Thoughts

It's been a very long time ...

 

I know it's been a really long time since I have even looked at this blog. It's been there in the back of my mind, not wanting to leave it as I did. At the time our laptop broke so I couldn't post easily in the evening and it was a long while before we could get a new one.

Also I was feeling a lot of pressure to do and post crafty stuff whch at the time was just too much. I'm doing some craft at the moment but it's a bit wider than scrapbooking and I don't want to feel that same pressure. I'm aiming for somewhere I can put photos for family to see and the odd bit of craft I get round to photographing. I have loads of inspiration floating around and want to get some more of it translated into creativity.

Also I can keep Mum up to date on the garden (little patch and pots) as I just don't get enough apprecation for it at home. I love seeing all the flowers opening each day but even making the kids look by not unlocking the front door until they have seen all the new things open they just don't get it.

Last night I ordered a poster for James (as photo above) with three of the photos from our recent camping trip. He had LED juggling balls and this was five ball juggling in the twlight with a long shutter speed. He has been juggling intensely since we went to the British Juggling Convention a few weeks ago and has now 'qualified' seven balls (meaning 14 throws and catches). He is complaining all the time that the ceilings are too low (only 9 foot high) and he can't practice all his tricks. We may be looking at taking some of the ceiling out of hs room to raise the heightinto the loft so he can do more tricks.

We went to Chessington World of Adventures today which works out great for our kids - just the right blend of activities for all relevant ages. We split into two groups for many activities (Ian taking the boys on rollercoasters whilst Mum and I went on the tamer rides with the younger ones - suits us fine!) and they all joined together for Dennis' Madhouse (ball shooting fun), Dragon's something or other (soft play) and the Sealife Centre as well as lunch.

We finished the day with the water play - they'd had so much fun there the last time we visited and we had the forethought to bring swimming costumes and towels this time. Despite the lack of warmth they had a blast and I got some photos though the shutter lag on my camera phone frustrates me no end. I just hadn't wanted to drag my DSLR round the whole day but wished I had just to get photos of them screaming with laughter as they were suddenly squirted with jets of water.

 

I'm privileged this week to be guesting on Pencillines.com with the above layout. I wanted to be free and creative on the large space on the left but when it came down to it I didn't get any further than some paint and wire twisted around the letters. I had lots of ideas but ended up worrying about ruining the printed photo and just didn't let go on it. I still like the layout though - love these photos of Philippa swirling. She adores swirly skirts which I totally get as I always wear skirts that swirl when I'm dancing. My favourite skirts are the ones that are made of a heavy weight fabric or with embroidery at the bottom to weight it and they swirl right out during certain steps.

We started on holiday today though it so nearly got cancelled due to bad weather forecasts and fuss about what we're going to be doing / who visiting. We were so busy with visitors and organising a birthday party for a friend's son that we didn't start packing until 9.30pm ast night and we were exhausted to begin with. This led to a belated start this morning but we got to go to Warwick Castle for a bit and see the jousting there. We used our Tesco vouchers earlier on this year to get Merlin Entertainment passes which allow us free entry to many places so we didn't feel the need to stay all day and get our money's worth. It's quite nice to be able to see everything over a couple of visits rather than exhaust ourselves cramming it all in. Left early as the rain set in and treated ourselves to all day breakfasts for dinner.

 This photo was when they were waiting for it to start - Philippa has started to do her own hair a lot now - this has led to hairbands scattered the length and breadth of the house with never a one in the right place when I need it, as well as some interesting hairstyles. I persuaded her to let me put it in bunches at this point.

 

Cooking and yet more skipping...

Despite lots of skipping having taken place out the front today I refrained from taking any photos as I felt there was a limit to how many skipping photos I needed. We also baked 60 chocolate and vanilla fairy cakes, 48 choc chip cookies and a tray of what we call mocha squares (but are actually chocolate oaty fudgy squares as we don't like the coffee icing so use chocolate instead) but II didn't take any photos as I have a huge number of photos of my children in aprons, liberally covered in cake mix stirring or spooning or licking bowls. So - no skipping photos today and old cooking photos.

I went to see Mamma Mia at the cinema tonight with some friends and it was amazing - I recommend it to all of you. I went with my friend Ann amongst others who "doesn't like musicals" to quote which is ironic as the only other film I've seen with her is Hairspray and she's come out of both intending to go and see them again. Anyway - Mamma Mia was hysterically, laugh out loud funny, the songs were fab and visually it was amazing. I loved watching it just for all the colours - the scenery was beautiful as a backdrop and bright jewel colours and light everywhere but the villa was old and run-down so the colours and everything else was softened. There was some old shutters painted in blue paint which had faded and I just wanted to bring them home and put them on the wall as I loved the colour so much. There were a couple of scenes where they filmed reflections in a mirror and the mirrors were old and the whole image was soft and vintagey. Some of songs were staged and became big dance numbers but it was all so happy and looked almost natural and just totally fab. As you might see I'm still on a bit of a high from it so I put Hairspray on whilst I'm typing this. Hairspray is the only film I've ever been to the cinema to see more than once (four times) and it left me on the same high.

