?

Managed to get some photos of the Ballet Show book this morning. They are awful  photos - I find it so hard to get decent photos of white objects. No photo could quite convey the touchy-feely-ness of this book though. The pages are made from a torn square of tissue paper with tulle sewn either side of it and different trimmings on each one - lots of lace and ribbon and even fluffy stuff. The pages all rustle as you turn them which is lovely.

I'd been planning on doing a book with ballet photos that included lots of tulle, ribbons etc  but hadn't got started and then I was looking through Ashley Calder's amazing book Scraptastic and she had a gorgeous album made from pages of tissue paper sewn together and lots of net, fabric, paint and other stuff. So I pulled out tissue paper, net and everything pink, white, sparkly, lacey or fluffy that I could find and started. I love free and arty things but don't feel that this is my forte so it really helps to have a starting point. As the pages are net a lot of things are tied on which was a cool way of attaching things. The rest are sewn or attached with pva glue as even the double sided tape was coming off sometimes. The photos of the ballet show were taken in very poor light in corridors in the back of the theatre or an overcrowded changing room.

I find it ironic that I've finally finished this book and taken photos of it and tonight the three older kids are performing in a production of Cats and i am going to take photos of their dress rehearsal beforehand. Wonder when that will get scrapped?

Also - scrappy blog MojoHolder has featured a layout of mine this week with some cool lifts by their design team. Hallo to all those who have found my blog through Mojoholder.