Brilliant bodies

Yesterday saw me and fellow home ed mum dissecting a set of lungs with our collective six smalls coming in and out at their lesuire to look at express their opinion, ranging from yuk to interesting. We had a great time and the books and the youtube videos were very useful. Pumpkin spent more time looking at the books after we had finished.

Today Pumpkin and Plum had their bodies drawn around. Pumpkin put the internal organs onto his body and Plum coloured hers in, she wants to paint it. Bean wants to have his body drawn around and put the bones on. Pumpkin has also had his nose stuck in those body books again. He is really taken with the one about babies especially the page that has pictures of how big the baby gets during pregnancy. He keeps telling Plum that she was once the size of a pea.

Pumpkin has also started a smell collection. It began in the park on monday with his crisp packet and has steadily increased since then. Today I washed and deodorized some jam jars so that we can put his collection in something.

Bean has been full of cold for two days. We had to cancel a trip to Petworth House today, which was a shame as the company and the weather were both perfect. He spent most of the morning in his room watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles but emerged about lunch time. We filled the potato bags up with compost this afternoon. Bean and Plum insisted on doing all the work and mummy was not allowed to help but she had to stay in the garden and not do anything else. so i found myself sitting in the warm sunshine doing nothing at all! 

Plum has been a busy bee all day. She loves joining in when her brothers are playing games/drawing/ watching. Today she drew a rabbit onto the lining paper and was thrilled with it. She pulled at my arm to show me and danced around saying 'rabbid. rabbid' over and over again. She was so pleased with it. She took Pumpkin in the garden to pick flower(heads) this afternoon, which he loved as he enjoys flowers. He was telling her the names of the flowers and all about how bees drink nectar and make honey. 

Plum placing the internal organs!

Plum's rabbit 

Potatoes are growing!

Alex

Charlie

Got caught reading :)

Pippin

I haven't blogged since January! In brief a spout of winter illness took over and occupied our household simultaneously disguising my pregnancy! We are now 18 weeks pregnant and feeling good (mostly) My blog spot (early evenings) tends to be a time of tiredness and the desire to lay down!

We have been busy though. Bean and Pumpkin can now play on the same minecraft world and have been working together on various projects mostly, but not exclusively, inspired by Stampycat. This interest has extended for Bean into an interest in stones and how and where they are mined. The atlas on our wall has been made good use of! He took a day trip to London to the geology museum and British History Museum to look at stones. He is starting his own collection of rocks and we have plans for our holiday to go and see some real redstone!

Pumpkin has become fascinated with the internal workings of the human body. His late night ponderings about what your internal organs look like have led us to a heart dissection and plans for lungs and some other interesting offers from the local butcher. We have books a plenty from the library and an injury last Thursday at our gumnastics class allowed us to visit the minor injuries unit where a very helpful nurse explained about muscles and how they work and what happens when they go wrong (i didn't plan that one!) We have a trip to the Huntarin museum planned for him too amongst other things.

And Plum has been drawing crazy! We set up a little drawing station for her that is just her height. She has pens and crayons and chalk and pencils at her disposal accompanied by colouring books and printed pages (Rosie charaters from cbeebies) and a chalk board and paper. Sometimes she uses it, sometimes she uses the table! She enjoys playing mummies and babies at the moment too and is busy matching up the soft toys into family groups and allocating them all a role. One of the positive things about doing this third time around is that as an interest takes her we generally have stuff to facilitate it already in the house, this includes her need to always wear something Bob the Builder' related. She walks around in her brothers t-shirts but we have also managed to put her in their digger and dumper truck tshirts that are the right size for her.

So much more than just these things have been going on. Life is a tapestry. I hope to post more regularly now and keep record of a few more of the delights of our growing family.

Pippin, 12 weeks

Bean took the photos, I dissected

Pig's heart

Plum in one of her Bob tshirts making plum cake

Time is ticking away

Some days are just...bleurgh. Today was one of them and with another three days at home planned due to window fittings and it being the end of the money/month. I feel i might have to suggest a walk to the park or the library but neither of these options have seemed popular recently.

We had a fun party packed weekend (which on hind site may have contributed to today's unpleasantness.) Saturday was a trip to town with daddy in which mummy had to go and rescue them as Pumpkin refused to journey home on foot. The afternoon was filled with wardrobe assembly and on to the Church New Years party. A great evening packed with fun and games and friends and food and for the first time I was able to sit back and enjoy. 

Sunday's party came in the theme of Minions as our friend turned six. There were minion glasses and cake and pinata and pinion. 

Today's at home day could have been more successful. Pumpkin was the first up at 9am, i was in bed with Plum when he came up a few minutes later to tell me about how Isaac had done something with the carpet. I wasn't quite awake but scrambled together something in my mind that translated that Bean had probably been on Pumpkin's minecraft and messed the carpet. A few minutes after that Pumpkin came back and said 'i'm all sticky from the sick.' Oh! Then i woke up properly. Realising that the original message had been that there was sick on the carpet! (Good morning, mummy) 

The boys don't venture more than two foot from the ipad and I'm missing them. This resulted in an epic mummy meltdown. Nothing I seem to offer or strew or do seems to interest them anymore and it's making me sad. On reflection i'm glad we have two birthdays in January to keep things ticking along. 

We did find two birthday presents for Pumpkin today, hidden in the cupboard. We assembled another lego creation, this time castle themed. Another lego hit. And I took the Lego Movie book out with us in the car today when we went to collect our friend from work. I deliberately arrived early so that we could read some and it was a very successful move. 

