Winter Festivals

We are having fun following Bella Dia's Christmas Book and Activity Advent. There are loads of people sharing great Christmas/Festival ideas around blogland at the moment. I've been keeping a note in my google reader "shared items" of some and eventually hope to fill a notebook so that come next year i will have everything at my fingertips and will be etreeeemly organised....yeah right.

We've also started the Christmas baking...






..by making mincemeat...



...and mince pies...but mysteriously there don't seem to be any left photos of them.

Free Form Sampler

With the all new organised me i am finding more time to endulge my crafting passion.

I've just finished this birth sampler for a friend's baby. It's based on one i saw in a book and was lots of fun to do. (It looks a bit odd top right as I edited out her full name)
So much so that i'm about to start another! The next one will be for my soon-to-be-born nephew. I'm *so* excited :o) It just doesn't feel the same being an 'auntie' via marriage.

I've also finished my first project from the Built By Wendy book, a skirt. I'm fairly pleased with it but i will make it more A-line next time.

Ballet Exam

It was Emily's first ballet exam this morning. I was definitely more nervous than she was! She found it very exciting - apart from the one and a half hour wait beforehand.

Here she is just before going in.

I made this for her last night. It contains all her hair bits and bobs for ballet.

Then rolls up all nice and neat.

She was very pleased with it so I might do several variations for Christmas presents.

While we were in the hall waiting, Mick took Isaac for a lovely walk along the Thames and then back to the hotel for big fat chips!

Fabric Scrap Flower Card

It was Emily's last ballet lesson today before the summer break today and one of her teachers was leaving so I made this card for her using the Scrap Flowers Pin from this book.

More Picture Heavy Lazy Blogging!

We went to London on Friday to catch the Dino Jaws exhibition at the NHM before it closed. Emily has been wanting to go ever since she saw it on Blue Peter. It was really good - just the right amount of information for her not to get overwhelmed or bored and she really liked the interactive bits. We were hoping to look around the dinosaur galleries once we'd finished but it was unbelievably busy. I think Night at the Museum had a lot to do with it. The queue snaked its way all around the main hall! So we did a quick scoot around the human biology gallery before going on to the Earth galleries as E wanted to see all about volcanoes.

Touching real Dino Poo!

Afterwards we went to somewhere else E has been desperate to visit the Diana, Princess of Wales' Memorial Playground. It was of course EXTREMELY busy due to the lovely weather but they still had fun and I have promised them (rather rashly) we will return during school hours. Not sure how I will cope with Isaac on my own. When Emily was little she always stayed close by but Isaac will just wander off anywhere. It makes trips out quite exhausting because you have to watch him constantly.

Saturday was spend in the garden doing more digging. Emily wanted her bike out to try riding without stabilisers. She has barely ridden this bike (our fault) and she hasn't been on it at all for the past year, as it has been shut up in the shed under piles of stuff while we were having the extension built, so we weren't too optimistic. However she amazed us and herself ,after a couple of wobbly starts and tumbles, riding by herself!

Sunday started off with an Egg hunt in the garden. We were very lazy this year and just hid them instead of doing clues. Emily didn't seem to mind and all Isaac cared about was the chocolate! I also made them these ...


From Hillary's free pattern. I had intended to make it last year but never got around to it.

I already know what I am doing next year - this loveliness from Mollychicken.

Right must go and get more gardening done while the sun shines :o)

This week started off really well but fell off a bit towards the end due to lack of planning on my part. I'm really exhaused - due to too many late bedtimes and Isaac who (still hasn't weaned - did i mention I found him trying to nurse off Wendy the other week?!?) continues to pester me throughout the night.

Emily has been reading more and more over the past few months and her confidence in what she is actually capable of is increasing. She picked up the set of Farmyard Tales books the other day and decided to try and read one to Isaac. She surprised herself by finding it quite an easy read! She was so thrilled she could read a book she'd never looked at before i think.

Mick found an old Ikea inflatable chair in the loft the other night. He brought it down to put in the playroom and E is delighted with it. She says she feels like she is in one of the squashy armchairs in the Gryffindor common room! So yesterday I found her sat there with a huge pile of books - obviously a budding Hermione in the making :oD

Following on from finding the frogspawn in the pond the other week i dug out the "Parts of an Amphibian" and "parts of a Tadpole" Here is E after completing then - looking very pleased with herself!

I also got out the cloud nomenclature cards, to tie in with project work, and although she found it tricky she completed them getting only a couple in the wrong places.

Isaac is like a little parrot copying everything i say and everything his sister does. He is getting really into drawing at the moment...unfortunately he's not fussy what he does it on :o(

I decided to get the maxi HAMA beads out and try him with those but he mainly just liked tipping them on the floor. E had fun with them though making some colourful creations.

We had a lovely weekend with Mum and Dad, if rather busy. Dad fitted my new oven which has been cluttering up the floor for 6mths or so (long story of errors on my part) and he also fitted the plinth which means Isaac can no longer keep posting his toys underneath the units :o) So Mick just has the painting and floor to finish and then the kitchen/diner part of the extension is complete - YAY.

Isaac enjoyed some Daddy time (Mick had Friday and Monday off work) and helped him to construct another storage unit for the playroom...

While Emily took the opportunity to finish her wren purse without small fingers helping!

She's Rather proud of it, can you tell?

I'd rather like it for myself ;o)

I got spring fever early and spent a fortune at the garden centre, then Mum and I tidied up the garden a bit in between rain showers.

My parents insisted we went out on Saturday night, as we still hadn't managed to have our Anniversary night out ( that was in September). We went to a very nice Indian restaurant, which was yummy, but ate far too much.

This week we've been doing more on our Land and Water project. Emily constucted her own aquifer which was a lot of fun.

We left it overnight to watch how the silt settled and then we added food colouring to represent how chemicals can cause pollution to the underground water as well as lakes.

Here's E's Chinese New Year dragon - finally!
We continued the festival theme throughout the week with Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday. I never realised why it was called Shrove Tuesday before! We made pancakes of course, E did the batter and i did the cooking/flipping. Discovered Isaac didn't like them so Emily and I had LOADS :o) She did some fab writing, i posted it on her blog - like the picture of me - and yes it is supposed to read "products" not "pancakes" but i didn't have the heart to tell her.

Excitement on Thursday as our Bead Merrily order arrived (Thanks Merry!) We got the European flags kit. Didn't get a chance to start any though as we had the mad rush that is ballet.

Mum and Dad arrived last night so I nipped out this morning to get my hair done, a rare occasion!

The sleepers for the garden arrived Friday so we moved them into the back garden at the weekend - very heavy, i still ache! Didn't really do much at the weekend. The chiddlers pootled around doing *stuff*, Emily played on Education City, which i had completely forgotten about until it was mentioned recently, we will definitely be signing up for it.
**UPDATE** We have now signed up - Thank you for the code Jenny!

Both had fun with the Playdoh,

a first for Isaac!

... and then fun with the shredded paperwork Mick had been busy creating.



Yesterday we did lots of stuff on 2D and 3D shapes, which E told me she really enjoyed because it was easy! She made these models using the Geomags.

We also did another Greek Myth which she wrote up in her picture storybook, did a bit of workbook english and practiced word lists 5 and 6. It was then time for lunch and a trip out to see friends. Isaac and I stayed for a while then came home leaving E behind for a sleepover.

Look what arrived in the post for me, lots of yummy fabrics :o)

SNOW!

I love snow....when i can stay at home.

This is the first time we've had more than a sprinkle in about 4 years i think so we *had* to go out. Emily was desperate to build a snowman and had a great time.

Isaac was unsure, but did manage a smile for the camera.

Things have been pretty quiet lately as both chiddlers have had chickenpox. They are much improved today so i think they are over the worst of it.

A good job, as i have spent too much online as a result of a) being stuck in the house and b) E & I not wanting to do anything but sleep/watch tv.

I bought Mick's birthday present but the rest were for me! A Bookpeople order, this from Etsy and these long awaited lovelies from Wee Wonderfuls along with the kitty/bear/bunny pattern as Emily informed me, (after i was to set work on Olive and Archie) that she didn't want Olive. She never has been into dolls, which is a shame for me as i love making them. So she's getting a bunny instead - so we're both happy :o)

A good couple of weeks, long overdue :o)

We've been struggling with E's increasingly stroppy behaviour for a while now. Don't know if it's an age thing or what but it was certainly making the whole HE thing very unworkable for a while. Here's hoping we are over that particular hurdle for now.

We've been doing a fair bit of socialising the last couple of weeks (and in the process trying to catch chickenpox - but so far haven't). I've signed them both up to a new Tatty Bumpkin yoga class that starts in a couple of months. Run by someone i found via Freecycle! It's lovely to have something both E and I can do at the same time! Will be interesting to see how Isaac copes with it though. I've not done any yoga with him since he discovered he could roll everywhere. He's not known for his moments of calm!!

His favourite pastime at the moment is giving himself a yogurt facial and deep conditioning hair treatment - loooovely.

On the schooly front Emily is enjoying lots of maths. She has been doing some place value work with the base ten blocks, subtraction, fractions, multiplication and she has shown an interest in telling the time. She had some fun with this site. I bought a Reader Rabbit maths CD-ROM today but we haven't had a look at that yet.

I'm so amazed with how her reading is coming on. She was given an abridged version of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and started reading it to a friend the other day. I think she quite surprised herself!

I've been trying to prioritise my craft projects list, i have over 50 on there at the moment! Just when i decide which 4 i am going to concentrate on in the coming months Hillary goes and announces that the new winter Stitchettes are nearly ready - and they are so adorable!

I feel a definite need to get back into a proper project as i haven't made anything thing since the begining of the year except for a couple of cards.

Meet Priscilla!

Electronics Project?

I thought these were cool (see the Walkman one too)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/52722292@N00/sets/72157594488080995/
Found via the MAKE blog.