Our little family

Fun pic

2007-01-17T12:59:00.000Z

Thank you all

2007-01-14T22:25:00.000Z

Wow.

What can I say?

I've been blown away by everyone's comments.

It's taken me ages to read them all, and they all touched me so much.

I read them out loud to Steve but I found that hard, because some of them touched me and made me feel weepy, and also because I was a bit embarassed reading out loud nice stuff about myself.

Thank you to everyone who left comments, and also to all the people who emailed me. I had as many emails as comments. I couldn't begin to reply to them all so I thought it would be best to write a general thank you message here instead.

I'm not sure yet where I'm going with the blog. I can see that you lot aren't going to let me get away with not blogging. My sister Jenny, and my friend Davy threatened to campaign outside my house with placards! I might hold out long enough to see that. Steve even threatened to protest naked in the streets, which would definitely be worth a laugh. Then I could come on and blog all about it. I may continue with this blog. I may start a new one with passwords. I'm not quite sure yet.

I've really missed blogging this week. So many things have happened and I've found myself reaching for the camera to take a photo for the blog. Then I've felt quite sad.

Anyway, I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who left comments. I've certainly felt loved and special, and touched. Some of the comments were from people I've never met, people whom I've never even heard of, people which I haven't seen for many years, and people that I see all the time. And also, as I said, thanks to the people who sent emails as well. I've certainly discovered who my friends are that's for sure!

Anyway, I'm rambling now so I better go and compose myself.

But thanks, again.

Thanks.

Thanks so much.

Our lastest pics from January 07

2007-01-11T15:14:00.000Z

I had a lot of photos to upload today and there were so many that I could put on the blog! Here are the best of the bunch...

Firstly, here is the photos of the fig and almond raw vegan tolls which I made. They were so simple. Basically whizz up a bunch of almonds and dried figs, add a tiny bit of water if needed and then roll them into some dessicated co-conut and chill in the fridge. They took seconds to make, the kids loved them, and they were so healthy I could let them eat as many as they wanted. Voila!

Last week I finally finished sorting through all the letters I have received from E in the last 2 years. They were kept in a paper bag, but it got ripped, and then Luke kindly opened every letter and separated them from their envelopes. There were 78 letters in total, 4 polaroid photos, loads of gift cards, a little angel and E's gold cross pendant which he gave me. He has had it since he was a child. Steve bought me a nice box to keep them all organised in, and I've numbered the back of them in case Luke ever gets hold of them again. So now they are in date order. It was amazing looking through them to see how much I had read and completely forgotten about. I received another letter from E this morning saying "there were only 78 letters? I thought I'd written nearer 2000!" He he.

Here is a photo of Jude making another one of her papier mache cats. This was taken yesterday.

As well as this one of Luke who was so proud of his playdoh tractor creation that he asked me to take a photo. This was simple to create as well. Take one 3 year old, 6 tubs of play-dough, one tractor trailer and a thomas the tank engine carriage. Bind all the ingredients together (not the 3 year old - he does the binding) and then you have a simple but effective master piece, worthy of a photo.

Before the Christmas holidays Jude did this little project as part of her home education. She has been reading a lot of history books lately so she decided to create this fold open history project. She basically created fold open flaps containing information about her favourite stories from history. The one in the photo is about The Battle of Hastings, and you can see king Harold made from pipe cleaners, tissue paper and a fluffy pink pom pom, at the side of the story. The other pages are about Hieroglyphics, The Two Margaret's, Anansi the Spider, and Leizu & the silkworm.

This afternoon Luke played with Sam's old collection of animals and dinosaurs, which he loves. I had wanted to sit and do something crafty with him, possibly a bit of painting or something. So we decided to make a little jungle scene for his animals to play in. I cut out a big box and stuck tissue paper for sky and grass onto it. Then Jude, Luke and myself set about turning it into a jungle. Luke stuck a few flowers on, a few fish in the pond, and made his own huge fluffy cloud before losing interest and asking us "is it ready yet? is it ready yet?" every 30 seconds. We may add bits and pieces to the finished scene at times. But it looks pretty good,

don't you think?

Temporarily raw vegans?

2007-01-09T23:02:00.000Z

Well, what's been happening here then? Hmm, let me think. I've done some tidying. Then I did do a bit of tidying. Then I picked up some bits here and there and returned them to their rightful places. Then I tidied a bit. I think we own too much stuff.

Yesterday we took a trip to the Asian Supermarket in Belfast and I stocked up on lots of nuts, herbs, seeds and various dried fruits. The kids love going there because it's like walking into another world, a new culture in a foreign land. Luke kept asking me what things were, and I kept answering "I'm not sure what that is honey". I managed to spend £45 there and then stopped at Sainsburys for loads of fruit and veg.

We've been eating a raw vegan diet for this last while. I'm on a mission to improve the health of my family. Have been on it a while, but keep side tracking every now and then. The benefits of eating raw foods are amazing (apparently - haven't been doing it long enough yet to comment personaly). Anyway, with the help of my rejuvenate book I've learnt how to make some cracking, life enhancing salad dressings, that even Steve likes! We have been eating the most amazing salads. Even the kids have been stuffing them down. And this evening after our double cabbage & apple salad (which was delicious despite how it sounds) I made a desert which is healthy enough to feed the kids for breakfast. And it was a hit so I took a photo which I'll load onto the blog tomorrow. I made little cakes from nothing but almonds, figs and a bit of dried coconut. Jude came back for seconds so she will be in the toilet all day tomorrow! Ha.

I've had a terrible pain in my lungs all afternoon and evening. It's getting worse and moving round to the back of my lungs. It hurts when I breath deeply, when I slouch, or when I bend from one side to the other. Basically, it hurts when I move or breath. I haven't done anything strenuous. Maybe its all the toxins coming out. Going cold turkey from junk food might be taking its toll on me.

It's time for bed. I could ramble on all night. But I won't.

Weird things about me

2007-01-08T22:40:00.000Z

I got tagged by Deb to tell you weird stuff!

Six weird things about me: THE RULES: Each player of this game starts with the ‘6 weird things about you.’ People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 6 weird things as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave a comment that says ‘you are tagged’ in their comments and tell them to read your blog.

1. When a baby is in the womb, before it's eyes open, there is a special blood vessel which runs to the back of the retina to supply the developing eye with blood. After this is done the vessel disintigrates. But mine is still there. According to my optician I'm one in a billion! (I always knew I was special!)

2. I can't breath through my nose and was offered a nose job to fix it.

3. When I'm stressed out I clean the house. And I chuck things out till I feel better.

4. I could not silently burgle the upstairs of a house during the night because my knees creak so loudly when climbing the stairs that all the residents would wake up and find me!

5. I suffer from Claustophobia.

6. I count things. All the time. Fence posts, window panes, drawers, tiles, street lamps, people. My brain has to count things in 2's, 3's, 5's, diagonally, in lines, my brain needs to see the pattern in things. It's always worse when I'm pregnant and drives me insane. I have to catch myself doing it and make myself stop. I can tell you the pattern of drawers in my bedroom, how there are 14 of them and which ways they can be counted. I can also tell that the blinds in my bedroom have 14 slats, 7 on each side, which is nice because it goes with the drawers. LOL. I'm serious. It's strange because I'm not at all mathematically minded.

People I’m tagging (is there anyone left who hasn't already been tagged?)

Tammy
Kolfinna
Davy
I think everyone else has done it so I can't come up with 6. Sorry.

Mother

2007-01-07T20:07:00.000Z

This evening I have been planning my routine and Jude's home education for the next term. I'm trying to be organised, get up earlier, achieve more. I was looking for some scriptures about mothers and wives to inspire me and add colour to my planner. I came across some inspiring quotes about mothers. I wanted to post some of them so that they can inspire other mothers too. I don't pretend to be any of the mothers talked about below, but I'd like to aspire to be.

"Education commences at the mother's knee, and every word spoken within the hearing of little children tends towards the formation of character."- Hosea Ballou

"All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel Mother."- Abraham Lincoln

"I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life."- Abraham Lincoln

"The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom."- Henry Ward Beecher

"In all my efforts to learn to read, my mother shared fully my ambition and sympathized with me and aided me in every way she could. If I have done anything in life worth attention, I feel sure that I inherited the disposition from my mother."- Booker T. Washington

"The future destiny of a child is always the work of the mother."- Napoleon Bonaparte

"The mother, more than any other, affects the moral and spiritual part of the children’s character. She is their constant companion and teacher in formative years. The child is ever imitating and assimilating the mother’s nature. It is only in after life that men gaze backward and behold how a mother’s hand and heart of love molded their young lives and shaped their destiny."- E.W. Caswell

"Mama was my greatest teacher, a teacher of compassion, love and fearlessness. If love is sweet as a flower, then my mother is that sweet flower of love."- Stevie Wonder

"The noblest calling in the world is that of mother. True motherhood is the most beautiful of all arts, the greatest of all professions. She who can paint a masterpiece or who can write a book that will influence millions deserves the plaudits and admiration of mankind; but she who rears successfully a family of healthy, beautiful sons and daughters whose immortal souls will be exerting an influence throughout the ages long after painting shall have faded, and books and statues shall have been destroyed, deserves the highest honor that man can give."- David O. McKay

When she speaks, her words are wise, And kindness is the rule for everything she says. Proverbs 31:26

If there are any Christian mothers reading this who would like musical inspiration I can highly recommend the two new cd's that I got for my birthday. They are by Serene and Pearl and are two cd's of songs about motherhood and the blessing of children from God. They are beautiful, peaceful songs that inspire, soothe and encourage mothers and wives. They are really helping me to get through the day when the kids are fighting, or sulking, or the house is a tip.

Rejuvenate Your Life - Salt

2007-01-07T15:50:00.000Z

With some of my birthday money I treated myself to a book called Rejuvenate Your Life, Recipes for Energy bu Serene Allison. This woman writes all about the benefits of eating a raw, vegan diet. Some of the stuff I've read so far has been amazing. Over the last few years I've been studying a lot about diet, healthy eating etc, and have begun sprouting and growing wheat grass, as well as milling and making my own bread. Every time I read a new book about food I come away horrified by the things that we eat every day, that is quite literally killing us. Today I read about salt.

Everyone knows that too much salt is bad for them. But what I didn't know was that using table salt is like filling your body with poison. The book reads

"Table salt is highly refined and toxic to our system. It has been stripped of every valuable mineral. One horrific part of its refining process is heating the salt to well above 2000 degrees. To render the salt free flowing, they add anti-caking agents that turn the salt purple. Your white table salt is actually purple, but of course bleached for the consumer with a nice touch of a few other chemicals".

Yuck, that is something that I definitely don't want in my system, and certainly don't want to give to my children. A lot of people use sea salt instead, but this too can be misleading.

"Sea salt that is naturally derived is full of necessary minerals and rich in savour. It is necessary for your body and makes everything taste superb. The king of all sea salt is Celtic Salt, which is the most pure and potent. ... It is traditionally hand harvested, unrefined, with no heating, no additives and no preservatives. Good sea salt should be slightly grayish. Beware of cheap sea salts that are glistening white and contain anti-caking agents".

So, even sea salt has been bleached and anti-caked. Did you know that salt should be grey? I didn't. I'll definitely think twice before adding salt to anything now. And I'm going to buy my family some Celtic Salt, as one of the many major changes I will be making to our diet this year. More about that another time...

The Red Plate

2007-01-04T12:17:00.001Z

In this edition of Above Rubies there was an article about encouraging our children. People wrote in with different ideas that they use to encourage their kids. One of the suggestions was the New Zealand tradition of the Red Dinner Plate. They have a special red dinner plate which only comes out once or twice a week to mark a point of achievement with one of the children. When the family comes to the dinner table they see the red plate in someones setting and get excited as to why that person has the red plate. Then at dinner time the parents say why that child has been given the red plate, and everyone talks about their achievement and encourages them. It can be given for anything that has involved some level of achievement and effort. Perhaps for overcoming a fear, winning an award, showing kindness to another etc. Well, after reading that article I liked the idea. Of course the plate does not have to be red, it just has to be special. But then I accidentally ended up in the Marks and Spencer Christmas sale (I was supposed to be in the cinema but Luke got bored so we wandered round the shops for a bit). There in the sale section was a huge pile of plain red plates, reduced to £1 each! Well, I had to buy one. I felt a bit daft buying just one dinner plate, LOL.

This week the plate has been set at the table twice. All three children like the idea and they always discuss whether anyone will get the red plate tonight. Firstly Sam was given the red plate. This week his school report was sent home (I will talk about that in a minute), and over the holidays he has been offering (!!!) to help me with housework. Yes, I'm gobsmacked too! But every day he has been asking "Mummy, is there anything I can do to help?" That is something that definitely needs public recognition! Then last night Luke got the red plate, for overcoming his fear of hair washing. He was so scared of bath times that he became hysterical. It was horrible. I suggested showers to him and over a period of two weeks he has gone from being hysterical and shaking with fear in the shower, to asking for a shower every morning. (Santa put a bottle of cherry smelling Chicken Little shampoo in his stocking which has been a real motivator!) So we gave him the red plate to recognise his braveness and mark his overcoming.

I must mention Sam's first term school report. They are given two grades, A - D for achievement (A being the highest), and 1 to 4 for effort (1 being the most effort), and there are also some exam results in percentages.

Art & Design B+, 1
Drama A, 93%, 1
English, talking & listening A, Reading B, Writing B, exam 64%, effort 1
French 87%, 1
Geography A, 98%, 1
History A, 91%, 2
Home Economics B+, 73%, 1
Information Technology B, 1
Maths B, 2
Music 70%, 1
PE C, 2
RE A, 1
Science A, 90%, 1
Technology 76%, 1

Some of those results are very good aren't they? He was quite pleased with most of it. Every subject had a full A4 paged report with comments from the teacher. The staff seem to put a lot of effort into producing it every term. I was particularly amused at the RE teachers comment that if he struggles with spelling he should do all his homework on the computer to avail of the spellcheck facilities! LOL.

My Ear Appointment

2007-01-02T12:46:00.001Z

Finally, after many months of waiting, I went today to see the specialist about my hearing problem. He was apologetic about my referral going astray, but I guess it was more the fault of Royal Mail than of him. First of all I had a hearing test which was normal. However, the whooshing pulsatile tinnitus was very mild in my right ear today so it wasn't the best day to see him. On the days when it is very bad I can hardly hear the TV. But it's always the way when you go to the doctors eh? I explained all my symptoms to him. Told him that I start getting light headed and feel like fainting if I lie on my tummy or stretch above my head, and also told him that 3 people (Steve, Jude and Hannah) were able to hear the sound in my right ear by listening with their ear against mine. At this point he got rather excited. Apparently he has only come across that 3 times in his career (and he wasn't a young man). I did explain to him that the whooshing sounds in my ear were not bad today but he had a listen anyway and seemed rather disappointed at not being able to hear anything. I explained that sometimes it can be very loud for maybe two weeks, and then quiet for two weeks. I offered to take his phone number and I'd call him next time it was audible, if he was that keen to hear it, LOL.

Anyway, I tried my best to express that this sound really was audible to others at times and it wasn't in my imagination. Thankfully he believed me, even though it is very rare, and said I had explained my symptoms perfectly and they all fitted (fitted what? I'm not sure).

So then he told me that as we age we get a thickening of the arteries and this can cause noises in the ear. Um, yes, so I turn 30 and all of a sudden I'm old?! But then, considering my age it was rather unusual. Thank goodness for that. So he told me he was referring me for either an MRI scan or a CAT scan of my head and neck. Then he preceded to tell me that it's very rare indeed (just as the noises being audible to others is) but there is a slight possibility that there is an abnormality in the arteries of my neck and head, or possibly a tumour in the eardrum. Nice. But don't worry, he said, because it's very rare... but if others have heard the noise, well, we better be sure. So there you go. I wonder how long I will wait for the MRI/CT scan, and what that will entail. Hopefully the scan appointment will be on a day when the whooshing sounds are bad! lol.

Love Gives

2007-01-01T16:44:00.000Z

Love ever gives,

Forgives,

Outlives,

And while it lives,

it gives!

For this is love's

prerogative,

To give,

and give,

and give!

From the Above Rubies magazine.

New Years Eve 2006

2007-01-01T13:22:00.000Z

We had a lovely day yesterday. In the afternoon we were invited to my sister Maddi's house with some of my family, and some of her partners family. They made a lovely buffet tea and a good time was had by all.

In the evening my Mum, Hannah and David came back to our house to bring in the new year. We had a Chinese takeaway and then played a game of taboo. We almost missed midnight completely until I looked at the clock and said Happy New Year! Then as usual, we all made jokes about how we hadn't eaten all year, hadn't slept all year, our visitors had been here all year, the usual stuff.

I plan to write a post sometime about my hopes for 2007, but in the mean time here are a few photos from our day, yesterday. You can see the full set on flickr, if you like, by clicking HERE.

Christmas meme

2007-01-01T11:49:00.000Z

Christmas Meme, tagged from Lin's blog...

Name three things:

* that you had hanging on your tree:
Christmas decorations from my childhood & my Mums childhood.
Chocolate baubles
Some home made 3d decorations that myself, Jude and Luke made.

* that you’ve eaten / drunk lots of:
Schloer
Pate
Gherkins

* that you said most often this Christmas
"This is what life should be like all the time, not just at Christmas"
"Lets all quickly bless the mess around this house so that we can relax... if we all help it will only take a few minutes"
"Lets take a photo of that to show Emanuel"

* that you heard most often this Christmas
"Mummy can you watch me sing This Is Halloween?"
"Would you like a cup of tea my dear?"
"Can I have a chocolate off of the Christmas tree?"

* that you’ll do again next year
Have an open fire every evening
Read a lot
Play lots of music

* that you’ll *never* do again
Accidentally buy chicken instead of turkey
Buy so many fattening treats
Go to Tescos with 3 kids a few days before Christmas

* that you didn’t do this year but hope to do next year
I'm finding this one hard to answer. Hmm. Nope, I just can't think of anything honestly.

* favourite presents this year
My pink welly boots!
The phone call from Emanuel
The handmade cards from Tinkhani

* that you’re glad you didn’t get for Christmas
A cold (I usually do!)
Granny Knickers (seems to have become a tradition)
Tights (I usually get loads of tights and I never wear them)

Name 3 people to tag:
Sharon, Davy, Tammy

Photos from my 30th birthday

2006-12-30T14:20:00.000Z

Yesterday was my 30th birthday and I was thoroughly spoilt, as usual. Luke was as excited as expected and helped me open every present. I was woken up at 10.30am and taken downstairs to a room full of balloons, present and croissants & tea. Aunty Hannah and Uncle David had stayed overnight so they were here too.

As expected I look very glamorous in some of these photos - in my dressing gown and bed hair.

I got lots of lovely presents including some perfume that Steve remembered me liking when we were at the shops once, lots of socks, a book and CD that I had expressed an interest in from Above Rubies, chocolates, and lots more. I asked for some ladies wellies for my gardening. I told Steve that they had to be feminine ones and these are what he came up with! Aren't they erm, unique? Sam's gonna be delighted when I pick him up from school in them! Ha ha.

During the afternoon me and Hannah took the kids to see the Santa Claus 3 movie at the cinema. In the evening Hannah & David babysat for us while we went to the local Italian restaurant for a meal, and then on to the cinema to see 'The Holiday'. It was a girlie movie, a romantic comedy, perfect for me. I enjoyed it thoroughly although it was very long.

Thanks to Steve for his lovely blog post (below). It was very thoughtful and a lovely surprise!

Here are some photos from the last few days.

Hannah gave David a huge space hopper for Christmas. Everyone has had fun on it. Here is David helping Luke to bounce on it, and Hannah bouncing up and down the hall way.

Aunty Maddi & Uncle Tom bought Sam a scientist goo making set for Christmas. He has really enjoyed it (Maddi has turned into a super star at present picking!) Here he is making some goo at the kitchen table, and then with one of his red goo creatures.

It all gets too much for Nanny and Luke during an evening of feasting at our house and so they crash out on the living room floor!

Birthdays are just so exhausting!

Luke helps me to blow out the candles on my cake (again!)

On my birthday I received two beautiful hand made cards from Tinkhani, in prison in Zambia. One of them was for Christmas. It's amazing that they came on my birthday as it was such a special treat. There was also a lovely letter in it, in response to the photos and letter that I sent from our trip to Geneva.

2006-12-30T13:55:00.000Z

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is:
Honourable Lady Hazel the Prohibited of Puddleston St Droop
Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

HAZEL 30 TODAY!!!!!!!

2006-12-29T20:25:00.000Z

HAZEL 30 TODAY !!!!!!!!!!

Hi, Steve here. Never wrote a Blog before but I thought I would put today’s entry on for Hazel.

I truly believe that I am very lucky and blessed to have such a wife as Hazel, and I really appreciate her.

When I first met Haze she was only 16. Married at 17 and had two children by the time she was 19. She was still a child and did not really know what she wanted from life. I think people thought we were mad and some I am sure thought that things would not last. Well I would just like to say on this Blog today that the main reason we are still together is because my wife is an amazing women !!

In the last 13 to 14 years Hazels grown in confidence amazingly from the girl I first met, very smart and intelligent and great at coming up with ideas and solutions. She is gifted in many areas and always there to help me with what ever I need. I could not cope without her. My wife is very content and often goes without at the expense of her family. She always spends lots of time effort and energy with us all.

What more could a man ask for ?

What more can a man ask for and what more does a man need than a wife like mine, and if everyone was like my wife the world would be a better place!

If anybody does not know all these things about Hazel, they don’t know her at all.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAZEL!!!!!!!!!!

All about Christmas

2006-12-27T15:47:00.000Z

Christmas was a great success. We had a lovely day on Christmas day. As expected, Luke slept in on Christmas morning, just as he did on his birthday. Despite coming in to our bedroom to snuggle up with me and Steve, every single morning at 5am. He manages to sleep in on his birthday and on Christmas. Sam and Jude gently woke him at about 8.30. He opened his eyes wide and said "that was a lovely snoozums I had". How cute.

We all piled into the living room to see what Santa had brought. I love this photo of their excited little faces before discovering their presents.

