Down Days

Some days are less intense than others. Following our natural rhythms allows us to accept that some days are more restful than others and quite rightly so. I can't deny that the early signs of Spring and the sunshine are encouraging me to consider outside more but for today opening the window and the back door will have to fill that need.

Chicken pox continues to leave our nights sleepless and our days restful. Plum, 5, spent all day watching films and on her tablet. She managed about 5 minutes of playing cbeebies games on the pc before returning to her duvet on the sofa. Later in the afternoon we made chocolate cupcakes together with Pippin, 2, too.

Pippin took one two hour sleep today and has spent the remainder of the day sat or lying on the sofa cuddling mummy. Breastfeeding has increased significantly. We have been allieviating the itch with camomile and daddy has bought some moiserising soap for bathtime. I'm hoping this will relieve some of the night itching and support more sleep.

We found a Treasure Trail company online and have purchased our first trail around Horsham for Bean, 9. We sat and played minecraft together,bean, Pumpkin, 8, Plum, 5, and mummy, on a jungle temple map that Bean had downloaded. We played for over an hour. Bean and Pumpkin played Terreria together and Bean spent an hour or more building lego. We continued reading Harry Potter.

Pumpkin has been enjoying watching the Try Not To Laugh videos on YouTube. He fails miserably but it's beautiful listening to him laughing. He has played Roblox today and watched minecraft songs on YouTube. He played with his new Skylanders with Bean. He watched Cars with us in the afternoon and made a soft landing using all the duvets and pillows so the smalls could all jump off the sofa.

The girls had a moisterising bath after dinner and Plum fell asleep on the duvet pile in the evening.

Project Work

Today we followed up on the Treasure Hunt idea that Bean, 9, had begun yesterday. We spent one and a half hours finding the rght map and resizing it on google and copying it into Publisher and drawing on grid lines and then adding them on the computer. There was lots of toing and froing of ideas about what the treasure is and how to hide it and where to hide it. He marked x on the map to show where the clues are hidden and has come up with a game plan and an invitation list. All the maps he made and clues and treasure are now in one folder ready for the event.

Pippin, 2, found the aqua draw and happily spent time drawing on it whilst Plum, 5, played on cbeebies games. She has been watching a lot of alphablocks, squigglit letters and other alphabet programmes on youtube and copying out the alphabet onto paper. In the afternoon Plum and Pippin and mummy made a dress and shoes for Lottie doll together. We had enough material to make a matching one for Plum and material in a different colour for Pippin. Plum began using the felt tips to draw on the cotton so i found th fabric pens and we drew pictures and patterns on Pippin's dress.

Pumpkin, 8, watched Cartoon Network and played Roblox. We ordered daddy the Lego present that he had found for him and talked about how much he would like to contribute to it.

In the evening we finished watching Ocean's 12 and played zombie dice with Bean and Pumpkin. The children all helped daddy unload the food shopping from the car and put things away.

Legomania

Everyone woke with a smile on their face and in a happy disposition. Plum, 5, slept the whole night in her bed in her room wotout waking. We dressed, breakfasted, Bean, 9, fed the animals and helped pack the lunch bag, and then we headed to Milestones museum in Basingstoke for the Legomania exhibition.

It is one of our longer days trips but has always been worth it as the smalls all love it. As this is our fourth or fifth year going we were prepared with cash for the 1940's sweetie shop, minifigure building, and penny arcade.

Legomania was imo the best one we have been to. I took so many photos and we all really enjoyed it. The challenge invited the children to be agents who had to follow the suspect around the 8 continents and find clues and crack codes to decipher the suspects plans to steal the crown jewels. There was a simpler version for Plum where she had to find a soft toy animal in each continent and write down the letter it was holding. The lego models were impressive and the set up was fun. The boys knew most of the landmarks built in lego and had a great time codebreaking. It was really right up our street. We will be going again before the exhibition ends. A significant portion of the photos today were staged around the lego models. The boys leaning on the eiffel tower, Bean and Plum running away from the fearsome tiger and Bean and Pippin in a mini story in four scenes from the dressing up section. We had some lovely collective lol moments and Pumpkin had a great day, completely excited and engaged and absorbed in it all. There were also two other HE families there that we know so we got o be a little sociable with friends too.

Pumpkin, 8, found a birthday present for dad and has offered to spend his birthday/christmas money on it.

We came home via MacDonalds.

Back home Plum went and rested in her bed and watched YouTube, Pumpkin went and watched Cartoon Network on the gaming pc.

Bean began drawing maps of the town and a grid over it to set up coordinates inspired by the map work at Legomania. We printed off maps from google but they are not very clear. He would like to set up a tresure hunt around town for his friends. After this we began to watch Ocean's 12 together inspired by today's theme of catching The Suspect.

There was also sancks and dinner and pudding and more snacks and toast and drinks and stories for Pippin, (Dr.Suess) Bean (Little nose) and Plum (Sarah and Duck)

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.