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.

Nerf War

Today was a nerf war kind of day. We made dens in the living room, kitchen, large bedroom and Plum's top bunk. Bean, 10, and Pumpkin, 8, teamed up and mummy and Plum, 5, were on the opposing team. We made barracades and shields from pillows and cushions and hid behind doors and walls and shot at each other. This game lasted for about three hours (although i did manage to call a food break in the middle and another break to breastfeed Pippin, 2, in the hope that she would go to sleep, which she didn't until i found her in my bed at 4.30pm)

We also hot glued more youhurt pots onto Bran's pot tower. It is now over 2m tall. He measured it with the tape measure. His aim is to reach the ceiling. Pumpkin then picked up the tape measure and measured the coffee table and himself and the width of his knees and various other objects he found.

Plum and Pippin hung the laundry outside with me and played on the slide and the see-saw. Plum set up a shop in the large bedroom and Pumpkin went and played with her and then they moved on to playing roblox (natural disasters) together.

Having the time and the space to move between one activity and other as necessary is one of the many reasons we love Home Ed. Playing on the see saw for one minute and then moving to the slide or emersing ourselves into three hours of a nerf war or continuing a project with yoghurt pots that we began weeks ago, having the freedom explore and play and create and managing our own time and pace is essential.

Pagham Holiday

Pagham is on the South coast, West Sussex, right next to Bognor Regus. It is approximately 1 hour from our house. A quick get away. Trip to the coast. And a chance to explore the other end of the county! We stayed in a caravan. Daddy and Pippin, 2, shared a room, mummy and Plum, 5, shared a room and Bean, 9, and Pumpkin, 8 shared a room. Bean turned 10 whilst we were away.

Monday was travel day. We took our time to finish packing and get last minute things done. Mummy went food shopping and Bean came too. We organised the animals and ended up having our picnic lunch at home before we left. The children all packed their own back packs and off we set. We went and enjoyed the arcade games and had slush puppies and ice cream smoothies in the evening. Bean and Pumpkin found a fishing boat game that they liked and gave them lots of tickets. They decided to save their tickets until the end of the week before cashing them in.

Tuesday we all went to the Weald and Downland Museum. There was lots to see and do. Pumpkin enjoyed making a roof segment with roof tiles, Plum made an arch bridge that she could then sit on and Bean put together the timber frames of a model house about 6ft high. We had two staff members helping us out with all these things and explaining how they worked and where we could see them on the buildings around the museum. The chilsren all liked the gypsy caravans and we watched the carpenter and the blacksmith at work. We found a mechanism that needed a horse to pull it and Pumpkin recognised it from Pirates of the Carribean. Bean enjoyed the toilet that led straight below into the outside and we all enjoyed ice cream.
We went for a swim back at the holiday site, which turned out to be a bit crowded. Mummy went and found the nature reserve and coastal walk after dinner and then we all went to the arcade in the evening.

Wednesday was Bean's birthday. I will write about his special day here.

Thursday we took a more restful day and stayed on site. We swam in the morning again and Bean and plum chose to wear googles today. Bean was determined to hold his breathe and used the sinking rings again. We spent a long time counting how many seconds he could put his face in the water for. His record was 9 seconds but he only felt comfortable in the shallow end for this length of time, any further out and it was 3 or 4 seconds. Both the boys went on the slide again, Pumpkin repeatedly. Pumpkin also spent a lot of time moving around the perimeter of the pool.
Daddy took Bean and Plum and Pippin to the play area whilst Pumpkin and mummy went and prepared lunch. Bean caught us up and met us just as we reached the caravan.
The boys had a go at riding the easyscooters in the afternoon. These were motorised scooters. They were very cautious but had fun zooming around the basketball court on them and racing through the obstacle course. We found the coastal walk back to the caravan which was longer than we had anticipated and involved avoiding taking the buggy across stones. We stopped and played skimming stones on the lagoon andwatched the investation of moth caterpillars crawling everywhere. Bean became upset with our choice of route but we got back eventually and Plum had some lovely encouragment for him along the way.
We went to the arcade again in the evening where the boys cashed in their tickets. Bean got a rubix cube and Pumpkin exchanged his for a large pencil sweet for himself and a sweet each for Plum and Pippin.  Plum was pleased to see that the show involved the singing of Frozen songs on the stage. We got ice cream for the children and stayed to watch the singing for the next show too. Pippin, Pumpkin and Bean all opted to leave first as they were tired and Plum and mummy followed on a little later.

