I Hear A Mouse, where? There on the Stair - No - Under the blimmin bed!!!!!

At last its the weekend, although nothing  spectacular is planned,  I just love all the kids being at home (did I just type that?!!!!!!)

Haven't been up to much today, tidying, cooking, watching Liverpool beat Man Utd (ha ha) and drinking shed loads of milky coffee, still.

Was very relieved to get the appointment with the Head out of the way, managed to get things sorted, so hoping not to get too many more problems from now on.
I do not feel that I should publish the details on here about this, as it is for all to see, and I do not want to get into trouble, but I will say, if what has been discussed goes ahead, that I think the school has dealt with the issue that we had, and accepted my thoughts and opinions, and are going to act in a way I find acceptable.  Good.

I have to say this though, oh I so have to say this - there are problems at local HE groups, so I have heard, not one in particular, but a few, and I do need to say this - I AM NOT THERE - my children are also NOT THERE which means that the old hags, young (ish) hags, know-it-alls, she-devils and witches of like, cannot blame me, for ANY problems they are currently having, or blame my children.

Or can they??????????????????? I wouldn't put it past them.

Moving on, swiftly.    

I have lost my bloody camera, in the house would you believe it, and we have searched EVERYWHERE, I even looked in the microwave.  We were having a bit of a stressful five minutes last Saturday evening, just before James's bedtime, he was very tired, so was I and I vaguely remember placing my camera on the dining room table.  Next day -GONE.  So I either:-
A - did not put it on the Dining Room table
B - did put it on the table and some buffoon (husband) has moved it somewhere "safe"
C - James has hidden in amongst his mountain of toys.
D - I have put it somewhere "safe"
E - It somehow got thrown in the bin and now Mike is going to have to go through all the rubbish.
F - Get a new one for my birthday which is in

29		days
719		hours
43199		minutes
2591981		seconds

So I have no photographic evidence this week of me home educating James. 
He is getting on well with his counting, usually to tell me he wants to watch 1 2 3 4 5 6 more Dr Who's, or can he do something before bedtime for 1 2 3 4 5 6 minutes. 

He has been looking at his Leapfrog book, but the batteries are running out, and I did hear him shout at it "I am pressing the green GO button you stupid thing".  Don't  know where he gets his temper from, must be from the fiery Irish passed down through the generations :-)

Anyway - I found a couple of games at the charity shop -

He enjoys this one, but not so much this one

The turtle has the most annoying voice EVER, and it is sooooo slow.  By the time it gets around to telling you what colour to chose next, you've fallen asleep, or in a 4 year olds case, got bored and moved onto something else.  Never the less, he found a use for it by using it as a battle vehicle in one of his games, and then amputating its legs.

Bought a decent play dough set as well from the Chaz shop, so he had fun with this for about half an hour, then of course took the rolling pin and started using it in another game of battles.  Boys will so be boys.

Still monitoring his attention span, but I think that is down to the way we have been doing things. 
For instance, when we go to bed I ask him to get a story for me to read, or Mike (he prefers Mike as he is a show off and does all the different voices) so he gets about 15 books out, which is not a problem, its good to read and to be read to.  But when we start reading it, he will get distracted and want to go straight onto the next one, and so on. 
Becky was, maybe still is, a bit like this, as am I. 
So this evening I got one book ready for him, his fav Winnie The Pooh Book, and we got to read it almost all the way through, but we stopped because he said he was so tired and just wanted a cuddle. He fell asleep about thirty seconds later.

So thinking that maybe we should try and do this with his activities.  At the moment we have art and craft on tap for him, games, books, a lego corner, plus lots of toys in different drawers and a massive toy corner cupboard.

I had a bit of a sort out last week, creating a lego corner, with a table and a stool, and put lots of his lego pieces in see though large jars, he seems to like this and does spend more time playing with his lego than he did before.  Plus I do not do myself a serious injury by stepping on the bloody stuff when it is all over the floor.

So, bit by bit, little by little,  creeping around with boxes and bin bags and legging it up to the loft before he sees us, we are going to streamline his toys.  Its a big task I know, and could be risky at times if he catches us, but I think it will be worth it.

So its all my fault then for letting him have too many toys.  Bad Mother.

He also likes to help me with stuff around the house, from dusting, to dishes, cooking, preparing tea, putting the rubbish out and he loves to fold clothes, and he does it very neatly (this comes from my husbands side of the family).  So will be trying to get him involved in all the housy stuff, so he is not stuck in front of the TV while I am doing the housework, no matter how tempting it is to do that.

So, was going to finish off with something witty, but I cannot stay here any longer as I think I just heard a mouse under the bed, seriously. (at least I have a title now, couldnt think of one before)
LJ x

Sex Ed, Milky Coffees and Dr Who

That is what my week has been about, mostly.

Danny is covering Sex Education in Science this term, and what an eye opener that has been.  The other evening, when my father had popped in for a cup of tea, Danny starts talking about "Femidoms".  Wicked :-)

He seems to be getting on well at school, and is enjoying most of his lessons, and is now on his way to collecting 50 Merits, where he will get £2.50 to spend in the school library, which is really quite a good incentive I think.

Anyway, the down side of the school thing is that we have had to contact the school on quite a few occasions now about other issues, which I do not really want to publish here, so this afternoon we have an appointment with the Head.  Am I nervous?  Yes.  But I do want to let them know that I am not happy about the way in which they are dealing with certain issues.

I think that the teachers will groan now when they here my name, but so be it, my children like the school, they are getting on well socially and in their studies.

I am very proud of Becky, having had a few problems initially in her French lessons, having never done any French before, she struggled and asked to move to the lower group back in September. Her year had started French the year before, Becky felt way out of her depth.
 This also meant though, that she would be in the lower group for Spanish, which she excels at, but she also kind of liked being head of the class and often helped the other pupils.
Now she has been moved back up, which I think is brilliant as it means she has caught up a year in French, and is still doing well in Spanish, and had just been given a high mark in French.

She has learnt to love languages through brilliant lovely Spanish Ladies who taught Spanish at our local HE Group, once a week for half an hour, and she did this for about a year.

So, mostly all good at School.

Home Ed with Jamsey.  Learning through play, have been looking at the Leapfrog reading books, which he likes, but gets a bit fed up quite quickly.  He likes to "write".  Lots of squiggly lines, which is a good start to him developing his writing skills,  Trouble is, he asks me to read it and of course I have no idea what it means, and have to guess, it is usually something along the lines of "I love my Mummy and Daddy" but sometimes I get it wrong and he gets really frustrated, bless him.

Otherwise we have just been staying inside, as he is a bit snotty at the moment, and watching lots of Dr Who episodes, which keeps him quiet, and cuddled into me.

I am hoping to take him out for the day on Friday, as we didn't get to go the the HE Group this week, was going to be today but I have a caning Headmasters Appointment this savo, and also it is bucketing down with rain at the moment.

Other news - Rugby - another win for Creddy, meaning that they have played 9 games and are still unbeaten, tough game ahead on Sunday though, weather permitting of course.  So often  gets cancelled, usually too wet or too cold.  We will see.

House sale - the woman for up north may want a second viewing, so that is positive.

Now I am off my second milky coffee of the day. Since having a stomach bug, and then suffering from acid reflux, I drank a lot of milk, usually in the form of a de-caf milky coffee.  The reflux isn't so bad now, but I have to say I am now addicted to milky coffee and cannot bring myself to start drinking boring old tea again. 

Apart from that, the healthy eating isn't going too bad, although Becky did make an awesome chocolate cake last night, but I was good and only ate half - half a piece that is not half of the whole cake - although it has been known :-)

Lou x

Bit behind on my daily blogging, over a week since my last post, so I am going to work backwards:-


Today

Up at 5.  James has the dreaded cough that is being passed around our family, so he went to sleep at 5pm Friday and of course woke up 5am Saturday morning.  Made the most of being up and about early, did loads of laundry, plus it had a knock on effect and the whole family were up dressed, fed and showered by 9am.  Intended to go in to Exeter to get a new hamster, to replace poor Ziggy (may he RIP).  Popped into Mikes parents for a cup of tea or two, but by the time we left James was very tired and said he didn't feel well, so we just went home, new hamster will have to wait. He slept all the way home and while the rest of them were in the supermarket.

We had a nice fish and chip dinner while watching old Dr Who's.  Since his sleep James has been full of energy and seems to have perked up so we have played Guess the Animal, (think I hurt my knee again being a frog) then Mike, Danny and James played Rugby in the Living Room while I filmed them, which was great fun as I found the slow motion button.

Becky had escaped to her room after buying the Twilight series with her pocket money, sensible girl.

Now we are waiting for James's fav programme, Total Wipeout to come on, and we are having sweet and savoury pancakes for our tea.


Friday

Up quite early to start getting the house cleaned for a viewing, wanted to do most of it the night before but James wasn't feeling well, he has a really horsey cough, and he went to sleep at 4.45pm, so that was my evening sorted.  In the morning he woke up at 5am, which gave me a head start on the day.

Put the new shower curtain up and fell off the bath and hurt my knee.  Moved some wood from the front of the house and scratched my hand on a nail.  Apart from that, got most of it done.

My ex-HE friends Annie and Kate popped in for a visit too, which was nice, James chatted away ten to the dozen, telling them about all of his toys, films he has watched and games he has played.

Viewing went OK, they seemed interested, but not sure.  Left saying they would need to "ponder" a bit.  They were here for three quarters of an hour, so I take that as a good sign.
Thursday

Did a lot of cooking - two lots of soups with James's help, one lot of cupcakes, James did the icing, lots and lots of icing.

Caught the bus to the supermarket and Mike collected us on his way home from work, bought a nice new navy t shirt (navy t-shirts are so hard to find) and got home and did all the above cooking, and Mike did lots of art and craft with James.

Wednesday

Found out about the viewing today so started on the clean up, didn't end up going to the group as we were quite settled at home. 

Well that's about it really, cannot remember past Wednesday, thats' my age for you I guess.

Other stuff

School - Going well, got their Mentor Reports through which were extremely good and full of praise for them both.  Both had football this week in PE, the activities for PE change every 6 weeks.  Becky was dreading it but ended up really enjoying it, she was in goal.  Danny got on OK, scored a goal, so both were pretty pleased.

Art - Becky has never been very confident in this subject, mainly because Danny has been able to draw really well. But as I have explained to her many a time, it is not just about sketching.  So in Art her teacher has set her target as 7c - which is really high, so she is really pleased.
Equally Danny thought he was never much cop at English, with his sister always being so talented at writing stories.  So he was really pleased too when he was told he put forward for Gifted and Talented for his creative response in a letter he wrote as a soldier in the American Civil War to his wife.

I am reluctant sometimes to post about how well they are doing, as I can imagine the more critical people out there will think that they should have gone to school years ago as they are doing so well.

Not so I do not think, they both have a love of learning, which has been nurtured though  being home educated.  The knowledge they have acquired is from being home educated  and even the teachers have said how well they must have been taught.  Well, they mainly taught themselves, as we always believed in a child led education, which some, even HE'rs have been critical of, and I do believe that is has paid off.

Have I spoken too soon - I hope not.

Anyway - over to the HE side of life, James is starting a word tree, and his first word read for this week is "had".  He has been doing lots art and craft and we did a little Star Wars work pack which we found here

Rugby - first game of the year last week, and the unbeaten run continues, beating Cullompton Away 17-0, with Danny scoring a try - report here

Other news - James has had his hair cut - and he looks darn well cute:-

Have a good weekend

Lou x

Getting out of the house at last!

I have to say I was becoming a bit of a hermit.  A few weeks before Christmas the illnesses started, and so also started the not getting out and about.  Even around Christmas time.

As the older two are at school, James likes staying home, and also it is quite hard work taking a four year old to places sometimes, I have been at home for the best part of two months, which is quite unusual for me.

It did get to a point where I was feeling rather down, and of course not getting my daily dose of healthy outsideness, was making it worse.

So this week, with the HE Group starting up for the new year, I thought I had better make the effort and get out.  I was physically and mentally exhausted by the end of the day, but both James and I had a nice time.

We popped into the museum

Then stopped off to get James his favourite food - pancakes, a maple syrup and malteser one, which he thoroughly enjoyed.

Then off to the HE Group.

At home today, popped out to the Charity shops for a bit, now back in my nice warm bed while James has a nap.

Happy Thursday
Lou x

Thank Crunchie

Looking forward to the weekend as Hubbie isn't working, and it feels like ages since we have just had a "normal" weekend at home, what with Christmas, New Year and lots of bad weather getting in the way of our normal weekend routine.

