There's no place like home

We had two consecutive days at home followed by two consecutive highly busy days.

Thursday and friday were At Home Days. Thursday was very relaxed with lots of watching and computer games, play dough, colouring. The children were relaxed and i got to spend concentrated and uninterupted time with each of them. Plum, 5, and i put together the new rabbit hutch which took 2 1/2 hours in total. Bean, 10, popped out every now and then and gave us a hand and pippin, 3, kept an eye on proceedings in between cartoons and playdough. Bean went out with daddy and bought a pumpkin in the evening.

Friday bean carved a pumpkin with me as his did not turn out as expected earlier in the week. Pippin and plum and i baked a marble tray bake to take to fireworks at the church in the evening. Pumpkin didn't get up until after midday! And in the wvening we went to the church with friends and had fireworks and sparklers and soup.

Saturday we were up and out looking at houses and home for a late lunch. Bean and i went into town to spend his pocket money. He had been planning on saving it to buy a nerf gun with pumpkin but three days from getting the next instalment he decided he wanted to spend it. He bought a remote control skateboard, a lolly for himself and kinder eggs for the other three. Then it was back home for a quick feed up before daddy took the big three to fireworks at the cricket club with their friend T.

Sunday was church day followed by a trip to Polesden Lacy where we meet friend A and J and did the Wizard of Oz trail, perfect for Plum who has recently watched the film several times. We had a great time rolling down the hill and walking along the trim trail in the woods. Plum climbed a tree higher than i have ever seen her climb and bean helped guide her back down again. By the time we got home everyone was exhausted and we relaxed all evening with food and The Simpsons.

Up and down

Tuesday we managed to get up and out to make it to Guildford Air Hop where bean, 10, pumpkin, 8, and plum, 5, bounced for an hour. Pippin had to sit and watch, we did well with stories and sticker books and videoing plum but there were also some moments of sad because she couldn't go on...it'll be another two years before she is eligible for bouncing with the HE crowd!

Bean and pumpkin spent a lot of their time playing in the dodgeball court and plum bounced with her friend V and his mummy. She also enjoyed the pit.

Back home they were all shattered and spent more time in the den that bean created yesterday, more games on the pc, we said goodbye to Zuko, the crested geeko that we have been pet sitting and played chess with pumpkin and then plum for a few hours in the evening.

Bean requested biscuit making so he could use the cutters. We found a suitable recipe and he set about reading it and making the biscuits himself. I worked alongside hom baking my own batch of breakfast biscuits and being on hand for words he couldn't quite read and instructions and techniques he needed help with but i felt significantly more redundant than any previous biscuit baking afternoon.

Pippin nd plum both bathed and i sat on my bed with bean, plum and pumpkin and read stories all curled up together. Bean and plum read Each Peach Pear Plum together, it was beautiful and made my heart happy.

Summer Days

I have't posted for a week! Life has been busy. The day light hours are getting longer. Today is the summer solstice. The weather forecast is set at 34° today. Our home ed aim for today will be to stay cool.

Bean, 10, has spent the last week mostly involved in oreparing and displaying his Bakugan project. After weeks of trawling ebay, Saturday we found an auction listing in nearby Shoreham and they accepted our buy it now offer. Daddy took Bean down to collect a new case and 18 bakugan. Monday he displayed his project.
He has also been watching a lot of extreme sport tricks and world record holding stunts on youtube. Tight rope walking over niagra falls and the grand canyon, rock climbing without equipment up sheer rock faces, jumping without parachutes, skateboarding into the grand canyon, extreme mountain biking etc. He says he wants to overcome his fear of heights so that he can climb higher.

Pumpkin, 8, has helped taste test cakes for me for daddy's birthday party and we have been trying to faciliatate as much time as possible at home for him in between a very busy schedule. Friday we stayed home all day and made cakes and wrapped daddy's presents, Saturday morning i stayed at gome with him whilst the others went out and he and i stayed at home sunday morning whilst the others went to church. Then we drove FA#3 and family to the airport and had a beautiful drive home, just the two of us.
Monday, Pumpkin and Bean played with a HE friend that we have known for years but for the first time really connected and they have plans to go and play at his house.

Plum, 5, busy busy busy as always. Plum helped make and ice all four cakes that we made for daddy's birthday. She played relentlessly with her cousins C and H and enjoyed having them for a sleep over at the weekend, she made a new friend at the project showcase who shared their hoola hoop with her. She also took her my little ponies to display and another HE teen helped her to mix slime. She has met a friend at fisher's farm and played in the new indoor area together. And when she needs a rest she takes her tablet up to her room and watches youtube.

