Day 5

Today was our last day of quarantine.

Bean, 10, made a birthday card for Pippin with moving parts. It took several attempts and reworking to get the length of the pulling parts correct and make sure they didn't get pulled out but he did it. He also ent about half an hour playing piano with me. We looked at all the keys and put coloured dots on the matching ones. We looked at notation and how it related to the keys. We played tunes together that we have played before and tried a new one. And then we had fun with the 'excercise' book. In the afternoon he did several 100+ piece puzzles, some with me, some on his own and some with Plum. He had a bath and was counting holding his breath and using a straw as a snorkle.

Pumpkin, 8, is currently immersing himself in 'The amazing world of Gumball,' i think he watched it all day except for when he put the film 'the house of magic' on. He did have a bath. Pumpkin also regained hos appetite today so hopefully, after fuelling up and resting today, he will be better now.

Plum, 5, played doll's house with me in the morning and then continued playing with pippin. They made a cinema for the figures using the doll's furniture and a tablet, the created a beach area using face clothes as towels and daddy's blue blanket as the sea, and they made a play park area too.
Plum played a shooting game with bean. They used unloaded nerf guns and had bases and were chasing each other around the house shooting. And then plum did a 100 piece puzzle with a little help from pumpkin. She then completed a few more with me and bean.

Pippin, 2, had a bath this evening, played doll's house with Plum, cut up veg for dinner, tried her hand at a few puzzles and watched Topsy and Tim.

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.

Robin Hood

I've got a rather exciting knitting project on the go atm. After our busy week of party preparations, I haven't done as much work on it as i would have liked and last night sat up later than i should have knitting. consequently feeling very tired today. Plum had a disturbed night. tossing and turning and crying and refusing milk and cuddles. it was very frustrating and saddening not to be able to help her. After two hours she finally settled about 4.30am and peace was restored. She woke about 7.30 and daddy very kindly got up with her.

It has been an odd day today. mostly because the boys and daddy went on their own separate adventure to Littlehampton to try an archery session. I love archery and would have loved to have joined them but we decided that with only two weekends free between now and mid August I should take advantage and go and run some errands in town. Mostly this meant go to the opticians and order a new pair of prescription glasses and a second pair of day to day glasses (it always makes me nervous that i only have one pair) It was good to go without the boys who can make the sales assistance understandably nervous with their handling and activeness and it is too long for them to sit even if i take distractions. I was rather pleased with my purchases and they should be ready just in time or our big trip over the pond.

Plum slept for nearly two hours and i took to doing some sorting and organising. Plum still woke unsettled and seemed to be missing her brothers and the general hub bub of our home. I played with her for an hour and then she had milk just as they arrived home. She was much improved with their arrival and was particularly pleased to see daddy.

The rest of the afternoon was spent with the boys playing remote control cars and Plum playing piano. We watched some of the videos that daddy took when we were at Legoland and ordering the caterpillars for the butterfly kit that Bean's friends bought for him. There seems to be a lot of wild crazy behaviours going on this evening.

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.