Saying that, we do not have any definite plans, as my two eldest chickadees are still off from school, one with a stomach bug the other a chest infection, so will probably just mill around at home, with  a possible Rugby match for Danny on Sunday (if better) but the recent weather has flooded the pitch, so it may have to be postponed.

I have made a start on the post Christmas clean up, and hoping to get out into the garden to sort out the aftermath of destruction from the recent gales of the last few days (our swing seat is now upside down 50 yards from where it used to be).

HE - well, it feels strange typing that as I have gone from teaching serious Pre-GCSE stuff to Pre-school activities, but as he is 4 years old  his main source of learning is through play.  He does however like dot to dots, spot the differences and mazes, so I will often find a theme and print lots of sheets out for him to do, he calls it his "homework". The other day he said he was doing his "Food Tech" homework, as he has often heard Danny say this. For those with children not in school, this is just plain old cooking, or Home Economics as we used to call it at school, us girlie's, that is, as there were never any boys in these classes!.

James is now having his nap, have had quite a good morning with him, painting, (oh the mess) number games on the laptop and he has baked some cookies with his sister and played all sorts of games with his brother, it is soooooo nice having them at home.

Oh well.
That's it from me today, nice relaxing afternoon, may dye my hair, buy some curling tongs, would love my hair to look like Chaz From Emmerdale, bit chavvy, but I like it.

Ta for now
Lou x

New year starts here - not quite!

New Years Rezzys so far:-

Blog Daily - not done

Eat Healthily - kind of (which means I am eating healthier foods, but still throwing in the odd bit of junk - leftover Christmas food, you know what its like).

Going out for a walk, by myself or with the family, even just for a 15 minute circular walk - not done.In my defence, the weather here has been horrendous and I do not want a tree falling on my head, it is THAT windy around here.

Get into a routine - Not done.  After day 1 back at school, day 2 Becky is off poorly.  She has a really bad cough that has been keeping her up all night. Danny went back on the second day and the poor thing had a bad stomach all day, which he still has so I refuse to let him go in today, which is why it is now 7.30am and he is still in bed.  Anyway, I digress -  new routine out of window.

So with James also under the weather, and feeling a bit down myself, I was pleased to come across Clean up my life to embrace the new year over at The Happiest Mom.Worth reading.

Baby steps into the new year sounds like my kind of thing. 

So this means by February, I will have my plan in place, but am starting to plan my plan, now, so lots of planning to plan if you get my drift.

For today though, looks like I will be looking after my poorly kiddo's, which means laying in our bed watching more Harry Potter and eating chocolate eating grapes.

Take care - it's windy out there
Louise Jane x

My Family

Oldies

Happy New Year

Already one of my resolutions has gone out of the window - blog every day starting from yesterday - oh well, one day behind already.

I will, I so will, change my eating habits (notice I didn't say diet) tomorrow - the older two start back at school, so we are still in eating biscuits, chocolates, pickles and peanut mode.

Which brings me onto the S subject.  I am dreading them going back, I miss them so much, especially during these winter days, when we used to spend days indoors, snuggled on the sofa, the kids thinking how lucky they were not to trundle off to school in the cold weather every day.

I am sad, I have to say, but they are really enjoying it at the moment. It is a novelty of course, and I have noticed that that is wearing off slightly, as they realise that this is it now for 5 days a week, for six weeks until they get a two or three week break again, which of course is a bit monotonous, but we will stick it out, as at this point in our lives it is better that they are there and not at home. With the focus being on James this year I would not be able to give them the attention and time they need.

So onto the next subject - Epilepsy, this may be the year that we find out that he has grown out of it, with all my heart I hope and pray that this will be true, there also is a change  that he hasn't yet and that coming off his meds may start his seizures again, and I shake as I type this sentence out as it fills me with such dread. So in March we will go to see his specialist and talk about it.  Until then I have to, for my sanity's sake, put it to the back of my mind.

Other plans for this year, eat healthy, exercise, go to the beach every month, it is so therapeutic, blog daily, start scrap booking, go to my brothers wedding, go on holiday during the school holidays (arghh)  go to London, maybe on my birthday (41 - another argghhh), sell the house, rent another one, get my hair permed, get rid of my cell-u, go camping, get an allotment, start jogging, run for President and sort out the economy.

All in all, a busy year ahead.
Happy New Year
Lou x