Pumpkin, 2, is a delight. She's there mixing cakes with us and hanging the laundry, she hides every nappy change under the duvets and sheets and then i have to hide from her too, she chops vegetables for dinner and feeds the rabbits with me, she colours and loads her own films to watch. She has begun to copy the dancing in films, her best being madagascar' "move it, move it," nut job's "gangnam style," and frozen "do you wanna build a snowman?" Her sleeping patterns are unpredictable as she transitions from regular afternoon nap to no nap through late afternoon nap which the heat is contributing to.

We have also managed to complete our lego card collection, pending promised cards, watched lego batman together, played at Fisher's Farm Splash Attack and go karts, where bean gave plum and pippin rides around the track, and went to the animal handling, held daddy's birthday party and played with lots of friends.

Today we will stay at home and rest, with no specific plans, except to stay cool in the heat.

Rainy days

Plum, 5, and Pippin, 2, spent over an hour role playing together. Today's theme was schools. They reasranged the letters and words on the fridge and had 'lessons' and then took their babies and fed them and put them to bed. They then repeated this over and over again.

Pippin and mummy made a marble cake together that Bean, 10, declared to be his new favourite cake.

We buried Charlie the guinea pig. Pippin played guitar and sang a 'goodbye charlie' song and bean got his prayer book and we said the 'thank you for our dead pet' prayer.

In the afternoon we went to Fisher's Farm. We played in the new indoor area and then all the smalls went for a pony ride. It was pippin's first time on a pony ride. We then played on the go karts for half an hour before heading home.

Back home bean and pumpkin, 8, played terreria together. Plum and pippin played together before she went and lay in her bed and watched on her tablet. Pippin fell asleep on the sofa and the boys watched more Simpsons.

Bank Holiday

Saturday

Bean, 10, and dad headed off to Roothill Christian camp for three days. Pumpkin, 8, planned our day of roblox and cake making. Plum, 5, chose to make the chocolate cake with white butter icng and the she and Pippin, 2, decorated it with chocolate chips. Plum placed hers in a perfect ring on the edge of the cake.
Pumpkin and I played roblox. We played Natural Disasters, Zombie Rush and cake baking.

Sunday

I took Pumpkin, Plum and Pippin to church. They all went to Sunday School without me, things have changed and i now attended the adult bit. Situations changing all the time. We came home and had soup and then we cut Pumpkin's hair. He last had it cut April 2016, 13 months ago.
This was followed by everyone making giant chocolate chip cookies together ready to take to the play park, except it rained a lot so we stayed home instead.
We also watched a hedgehog in our garden today, weeding the herb garden and making a nest in the store.

Monday

Pumpkin up and dressed himself, even though i hadn't asked him and we had no plans to be out and i usually have to dress him. We made a spontaneous trip to the play park for an hour and took the cookies we had made yesterday. The smalls pushed 3ach other on the swings and the roundabout and played hide and seek together.
Back home Pippin slept long, Plum got out her horses and combed their hair, Pumpkin put on The Simpsons to watch.
Then we went to collect Bean and daddy, had a picnic tea and played on all the equipment. I was completely stumped when a child asked me why my children don't go to school. Pumpkin stepped in and told him how we like to be together and you don't get to see your family much if you go to school and everyone tells you what to do all.the.time and that is boring.
We headed home and all collapsed on the sofa/bed.

Spining Plates

The other morning we overheard Pumpkin, 8, explaining the process of photosynthesis to his siblings. These moments encourage us on our unschooling journey as we don't explicitly set out to teach our children a particular topic or curriculum. It is fascinating to watch how qnd what they learn in their own space and time and from their own sources.

We have had lots of whitespace interspersed with a shopping trip to town with Bean, 9, for party supplies, an evening trip to a friends party, church and a film night at a friends house. Ostly it feels like we have been managing expectations especially with Bean as he is trying to flex his independence but is restrained by siblings. It helped that we had a pizza date during the shopping trip, just me and him. As part of our morning out we also took part in some market research, in which he was very thoughtful in his responses and i gave him half of the cash, which pleased him as he is very money motivated.

Plum, 5, went supply shopping on Sunday with daddy and they made a cake together in the afternoon before going to eat pizza and watch a film at T's house.

Plum still reads Brown Bear every night except now we substitute each of the animals for different ones every night and then we try to remember them all on the last page before we hold hands and go to sleep.