Skipping Continued.....

 Well the skipping theme has continued and everyone but William has been out the front having a go today. We had to walk down to Woolworths to buy some clothes line to make a long rope so we could do jumping in etc. I was quite impressed with still being able to jump in and out though my stamina for the actual skipping is poor to say the least. Jack didn't want to skip but liked to turn the rope - with some interesting results.

I love the way James had to hold up his shorts for every jump.

This is the face we had when we had to go in for bed.  

Skipping's in

Philippa is the energetic one of the four of them and always wants to be out and doing something which can be tricky when the boys are way more lazy. At the moment she's really into skipping though we didn't have a skipping rope at first so she was using a make shift one until our neighbour gave her a spare one. Despite the heat she's been out there skipping away today until she's very pink in the face

Note the blue plait in her hair. She loves to wear this at the moment.  

First day of the Holidays

Well, we survived but I'm tired already. It's fine just letting them play on various screen based acivities but it's when I banned all those and started them off on projects that it got harder. Philippa had a friend round so they made smaller notebooks with the offcuts from the teachers ones quite happily. James was designing a board game and a computer game to write and William started with board game designing, got annoyed when it got too complicated, (as William's ideas are prone to do) and moved onto writing a story, whereupon we had our usual fight of I want him to plan it and he refuses point blank to do so. I want my kids to enjoy using their imaginations and designing / making things or doing projects but after the initial enthusiasm it gets so hard to keep them going (that plus I just go nuts from trying to input on four totally different things simultaneusly). Am I unrealistic in wanting them to be motivated and to enjoy doing things other than video games or the television for longer than half an hour? Actually I probably mostly am thinking about the older boys. Philippa likes to do craft, drawing and being generally creative for long periods of time. William will read for hours if he has new books but we run out of them too quick.

Photos of the morning - William on the Gamecube

The J's - I love the identical intent look here. They had been waiting on their new Wii game for weeks and finally got it now school has broken up. They did a lot of tidying up for this and there's more tidying to come.

Philippa finishing off the few gaps in her sewing

Late afternoon - Obstacle Races out the front - egg and spoon, three times through the hoops and beanbags on head to the lamp post. James was starter, demonstrator and commentator.

 James - my beautiful boy. He is just so photogenic.

 Last day of school been and done. Said goodbye to teachers etc. and all the notebooks were well received. Jack's teachers particluarly liked the power ranger stickers he had decorated some of his pages with which was good. I had tried to persuade him that they would like flowers and butterflies better but he obviously knew them best. Anyway - photos for Mum - before leaving for school, William and then arriving home, dirtier, scruffier and with a ton of stuff. William's complete school record from nursery through to year six has come home so we've been reminiscing over his nursery reports and photos.

A busy week

 Sticky Fingers finished for the summer last week but school desn't break up until tomorrow afternoon so I thought that this week would be quiet and relaxing. How wrong could I have been? It's been school leavers assemblies, transition assemblies, school plays etc. etc all week, plus Jack's speech therapy. In addition we've been making presents for their teachers since sunday. We always make presents rather than buying them but it gets tricky when you have to think of ideas twice a year (Christmas and end of year) and bearing in mind that some children have teachers that their elder siblings used to have so repetition is far too easy. This year we went for making notebooks - thin cardstock, chipboard covers and the Bind-it-all with each page decorated in some way. They all enjoyed being let loose with stamps, inks, flowers etc. Their favourite technique was stamping with Versmark ink and adding chalk. They started off being over excited and doing four different techniques per page so I had to get them to tone it down a bit but then they were away. They liked choosing a different patterned paper for each teacher. We wrapped everything tonight and made cards so it's all done for now. Just have to deal with William's last day at primary school. Not sure if I'll be mega emotional about it or just be breathing a sigh of relief that it's finally the holidays. 

Joseph

Finally managed to download and start to edit the 780 photos I took of the dress rehearsal and performances of Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat that all four children were in last week. It was a manic week as on top of rehearsal and two performances of Joseph we had Philippa and Jack's best friends to stay for three days. I can't post many of the photos as they have other children in but I know Mum's anxious to see some. They did great at the performance - hit all their solos, remembered their dance routines and Jack was super cute, especially when he was half a move behind the others or sticking his tongue out at a friend in the front row. The photos are super grainy as I had to use max ISO as the light was so poor. I cut William's hair before the second performance as all you could see was hair and a mike at one point.