Welcome to Battle Mayhem

Ismay and Eden decided to create their own village from Star Wars.

They've named it Battle Mayhem.

It has killer vines that are deadly if they ensnare you.

Exhaustion point

I've reached it.......

We've had some big bills to pay this month so when I was offered a couple of weeks of supply work when I was feeling stronger after the hospital procedure at the beginning of the month I took it.

Mostly it's ok. The planning has been done and I am managing to mark in class.

It's the sheer exhaustion I feel when I get home.

I beat myself up about not having enough energy to do the things I normally do with the kids after school.

However, I keep thinking about the quote Nono posted about just doing what matters most so I gave myself a talking to tonight and just sat down with the kids and we played a board game; Star Wars Labyrinth. As usual, a brilliant gift from the ever thoughtful Herriotts.

For now, this will be my "what matters most". It requires very little effort on my part but that's ok.  This is good enough for now.  I'm starting to accept and recognise my limits.....well most of the time anyway.

Eating with the philistines.

So I decided to try out some veggie burgers and falafels on my carnivore family.

Eden set the table, notice that he brought out the ketchup.

The smile didn't last very long! Even smothered in ketchup dinner wasn't a hit tonight.

What to do with the boy?

I'm really struggling to motivate Eden to do his homework. Going to see Star Wars 7 just increased his obsession and he begs to watch the films everyday.

I keep encouraging him to play Star Wars, most of the time his sisters won't join in, the picture below is a rare moment when Ismay was more compliant.  

Eden would watch TV or play on the tablet all day long so I've been racking my brains for ways to help him use his brain!!!  I figured that boys like the danger of fire so I decided to set up the classic candle/jar experiment.

As predicted, Eden LOVED lighting the candles.

We used different sized jars to put over the candle and talked about how fire needs oxygen.

We made predictions about what would happen if we had bigger and smaller jars - I even managed to get him to write.

The one on one time with me made he much more conducive to helping me prepare dinner.  He's getting very adept at using a sharp knife - I've a strong suspicion  that the danger element of the knife is what appeals most here!!

Sisterly love

These two have been arguing quite a bit lately so this week when Ismay was playing nicely with Mia I thought I'd capture it for posterity - and so I remember that they CAN be kind to each other.

Here they are looking at the microscope we got Izzy for her birthday.

And playing nicely with their cousin Sophie who came for a sleepover this weekend.

And the did manage to turn out a really delicious banana bread. We made up our own receipe; I can't help but teach them to cook the way I way I was taught: instinctively.... and it turned out really well.

Welcome to the mad house

Here's an insight into real life with three children:

1) our eldest, yes eldest, putting her face in the cake bowl to lick it!

2) aliens "pooing" in arrays of 3's: gross but it motivated Eden into learning his 3 x tables.

3) Mia embracing the pooing theme and create a giant dog poo which she then used to teach Ismay about proper fractions!!

4) love the concentration!!

And finally, Mia has at last achieved "golden pen status": her handwriting is deemed beautiful and she gets to write in all her school books with the coveted "golden pen",

Life .....the every day stuff.

Today was the day I needed to sort out the party bags for Ismay's party.

As they get older it gets harder to organise party bags. I finally finished them but I've still no idea who's coming!!

After school,today we did a grammar project; identifying proper nouns, common nouns, verbs and adjectives. This was an exercise I did with my class so it was fun to see the children do it.

Today I used  some tomatoes grown in our garden to make dinner tonight.

We have had a coconut lying around. Ismay, Mia and Eden decided to take it on an adventures

Around the house.

Then I suggested that Eden find a way to get inside, we've done this before so he knew it would take some force.  After some consideration, he decided to throw it hard on the floor.

We found it was so old it was mouldy inside.

Ismay inspected it with the microscope  she was given for her birthday.  They decided it was not fit for consumption but were fascinated to examine the bacteria.

Ismay's birthday

So we did the traditional photo by the fire. If I look really tired it's because this was taken late at night as Ismay took part in Young Voices with Mia at Birmingham.

Ismay has her party on Saturday.

She invited lots of friends.  She made a pass the parcel.

She helped organise and make the party food.

We had a game where we raced to make the longest paper chains.

Ismay wanted to make her own cake for her party.  Here it is:

Galette des Rois

This is a French tradition that we do every year in January; kings cake or Galette des Rois.

First we roll out the puff pastry.

Then we roll out the marzipan mix.

Meanwhile, a crown is made for whoever finds the fieve (porcelain object) in the cake?

Mia wanted to do this so she did this by herself.

Eden's job was to hide the fieve.

It turned out really well and we enjoyed the galette for our dessert.

To play dough or not to play dough...that is the question.

Any OCD freak like me recognises the potential perils of letting their child loose with play dough. For starters it's messy, secondly it envraiably becomes ingrained in the carpet and finally it terminates with frenzied carpet cleaning and surface wiping by an already frazzled mum, i.e. Me.

However, in the spirit of the previous post, I decided to embrace the fact that my daughters requested to make their own play dough and let them run with it.  You have no idea how much of huge step in "letting go" this was.

Having omitted the cream of tartar I was dubious as to how long the play dough would last without becoming dry, however on day three the children were able to play with it after school.

I really enjoyed watching Eden and Mia experiment with all the kitchen utensils.  It was delightful to eavesdrop on their conversations.

Ismay decided to "pipe" ice with her play dough and experimented making different patterns with various nozzles.

Eden iis very good at tidying and helped clear up afterwards.

He loves allowing Henry our Hoover time to "snack"; ie. suck up all the bits on the floor.

Finally, we put their creations in the oven to harden. I love Eden's collection of storm troopers that he made.

Here are some pics of me "letting go" and allowing the girls the freedom to produce the play dough on their own: