Busy week

This week we have mainly been working, doing homework and getting sucked into the daily grind.

Next week I want to do one meaningful activity with the kids each day. We will see how that goes!

We ended our week with dinner with the cousins.

What a lovely bunch they are.

The Holidays are Here

This year I enlisted the help of my little elves to help prepare some Valentines decorations.

It's my tradition to decorate the breakfast table for everyone on valentines day.

I also cooked a special meal: au menu, duck.

The kids made lovely cards and I got some red roses.

Daddy always buys the girls a bunch of flowers.

For FHE we had mega hot chocolate specials for our treat.  Daddy makes them to perfection.

Cream and Marshmallows are a must.

The children did a crash course iceskating and all passed their level one.

The girls made a magic bed.

They got to ice skate every day.  One day we were there for three hours.

And that's it!  Holidays flew by, just like that.

Achievements and Celebrations

We are so proud of Ismay. She got selected to represent Telford and Wrekin at the Shropshire Cross Country trials.

We celebrated pancake day with some lovely pancakes.

We used up lots of Nutella, lemons and sugar!!

We celebrated Grandmas birthday by going for breakfast at the Beefeater and having a lovely tea all together.

Ismay got her badge for swimming 1000 metres.

Ismay prepared and delivered a fantastic family home evening by herself.

We built volcanos and watched them erupt.

Letting go

The control freak in me has always structured, organised and planned our time.   I'm having to accept that my babies need their own independence and I need to let go. It's been fun watching them play this week after school. Ismay decided to set up a hair salon.

Eden and Mia decided to experiment with solids and liquids to observe changing forms in states of matter.

Ismay also decided to make a castle cake for her homework. (She had to design a castle).

Screen Credits

Jason and I have been tearing our hair out thinking about ways to encourage good behaviour and some form of discipline for the children as they  are growing out of the naughty step.  We came up with the "screen credit" concept. They have to earn credits in order to watch TV or use electronic devices. Equally they can loose credits if they misbehave.  3 credits equals 10 minutes of TV and 10 credits equals 30 minutes device time.  

So far the system is working very well. The children have stopped asking to watch TV and have instead been finding ways to earn credits. Eden decided to do some maths one night.

The girls made cards for a friend who was having a baby shower.

I loved Mia's concept. She came up with it all by herself.

And in true Mia fashion made a huge mess in the process (which she did tidy up),

They've also being playing nicely with each other much more. Here they are playing Marco Polo.