As usual they weren't disappointed. Three full stockings and a pile of presents awaited them. Luke was ever so excited about his stocking when he discovered a chocolate Santa Claus poking out from the top of it. Stockings were soon emptied and various sweets and chocolates consumed. Then it was onto present opening. Santa had left Luke a large wrapped box. He was very excited about it but asked "where are the Thomas trains I asked for?" He opened the large box and discovered that inside it were lots of little presents. Santa had been shopping on Ebay or somewhere, and bought him a 2nd hand collection of Thomas the Tank Engine Trains. In all there was an assortment of 69 trains, carriages and cars, most of which were individually wrapped. These came with a train track, and various bits of stations and accessories. He has spent 3 days playing with this set and has not been bored for a single second.

Jude and Sam didn't ask for much so most of what Santa brought them were surprises. Sam had asked for the FIFA 2007 PSP game, which he did get. And Jude asked for some gameboy games, which she also got. This year Santa decided that they were mature enough to get their own TVs for their rooms. Santa must have felt that this would be appreciated, since Luke tends to hog the downstairs TV and cause too much commotion to watch anything in peace and quiet. They were very surprised with these presents.

The morning was spent opening presents and playing with them. We had our Christmas dinner at lunch time, although Luke had spent all morning eating sweets so he wasn't at all hungry. The dinner was lovely, turkey, duck and gammon, with the usual roast potatoes etc.

During the afternoon we just chilled with the kids. Played games. Auntie Jacqueline had given Luke a game that we all enjoyed. The idea was to press down the sharks teeth. Whoever made the shark bite was out. We all laughed and laughed playing that game. Jude got the grown ups version of Monopoly which we have been playing for 3 days now. We are almost at the end of the game! Steve bought me a game called Othello, which is very simple to learn, and we've all been playing that too. We still need to play Sams new Upwords. Sam also got a new Star Wars chess set which he is waiting to play with Steve.

Here are some of the photos from our Christmas day...

Every evening we have had an open fire, which makes the place feel so much more homely. Its been so nice to chill out and spend time as a family. Steve is back at work for two days, but then he will have four days off. Just in time for my birthday.

Yesterday, boxing day, we all slept in. Steve didn't get up until I woke him at 11.30 to ask if he wanted to go to my Dads house for some lunch. He did, so we tidied up, got dressed and headed to my Dad's new house, which we haven't seen yet. He put on a nice boxing day spread, and Luke entertained us all with songs and chat. Luke took some of his trains with him to entertain himself. Sam showed his Grandad some of the chords he has been learning on the guitar and then Grandad entertained us all with a few songs, including 'Grandma's Feather Bed'!

In the evening we had our friends Davy, Heather and Catherine round for some food and fun. It turned out to be a great evening. I taught Heather how to play Othello, and Steve taught Davy. Then they competed against each other. The kids all played together for hours until midnight! (Although Luke put himself to bed at 8.30pm) We roasted marshmallows on the fire, drank hot chocolates, and even put some candles on a cake for Davy who has his birthday on Christmas Day. Poor guy.

These are Davy's photos. The first one is four cute bottoms roasting marshmallows on the fire, and the second is myself on miniature accordion with Steve and Sam dancing (a sort of cross between Irish dancing and Morris dancing!) You can't say it's not entertaining coming round to ours for dinner!! Steve and Heather disappeared into the garage for a game of darts at one point and left myself and Davy heading dangerously towards various political and religious debates. However, we managed to avoid a fall out and did a bit of a film review instead. (he he).

I must say that so far this has been one of the best Christmas weeks I can remember. All started off with my surprise party. I don't want life to return to normal for a while yet :) I'm having too much fun with my gorgeous happy family.

Thanks to everyone who sent gifts to the children and ourselves, for both Christmas and my birthday. We will write our thank you letters soon.

Phone Call From Emanuel

2006-12-24T16:43:00.000Z

I was washing up in the kitchen when the phone rang. For some reason I just knew it would be Emanuel. I picked up the phone and heard the American operator asking if I would accept a collect call, so of course I said yes. And it was Emanuel! We got a 15 minute call but it seemed so much more like 5 minutes. It was great to talk to him, for only the 2nd time after 76 or more letters! He ribbed me for sending him a book which turned out not to be very good. Oooops. I bought it because it was written by a man serving time in a prison in Northern Ireland. I thought it might be interesting to him, but what I didn't realise, because I didn't read the book myself, was that it was about a gay relationship behind prison walls. LOL. Not really Emanuels cup of tea, so he passed it on and had a good laugh at my stupidity. Doh. I told him all about my surprise birthday party (see post below for that). It was so good to talk to him. Really made my day and put a smile on my face :)

A surprise party for me!

2006-12-23T13:51:00.000Z

Today was a pretty good day all in all. The morning was quite lazy. Oh the kids were great today! They spent about 4 hours playing in Jude's room together. It was so nice. The nicest thing was that all 3 of them were engrossed in the game. Not just Sam and Jude, but Luke too. I really enjoyed seeing them find something that they could all relate to, rather than them having to humour Luke all the time.

In the afternoon we made some cakes on a stick. We saw something similar on the tv yesterday and thought it would be fun to try. Basically we just cut up shop-bought cake, into rectangles, dipped them in melted chocolate and stuck dried fruits and nuts to them. We put them onto sticks to make lollies. It was great fun for the kids.

In the afternoon I finished my home made Christmas gift. Every year we put our names into a hat and draw one out each. We have to make a present for that person. Its a secret who we get. After Christmas I'll post some photos of the things we made. Last year I made painted and varnished pebble paper weights for Sam, Sam made a photo album of my life for me, Jude made Steve a box of little niknaks, and Steve made Jude a collage of photos in a frame. This year I am making for Luke as well as my secret person, so that he doesn't feel left out. I'm pretty proud of my efforts this year.

Well, it was arranged that we would be going round to Mums house for dinner tonight. The plan was to pick Steve up from work at 6pm and drive on to Mums house. Of course, I was in no rush, thinking I had all the time in the world. I rocked up to Steves shop at about 6.20pm, after showering Luke, putting on something half decent to wear and a little bit of makeup. I'm so glad I did. I almost went in my jogging bottoms. lol. I was running late and just thought that Mum wouldn't care if I arrived looking like a stay-at-home-Mum. Doh.

When we finally arrived at Mums at about 7pm I gave Mum the chocolate cakes on a stick that we had made. She whisked them off me at full speed and I took them back to show her them and give the kids the glory they deserved for their efforts. Lol. So I was in the kitchen taking my time, chatting away, unaware of anything at all unusual. Finally Mum said she had a job for the kids to do, so I should just go into the living room and make myself at home. Well, when I opened the living room door I nearly had a heart attack. The room was full of my family, all letting off streamers and party poppers, yelling "SURPRISE!!!" My goodness! Poor Luke didn't have a clue what was happening and stood clinging to my leg looking utterly bemused. Sam, Jude and Steve all knew what was happening but didn't even give a hint away. Well done kids! Of course, no one told Luke because he can't keep a secret. lol. There were loads of balloons with 'happy 30th birthday' on them, banners on the wall, and all my favourite people were there (apart from my Dad, who was there in thought :)

Well, after recovering from the shock I had to open presents! WOW. My birthday isn't until the 29th, which is why I was so un-suspicious. Jenny's kids gave me a big badge saying 'birthday girl', and I got one from Hannah too saying 'lady of leisure'. Luke helped me open every single present. He was shocked and kept saying "we didn't know this was going to happen, did we Mummy?" He is great at helping with present opening. Bless him. Well, I don't think I've ever been so excited before! lol. Dad sent a gift for me. Inside the bag were some really lovely seaweed body products. When I opened the envelope that was with them I found a voucher for two people to have a hot seaweed bath, steam and shower at a health spa type place in Newcastle (Co Down). How fabulous! I was really pleased with that. What an exciting, luxurious gift (thanks Dad). I got so many presents, as well as some Christmas presents including home made truffles and jewelry (from Mum), a big Lush gift box and a £25 voucher (from Maddi and Tom), candles and a makeup bag full of boots botanicals (from Hannah and David), and a big tray of bath products (from Jenny) amongst other things. I was truly spoilt!

The evening got better and better for the kids as some Christmas presents were handed out as well. My niece Bevin had bought every one a little gift with her own pocket money which was really sweet.

Mum must have spent all day in the kitchen because there was a huge array of gorgeous food and we all made pigs of ourselves eating them. Jenny had organised a few party games which were great fun. The first was 'pin the tail on the donkey'. Well, I haven't played that for years! It was hilarious. Jenny blindfolded us and spun us around. You can see a short video of Steve trying to pin the tail on the donkey by clicking here. I was in stitches watching the adults stumbling around the room trying to find the wall with the donkey on it! Then we had a game of pass the parcel. Adults and children. There is another short video of that which you can see by clicking here. The adults enjoy these things as much as the kids I think!

Jenny had decorated a chocolate cake with Thorntons Chocolates to make a big 30. Luke helped me to blow out the candles.

The whole evening was great fun and a huge surprise. I haven't been as surprised since the time that Steve told me he was bringing home lunch and turned up with my best friend from school, who had flown over from England without me suspecting a thing. (That was years ago). If you would like to see all the photos from the evening you can view them in flickr by clicking here.

Thanks everyone for the big surprise and the lovely evening. I hope you all have a happy Christmas and enjoy yourselves to the full. I'll be having another quiet birthday at home with the kids on the 29th so I'm a very lucky Mummy indeed :)

A Walk Through Our Hallway

2006-12-22T17:15:00.001Z

For those family who are interested (or anyone else) here is a little video of our newly decorated hallyway and landing. lol. Our new carpet finally arrived today to replace the migrain inducing carpet that was there before. Steve spent weeks painting all the walls, and our pew now looks good.

Jude wins gold

2006-12-22T13:22:00.000Z

Oh yes, how could I forget to mention that on Wednesday evening Jude went to the Archery Christmas shoot. They have one at the end of every term, a huge shooting session where all the archers from all the different lessons compete together. It goes on all evening and there is always a huge turnout.
Well, at the end of the evening Jude won a gold medal! She was the top scorer for her age group in the girls section. That has completed her set now as she has two bronze medals, one silver, and now the gold. She was thrilled.

Has the world gone crazy?

2006-12-22T12:49:00.000Z

I've just been to Tescos. It was 11am and I had an hour before Sam came out of school. Obviously it was packed. I expected that. It took me 1o minutes to find a space in their massive car park. Even though the shop was packed to capacity there were so many thoughtless shoppers who would just abandon their trolleys, mid aisle, whilst they searched for some cheese, thus causing a tailback 20 trolleys long. Then they would meander back to their cart at a snails pace and slowly move on, as if completely oblivious to the stress they were causing. I slowly made my way round, filling my half sized trolley with the few bits and pieces we still needed for Christmas dinner - potatoes, brussel sprouts, pate, the usual stuff. At 10 to 12 I started my way to the checkout to pay. I walked all the way up the aisle, from the bottom where the bread is for sale, to the top where the checkout is, passing people on the way. At the checkout I realised that all those people I had passed were actually queuing to pay! Holy moly! There are like 20 checkouts, each with a queue about 40 trolleys long. What is going on with the world? I know its Christmas but you'd have thought a famine was breaking out. I had to abandon my trolley! I paid for the milk and chocolate mooses that Luke was expecting at the '10 items or less till' and told the guy there where my trolley full of abandoned goods was. Poor Luke has been feeling slightly under the weather and he just couldn't sit in that queue. So tonight, when Steve comes home at 10pm I have to go and do it all over again, without the kids this time. When did Christmas become so crazy?