Plum had Madagscar on endless loop today. She doesn't sit and watch it like you would imagine someone to. She potters in and out and colours and plays dolls and helps with laundry and cooking. She plays with the bicarb i gave her in a bowl and we look at books together, but if we turn off Madagascar then there are tears. 

A little bit of love

After three very busy days (Pumpkin's birthday outing, a successful family trip to Ikea and meeting at our Winter Wednesday Home ed group)  and poor Bean not really feeling well we had a deserved day at home. At least that was the plan. Cleaning out the guinea pigs and i realised that we needed wood shavings and we went to collect our friend from work and her children and take her home, resulting in two trips in the car both boys in pyjamas and Plum in stripy tights and her brother's Bob the Builder t-shirt (her chose.)

Plum has been a busy bee today. We have played with spaghetti and the kitchen set, she has helped clean and feed the guinea pigs. We folded the laundry pile together and put clean laundry into the correct rooms. We have played doll's house and with the farm and the doctors kit has been out. She makes for a very caring and gentle doctor (teddy told me so.) And she helped me to assemble the new table for the conservatory.

We watched Madagascar both last night and this morning. Plum continues to love the 'move it,move it' scene and the boys love singing the 'happy birthday' song. Pumpkin confuses his words at the end and always sings "and you smell one like too." Other than that Bean has taken himself to his bed for most of the day to watch StampyCat and Pumpkin has been playing games on his kindlefire.

Except, that is, for the arrival of the Lego Movie Book. Great excitement, followed by extended read aloud session. It appears that Bean already knows most of the movie from "sneal peek" (his words) clips.

Plum helping herself to muesli

Enjoying our new car mat at Winter Wednesday group

Bean enjoying lego at our Winter Wednesday group

Spaghetti play

I can be your hero

If you could ask for anything for your birthday, what would it be? We asked Pumpkin what he would like to do and he only had two ideas. We fully expected to be organising a children's party, like he had last year (which is always a challenge during the winter months) but instead he requested that we all go out for the day as a family dressed as superheroes, so that's exactly what we did.

Daddy went dressed as Batman, mummy as Superwoman and the boys wearing their Spiderman outfits. We spent the day at Fisher's Farm and had a thoroughly fantastic time. Pumpkin and Plum rode the ponies twice each and rode the merry-go-round constantly for half an hour. We went on the tractor ride and flew down the tabogan. We spent ages testing out the new slides, the long bumpy one being the biggest hit with all three smalls and Pumpkin exclaiming 'that was awesome' at the bottom of the twirly slide. He also mentioned how the slide made his hair beautiful by blowing it out behind him. Plum particularly enjoyed all the beautiful features in the sensory room.

Pumpkin's second request was a party tea with sausages, chicken, olives, party rings, jelly and ice cream with a flower birthday cake. 

How fortunate we are that we were able to meet his birthday requests and make one little boy extremely happy. Scrap that. We made several children extremely happy today including one little girl who told me that i couldn't wear my costume because it was for a man, and i told her that girls could be super too 'really?' she asked, 'yes!' i said, 'WOW!' and of she went grinning. 

Pumpkin is five today. Five years ago we had no idea what this small being would bring to our lives, last year i wrote his birth story here, how small is Bean?) I did know from the outset that he was different from his big brother. How you know these things when they are so tiny is a mystery but we sure were right! Asher Matthew Timothy is energetic and wild but also contemplative and introspective. He loves to laugh and bounce and enjoys Mr Bean and Justin Fletcher and any humour to do with poo and bottoms! He loves playing outdoors when it's warm, and slides that go fast and rollercoasters. He likes it when the tide splashes in at his feet, so he can run away. He loves his mummy most in the whole wide world and today told us that he is going to marry Plum. He loves his family best. 

Pumpkin loves lego and butterflies and mushrooms (not to eat) and flowers and trees. He's interested in robots and remote controlled items. He eats about six apples a day and two bananas, he loves olives and cucumber and carrots but mostly he likes meat and pudding!

For his fifth birthday we bought him a Kindle Fire.

Hold my hand

Thursday 

Anna has been enjoying the (not so) wet garden. Wellies an absolute must but any form of rain coat or warm clothes are optional! She enjoys playing with the ball and her castle with the small world people.

Bean bought a card on Tuesday at the robot exhibition and decided that he wanted to send it to his friend who also likes robots. i know it's not much writing compared to those who daily write things in a school setting but the difference is that he choose to do this and did it happily and willingly, and what a lovely thought to send a card to his friend? 

We spent the afternoon watching despicable me and despicable me 2 with friends as they are having a themed birthday party next week. 

Friday

We woke up to a power cut after yet more rain and high winds during the night. It was also overcast so really dark and grim in our house. There wasn't much we could do in the way of chores in the house so went to our friends to play (who did have power.) One of the things i remember thinking about when we first started to find home ed friends was how we would accommodate younger syblings friendships as they grew older. Well, it all worked out in the end! We know several families who have three or more children in similar age brackets to ours, and of course, we don't measure friendship by age quite so much as a school setting would create, so the odd year between friends is nothing.  

Saturday

A drive to Whitstable to celebrate family birthdays. CousinJ turned 21, and Pumpkin and FA#3 share a birthday on Monday, so a family meal out at a Moroccan restaurant was in order! And wonderful it was too and the perfect venue for our motley crew. Six children happily running around, lots of space and a quiet venue to create calm for nana, plus lovely food in a restaurant strew with lots of interesting artefacts that the staff are happy to tell you all about.