All by myself

The Sims4. Six plus hours of playing the Sims4. Bean, 9, predominantly with Pumpkin, 8, looking on and advising or contributing ideas.

Pumpkin also squeezed in a few goes on Roblox and had an hour to himself to play in the evening.

Plum, 5, and Pippin, 2, played with the farm set and playmobile together. Plum tidied her bedside shelf whilst Pippin played with the bears. Plum and i also made chocolate cupcakes together and did some puzzles whilst sat in the garden. Pippin read The Little Princess to herself "no, i want to do it by myself" (that is the repeated phrase in the book that she read to herself)

Daddy made a den with them all in the living room in the evening following a roarcus game of hiding and chasing throughout the house and garden.

It's Oh so quiet

At Home Day #3 Pumpkin, 7, was positively bouncing with excitement when i said we had no plans today. Bean, 9, discovered that he can watch dvds on their computer so he and Pumpkin chose two that Plum doesn't enjoy and they watched those, star wars and harry potter. They also play the espcapists and watch dantdm and stampy. I set up skype for Bean on his tablet and we play a skateboarding game together. Bean also has a bath today. And him, pumpkin and plum, 5, watch Kermit Swamp Adventures together in the evening.

Pumpkin is in his happiest when we stay at home. After watching films and youtube he plays a capture in the dark game that he has made up with Bean and Plum. This then turned into wrestling. Followed by general climbing, running, chasing, fighting, energetic games.

Plum mostly watched on her tablet today. She has been very restful. She has been watching Steve and Maggie. She helped me make cupcakes in the evening ready for her party tomorrow. We read stories before bed and she read Ketchup on your Cornflakes to me.

Pippin, 2, has been colouring and playing Bing. She has watched Bing and Topsy and Tim today and also found the Peppa Pig dvd on the shelf so we watched that together.

People are more important

Monday. Plum, 4, went to Little Verse with SGG and SGS. Whilst she was out i played chess with both Bean, 9, and Pumpkin, 7. Pumpkin made his own Skylanders using lego mini figures. Pippin, 2, vacuumed with me and went back to bed for a nap about 11.30am.

Bean and me played on the wii in the afternoon. He chose Skylanders. We played together for about an hour whilst the others played happily together in my bedroom. He also cut out biscuits and then decorated them using tubes of writing icing. He mostly made faces onto the star shped biscuits. He spent most of the day watching Pokemon Advanced on his new tablet.

Pumpkin has been making his own Skylanders on his tablet (for Imaginators) as well as lego mini figures. He has also played through Lego: The Lord of The Rings on his tablet over the last few days too. This afternoon we played Mario Kart on the wii together and in the evening he played board games with Plum and daddy.

Plum got the cars and car mat out this morning and continued to play with them when she was at home. She put cars on all the road to create a huge trafic jam. She played cbeebies games on her tablet and instigated the hour long game of mummies with Pumpkin and Pippin in the afternoon. She also initiated the idea of making biscuits and cut out and decorated her own star biscuits. She had wanted heart ones but we have lost the heart shaped cutter. We sand twinkle twinkle whilst we were cutting them out and she taught me Dingle Dangle Scarecrow.

Pippin, 2, has enjoyed watching Bing and Tospy and Tim today. She has been busy playing cars with Plum and cuddled up on the sofa to read books with Pumpkin. She has cut out biscuits and played mummies with Plum as well as hoovering with me and drawing tiny squiggles very carefully.

People are more important than things. Proverbs 27

Ginger Cat Cake

Another At home Day. This time planned. Bean, 9, had a wedding cake to make in the style of a stripy ginger cat.

Pumpkin, 7, enjoyed not having to share the computer and watched all day. He watched Skylander walkthroughs and Skylander cartoons, he watched DanTDM and Stampy, he watched The Simpsons and probablt other things that I missed.

Plum, 4, also spent most of the day watching on her tablet. After Pippin had a very long afternoon nap, they played together. They each had a dolly and a buggy and they kept putting on coats and shoes so that they could 'go out.'

Bean spent 9 1/2 hours baking and decorating cakes, with food and drink breaks included. It took 2 hours purely to mix and bake the bottom cake. This one on the top was a chocolate cake recipe that grandma gave us. We covered it with a thin layer of marzipan and then had to leave it until last before we covered it with foundant icing and put strips on it. For the following layer we made a Victoria Sponge. We mixed and cooked two layers but he decided only to use one. This was covered with butter icing and orange foundant and then cut out pieces to create the facial features. Next we made a batch of vanilla cupcakes. We used four of these for paws and covered them with orange foundant and decorated them with claws. Bean used a fifth one to make a mouse. The tail is a long roll of orange foundant.

