All sorts

Bean, 10, continues to build his skatepark with cardboard ramps and fixing them together with a glue gun. He took the ramp and remote control skateboard to his friends house to play and also found the finger skateboard too.

Pumpkin, 8, spent most of the day watching and playing on his tablet. He enjoyed nerf wars at his friends house and continued to play when he got home.

Plum, 5, is loving looking after the rabbits in the mornings. She played parties with pippin, 3. They got dressed up in special outfits and put on make up and nail varnish and decorated their hair together.

We spent three hours at our friend, O's, house. Plum went and played with the three big ones this time and took on the roll of healer in the nerf game. It seemed to work really well.

Daddy was home late but had arranged to watch The Matrix 2 with Bean so they started on that. I curled up downstairs with plum and we started watching Turbo together.

Questions, questions, questions.

Bean, 10, is on a crafing role. Today he began his day by makin a snowglobe for Plum. After alt of years of harbouring and collecting crafting items, they are now being used. Bean was notinterested in making using paint or glue when he was younger but recently asked if we could have a desigated crafting table.

Pumpkin, 8, was in a question asking mood. Do fish close their eyes when they sleep? What is nitroglycerin? What doyou call itwhen the moon is moretan half amoon but not a fullmoon?

Plum, 5, played doll's house and dollies with pippin, 3.

In the afternoon our friends came to play. A, J, H and their mummy. The big four played upstairs making traps and hideouts and playing roblox and sims4. H, plum and pippin played play dough pizza making and ice cream sets they also played momentarily in the garden with the small world.
We took themall to the park. Bean took the boomerang and they played a real life version of a roblox game similar to winking murder. This continued when we got home.

Saturday, daddy took all four smalls to bedgebury pinetum and meet FA#3 with cousins C and H. They had a good day exploring and climbing and doing a gruffalo trail. We watched Men In Black in the evening together.

Untitled

We met with friends on Friday. They were one of the first families that i met when we first stepped into the HE community and although we have seen each other frequently at HE events it is not until now that our children have connected. Bean, 10, and Pumpkin, 8, spent more than an hour at their house whilst i took plum, 5, and pippin, 2, to the nearby play park with K, 12. We had a great time at the park and played on the zipline, roundabout, swings, slide, pirate boat and the adult gym equipment before we got a call to return to the boys. We then stayed a little longer watching a film before we left. The plan eas for pippin to sleep, which she did on the return journey but promptly woke when we got home.

Saturday we went to Pilgrim Hall for our church away day. The children played all day with SGG and SGS who did clay models and kite flying and pictures and junk modelling with them. Daddy and i sat next to each other all day and we took the children swimming in the outdoor pool. Pumpkin didn't want to swim so swang on the tree swing a while and then went and played table tennis and table football with a friend.

Sunday we went to church and then collapsed in the afternoon. All the children took themselves to their own corner and lay and played on their tablets. We did the same Monday too. Both saturday and sunday we had had to wake the big three to get them up and out for the day, monday was blessed relief.

Monday their was some Magic: the gathering, playing in the paddling pool, painting, playing mummies and daddies, minecraft, and a lego zip wire. I also took plum and pippin to the park for an hour.

Tuesday we took Archie dog out for a walk in the woods. We had to go and buy him some tennis balls as he didn't have any. It started to rain just as we were leaving. The remainder of the day was spent with water beads and den making, minecraft, youtube, gaming, and film watching.

Getting Ready

Tuesday was our weekly imposed At Home Day (daddy has the car for work.) It works out really well as it forces me not to over plan days out. Today, we had lots in the pipeline though. The weekend holds both daddy's 50th birthday including party and Father's day and on Monday Bean, 10, is displaying project work at a HE showcase. It may seem like we have days to get things together but when, realistically, your life revolves around preping food and one outing a day, there isn't much concentrated time left. So, today we choose and ordered presents that will arrive tomorrow (very thankful that our free trial for amazon prime is on); we choose three cakes to make for the party and added ingredients to the shopping list; each of the smalls made their own birthday card for daddy, each of their own design; and bean worked on his Bakugan display, searching for pictures on the internet and copying and pasting them into a document and resizing for printing.

Wednesday we took a picnic to Horsham park and met with four other HE families. Plum, 5, met up with V for the second time this week and they played bubbles together and in the sandpit for a while, pippin, 2, followed them around and played in the sand pit for a long while. She had taken her bucket and spade with her. Pumpkin, 8, played for a long time on his own, mostly on the zip wire, he also played chasing games with bean but it was very hot for running around. Bean, pumpkin and mummy played charades in the shade for a bit. Plum and pippin went on the swings before we came home.
Back home we made daddy's Father's day card, which was lots of fun (can't say much more as it is a surprise) but we laughed A LOT. Pippin chopped vegetables for dinner and the smalls watched films from amazon prime.

Bean has become very helpful in recent weeks, especially as we get ready to leave the house or when we are out. Not helpful in the sense that i have asked him if he could do something but he sees something that needs doing and he does it. It is lovely. He helpes Pippin into the car and straps her in (when she is willing), he fills drinks bottles before we leave and puts any bags i've placed by the door to take with us into the car. Today the open picnic bag fell out of the car and emptyed all over the car park. I was consoling a tired, hot Pippin and bean and pumpkin both jumped out of the car and picked up the contents of the bag and puzzled over how to reach the container that had rolled under the next car and they couldn't reach. They ended up using one of the many sticks that have been collected and put in the car.

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.

Seemlessly

An At Home Day today, much needed although we did end up popping out to collect the car which included a trip to the shop for apple supplies.

Bean, 9, has been a whirlwind of activity. He began with making a projector using a tutorial he had seen on YouTube. He needed a little help with the craft knife but it was a really simple idea. The image came out upside down and he fiddled with it on and off all day until he had worked out how to get it to project the correct way up.

I had made moonsand for Plum, 5, and her friend J who was coming to play. Bean immediately began construction on The Great Wall of China and a whole heap of questions ensued about who built the wall and why and can you climb over it.

Bean showed me a riddle he had heard on The ANT Farm about Antoni and Cleopatra and Ceaser, we worked it out together and then Bean was asking questions about who they were so we pulled the Egyptian book off the shelf and looked them up.

Next we searched for the Usbourne book on castles as Bean wanted to build a castle in minecraft. This was followed by 5 card draw which Pumpkin, 8, joined in and we used pennies to bet with.

I played Top Trumps (superheroes) and Plop Trumps with Pumpkin and we tried to all hook up via multiplayer on Terreria and Minecraft but for some reason we couldn't.

Our friends A and J came to play. Plum and J played together for hours, Pippin, 2, joined in too. They played moonsand and in the rabbit hutch and then doll's house and Grosseries.

Pippin put on Peppa Pig and we watched The Angry Birds movie. Pippin got a giant floor puzzle out and we put it together and then took it apart more than a few times.

It was an unexpectedly active day.

Game play

Monday. We had friends to play today and had a very succesfullay date. I created Roblox accounts for each of the children and they joined together across platforms to play together. The boys on one game and the girls on another. It was good watching them play together and interesting to see that dispite there being 100's of games to choose from they enjoy the same ones, surviving natural disasters being today's favourite. The girl's enjoyed a city game where you are a character in a city and are able to live in this virtual world.
We also played in the garden together using the slide and playing ball with a beach ball and the sticks came out to play too. Bean, 9, asked if we had any large marshmallows for the fire pit. Plum, 5, and J, 5, played in my wardrobe and lottie dolls and cats.

Tuesday. Today we met friends at church. We also had C, 10, over for the day. We all made pizza together and played uno and beanbag diving and hide and seek and it. We came home for the afternoon and played minecraft multiplayer Bean, Pumpkin, 8, Plum, 5, C and mummy on a map that Bean has downloaded. There was pvp battling in a tnt filled arena which was good fun.

Mummy and Bean continued reading Harry Potter and Plum and C played upstairs together. They then played wrestling and murder in the dark before C went home. The evening was full of Mr. Bean episodes.

Pippin, 2, has not been napping on days at home and this has resulted in lengthy crying episodes at around 5pm which is also the time that the others start requesting food. Monday evening didn't go so well as i attempted to cook food (put chicken dippers in the oven) whilst Pippin cried continuously and Pumpkin was pretending to be a ghost and whhhooooooood loudly in Pippin's face which increased the crying and upset me. So, Tuesday, i made sandwiches mid afternoon which Pumpkin ate immediately so i made more and then when hunger time came they helped themselves to sandwiches and bits and i sat with Pippin and we watched Peppa Pig and ate food. Much better.

Whitespace

We were all up early with lots of whitespace (no plans) for the morning and a playdate arranged for the afternoon. Just because there are no plans, doesn't equate to doing nothing. It is actually incredibly difficult to do nothing. It is often during the times of whitespace that we discover what sparks our interest and we can use these ideas to organise or plan other things that might also interest us.

Bean, 9, and Pumpkin, 7, continued watching A.N.T Farm and then went and spent 4 hours playing on the wii working through the next episode of Lego: Pirates of the Carribean.

Plum, 4, and Pippin, 2, and me painted our nails. Plum painted her own fingernails and Pippins. We then sat and read several books together, some of them multiple times. We then face painted the dollies and finally each other. Plum face painted an excellent tiger onto her dolly. Pippin painted her dolly and herself blue, Plum said she was a blueberry. I painted a cat onto Plum's face, a yellow and green cat. Plum was showing signs of flagging after this and although we had rearranged our playdate from a nerf war in a park to indoor at their house, Plum was now saying she wanted to stay at home. She choose a film to watch (Shark Tale) and we snuggled on the sofa together. i rearranged our play date for the third time.

I went and spoke to the boys about not going to our friend's house and Bean immediately suggested that they could go their without me (this has never happened or been an option before, Bean has always wanted me to stay (except for the one camping weekend he chose to go on)) Pumpkin wasn't keen on this idea but i have logged it in my mind for another day.

Our friends arrived with a coding book for Bean and nerf guns. Pippin was asleep so nerf wars were off the agenda for a while. They played on the wii and introduced their friend, O, to bopit. He loved it so much that he asked Pumpkin if he could borrow it so Pumpkin has agreed to a loan and O took it home with him.
We played Hullabaloo together, followed by Cranium, and a nerf war before O went home.

The big three then drew each other treasure maps and hid chocolate gold coins and pieces of map around the house for each other to find. The day ended with pizza and finishing the film Plum had started and baths for all of them, stories for Pippin and Bean.