Thursday allready

wow the week is flying by, after a few days of striking royal mail brought nothing but junk mail today.
it looked horribly grey this morning so we stayed home instead of going to the park we dipped leaves for my shop we felted acorns once they are dry we will glue them into their acorn caps and put them on our autumn table. WE've also been busy making drawings for Nick who will be coming over this weekend. Last time we saw him was easily 6 years ago.

Mum set of for her morale boosting holiday and then will start her chemo when she gets back. The day after she has an appoinment for a scan and the whole thing will get started.

We've had better weather for the last 3 weeks then we've had all summer. But autumn is here there's no doubt about that.

Wow its so busy here. with me getting a tooth pulled and feeling aweful for 4 days before it starts to feel better 4 birthdays coming up lots of visitors from abroad over the next few weeks. Euan's ear-thing (The Dokter didn't have a clue what it was) and constant rain (which means i have to work extra hard to come up with stuff for the kids to do so they don't start bugging each other) I feel like there is no time to stop at all!
I shal be glad when august has gone and things will slow down again.
Euan's dr appoinment yesterday was fun, we walked in Thomas recognised the Dr and stuffed his hand under his jumper whilst at the same time trying to hide behind me. this was the same Dr who removed the bandages of his thumb several times. She looked at Euans ear and said it looked like a scold (sp?) and asked if it was possibe he'd toughed the iron or something. I looked around the room that was slowely being torn apart by three tornado's looked back at her and said yeah I don't do ironing.
Basically she has no idea what it is so you can guess what she gave us (antibiotic cream) we'll see what will happen.
The chickens pecked a hole in the netting yesterday which took me awhile to find....

I also got an email from my secret pal telling me that a parcel is in the mail for me and it should be arriving on monday. I got the message tuesday. That should mean she's not from the UK right? how exciting!!

things we've done over the last week

We found two snails in the tadpole tank, they must have been on the plants we put in they have been seperated and have their very own tanks now (a mayonaise jar)

We took out every encyclopedia yesterday to read about crocdiles and Euan mentioned that their webby bits are just like our webby bits. He is since obsessed with webby bits and checks every animal for them

we turned some of their artwork into little mosters.

rescued a blackbird out of the jaws of Rodney

found slowworms and read up on them








played dinosaurs as loud as we could

bought Euans birthday present and managed to sneak it inside without him noticing (you can see it here)

did a test to see what foods in the kitchen would pop like popcorn (only popcorn)

found out Thomas can open the big heavy drawer in the kitchen

and he likes cocoapowder

hung up a photoframe that I got as a gift last xmas


brought the spinningwheel back down in the hopes the twins will treat it gently (they have so far!!)


played lots with cars and dinosaurs


knitted tiny rabbits and teddybears


recieved a swapparcel


and opened it



watched the WB carnival parade in the rain





put money in the buckets


saw a rainbow on the way home



made a tree

played scary insect

bought a dino book

chewed gum (and swallowed some!)



played in the park



craweled backwards down a hill





I haven't finished sorting trough all the photos so I've still got to add some....

wednesday day is marketday

Euan calls it wednesday day market day. WE have 2 markets the normal one every wednesday (it has been like that for a looooongs time) and once a month on a saturday the farmersmarket. Euan loves this market because he allways leaves with pocketsfull of fuit from the marketlady as he calls her :)
Today was no exception a bunch of grapes some satsumas and an apple he was a very happy chappy.
Before we left Willow took a dive outside, he now has a very fat lip, lips bleed, a lot and I had to go change before we could go out. WE also had our horse eat our dinosaurs, the bunny had Euans knex instructions for breakfast the chickens where chasing rodney who folishly thought he could take them. Kiwigirl got herself stuck on the roof (again!!) and by the time we left it was only 8.30! WE do our shopping for the entire week so by the time we're back home its almast 11. They boys will run around the garden for awhile normally with their lunch on the outside table which they will take a bite from every once in awhile. They 12 o'clock everybody goes for a rest whilct Euan doesn't nap anymore (and hasnt since he was 20 months old!) he still settles down with a bunch of books and has some quiet time with me. Then there is more running around and at the same time EUan will fire 1001 questions at me (why can I see the moon mummy, what is chocolate made of, why are bananas yellow not green, what are peppers made of, haw many sands are in the sandpit (he meant sandgrain lol!) why is that earth round and that one flat (pointing at the globe and the wallmap) is it summer yet?).

They have just finished their paint experiment in which Euan figured out that yes you can have too much paint. So he's cleaning it all of the table so we can have dinner soon.

a day in our life..

Today I picked up a bargain in one of the charityshops on the Highstreet (more on that in another post) whilst loading up the pushchair with all 10 books (like that thing isn't heavy enough!) a lady paying for her things comented on how nice it was a kid was buying books and would spend less time in front of the telly. the conversation went something like this
lady: So nice to see him buying books and spending less time watching telly
Me: o we don't have one
Lady: confused you what??
me: we don't have a telly
lady: o
silence
lady: but they still get loads of it in school and such
me: o we don't do that
lady: (now really confused) what you don't do school?
me: no'p
lady: (looking at the charityshop lady for help) but but...
charityshop lady chimed in: I did that with my kids until they went to a steinerschool
lady: but what do you do then?
me: we homeeducate
lady: is that legal?
me biting my tongue whilst nodding

Now really if it wasn't legal would I just tell a stranger that we HE? would I be out and about with my nearly 5 year old in a town where every kid goes to school practically before they are born? I have to say I was not expecting charityshop lady to have he'ed her kids and certainly didn't think she was the steinerschool type! just shows that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover (I do though I refuse to read some of James's horrbile covered books ust because of the cover...)

After a few minutes (its difficult packing 10 bulky books into a pushchair) the lady asked me "but what do you do? how do you know what he is learning"
Quite a lot of people ask this, which I find odd. I mean I am with my kids pretty much 24/7, and we obviously interact a lot in that time and trough this interaction I know what they know sometimes they know more than i thought but on the whole I know what they know and what they don't know.
Now if Euan went to school he would be in a class of 30-35 kids and one teacher and maybe one assistant how on earth can 2 people know what 30 students know or don't know? Sure they can do tests but do they know if a student truly understands what has been thought?

after this bit of fun we went on to sainsbury's to pick up some babywipes which I forgot on wednesday. Euan got the list (6 packs of babywipes and a bag of compost) he had to count the packs and put them in the basket and he got to pay at the checkout (he paid the charityshop lady too!). We got home and he spend the next 2 hours (naptime) looking trough his new books.
We spend and hour in the park during which I thought him to make daisychains and he told me what plants and trees are in the park. we got home and they tried out all the toys on the slide to see what toy would go fastest and furthest.
We also planted more seeds this morning and transplanted some seedlings.
All in all we do a lot during a day and you know what they enjoy every minute of it. they are free to be who they are and are not forced to do silly tests, sit still for hours on end and spend most of their time away from their family.

Its hard work but I wouldn't change it for the world!

Now on the not owning a telly front, we finally canceled our tv license a couple of months ago and the threats have started the demands and the horrible letters misleading you into thinking they have power where they do not! It is quite horrible how they treat people and the lies they tell you. Want to know more about BBC and their interesting bullying tactics? go to letters from TV licensing also check out this guys link section.