We have used Pinterest to get design ideas for the face and recipe books and people knowledge to get different recipes to try. I have been baking a cake a day this week to try different flavours and sizes and strength and successfulness. Today Bean used YouTube to watch tutorials on how to shape and ice cakes. Daddy went out shopping to find a board to place it on. He couldn't find a cake board big enough so bought a large pizza board instead.

We will all be eating the left over cupcakes and one layer of Victoria Sponge.

Home is where the Heart is

Another Home Day. You can tell that the seasons are changing as we are at home again. It wasn't the plan. We had planned to meet our Christian Home Ed friends for a play but several couldn't make it last minute so those of us left decided to meet in the park instead. Despite talking it through with the smalls and checking the weather together and arranging to play pokemon when it came to leaving, the suggestion of a rain coat meant that Pumpkin did jot want to go out. Bean was happy to stay. Pippin was tired. That left a disappointed Plum. I put Pippin to bed, Bean and Pumpkin went and continued to play on the wii. I scoped up Plum for cupcake making which she had been asking to do since Sunday.

Bean, 9, has been watching more Thundermans today, played mario kart and wii games (bowling and tennis) with me and played lego star wars and lego pirates of the caeribean with Pumpkin. He choose Cars for a film this evevning.

Pumpkin, 7, and I played Chess together this morning. It was interesting to see how he thinks things through (he is very articulate with his thinking process.) He has been playing a lot on chess on my phone recently and it is visible how much it has helped him learn the game. He has caught up with Dan TDM today and found some more episodes of The Simpsons. He has played ont he wii with Bean. They got stuck at one point and came and got a tablet so they could find a walkthrough on YouTube.

Plum, 4, has been playing mummys again with Pippin. The doll's house has been out and the kitchen set. She has been setting up the magnetic letter for me to read to her, puttin random strings of letters together, and then putting them in coloured groups, and finally making a rainbow with them. We made and decorated cupcakes and sat cuddled on the sofa watching Cars.

Unwell

Today was ourcarless day. Pumpkin, Plum and Pippin are all down with a cough and cold. We stayed at home all day. The morning was taken up with games that involved sweets and giant American sized marshmallows. I hid sweets in piles of flour and the children had to get them out without using their hands. Pumpkin opted for his mouth, Bean and Plum used their elbows, Pippin used her hands. I hid sweets in plastic eggs around the house that they worked together to find and then we transported marshmallows across the room together using our elbows as pincers.

Bean, 9, watched more Pokemon episodes and held a Pokemon battle with Pumpkin and played PokemonGo for most of the day. He played on the wii for a while in the afternoon.

Pumpkin, 7, did all things Pokemon too. He also made some giant chocolate chip cookies and watched the Junior Bake Off.

Plum, 4, lay on the sofa wrapped in a duvet all day. She put Frozen on at one point but fell asleep whilst it was on. She watched a few things on her tablet when she woke but mostly dozed on and off until she fell again and daddy carried her up to bed.

It sounds like it's been a quiet day however the boys struggle with the lack of space to be energetic in and there has been a lot of Pokemon battling which has occupied the whole house energetically and noisily.

Rest and relaxation

A day at home can sometimes be a very relaxing and welcome rest. however today all the smalls were incredibly busy and needing help with things.

Bean wanted to try coding for the first time. We were recommended a programme and it has a free trial so we downloaded it. That was as far as we got because our computer wouldn't run it and i didn't know how to fix that. We navigated the disappointment by moving on to videoing his tutorial for building the lego model that he designed yesterday evening.

Pumpkin needed his bike wheels washing after riding through poo. We also made a cake and he iced it using the icing bags (like they do on the bake off)

Plum and i had played various card games throughout the day, snap, pairs, and variations of these that Plum made up the rules to.

It all sounds fairly ordered when written down but it was peppered with food distribution and Pippin climbing on me, a lot, helping Pippin to sleep, sorting out electronic devices, and some peace making.

A day at home

We now spend one day a week at home without the car, enforced by daddy needing it for work. It has worked out really well.  We can walk to town if we want to, play poker on,  go to the library or the museum, or walk/bike/scooter to one of four parks within walking distance. But today we settled on staying at home.

The big three were all up after 9.30am. The boys relaxed and watched YouTube for a few hours. Punprinted is continuing to find gamers who walk through Simpson'so games and Bean is working through various comedy series and testing out the humour by repeating the jokes on us.

Plum and I played doll'so house whicheck she turned into the three bears cottage and we retoldon't the story of goldilocks. It ended with baby bear and goldilocks playing at her house in the swimming pool and diving in. This has beena recurring theme in her play for a few months now. She builds diving boards in mine craft and usespecially the padding pool, bath, and water trays to build diving boards for her toys.
After playing doll'so house, Plum and Pippin made white chocolate chunk brownies.

Lydia isn't well again and hasn't been for a few days. Today I noticed white spots on her tongue so we went to the doctors and he diagnosed thrush and gave a course of medicine for her.

Bean has spent an hour working on his lego Chima today with me finding specific pieces for him. He spent about one and a half hours (in segments) learning to play Yankee Doodle on the piano. This encompassed learning to read the music, learning the keyboard, the names for notes and noteven length as well as figuring out the tune by ear once he realised what tune it was.
It also led to questions and discussion on American Independence, explorers, and St Patrick's Day.

Makes clearing of the piano worth it.

A day at home

We now spend one day a week at home without the car, enforced by daddy needing it for work. It has worked out really well.  We can walk to town if we want to, play poker on,  go to the library or the museum, or walk/bike/scooter to one of four parks within walking distance. But today we settled on staying at home.

The big three were all up after 9.30am. The boys relaxed and watched YouTube for a few hours. Punprinted is continuing to find gamers who walk through Simpson'so games and Bean is working through various comedy series and testing out the humour by repeating the jokes on us.

Plum and I played doll'so house whicheck she turned into the three bears cottage and we retoldon't the story of goldilocks. It ended with baby bear and goldilocks playing at her house in the swimming pool and diving in. This has beena recurring theme in her play for a few months now. She builds diving boards in mine craft and usespecially the padding pool, bath, and water trays to build diving boards for her toys.
After playing doll'so house, Plum and Pippin made white chocolate chunk brownies.

Lydia isn't well again and hasn't been for a few days. Today I noticed white spots on her tongue so we went to the doctors and he diagnosed thrush and gave a course of medicine for her.

Bean has spent an hour working on his lego Chima today with me finding specific pieces for him. He spent about one and a half hours (in segments) learning to play Yankee Doodle on the piano. This encompassed learning to read the music, learning the keyboard, the names for notes and noteven length as well as figuring out the tune by ear once he realised what tune it was.
It also led to questions and discussion on American Independence, explorers, and St Patrick's Day.

Makes clearing of the piano worth it.

Over a Year

Bean, now 9, had his annual haircut today. I say annual because that is roughly how it has worked out for the past few years. He wanted it to look like the baddy in Indiana Jones 4, Googled it and found an image for me. Plum was my assistant and checked it was looking good as well as working the tablet for Bean as he sat and watched various cartoons whilst I snipped away. All of this was followed by a bath, thankfully more than an annual occurance and hair wash but not with shampoo as he doesn'the like it.

We have been to church today too. We were all up later than usual but this seemed to work well as breakfast was done in two sittings and everyone was dressed succinctly. The children did some stuff on praising God and the highlight was the BBQ,  another annual event, which Pumpkin, 7, made banoffie pie for (the same as he had done last year)

All of the children spent the time playing with friends. The church has enough families in it now that all ages and interests are met and, probably for the first time, I was not heavily pregnant or spending my whole time with babies or toddlers (although there was some of this) It felt liberating to sit and chat.

and almost over a year

Stopping to look at things that interest the boys and catch their eye as we walk here and there is becoming second nature. We try not to rush and leave more time than is necessary to get from a to b and remember the journey is as important than the destination. Today it was this 'beautiful' (Pumpkin) flower. It's not the best picture but we were examining it for a good 5 minutes and discussing it's features and what contributed to making it a 'beautiful' flower.
Bean took this photo of Plum. A child's view on the world always interests me. The boys seem to insist on approaching her from this direction most of the time and I can't fathom why. It's never enough to hold her hand, it's definitely all about eye contact and getting those smiles and giggles!

Bean turns five this week and is busy preparing for his birthday party. He asked for one and I said that he would have to help with the organising, this also gives me the opportunity to manage some party expectations. He is busy painting posters and making planets (it is going to be a space party.) It fascinates me that Bean choose to paint numerous number five posters today adding to his knowledge of both reading, writing and number value, amongst other things, all admirable things to be doing at his age and stage and certainly on a par with his peers educated in school but I was pondering the learning that has now been embedded because he choose to do this himself, I'm sure it must be worth more this way (will look it up.)
Bean also picked up his Australia books again today, he was very interested in it's position on the planet.

