Hectic

Gymnastics day and bean, 10, asked if we could go to Tilgate Park afterwards, so we did. They collected sticks and played pirate ships on a fallen tree trunk. Bean, pumpkin, 8, and plum, 5, played on the large twirly slide together. Pippin, 3, enjoyed the rope swing, swings and smaller slide.

That was topped and tailed with watching Plum watching Elf, bean continuing The Matrix 2 with daddy, bean making a daily calender for himself using coloured paper, a hole punch, the paper slicer, and string. Plum drawing pictures and making cards. Pumpkin organising a nerf war for us all to play and pippin co tinuing to enjoy colouring, play dough and baths with her anna doll and repunzel barbie.

We had a quiet relaxed day at the beginning of the week, now i have overwhelmed with requests to play or help or for food. Sometimes it's quiet, sometimes it's just plain hectic.

Elongated

Our mornings and currentl elogated (at i don't imagine that changing in the foreseeable future) Pippin, 2, wakes anytime between 6.30 and 8am. Bean, 10, about 8/30am, plum, 5, gets up between 8 and 9am, and pumpkin, 8, didn't wake until 10.45am. Consequently our mornings are a relaxed mix of gaming, breakfast, toys, breakfast, five minute crafts, breakfast, chores and breakfast, which then blends into lunch as the first risers are ready for more food by the time the later risers have emerged!

Today we had a viewing booked in on our house for midday so it was mostly breakfast and chores and packing a lunch ready to go and meet friends so we could be out of the house. We met our church friends K, T and R at the church for a few hours of playdough, hide and seek, slenderman, grandma's footsteps and bull dog. I also timed the boys running different circuits around the inside of the building. They are a pretty even match, we had to start including the milliseconds to declare a winner.

Back home there was more playdough with pippin and pumpkin, and the marble run game returned for an hour or so. Everyone had a bath in the evening and bean continued to increase the amount of time that he can hold his breath for.

Carving Pumpkins

Bean, 10, and i spent an hour hollowing out pumpkins this morning. I have learnt a few things about carving pumpkins in the past few years and today i learnt more. I remembered that it takes an age to hollow them out and that carving out a large lid is best. Today i discovered that the large pumpkins (which i have previously avoided) have the same amount of fibres and seeds in them as the smaller ones and are therefore easier to scoop out, they are also easier to carve as they have a larger canvas space.

Our friends, A, J, and H came over to play. They all choose pictures for their pumpkins and then their mum and I sat for hours carving them out. Pippin, 3, chose minnie mouse, plum, 5, chose the cheshire cat, pumpkin, 8, chose a scary face and bean chose another scary face. I didn't do so well with Bean's so we have plans to purchase another pumpkin.

Whilst we carved the children played marble run and a fighting/war/battle, there was some tablet games and discussion going on, and a new game based on the enderman character is minecraft which they called Slenderman. And there was food. Pippin got the Bing and peppa small world toys out and was singing Frozen songs over and over.

Later pippin and pumpkin played play dough together. Pippin creates characters and models and pumpkin was dissecting them or performing surgery on them. Sometimes it was a heart transplant and sometimes full amputation, head transplant or swapping limbs. It was brutal.

Bean and i played minecraft and he had a bath, continuing to practice holding his breath.

Plum took herself to her bed and watched/played on her tablet.

Quick update

Six day blog post. We have had rest days and full on busy days so here goes:

Bean, 10, has been rediscovering his electronics kit. He spent one full day on it and then it came to grandma's house with us, of course Pumpkin and plum managed to get a look in too. He likes to follow the diagrams in the book but also branched out into creating his own circuits. He has astonished us by riding on rides at Paultons park that went high and fast and reriding them many times. He has grown in confidence swimming in our friend's pool and enjoyed a new game called Marco Paula. He has been inspired by our recent theme park visits and designed three rides and a theme park map. He organised a surprise treasure hunt for daddy with written clues and we recorded together a scenerio of mummy eating breakfast but Bean as my hands.

Pumpkin, 8, enjoyed a bike ride to the park on the new estate. We have played minecraft together, building houses and build battle together. He enjoyed Paulon's park, the spinning pirate ship and the catopillar roller coaster. He has played terreria with his friend A at his house. And he has immersed homself in The Amazing World of Gumball. He instigated doing a 200 piece puzzle with bean.

Plum, 5, has had two chapter books read to her in the last week. Paulton's park was a big hit and we enjoyed all the Peppa Pig rides. She disappeared to play with her friend J at her house, and she enjoyed the pool. She spent an hour playing with pippin in the bath yesterday, followed by a room tidy (inspired by youtube) and puzzles with pippin too. She also helped me choose some party items for Pippin's upcoming birthday.

Pippin, 2, continued her love of thrilling rides at paulton's park. She enjoyed the peppa pig theme but definitley enjoyed the bigger rides better. She has been using a lot of play dough in the last week and making worlds from duplo and wooden blocks to play with the people figures in.

The big three all took part in gymnastics.

A bit of a whistle stop tour of the last six days.

Playing Together

A second At Home Day imposed on us this time by the car taking two days at the garage for its service and MOT.

The morning was spent with Bean, 9, videoing stop frame animation and Pumpkin, 8, playing roblox, Plum, 5, and Pippin, 2, playing play dough.

We went out to the cafe at Sainsbury for lunch and essential food supplies. We had plans to go to the play park but it was raining so we went home via the weir instead.

During the afternoon the Big Three recorded three Trying Not To Laugh Challenges whilst Pippin watched Bing and we got the skateboards out. Then the Big Three played roblox together. Bean and Plum played hide and seek with each other and Plum and Pippin played in the garden together.

Doh!

I came down from feeding and dressing Plum this morning to a railway on the living room floor. The wooden bricks are a boat and the people (lying in a heap on the floor) were all lined up ready to travel from their island to the train station. Bean had included the road system so that Pumpkin could join in the game with his motorbike.

We had gone out this morning without taking with us our usual lunch and snacks. Mostly because the gymnastic class was starting earlier and I thought we would be home before the need for our lunch, big mistake! Will not do this again. When we got home I unpacked the car (i.e. got Bean out, got Pumpkin out, got Plum out and took her to a quiet corner as she had fallen asleep, got the bag out, took of my shoes and coat) and proceeded to the kitchen to find Bean had got the lunch ready onto plates (the sandwiches are pre-made by the wonderful daddy early in the morning and put in the fridge.) Bean had got the orange juice out and some crisps out too. 

Bean declared that he was tired after eating and I began to wonder if the weekend's activities had taken their toll a little. We had also had an incident this morning when washing and dressing in which Bean had screamed for daddy for about 10 minutes. Not seeing daddy on Saturday and being separated from me too had obviously been draining for him. We relaxed on the sofa and read some books and watched some iplayer.

I made some play dough whilst they were watching and put it on the table with cutters etc. We haven't had play dough out for months so I thought it might be something fresh for them to do. It worked and Pumpkin was the first to spot it and get stuck in. It started off as making pizza and cutting it up, Pumpkin made a man and then sang the gingerbread man song, this all moved on to using the kitchen set to make biscuits and 'cook' them. There was some disagreement over who could use what but it eventually got sorted.