Lukisms

2006-12-22T10:58:00.000Z

On Wednesday we had Hannah and David over for dinner. We all sat around the fire roasting marshmallows, eating lots of cake and having a good time when Luke piped up with this fantastic little gem...

"Girls don't have willies do they Aunty Hannah?"
"No Luke, they don't"
"Do you have a willy Aunty Hannah?"

ROFL. I love them at that age.

Visit to Santa, Sprucefield.

2006-12-20T15:57:00.000Z

Today we took a drive to Sprucefield in Lisburn to visit Santa in his grotto. We were the first ones there for it's opening time of 2pm. Best of all, it was free, plus there was no queue. Luke was very excited, but shy once Santa sat him on his knee. They were given a chocolate Santa lolly and I got to take a few photos. Luke asked for some trains for Christmas (phew) and also asked if he was on the naughty or the nice list. Aww. Here are the pics...

More of Steves portraits

2006-12-19T15:44:00.000Z

Ok, I couldn't resist putting some more on. They are all so adorable, especially because they are my kids, so I just had to post them.

Don't forget to click on them for a better view.

Steves Portraits

2006-12-18T23:00:00.000Z

This evening I looked at some of the photos Steve took in the college photography studio last week, as part of his course. I just had to come and put some of them on my blog. These aren't necessarily the ones he is entering for his course, but a few of the ones I liked (there were hundreds - it was hard to pick!) I'm sure I'll be posting more over the coming days. The session was primarily shooting pictures of Jude but he took a few group ones of the kids too...

Stress levels pretty high

2006-12-17T21:47:00.000Z

Ahhh, I'm so stressed. I seem to have spent all day looking for lost things. Firstly we have misplaced a christmas present that we got Jude for Christmas. It's quite large (board game sized) so I don't know how we could lose it, but I just can't find it anywhere.

In the last few days Sam has managed to lose his coat (twice), his PE kit (twice), his lunch box, his pencil case (which he had last night) and possibly his brain (the jury is still out on that one). The boy needs to have everything stapled to his personage in order not to lose it. My stress levels are through the roof.

I'm going on Amazon.com now to see if I can order a nice book for my american death row penpal for his Christmas present. I can get it delivered directly from Amazon to save posting it from here. Not sure what to get but it's going to be something heavy!

Jude plays Silent Night on the Piano

2006-12-16T15:22:00.001Z

Today Jude played Silent Night at a piano concert, which he got sponsors for. This is her practising for the concert. Isn't her playing getting good? Check out Judes blog (in sidebar at the right) to see her playing her Grade 2 piece.

Sam at school

2006-12-15T17:08:00.000Z

Only one week left of school until the Christmas holidays. I can't wait to have Sam at home for a while. It feels as if we hardly see him any more. He has settled into school life very well and seems very happy. He even seems to enjoy his work. The only thing bothering him is one of the boys in his class. Every day when he gets home he has to talk about this boy for 20 minutes to get it off his chest and out of his system. LOL. It seems from what Sam says as if this boy is a real slacker. His only friend seems to be Sam and he kind of latches onto him, even though Sam has lots of other friends as well. Every time a partner is required this boys latches on to Sam, but then proceeds to let Sam do all the work and carry the brunt of the burden. Today they partnered up for a history assignment. They had to write some sort of essay about the Battle of Hastings, I think it was a newspaper report. Sam says that he did all the work by himself while this boy surfed the internet looking at sites about cars. Sam was not amused. He has written a note at the end of his essay to say that he worked alone and that his partner just skivvied. I advised him to try to partner with someone else. I said that if his friend is upset about it then explain that you can't partner with him because he doesn't pull his weight. Maybe that will teach him to work a little harder.

What do I want for my birthday?

2006-12-14T20:09:00.000Z

Well, my 30th is fast approaching, and I'm starting to feel old. No longer will people be surprised that I have 3 kids (one of which is at Secondary School) because my age starts with a 3, instead of a 2. No, I'm not looking forward to it. Im going to age disgracefully.

Steve has asked me to write a list of things I might like for my birthday. Naturally I've been thinking all year about this. Every month that has passed I've thought "I'll get that for my birthday", but now that the time has come, and I have my pen in my hand, can I think of a single thing??? Nope.

So I went onto Ebay for some inspiration, and came up with
this
and this or this, (I've been hankering after one of these for quite some time)
or there is this, yes it's dull I know, but I was after one in the summer when I was growing all that veg, and I know I'll want one next summer and won't spend that sort of money on myself.

I just know there were lots of books I wanted to read, but wouldn't buy for myself, but I just can't remember what they were now.

So here is my question to you. What should I get for my birthday? Any suggestions? Do you think this might be too much to ask for?

And yes, I realise now that if Steve does bid on any of those ebay items you will all be able to see how much he pays! he he.

Happenings in the house

2006-12-14T09:47:00.000Z

I've just uploaded 86 photos from Jude's new digital camera and I'm surprised at how much we have done lately. Here are some of the best photos from this week.

On Saturday we took a trip to Belfast while Sam was at stage school. The christmas market was on at the city hall so we looked around it, and then had some cake in a cafe.

Jude eating a chocolate waffle in the market.

Jude at one of the stalls.

Jude and Steve in the cafe.

Mummy and Luke about to dig in to christmas cake and apple pie! Yum yum. Luke was ever so excited about ordering christmas cake in a real cafe!

Jude got some Happy Mais for her birthday and yesterday we finally got it out to create with. Jude decided to make a Christmas decoration with hers.

Here is the fantastic Christmas tree scene that she made. I was well impressed.

Equally impressive was Luke sunshine which he made completely unassisted. He even drew on the plate with felt pen to finish it off. Not bad for a 3 year old I think.

Less impressive, however, was my attempt at making a person. This person started off standing upright, but I must have wet the maize too much because he started leaning. I made a wall for him to lean on, and a dog to keep him company. An hour after taking this photo my little person had shrivelled up into a ball of gloopy mess!

Luke always loves to help me in the kitchen. Here he is getting me a mushroom out of the fridge.

Last night I made a lovely roast dinner. Whilst I was cooking it Luke made some fresh juice with the juicer. Here he is single handedly juicing some pears and apples, which he added to the melon juice in the pink jug which he had already made. He made this entirely on his own and was very proud of himself!

We are still harvesting the last few vegetables from the garden. Here are the parsnips that we dug up and roasted yesterday, and a huge cabbage which weights an absolute ton!

Steve did a big 2 hour studio photography shoot this week for his course. He used Jude as his subject and came away with some excellent images. I popped Luke and Sam in at the end for a couple of quick photos and there are some nice ones of them too. When he has decided what he's doing with them I will post a few on here, as they are really lovely and very professional looking. I know Jude had a blast posing for them all.

What have we been up to?

2006-12-08T09:39:00.000Z

It's been quite a while since I posted normal family news stuff here on the blog so I thought I'd do a very quick catch up post. Here are 3 photos from the last 2 weeks. I was ill with a nasty cold, which turned into a bad chesty cough. Just about managed to get through the days but crawled into bed as soon as Steve got in from work every night. That lasted almost a week so not much got done. Although Steve finally finished painting the hall, stairs and landing!!! Woo hoo (no less than 18 walls of varying sizes and heights!!!)

I had to take a pic of these animals. I came downstairs on one of the mornings that I was feeling ill and this was the sight in our living room. Steve had been playing with Luke, with Sam's old animals that he collected when he was little. They had arranged them in such a good order, dinosaurs in the middle, animals around the outside, with the humans guarding them all along the perimeter. Luke has taken to playing with these animals a lot, and often arranges them in different group variations.

I took great enjoyment taking this photo of Steve. After a full day of working, running errands, popping in and out of various places of business, he came home, looked in the bathroom mirror and exclaimed "Who let me go out looking like this?" His hair was wild. I laughed myself silly and he agreed to pose for the blog.

One day last week we took a family trip to the cinema to see Flushed Away. We very rarely go as a family because of the cost (£20! - and that was with cheap sweets from the corner shop, not expensive cinema treats) The film was very good. Luke laughed so much every time the singing slugs came on - I thought they were a nice touch to the film, very entertaining. I could watch that film twice, which is saying something for a kids film.

On the education front, Sam has been doing well at his new High School. He gets his end of term exam results back soon, so that will be a sign of how he's doing. He had some results back already, but when he gets his report it will also show the class average for each exam result. He scored no less than 98% on his geography exam! I don't know what the class average was yet though.

Jude has been quietly working away at home. She was quite neglected while I was ill and just plodded on with the work she had been doing all term. I really need to sit down and look at her maths work to make sure she fully understands it. Today she is starting a lap book project. She hasn't quite decided what to do yet. Last night she went on a Brownies trip to see Santa and came home with lots of goodies and stories to tell (from all accounts Santa flashed at the congregation of young Brownie girls, when he stood up and his trousers fell to his ankles!!!)

Luke is getting more and more excited about Christmas as every second passes. He has started waking at the crack of dawn in order to retrieve the next chocolate from his advent calendar. Not a good idea. We should have been opening them at bedtime, to get him to bed earlier. Hes' asking me every day when we will be putting the tree and decorations up. I'm holding off for as long as possible as he will drive me insane once it's up, with constant questions of "is it Christmas yet?" People here in Northern Ireland do put their decorations up very early. I think the general trend here is to put them up on 1st December, or round abouts, but I have seen many houses in Belfast decorated from as early as 1st November. In the south of England when I was a lass I'm sure we didn't put them up until nearer Christmas. When the schools broke up, about a week before the big day we'd put up the decorations, and they stayed up for about 12 days (the 12 days of Christmas, right?) I'm sure I'll get comments from people in England saying they have them up for longer, but I'm sure that's how it was at home. A full month or more seems such a long time to have the house decorated. Oh well.

I'm sure there is loads of other news but I can't spend any more time on the blog... things to do.

Update on Tinkhani

2006-12-05T21:43:00.000Z

Wow, so much has happened since I wrote my last post, about Tinkhani. My head has been all over the place.

Firstly I was so touched by the people who chose to respond to my blog post. To those who offered to donate money, those who have offered to send a christmas card. Where should I start? I don't want to forget anything. Let me see.

Firstly, my Grandad printed out my post and took it to his church meeting where he read it out loud to the members. They were moved to pray for Tinkhani and his situation. The leader has contacts in Zambia and they may well be able to find someone willing to visit Tinkhani and talk with him, which would be a huge blessing to him. They also talked about raising money to send supplies for all of the inmates in Tinkhani's cell, as they are all in the same boat more or less, and to stop Tinkhani fearing theft or other problems.

Today I posted a small parcel to him. Very small. It contained my letter, a book, and a few treats such as cashew nuts and sweets. It's kind of my 'test parcel'. The idea is to see whether he actually gets the contents or not.

Anyway, where was I? Today I made contact with a group called Prison Fellowship Zambia. I sent them my blog link and asked them if they knew of any missionaries in the area, or anyone trustworthy who may be able to help me. The Bishop emailed me right back and said that they have a prison fellowship group in Kabwe, where Tinkhani is. He forwarded my email to that group and said that it would be no problem for them to visit with Tinkhani and to buy him provisions with any money that I send to them. They go into the prisons in the area and minister to the men and women there, whilst helping them in any way that they can with both spiritual and physical needs. I read a page on the Internet that one of the missionaries wrote and they seem to be doing a much needed great job out there. They go into the prisons every day and ask the prisoners what they need, visit their families for them and try to re-start communications with their long lost families, and such like. Obviously they can only work within whatever funds they have available. Won't it be fabulous if one of these missionaries can help us to take care of Tinkhani, and possibly others, and to visit him as well?

Once again I'd like to say a sincere thank you to those who emailed, or left supportive comments, and an even bigger thank you to those who offered money and christmas cards to Tinkhani. If anyone else would like to be involved please do let me know. Every little helps, as they say.

Meet Tinkhani

2006-12-02T14:29:00.000Z

I'd like you to meet someone. This is Tinkhani. He lives in Zambia. Tinkhani is a Christian man, serving a death sentence in a Zambian prison. He is one of many thousands of men incarcerated there. Tinkhani has been in prison many years, awaiting either freedom or death, for the crime of robbery. He is not a murderer. He was a very poor man with a wife and children to feed. In order to obtain money for food he agreed to take part in a bank robbery. He was caught, and sentenced to death for his crime. His family have since forgotten him and have never visited him. He is a very poor man indeed.
The conditions in Zambian prisons are horrendous. Click here for some examples.

There are people all over the world suffering. Orphans, hungry families, homeless people, and prisoners. So why should anyone care about a prisoner if there are so many other needy people, who may be far more deserving? That's a good point. The sad fact is that most people are moved when they see a documentary about starving orphans in Liberia, they are moved to tears when they see homeless families in India spending countless cold nights freezing inside make-shift tents. People don't like to see suffering, but for the majority of them, they are moved, and then they make a cup of tea, finish their dinner and forget all about it.

All this suffering sometimes makes me feel so helpless. What is the point of trying to do anything when there are countless more people living in poverty? I have heard it said that we "rich people" are in the minority. For us, this life (having a home, working hard, eating hot meals every day) seems normal, but to the majority of people our lives is a paradise that they can only dream of.

So what can I do to help? Well, those who know me well know that if I wasn't a devoted wife and mother I would sell everything and move to Liberia or Zimbabwe to open an orphanage, or something similar. Obviously I can't do that at the moment. But one thing that I have been doing, for 2 years now, is writing to prisoners. Not randomly writing willy nilly to prisoners, but writing to 4 prisoners. Tinkhani is one of these prisoners. The other 3 live in America (one of those is on death row).

My heart goes out to Tinkhani and others like him. A letter from me is all he has to look forward to. My letters take about 3 weeks to arrive with him. When he reads them he is taken out of his prison, in his mind, to another world. He has never asked me for anything other than friendship and correspondence. He has not asked for money, and I told him in my first letter that I was offering friendship and nothing more. But friendship is the most precious thing in the world to him. Tinkhani is starving. The prison service give him 1 small bowl of rice a day. They expect family to provide food for their incarcerated relatives. But for so many of the men, like Tinkhani, their family have forgotten them. For many years he has lived on this one bowl of rice per day. Some days there isn't any rice and they have to go without. Tinkhani also has AIDS. He didn't know he had AIDS when he went to prison. He almost died from the disease (some part of me wonders if he would have been better off). He gets his medication provided free of charge. The medication often makes him vomit what little food he gets.

I have spoken via email to the prison chaplain, who is a man from Northern Ireland, believe it or not. He knows Tinkhani. He says he does not look at all well, is very undernourished, but praises God every day for his life. (The photo above was taken before he went to prison).

Tinkhani lives in a concrete cell with at least 6 other men. They have no bed, no sink, no toilet, no window. At night when they are locked up he says that the men often hallucinate and believe that they have become small bugs that are able to crawl through the air vent and out to freedom. They have a chamber pot to share. In order to reply to my letter Tinkhani cleans out chamber pots every day for the richer prisoners, and washes their clothes for them. If he does this for two weeks he receives a stamp from them, with which he can write to me.

Tinkhani has asked me in his letters to ask everyone I know to pray for him. He believes that prayer is like dynamite. If you could also remember Tinkhani in your prayers he would be very grateful. He is dreaming of freedom in his latest letter. He will either be freed or hanged.

This Christmas I want to send a care package to Tinkhani. I can easily save the cost of posting these items by eating less take out food, or spending a little less on myself. I haven't decided yet whether to send one large package or whether to send little bits and pieces in each letter. Pretty much anything would make him happy. The prison mail is not checked by the guards and his parcels should remain untampered. I guess non perishable foods, sanitary items, blankets, clothes etc are all things that Tinkhani could use. If anyone has any good ideas of things to send please let me know.

If anyone else would like to write to Tinkhani, offering prayers and/or friendship then please email me and I will give you his address. If anyone would like to send something to him, in the form of a care package or a small treat then please let me know and again I'll give you his address. Anything, no matter how small would help to ease his suffering. Anyone of my family members who is about to buy me a birthday or christmas present, feel free if you like to send something to Tinkhani in leau of my present ;)

Likewise, when writing your christmas cards this year, if you feel you would like to send a card to either Tinkhani, or E (on death row in US) then please let me know and I'll give you their addresses. If you prefer you can put my address as the return address to remain anonymous.

remember those in prison (Hebrews 13:3).
Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone (John 8 v.7)
For ALL have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God (Romans 3 :23)
The Lord looked down from His sanctuary on high, from Heaven He viewed the earth to hear the groans of the prisoners and release those condemned to death." (Psalms 102:18-20)
And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. (1 Cor 13 v2)
And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. (1 Cor 13v 13)

Luke sings The Nightmare Before Christmas

2006-11-30T12:57:00.001Z

I've been laid up in bed for most of the week and Luke has done his best to look after me. He sang me his new fave song - This is Halloween, from The Nightmare Before Christmas. I said it made me feel heaps better. So now, every time I feel sick he sings it to me, to magically make me feel better. Jude videod him singing it to me this morning. Now he has the cold too, poor lad, as does his Daddy.

Well done Steve!

2006-11-28T18:01:00.000Z

Oh, I'm loaded with the cold. I managed to stay on top of things all day but now that Steve is home I'm off to bed, leaving him to cope with the kids. But I just had to come online quickly to post this message.
Today Steve got the marks for the first part of his Photography HND back. This is the course that he started in October. The first part of the course was a 12 week module in which he had to take 12 prints, develop them and print them himself in black and white, to make a calender. It was quite a hard module and he spent a lot of time on it. Today he starts the next module, which is portrait photography in the studio. Anyway, the calender module was marked in 3 sections, with an overall mark. One mark was for the workbook, one mark for the essay (Steve's very first essay ever, I might add!), and one mark for the actual photographs. Well, much to our surprise and delight he got a distinction for his workbook, a distinction for his essay (!@*@! - no I didn't help him with that!) and a distinction for his photos, giving him a distinction overall!
Well done Stevie!
He was also commissioned and paid for his first bit of photography work this week too! For a local estate agents.
Right, I'm off to bed, sniff.

Judes first video

2006-11-28T17:58:00.001Z

I lost this video in the link below. So, I've posted it again. Doh!

Judes first video

2006-11-26T13:35:00.001Z

This is our first attempt at loading a video onto our blog via youtube. Its just a little one Jude recorded on her new camera.

edit - IF you can't see this video it is now showing in a new post. Go back to the home page to view it.

Are we going yet?

2006-11-25T11:09:00.000Z

Yesterday evening we went to friends house for dinner. Luke had been waiting all week to go and was beside himself when the day actually came. The daughter of this family has a huge conservatory full of toys and Luke just couldn't wait to get stuck into playing with them, especially the Barbie Cars. Yesterday morning he was up at about 6am exclaiming "Horray! We are going to H & D's house today!" Happy days. From that point onwards he proceeded to ask me every 30 seconds on average "are we going yet?" I told him we weren't going until it was dark. At about 1.30pm he ran into the room screaming excitedly that he had looked out of the window and it was now dark!

He did manage to entertain himself throughout the day with little distractions. He decided that it was of utmost importance that he paint a picture for C. He got all the paints out and set himself up on his little desk. He painted a beautiful portrait of C, which we later added glitter to, much to Luke' delight. He told me about 30 times that C was going to be so pleased with the picture he had painted her.

Thankfully, the time to leave finally came and we drove the 35 minute drive to their house, with questions every 3 minutes asking "are we there yet?", "are we half way there yet?" Luckily for us some of the towns had their christmas lights on, and this delighted Luke and distracted him enough to keep us relatively sane.

Here is a photo of Luke looking so proud with his painting of C.

He managed to distract himself for a while with various toys whilst I got a little work done about the house.

As per usual, we were treated to the obligatory end of evening performance from our two older children and C. This time, much to mine and Luke's delight, was a performance of the Scissor Sisters 'I don't feel like dancing'. Don't they just look the part?

Scissor Sisters in Belfast Photos

2006-11-24T16:31:00.000Z

Here are the photos to accompany this post about the Scissor Sisters concert in Belfast. Taken by my mate Caroline. They came out pretty well considering all the lighting effects etc. The Scissor Sisters song "Don't feel like dancing" is now Luke's current favourite song. Every time we go out in the car we have to play it continually. It makes a change from The Little Shop of Horrors soundtrack, so I can't complain.

Peeeeewwwyy...

2006-11-24T09:06:00.000Z

Last night we became the proud owners of an old pew. For free!

The night before that I was sitting up in the landing talking to Steve while he was painting. He is in the process of painting the hallyway, landing and stairs, which is a lot of walls. Our hall and landing are both very long and large. Since moving to this house we've had a lack of furniture in certain areas. As I was sitting along the long strip of wall between Sam's room and the office I said to Steve "this area here is just wasted space. Look at all this space that's just sitting here doing nothing. We need some sort of long chair or shelves or something for it". Then yesterday morning a lady offered a pew for free, on freecycle, to anyone who could get a van to her house to take it away. Steve phoned the van rental people and they gave him a van for free last night! Imagine that. So with the help of a friend Steve went off to pick up our new piece of furniture. Pew from row number one of Ballyclare Presbyterian Church. It's going to look fab once we get the new carpet down and the rest of the walls painted. Here's a photo of it in situe, before the decorating begins in this area. It's 6 ft long, made of pitch pine, and has brass numbers at each end, and a brass umberella stand at one end. Not bad for nothing but the cost of a bit of diesel, eh?

Freecycle is amazing. We have given things away on it, swapped things, and gained one or two things. We swapped some chairs for mini greenhouses during the summer. And I managed to get rid of a few bits this week that were cluttering up the house. I'm very grateful to the lovely lady who gave us this pew.

Some Photos From Jude's New Camera

2006-11-22T11:45:00.000Z

Some photos that Jude has taken this week on her new camera.

Steve at work, in his CD shop, with Luke's winter hat on?!?!?

This is me making Jude's legwarmers in her room, on her birthday.

Playing in the snow before school.

Birthdays, feet and snow...

2006-11-17T12:14:00.000Z

I'm making time for a little catch up post. So much has been going on but I haven't had time really to sit and write about it. Time goes past, and more stuff happens, and then I never get around to blogging about the things I was going to blog about.

On Tuesday Luke finally got the specially made orthopedic insoles. Remember he had his feet cast for them on 1st October? The children's hospital told me that they needed to be cast, made and fitted within two weeks so that he would be able to wear them before his feet grew too big. 6 weeks later, after hearing nothing about getting the insoles fitted, I phoned the hospital and was told their next free appointment was on 20th December! When I pointed out that his feet probably would not fit the insoles by then, they agreed, and arranged for me to visit the private clinic where they had been made, and were sitting in storage. So, that's what we did, and the private clinic have agreed to see Luke from now on, at no cost to us, on behalf of the Children's Hospital. The insoles are very strange looking, not at all what I was expecting. So I took a photo (of course!)

The good thing is that the orthotist told us only to buy Luke cheep shoes from now on. He says that the insoles will do the job, and expensive Clarke's shoes will get in the way, so we are to go for cheepy Dunnes shoes instead. Woo hoo. I was tempted to ask him to kit the whole family out with them! LOL.

Anyway, today is was snowing! Yes! Snowing! Never has a little boy been so excited, as little Luke was when he woke up at 7am this morning and discovered the roof windows were covered in snow! Sam and his friend had a snowball fight in their school uniforms, before school this morning. And Luke donned his welly boots for a walk through the snowy lawn. Steve went out to the back garden to take some snowy shots for his photography course, and slipped, fell flat on his back, soaking through three layers of clothes and breaking his camera (its muddy, wet and might work properly when it's dried out).

Our back garden this morning...

Jude's birthday was a lovely day. In the morning she opened her presents before Sam went to school. Her main present was her own digital camera. She also got a knitting set (make your own leg warmers), a beano comic writing set, a box of chocolates, Nanny McPhee DVD, amongst other things.

Luke helped me wrap up the presents the night before. He was also emptying my handbag at the time, and unknown to us had taken a £5 note from my purse and wrapped it up with with some new clothes that I'd bought Jude! We didn't discover it until she opened them, and of course she was delighted with the money and the clothes.

Luke helped Jude unwrap all the presents, and she was very good to let him. He was more excited than her I think! We bought her a big chocolate cake, and Luke had to put the 10 candles on himself. He couldn't wait to eat it.

In the evening Jude and I went out for a girlie evening together. We drove to Lisburn and watched Click at the cinema. It was a good film, and Jude enjoyed it as much as me. It was much sadder than we had expected, and really could have done with more comedy at the start before getting sad. It's a story about a man whose life is really busy, with work and family commitments. He becomes the owner of a Universal Remote Control, which controls his universe. He can skip scenes, fast forward, pause, etc through his life.

After the film I let Jude choose from any of the restaurants in the area. She chose pizza hut. By now it was 9.30pm so we both felt really grown up having a meal so late at night (and on a school night too!) We had pizza, garlic bread, deserts, we were totally stuffed and took plenty home for Daddy's midnight feast. When we got home we discovered that Steve had started painting the hallway (Shock!)

I asked Jude how she enjoyed her birthday. She said "it was cool, but the best bit was talking to you in the restaurant". Isn't that cute? She really enjoyed some quality time without her brothers.

Jude's 10th Birthday is today!

2006-11-15T10:33:00.000Z

It doesn't seem ten years since this happy day of Jude's birth. On 15th November at approx 3pm Jude was born weighing 8 lb 2 oz. The same size at birth as both her parents were. Being the reliable, rule abiding person that she has turned out to be, she arrived on the day she was due, after a damn hard delivery.

She was in a lot of pain, badly bruised, after the birth, and she cried for three solid days. The only way to stop her crying was to sit with her in my arms, perfectly still, and to sing "Hey Jude". I sat in that hospital singing Hey Jude for hours, since that was the song she recognised from her time in the womb.
I couldn't believe that we were blessed with a daughter, as well as our 17 month old son. Sam was delighted with his little sister and soon became her protector and friend. She seemed so tiny next to him, but he still wasn't even walking alone at this point. She was a gorgeous little thing, and turned into a gorgeous girl.

There have been a lot of smiles, a lot of laughs, and a lot of tears since that happy day. Jude has brought happiness and sunshine to our lives and every day I thank God for her. She has become a very sensitive caring young lady, not to mention beautiful.

She has always been our baby girl, but never did she imagine that one day she would be a BIG sister! The birth of Luke was an exciting time for young Jude. She became like a second mother to him. She was quietly pleased that he was a boy, and she could remain our special girl. Now he bosses her around, nags and moans at her. But she has taught him how to count, recognise shapes and colours etc. She is a natural teacher to him.

These days Jude enjoys reading and writing letters. She loves writing to her penpals, and is addicted to Beano comics at the moment. She plays the piano, and has won medals in archery. Every day she brings light to our lives with her constant jokes, funny stories, and little comic songs which she makes up and dances too.

She is excellent with a camera, which is what we bought her for her birthday today - her own digital camera. Now she can snap away to her hearts content, without having to use Daddy's massive, expensive camera.

Have a happy birthday Jude. May you be blessed with 10 more happy years at home with us. Please stop growing up so fast. It's just not on you know!

2006-11-14T19:49:00.000Z

Tomorrow is Jude's 10th birthday! And yesterday was my Dad's birthday.
Happy birthday everyone!

The Engagement Party

2006-11-13T09:07:00.000Z

I've got a little time this morning in my, (Yes, C, my life really is that unfulfilled) whilst Luke is still asleep, to write a bit about the engagement party. Then Luke and I will be off shopping as it's Jude's 10th birthday on Wednesday. We've already got her main present but I'd like to take a look around the shops for some nice little girlie things for her.

Well, I think everyone agrees that the engagement party was a huge success. Contrary to our doubts, people did actually turn up to wish the happy couple all the best. We had the perfect amount of people for the size of the place.

Steve and I turned up at the hall at 3pm. It was very bare, very cold, but nice enough. Jenny then turned up to help and Steve went home. We set about decorating the place, with lights, cut out hearts, heart balloons, ribbons, photographs etc. Jenny had made the most gorgeous engagement cake (she really should go into business), as well as the funkiest time capsule I'd ever seen. I made two displays of photos. One of the lovely photos that Steve took of Hannah and David a few weeks back, and one of all the funny photos we could find from our own collection, and from Hannah's and David's Beebo websites. (Some of them were hilarious - not to mention embarrassing!)

Mum arrived soon after with enough food to feed an army. She must have been baking and preparing for days! Jenny has a great talent for turning dull rooms into wonderlands (Just take a look in her shed if you ever get the chance!) and whilst I was out making sandwiches in the kitchen Jenny was heard banging, crashing and giggling in the main hall. Half an hour later Mum and I walked back in to find the hall had been transformed in a room which couldn't possibly look more like Hannah. Sparkly lights were hanging from the door, from the ceiling, round the pillars, it was almost Santa's grotto. It looked fabulous.

We also set up a little art table. We invited all the guests to draw portraits or caricature's of Hannah and David, and to add them to the gallery. That went down very well, and was a good ice breaker. I have all the portraits at home now and will put them all into a scrap book for them.

A few weeks ago a Hannah and David had a portrait sitting and the lady gave us a free DVD of the photos. We had this projected onto the wall during the evening and it was a lovelty effect.

We had about an hour to rest and recuperate before people started arriving at 8pm.

Plenty of Hannah and David's friends turned up, as well as family from both sides. We had asked people on the invitations to bring something to go into a time capsule. So people arrived with both time capsule gifts, and engagement presents. It was some fun trying to work out which pile to put them in.

Steve had put together some cd's of music for the little dance floor. After some warm up tracks, we had a little compilation of songs that the kids would like (can-can, cotton-eye-joe etc), and we invited the relatives to dance with the children. That was a good ice breaker and got all the Mums, Grannies and Grandads up to dance. By 11 o'clock the dance floor was positively hiving with all H & D's friends, who couldn't wait to sing along to Y.M.C.A! The whole evening was a great laugh. The kids were fantastically behaved and even little Luke managed to stay up until 12.30! The poor little lad was shattered though, and Steve spent most of the evening entertaining him. He slept till 10.30am the next day. (And he's still asleep today at 9.30)

The gorgeous engagement cake that Jenny made.

The time capsule and cake.
Laura and Jenny on the dance floor.

Some of H & D's friends.
The seating area, all sparkly and pretty.

Some more friends.
David's family.
Jenny, getting into the groove!
Y.M.C.A (I do believe Maddi is accosting a young lad in this photo?!)

My Dad, looking lovely, but there is a much better pic of him on flicker doing some snazzy moves.

Jenny and the girls, looking divine.

The lovely couple, cutting the cake (it was so wrong to cut such a piece of artwork! But it tasted nice)

There are lots more photos in flicker (see post below). Don't forget to click on pics to see the real size versions. If anyone is planning to print any of them let me know and I'll email you the originals, which are much larger and better quality for printing. I'll do a set for Hannah and David, and I'll get some others printed for people if they request them. I've also got a DVD which I will do copies of for everyone.

Engagement Photos

2006-11-12T13:10:00.000Z

CLICK HERE to see photos from Hannah and David's engagement party. I'll write a post about it later.

Parent Teacher Interview

2006-11-10T19:11:00.000Z

I'm sitting here burning the tracks onto CD that me and Steve spent two days choosing and burning, for Hannah and David's engagement party, which is tomorrow night. Hopefully someone will come to it! While I'm sitting here waiting for them to burn onto CD I thought I might use the time to write about Sam's Parent Teacher interview, which was on Wednesday.

I met his teacher for the first time. She was SOOOO different to the old cow he had at primary school, before we started home educating him. She was a bubbly, smiley, enthusiastic and friendly personality. She only had good things to say about Sam. She described him as the boy the we know and love - energetic, bubbly, friendly. The last teacher he had, in P6 at primary school described him as a quiet, introverted daydreamer who had no interest in school. That is not Sam at all, but being in her class made him subdued and robbed him of his self esteem. Hence, we took him out of school. But now we have our happy, confident boy back again.

Mrs M said that Sam's class is a very quiet, academic class in general, and that Sam is like a ray of light in the midst of them! LOL. That's really what she said. She said he is always happy, always smiling, and very enthusiastic about learning. She actually seemed to like him (Mrs B from the old school positively detested him, and any other child that wasn't scoring 100% in everything). This new form teacher told me that she has a soft spot for Sam and that he is such a likable lad, always surrounded by friends. Yes, I knew that already. Anyway, the day before the parent interviews she sat in the various classes watching the kids at work. Apparently every teacher reported on Sam's keenness to learn (is this the same child?) She said that during science most of the kids were quiet and sat yawning, whilst Sam smiled the whole way through the lesson, asked countless questions (they were learning about reptiles and amphibians), and thoroughly enjoyed himself! Well that's great. He really does seem to be enjoying himself.

I guess the teachers may presume that his being home educated has starved him of any opportunity, and that is why he is so keen to learn. I know, however, that primary school sapped away his love of learning, depressed him and stole his self confidence, and during his two years at home he learnt to love both himself and the world around him, again.

My celebrity look-a-likes?

2006-11-10T17:02:00.000Z

Scissor Sisters - Odyssey Arena Belfast

2006-11-09T10:17:00.000Z

Wow. The Scissor Sisters were fantastic! What a great evening. They certainly put on a good performance. When I've seen the music videos I've often wondered what that girl was doing in the band, but she was certainly quality entertainment on the night. She was running the show! They were great with the audience, always talking in between songs and interacting with everyone. Everyone seemed to enjoy it except the row in front of us who sat their looking bored and stiff throughout the entire performance.

Every band I've been to see at the Odyssey (Travis, Coldplay, Busted (er, with Sam)) have always commented on Belfast's reputation amongst bands for being one of the best places to play. And at the end of the concerts they always affirm that Belfast is definitely one of the best places to play. I don't know if they say that at every concert they go to, but I feel that the good people of Belfast really are an excellent audience. I think they are so pleased to have someone come here and perform at last, after years of nothing, that they really appreciate and enjoy it. Well, me and C certainly enjoyed ourselves :)

She took some photos of the show which I'll post on the blog once she emails them to me. Here is one of us all dressed up in our glad rags which Steve took before we left.

Scissor Sisters - I don't feel like dancing

2006-11-08T10:00:00.001Z

Going to see the Scissor Sisters tonight! Yeah, thanks to C's husband for pulling out and giving me his ticket. Now, I need to find something to wear. Might need to attempt to climb that ironing pile. I happen to know that C is wearing her gorgeous new dress, humph.

Click play on the screen above to watch the movie.

Our New Bedroom Photos

2006-11-06T10:40:00.000Z

Finally, after 11 months, I got my 29th birthday present! Hurray!! To see the before photos scroll down a few posts. Steve spent two days painting, and he was exhausted afterwards. The ceiling had been painted in a disgusting peachy glossy vinyl paint before, and it took 3 or 4 coats of white to cover it. That's what almost killed Steve, painting the ceiling. The walls were a breeze compared to that. Anyway, I went for mineral mist in the end, but also got the willow tree colour for the hallway, stair and landing, which we haven't started on yet. The bedroom looks twice the size now that the cluttering wallpaper is gone. I've had to take several shots because I couldn't get it all in one photo. Let me know what you think, comments are always welcome... (I'm putting small images on to save space, but you can view them larger, as always, by clicking on them).

We have moved the bed which makes room for a kind of little reading area now. It seems more spacious this way. I got the wall hanging picture from Matalan for about £8. Now all I need to do is get a new bedspread to match the room (that old duvet set is well past it's best anyway) and some curtains, and then it will be all finished.

As always it's been a busy week. Sam was off school for half term break but has gone back today. This week is going to be completely packed. I think it's one of the busiest weeks that we've had planned for a long time. On Saturday we will be running Hannah and David's engagement party, and there is positively heaps to organise for that, so it's going to be work, work, work this week. As well as that I've been invited to see the Scissor Sisters in concert on Wednesday night, with a friend, tonight Jude has Brownies, tomorrow night I have to attend a drama performance that Sam is involved in through his school, Thursday night is belly dancing, Saturday night is the party, I'm not sure when I'll get to breath, but that's ok. It's all exciting fun stuff anyway.

Well, that's it for now really. Here are a few photos from our week...

Could this be the ugliest parsnip in the world? We grew it and eat it in a pumpkin soup this week.

Luke finally decided to wear the pirate outfit that he got for his birthday.

Sam and Luke called me to 'take a photo for the blog' of this Luke sandwich.

Luke sits on the doorstep eating melon whilst Sam and Jude try to fly a kite.

It wasn't a windy day so they had to run up and down the street at full speed to get the kids to catch the air. But there were plenty of screams and giggles, and it was great to see them enjoying the crisp wintery fresh air, and getting some exercise.

Judisms - Vegans and cereal

2006-11-06T09:21:00.000Z

On Friday I took the kids to see Barnyard at the cinema. It was good. The farmer in the barnyard is a VEGAN, which lead to a discussion at home about the difference between a vegan and a vegetarian. Last night Steve heard Sam and Jude having a little chat whilst eating a bowl of cereal at the kitchen table.

Jude says, to Sam "Did you know sam that virgins can't have milk in their cereal?"

He he he, just had to blog it so I can remind her about it when she's 21.

Breeze's Blog?

2006-11-05T09:27:00.000Z

Breeze, what's happened to your blog? It's not there any more. I tried to email you but the email was returned. I hope everything is ok.
Hazel

2006-11-03T19:12:00.000Z

Urgh!!!!

I can't stand the mess that the place gets in when decorating! At the moment the entire contents of our bedroom are out on the landing, and I'm trying to put washing away while Steve prepares the walls for painting.

I can't stand it! Get me out of here!!!

Willow tree or mineral mist?

2006-11-01T22:16:00.000Z

Ok, how difficult can it be to choose a new bedroom colour? Surely anything has got to look better than the disgusting wallpaper carry-on that was there before? This has been the worst room in the house. Ok, maybe not. Maybe the red living room, with the hideous wallpaper and red patterned carpet were worse. Or perhaps the puke patterned carpet that is still up the stairs and landing are worse. Either way, this bedroom has been something I've disliked from the moment we moved in, two years ago. Why do people cover lovely new houses with wallpaper? It took me hours to peel it all off. They also painted the ceiling in this room a glossy magnolia colour, instead of brilliant white. So now it's all stripped and bare, but what colour shall I paint it? I'm stuck between two colours, this one (willow tree) or this one (mineral mist). Willow tree is my all time favourite colour. It's a green that we used in the kitchen of our old house. The reason I'm stuck is because we are also going to decorate the hall and landing. Now, I can't decide which one to do willow tree green and which one to do mineral mist blue. Ah, the dilemma. I want the bedroom to be a calm peaceful place, no bright colours, no gowdy patterns, just peace and relaxation. And I want the hallway to be welcoming, but also peaceful, and to give the feel of 'us' as a family. The colours I go for tend to be pale greens, calming colours (like our living room, for instance). Ah well, ho hum, better sleep on it I think.

Edit - I just took the dulux colour chemistry test to see what colour my personality is and this is what it said...
Peace Maker
Friendly and considerate your first concern is always to make other people feel at ease, and never more so than when you are at home. Like the mediator that you are, you choose quiet and soothing colours to create a peaceful and serene atmosphere. You’re naturally drawn to gentle & ethereal textures, so pulling together voiles & silks with calm wall colours such as blues & greens will complete your sanctuary.

Geneva - October 2006

2006-11-01T12:24:00.001Z

Our short trip to Geneva in Switzerland was wonderful, as expected. We left here on Saturday morning at about 8.30am. My Mum and Hannah were taking care of the kids for the few days that we were away. I was worried about how Luke would cope without me, but he seemed happy enough knowing that we would bring him home a present. Our flight was 2 ½ hours long and we arrived in Geneva Airport at lunch time. We hopped straight onto a train and arrived in Geneva centre 5 minutes later. Steve said that the hotel was near the train station, and as we walked out of the station there was the hotel! Easy as that. Sometimes finding your way around public transport can be a nightmare when you don’t speak the language.
So we checked straight into our 4 star hotel. They gave us free passes for travel by train, tram, bus or boat, which was very handy. The hotel was very nice, and the bed was absolutely massive! Much bigger than our king size.
We spent the rest of Saturday afternoon working out our way around the place and getting our bearings. We were staying in the hotel district, which also turned out to be the red light district at night. Lake Geneva was 2 blocks from the hotel, and the Old Town was just across the Lake.
We spent quite a lot of time over the 4 days around the Lake area. The weather was so sunny and warm (nothing like home!) and it was bliss just to sit by the sailing boats, watching the world go by. The Lake has a man made water jet, which Steve was fascinated by. This jet sprays the water from the lake 140m into the air, using 500 litres of water per second. On the Sunday, when the weather was at its best, and all the local rich people were out in their yachts, Steve got completely soaked by walking on the little pier right up and past the jet, in the hopes of a good photo opportunity. I filmed him getting a good soaking on the camcorder and the kids had a good laugh watching it when we got home.
Most of the shops were closed by the time we made it into the old town on Saturday, so we sat in a cute little street café and had ice cream sundaes, whilst watching the tourists and local Genevan’s going about their business. The Old Town is similar in some ways to the old town of Brussels, and in some ways to the old town of Prague. The architecture was awesome, and every little building, whether a grand cathedral, or a block of apartments, were built beautifully with such intricate detailing. Steve must have come home with hundreds of photos of various buildings. Sometimes we could see the locals wondering what on earth we were taking a photo of some old building for!
We found a trendy little place to eat on Saturday evening. It had 4 restaurants but one big seating area. Steve had a Chinese dish, which he even managed to eat with chopsticks, and I had sushi, which was yummy.
Sunday was very quiet in Geneva, the tourist season being over. In the morning we took a little tourist train for an hour and a half tour of various big important buildings. We saw all sorts of places such as the International Red Cross Headquarters. But the best part of this was when the bus took us up to the top of Cologny. Cologny is the Beverly Hills of Geneva. The houses here are owned by the rich and famous, and they all have spectacular views over the lake. At the top of Cologny the bus stopped to let us out for a look at the panoramic view of Geneva and its lake. It was breathtaking. The lake, with the city around it, and the mountains behind. A nice American lady took our photo for us.
Later that afternoon we found St Pierre’s Cathedral in the Old Town. The climb to the top gives a fabulous panoramic view of the city. So we climbed and climbed up the winding castle steps, which were not wide enough for the people coming down at the same time. Steve and I found an open doorway and ended up in the attic space of the cathedral! I’m pretty sure we weren’t supposed to be in there, but it had been left open because there was building and reconstruction work going on. It was the scariest place I’ve ever been in my life! So high up, above the cathedral, in a big old bell tower made of wooden beams and rafters, which looked as if it was going to fall apart. My legs were like jelly and I was really dizzy, so we headed back to the main stairs and found our way up to the top of the turret. Once out in the open turret I was fine (it was solid stone after all) but Steve was really dizzy there! Still, he took plenty of photos and I enjoyed just spending time looking out at the view, which was awesome.
As we came down the steps from the cathedral we could hear something which sounded like monks singing! It was beautiful and echoey. Back in the main part of the church we discovered the Sunday Choir having a practice session, so we sat and listened to them for 20 minutes. It was like a free concert! The singing was very spooky, but very beautiful.
Monday was shopping day. We had to buy presents for the kids. I had phoned Luke on Sunday and he cried and cried and cried! He begged me to come home and said he missed me. Apparently he went to his room and was inconsolable for 2 hours afterwards. But he was more upset that I couldn’t speak to him for long. On the Monday I phoned him from the hotel and talked to him for an hour and he was in good form then. I sent him a text message photo of his presents and that cheered him up. But I felt really bad on Sunday when I knew he was finding it so hard. Anyway, all the big shops were open so we found a big toyshop and bought Luke some little cars, one of those planes that sticks to the bedroom ceiling and flies around, and a little box of Swiss chocolates in the shape of toy cars. It was harder to get something for Sam and Jude, so in the end we just got them touristy t-shirts, caps and chocolates. They were happy enough. The shops in Geneva were VERY expensive, and in all honesty I couldn’t find much to buy. Which meant we didn’t bring any other souvenirs home.
We took a boat tour on Monday morning as well. It sailed around the lake for an hour and a half. The boat was very nice, very posh looking, and it was nice to sit and do nothing whilst sailing around the lake.
In the afternoon we walked around an area called The Grottes, which was behind our hotel. It’s were the ‘real’ people live. There were some very strange looking buildings round this area, and the people who live in them call themselves Smurfs. Around this area were lots of ‘Hookah Bars’. These are little cafes for smoking those big Indian pipes. They looked bizarre from the outside. We also took a stroll around our hotel area as it was full of quaint shops and cafes. Prostitution is legal in Switzerland and in between the nice restaurants and cafes were sex shops and brothels! On every street corner there were girls looking for work, and a few odd looking people that could have been girls or guys!
All in all it was a lovely break. Steve really liked Geneva, he was very taken with it. I think I preferred Prague myself, although Geneva was nice too. But as always, it was nice to get home again, and to see the kids again. I kissed little Lukey from head to toe when we got home and squeezed and squeezed him. Sam and Jude didn’t miss us as much, being that they are older, but they really enjoyed watching the short video of our trip that we made them.