Pumpkin watched an I can cook episode today and announced that he would like to make the recipe they had made. It involved strawberries which I knew we didn't have but said we could look up the recipe and buy the ingredients to make it. Unfortunately the recipe was not on the associated website (boo) but there were plenty of others (yay.) Instead we looked at a couple until we found one that he liked the sound of and as it happened I had all the ingredients in the cupboard so today's baking effort was honey tea bread. We'll be taking it out with us for our snack tomorrow...thank you Pumpkin.

Through the Looking Glass

Pumpkin's bed consists of two mattresses (one longer, one shorter - it is an extendible bed) two sheets, one towel, two waterproof squares, one duvet, one pillow. In the past week this collection of material has been used to build a camp, a beach, a mountain, a house, a shop and a castle. To the untrained eye they all look much the same but to the boys they are all very different. Today's effort was a castle and also included two bean bags.

We have a very busy week this week and so today we ditched our normal Tuesday routine and headed into town. A few weeks ago my glasses fell apart and today I had an opticians appointment to test my eyes and buy some new ones. I had warned them that I would be bringing three smalls with me and they were amazing. Bean choose to sit outside the room and draw, Pumpkin choose to come in with me and Plum very dutifully slept for the whole appointment. The optician explained everything to Pumpkin, answered all his questions and even let him press a few buttons to move me up and down in the chair. They calmly let the boys try on different glasses and play with the mirrors. It was generally a really positive experience except for the man who wanted the boys to show him how they could 'sit nicely' which I found slightly amusing after my post yesterday. 
We had totally the opposite experience in Argos. Totally unhelpful and unwilling to accommodate my request at all.

This was followed by a library trip, mainly so I could feed Plum and the boys routed through more books, we read about five and they played on the computer. It amazes me how confident and able Pumpkin has become in just the last few weeks. And as it was dry and warm enough for us we picniced in the nearby play area.

We had to go and buy Grandma a birthday present and then we went to Horsham Museum to look in the art gallery. As Bean and Pumpkin have been churning out art work recently I thought it would be nice for them to see how artists display their collections. Pumpkin was a bit tired by this point and mostly moaned but Bean loved it. The display was a photography one taken by a professional pilot whilst in flight, so various views from above, sky lines, sun rises/sets and cloud formations. Bean was really interested in what each of the photos was called and was very articulate about the ones he liked and why.

This morning Bean had asked how do we make jam tarts so we ended our day by making some...actually we ended our day by eating some, yum, yum.

Babble, books and baking

Today's biggest pleasure has been listening to Plum babble all day. At some points it almost sounds like she is imitating her daddy when he says her name. She gets the intonation perfectly. She literally hasn't stopped. The boys continue to love their little sister and I continue to love watching them with her. They often sing her songs and hold her hand or lie down next to her. Pumpkin is often a little over bearing towards her and seems to be constantly in her face or kissing her or full body hugging her. It has been a challenge for us to encourage him in his affections towards her whilst also protecting her from being squashed! Today's development has been Pumpkin's idea to read to her. 

We love reading. It is one of my favourite things that I wish I had more time to indulge in! We have books or reading material everywhere and one of the boys favourite outings is to the library. Bean has recently become fascinated with Australia (I don't know why or remember where the interest was stimulated from) and this morning I came downstairs to daddy and Bean looking at pictures in a back issue of the National Geographic in which Bean was total enthralled. 

cheese scones

honey cookies

After a week of eating chocolate eggs and a party bag full of sweets from yesterday I got busy in the kitchen in the hope that the phrase, 'Mummy, I'm hungry,' can be met with some home baked goods this week. Pumpkin still insists he's hungry pretty much all the time and he pretty much eats all the time too. I don't know where he puts it all! "Hollow legs," that's what his daddy would say.

And whilst we're on food, Plum has taken to feasting on one side only and then wanting her pudding up to an hour later! I don't remember the boys doing that. She really does have her own rhythm and it goes to show from the outset that our children are all different. Just for the record, after the normal (for me) rickety start, I am loving the breast feeding once again. This time especially, I feel it gives me and Plum dedicated time together and I wouldn't have it any other way...even when I fall asleep on the job in the middle of the night (as I did last night) and forget to even offer the pudding, much to Plum's disgust who proceeded to make it clear that she wanted it! :)