Friday we packed up and checked out followed by a final swim, where Bean swam a width and almost a length of the pool and spent more time holding his breathe under water whilst wearing googles. Pippin spent large amounts of time climbing out and jumping in, Plum being pulled around the pool by daddy and Pumpkin on the slide and circuiting the perimeter again. Bean and Pumpkin made a pool dare game together. We had a picnic lunch in the play area before heading home.

In between all the activity, there was playing chess and draughts and reading Harry Potter and 'Brown bear, Brown Bear', watching cbeebies and Poptv, discussing advertising and advertisments, twirling ribbons, colouring, playing hide and seek and 'scaredy cat.'

We're going out to play

Saturday 21st July


After a disturbed night where Plum slept beautifully in her strange surroundings but Pumpkin didn't, I got to lie in until 9 and even grabbed an afternoon nap thanks to the large number of family about. 


 FA#3 played with our collection of slings today and Plum was a very willing model. Plum also demonstrated blw successfully, mostly sucking the topping off pizza and making a mess!  


The boys played happily in the garden with L, 7, and J, 3. Lots of chasing games, hide and seek, moving garden furniture to perform shows to each other and water fun with the hose pipe. This did end when Bean sprayed water at the cat flap, obviously spraying water through it and into the kitchen. There were also a few wet children and clothes about. We sat in the garden and Plum felt the grass between her toes for the first time. 


Bean has made colouring books for everyone today by stapling two or three plain pages together and drawing a picture on the front cover. I find it interesting what he absorbs without explicit teaching, he's worked out that books have a front cover, multiple pages and bind together (usually) on the right. 


Bean and Pumpkin spent considerable time building towers with blocks and seeing who could build the tallest one without it falling over. This game then moved on to building a city with different designed buildings in it. It's worth noting that Bean's were always symmetrical. Pumpkin set about putting stepping stones between the buildings as it turned out they had built it on water.

Bean blowing across the top of nan's bottle collection to make music for me

Packing up to go home, Bean wanted a sling for his bear

Can we build it?

The day began with daddy and Bean going out to the men's breakfast at church. Pumpkin and I stayed at home and made our own special pancakes for breakfast. He really enjoyed the mixing and of course the eating.
We hosted a couple more smalls today, our God daughter and her brother, similar ages to Bean and Pumpkin. It intriged me how the introduction of two more adventurous brains turns the direction of a favourite toy. The cardboard boxes became a house and a boat with trailer but today they also had bear and a book for the journey and were selotaped together, all because there were extra smalls involved.
I was explaining to J that Bean loved to build things and as if he had heard me he set about building throughout the house, lego here, wooden blocks there, cardboard boxes in the garden, bricks in the doorway, bedding upstairs.
I had some 1:1 time with Pumpkin this morning. I went out to buy suncream recommended to be by fav auntie #1 and he opted to come with me. I let him sit in the front of the car and we had the window wide open and he choose the music. A very special time and we should try to do it more often.







Other highlights today included: painting the patio and toys, using a variety of brushes and mops, with water; Bean chalking a hop scotch on the floor complete with numbers 1, 2, 3 (he's never written numbers before); more paddling in the paddling pool; and a lot of sword fighting.

