Sleep

Friday
We took a second attempt at going to town, after last weeks unsuccessful trip i was a bit nervous, however, this time we went in the car, we had two things on our list and the need to spend £10 in sainsbury for the parking, this means kinder eggs. We headed to the toy shop first. The big three set about in search of either a pet/animal related item or a craft set. It was for our friend's 6th birthday party. There were a few suggestions here and there butnothing hit the mark quite like the play doh pet shop set that Plum, 5, found. We also picked up a grossery blind bag for pumpkin, 8.
Next was feet measuring at the shoe shop. All the smalls had their feet measured but it was pumpkin that we needed new shoes for. The idea of going to the Root Hill BBQ tomorrow has spurred him to get shoes with velcro. The first shop had none that fit the right description for him. Sainsbury had none either. Tk max had a selection but none of them felt right. Clarkes were the winner with a fantastic shop assisstant who looked at his feet and said "he has a narrow heel and a wide foot with a high instep, i know what shoes will feel best" a brought a selction of three, all of which fit and he liked. Hurray.
And then the big three set about trying to stay awake all night. They were all awake at midnight and all asleep by 2.30am.

Saturday
Bean, 10, and daddy drove to brighton to collect some palettes for bean's tree house project. A quick turn around and then we headed to root hill family bbq. Back home we watched The BFG together.

Sunday
Church day. The result of a late night followed by a busy day led to some short tempers this morning. Bean was very angry at Pumpkin, 8, and decided not to go to church so they could be seperate. Pumpkin, then presented with the option of staying home, decided to stay home, consequently bean came to church with mummy, plum and pippin, 2.
After church we drove to our friends house J for her Roblox birthday party. There was lots of trampolining, cake decorating, party games, pinata and swimming. Back home we ate pizza for tea and watched Paddington together.

Monday
A home ed outing to Fisher's Farm. We aimed to spend as mucch of the day as we could there. We arrived about 11.30. We met up with friends A, J and H. Plum met her friend V and made new friends with some HE girls and the boys were able to play on things without off on their own. We enjoyed the tube slide and castle and elastic tower, the bouncy pillows, go karts, indoor slides, new indoor sensory woodland area, the carosel, rock climbing, squirrel scramble, and sky fall. Bean went repeatedly on the sky fall, mummy went once.
Pumpkin and pippin were asleep by 8.30, bean next at 9 and plum followed about 9.30. Hopefully they'll all sleep l9ng and be well rested.

That snail is fast

Sometimes our days are slow and steady, some days are all go. Today we all busy, all day.

Plum, 5, was up 3 hours earlier than normal as she had a birthday party to attend today. So at 6am this morning we were making cards and wrapping presents because we didn't want to forget to do it.

Bean, 9, has been building mechanisms with lego and elastic bands and turning them and timing them and ading more elastic bands and working out which combination of elastic bands and number of turns gives him a mechanism that turns the slowest and how long this takes. This led to us trying to make our own kitchen timer with a kit we had but we were stumped by not having a soldering tool. We have since sourced two that we could borrow but for now he moved onto his electronics kit and mostly tried things out with the magnet and reed switch today.

Meanwhile, Pumpkin, 8, got out a range of pots and pans and spoons and created a junk drum kit. Plum, 5, joined in and Pippin, 2, too. He made some music, deliberate, repeatitious, purposeful music. Plum tried out all the different sounds that she could make and we watched some Stomp clips on YouTube together.

Plum and Pippin played on the see saw and washed plates and cups in the garden and played on hoppers.

After lunch, which today was ice cream, we went and met friends and played in the church garden. I took a picnic with us too. Bean took his remote control monster truck which worked well on the paved car park area. Pumpkin took hulabaloo which everyone enjoyed. They played It and Stuck in the Mud, hide and seek, and Grandma's footsteps. Pippin played catch with Bea and then Bean and Pumpkin went to our friend's house whilst i took Plum and Pippin to V's party.

We played searching for dinosaurs and on the swing and the trampoline mostly before party tea and birthday cake. Then we collected the boys who had had an amazing time and thanks to our friends we managed a win:win for the afternoon and avoided a sticky situation.

Quick stir fry cooked by daddy to celebrate our 14th Wedding Anniversary and then off out to friends for the evening.

Dragon Slaying

Most of our December and January days are for movie watching and snuggling, board games and computer games but not Saturday. On Saturday we went Dragon Slaying. Pumpkin had a knight's birthday party. There were 13 children altogether, mumy eas the jester, daddy was the king, Plum, 5, dressed as a queen, Bean, 9, was the Black Knight. The King received a scroll from the Fiery Green Dragon to say that it was him who had stolen the king's treasure and he would only fight the bravest and most fearless knight's. They also needed to solve the puzzle of the key to enter the dragon's lair. So we set about training to be knights. First we became agile, we ran an obstacle course jumping rushing waters, climbing mountains, crawling through caves and balancing across lava. Next we toned our fighting skills with sword fighting and jousting and then we got in some target practice with javalin throughing and knocking over toy animals with a ball. After all this we had collected lego parts of the key but we were still missing one large part. The King knighted all the squires and then we went to find the dragon. On the way we met the Black Knight, most renowned for his jousting skills. Our best jouster challenged him and one and we aquired the last part of the lego key. On to the dragon's lair where we unlocked the door and slay the dragon. We celebrated afterwards with a banquet of dragon scales, dragon toes, dragon's eyeballs amongst other things. There was also stilts and diablo toys to olay with. Everyone had a great time and it was a great success.