Taking it easy

After all the birthday running around in the last three weeks this week feels rather slow and I was beginning to feel like we should be 'doing' something, then I chilled out and remembered we all need to take it easy sometimes.

We went to the needles Children and Family Centre this morning which resulted in a lot of building things, namely houses and boats. This seems to be a recurring theme in both the boys building and drawing lately.

Other activities today included Pumpkin requesting to play on the piano as we were listening to piano music on the radio. Both boys spent 20 minutes or so trying out various sounds, together and solo. Bean asked to play me at chess. He has been rather persistent in his desire to learn how and I found an app that showed you where your pieces could move to and an undo button - useful for if you want to try again. I know what the pieces do but beyond that I'm not much good, so today I won my first game of chess (against my 5 year old!)

We also had a tournament game of fruit ninja on my phone which Bean won. The photo here is off his victory pose.
And lastly the boys got fed up of not going out (again because of the rain) and put their coats and wellies on to play in the garden. At one point it was raining quite hard but they carried on.

And can it be that I should gain

Feeling very blessed today. I read in a magazine ‘If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life’ – and that’s certainly how I feel. How blessed am I that I am in a position to be with my children all day every day? And I don’t mean I don’t ‘work’ because as any stay at home mum or home educator knows we work very hard but how fortunate not to have to work long hours at something I don’t enjoy just to survive or slave for the fortune of someone else? 

I’m also feeling blessed at the beautiful gift of children. I’m blessed to have three healthy, happy children and a wonderful extended family. Today was the birthday trip to the in-laws, a large gathering, party lunch and wonderful cake courtesy of favourite auntie #3. I have mentioned how important family are to us before and there is no exception here. Some people have been surprised by my fondness for my in-laws as if it is the written law that everyone should be at odds with theirs, well I am not (so nerr) 

The boys today got busy drawing, something that I know nana and granddad will appreciate greatly being that way inclined themselves and the accompaniment of classical music in the background gave a very relaxed feel to the room. There  was also some individual pursuits in building and reading but mostly there was playing with L and J in the garden, all having a lovely time and all getting along fantastically considering it’s only the second time they’ve met. On the way home Bean asked, ‘how old is L?’ We weren’t sure so suggested we could ask fav auntie#3 or bfg. Bean suggested we could ask L. Brilliant! Why didn’t I think of that?

I rounded off the day attending church with Plum whilst daddy put the boys to bed. Had an update on a charity we support, Raising Hope Foundation, which only added to my feeling of how blessed I am. Daddy also cooked some supper for us. A very blessed day indeed.

Rain on the green grass

Today's adventures have included:

•  Pumpkin waking up at 7.30am after going to sleep at 4.30 yesterday afternoon and missing dinner entirely.
• Coming downstairs after feeding Plum and finding a tea party set up in the living room.

• Bean opening up his parcel to reveal a second gift from Big Jigs for him to try out...which he did but probably not the way they had in mind. The focus area was really the road element that became the practise race track for warming up on. He later added the scalectrix track as the main race track. He also included an airport with runway, hanger and flight control tower. 

• Bean and Pumpkin helped make a delicious lunch (rather miraculously as we are rapidly running out of food - always feast or famine in our house!) 

• A much requested trip to the library where we stayed for story time, returned books and borrowed new ones. Bean rather thoughtfully picked five books for Plum.

• Walking round town in the rain, buying bits and pieces to replenish the art supplies and some domestics i.e. a visit to the bank. This also included  Pumpkin repeatedly stating he was hungry and Bean becoming very tired. It was at this stressful moment in time I remembered that daddy was not coming home until late.
• Pumpkin, for the third day in a  row, falling asleep on the way home.
• Tea being served in three sittings.
• Mummy reading bedtime stories to all at once.
• Bean, Pumpkin and Plum all in bed by 7.15
• Feeling a little proud of myself and somewhat like super woman but without the need for a disguise.

Bean took this photo

n.b. read a brilliant and inspired blog post today.