Halloween 2006

2006-10-31T20:24:00.000Z

We decided to make a good effort for Halloween this year. Luke has been really looking forward to it. He remembers going round in his buggy last year, collecting a bucket full of sweets from strangers. And he's been waiting all year to do it again. He even used the same bucket.
Yesterday we made tissue ghosts (idea from Deb's Blog) and hung them in our living room window. (You can see a monster on the other side of the window if you look carefully!) They look really cute and were so easy to make that even Luke managed to make four of them.

Today we took a trip down to B&Q to buy paint testers, but when we got home we had some time to make some jack-o-lanterns from pumpkins. I'd already got 4 large pumpkins but Luke decided that he should have a little pumpkin, cos he's the littlest, and so he 'purchased' one in Sainsbury's. It was some work hollowing them all out for carving, and we'll be eating pumpkin soup for weeks to come. But we all spent a fun hour making them together, and they looked pretty impressive on our door step this evening.

(Don't forget you can click on the photos to see the bigger clearer images)

I thought Luke was going to bust a gut having to wait till it was dark to go trick-or-treating. The moon decided to come out before it was dark, which confused the poor wee man further. He decided that the moon couldn't wait for Halloween either so it had come out early! How cute. When Daddy got home from work at 6pm we all got dressed up (except Daddy who is a Halloween scrooge). I dressed rather fetchingly as a witch, Jude as some sort of red she-devil-girl-wearing-eye-patch-with-blood-on-face, Sam as a googly eyed monster, and Luke in his new skeleton dressing up costume which Jenny & girls gave him for his birthday. Off we set down the cul-de-sac with our empty bags. As usual, at 6.30pm our first visitors complained that we were too early, and by the time we reach the bottom of the estate people complained that they didn't have hardly any sweets left to give us.

All in all the people round here really put a lot of effort into Halloween for the kids. Many of the houses were decorated, and lots of the people had made up party bags for the kids. As usual there were the few miserable old misers who moaned about us "not saying a rhyme" and begrudgingly handed over a half eaten mouldy apple. (I don't know why these people open the door!)

(Oh bless! I've just been to open the door to some late trick or treaters and I noticed that Luke and Steve have both fallen asleep on my bed!)

Anyway, good fun was had by all. The kids came back with a full carrier bag of sweets each! Many of the Mums I spoke to on the way round complained about problems with kids throwing fireworks. So its not just us that are experiencing this. While we were out we saw a gang of about 15 lads throw a firework at two girls who were knocking on someones door. They screamed and ran home. Their mum later told me she'd phoned the police, and all the kids disappeared into their homes, too scared to go knocking. When we got back up to our little cul de sac the police were there, running in and out of peoples gardens (Steve too!) trying to catch these hooligans. They caught the ring leader and confiscated a bag of fireworks from him. I don't know how much trouble he will get into. It was great to see the police doing something... it was like a raid! It's such a shame that these teenage kids are ruining the fun for the younger ones.

Anyway, I need to go and get Luke into a clean nappy and pjs without waking him up, Steve too perhaps!

Sam's School Report

2006-10-31T10:32:00.000Z

It seems that at the Integrated School Sam will be getting a school report twice a term instead of twice a year! One arrived in the post yesterday. As they haven't taken any proper exams yet this report was graded on effort. (Something which Sam was sorely missing in his last year at primary school before being home educated). Anyway, I was very pleased with Sam's first report. Here it is...

Key to grades

1 Works well at all times
2 Works reasonably well
3 Needs to improve
4 Causing concern

Art 1
Citizenship 1
Drama 1
Employability 1
English 1
French 1
Geography 1
History 2
Home Economics 2
ICT 1
Mathematics 1
Music 1
Physical Education 1
Religious Education 1
Science 1
Technology 1

Attendance 100%

Isn't that good?
Well, today it's Halloween, and boy is Luke excited. The whole concept of knocking on peoples doors and getting free sweets is his idea of heaven. Trick or treating is a huge thing in this estate. Dozens of kids get dressed up and go knocking. It's quite a spectacle. Some of the houses in the estate put up Halloween decorations and make a big thing of it. It looks really cool. We have never lived any where before where kids went trick-or-treating.

Yesterday I took a notion to strip the wallpaper from our bedroom. For my 29th birthday (last December) Steve and the kids gave me a voucher that said they would decorate my bedroom if I chose the paint colour. What I didn't realise at the time was that it was dependant on me stripping the wallpaper. A hideous task. Yesterday I finally got round to doing it. It was a long boring messy job. Now our bedroom looks like a bomb site so we are of the B&Q in a minute to choose some paint. Then I believe that Steve will be painting it. Photos to follow.

Sunday afternoon at Lurgan Park

2006-10-29T21:41:00.000Z

This afternoon we decided to do something as a family. The weather was nice so we all took a drive to Lurgan Park. The kids love it there. The lake has plenty of ducks and swans to feed, the woodland walk is lovely, and the play park has great slides and swings.

We fed the ducks first, the spent half an hour in the park. Luke is used to going there on school days when the park is empty. He wasn't too pleased with the amount of children there today. So Sam and Jude stayed to play whilst Luke, Daddy and me went for a walk around the woods. We decided to do some squirrel spotting. Having read about Meeko in the Squirrel in Secrets of the Wood recently, I was the expert! Luke really enjoyed the peaceful walk with out his brother and sister. He had a leaf fight with Daddy, and then we looked for acorns to add to his nature table. We couldn't find any acorns at the first oak tree. Then we started to spot the grey squirrels. They weren't at all bothered by our presence. We watched for 20 minutes as this one particular squirrel went up and down the trees in search of acorns. He went right up into one tree and started throwing the acorns down at us! Luke thought this was great. He decided that the squirrel was throwing acorns for us because we'd been unable to find any ourselves.

Here are some photos...

Kids throwing fireworks

2006-10-29T21:16:00.000Z

Our local police department have been running round this town like wild things for weeks, chasing kids who are playing with fireworks. Every night, on the road behind our house, children aged 7 to about 13 congregate to throw fireworks. They stand in a huddle, light the fireworks, run for their lives, and then the guy with the fireworks throws it into the midst of them all. Then you hear them all scream, and then laugh.
We had the police out last week. Sam was in the garden, at about 5.30pm, playing on his trampoline. Some kids thought it would be funny to light a firework and thrown it into the trampoline whilst he was in it! The thing flew past his head and, needles to say, he was very frightened. The police came out and said their usual "there's nothing we can do about it." This morning there was another burnt out firework in the trampoline. Now the kids are too scared to go into their own back garden.
Right now, it is almost 9.30pm and I can see kids throwing fireworks in all directions. Where do the parents of these children think they are? What do they think they are up to? They are standing on a main road doing this... are they not even slightly scared that someone will see them and report them to their parents?
The police say that they are doing all they can. They say that they liase with all the schools to teach how dangerous fireworks are, and that there is nothing more they can do. Right enough they do send home a letter with each child, about the dangers of fireworks. But I can't help thinking that if they actually sent home a letter saying that "children from this road, and that road, are playing with fireworks openly in the street" then perhaps the parents who live in those roads might take more notice.
Of course, while the police run around every evening chasing kids, the local newspaper is dealing with desperate issues such as "will anyone give a home to little fluffy the poodle", "has anyone seen Mrs McKee's miniature garden gnome?" Why don't the newspapers get together with the police and do a report about these problems? Make people ask themselves "what are my kids up to?"
The police woman who came out to our home gave us this wise (snort) piece of advise.... "don't let the kids know that you phoned the police or they will make your life hell". Oh yes, let's all be scared of the children, let's all hide in our homes and hope for the best while one of them blows someones face off with a firework. Yes, that'll do the trick. At least then we won't have to fear any reprisals.

There's a vole in my kitchen

2006-10-29T11:59:00.000Z

Oh dear dear me. We have a mouse problem. A mouse in the house. Well, actually a vole problem. Four little voles have been discovered roaming loose about the house. I don't know if it's the same one each time or not. We've been catching it and letting it outside. Three have been discovered touring the living room, and one ran past my foot whilst I was cleaning the kitchen. The little thing thought it was a pet (maybe it had befriended the gerbils and wanted to join their community?) This little thing just ran around me, and when I cornered it, it just sat looking at me. The only voles I've ever seen before were usually terrified of humans. Anyway, this morning Steve heard scratching on top of the kitchen cupboards and found a little vole munching on a king size dairy milk chocolate bar, which had been hidden up there from the kids! There is a whole next to the extractor fan, in the wall, so Steve has blocked that up, hoping it's how they have been getting in. I also found mousey doo-doo's in the airing cupboard! Oh yuck yuck. I hoovered it out, spent two hours cleaning through all the duvets and towels and doing a well needed reorganising session. A little poison might be called for, but I hate to think of the little things suffering.

More strange noises

2006-10-27T15:58:00.000Z

I went to the doctors again, two weeks ago, about this pulsatile tinnitus. She was more concerned this time since I told her that the noise in my ears was getting worse, and was now audible to the outside world. In other words, if Steve puts his ear on my eat he can hear strange noises too. Therefore it is not 'all in my imagination'. Of course, when I was at the doctors the noise was not present, so she couldn't hear it, but she took my word for it.

I still have the constant whooshing sound of my heartbeat, which is present at all times in my right ear. If you remember in my last post I said that I was also getting new noises which would only last a minute or so. But now, this new noise, is present most of the time. This is the noise which can be heard by other people, if they listen to my ear. I know, it sounds bizarre. Jude also heard it, as did my sister Hannah, when they listened to my right ear. This noise is hard to explain. It's also beats in time to my heart beat, but instead of whooshing (the separate whooshing noise is still there) its more of a creaking humming sound. I was happy enough when it only happened on occasions, but now it is there almost constantly. Sometimes the creaking noise goes, but then it comes back suddenly, as if someone just turns on a switch. I thought the whooshing heartbeat noise was driving me insane. But now I've realised that it was quite a pleasant experience in comparison to this new noisy creaking carry-on. Sometimes its loud enough that I can't hear the TV or a conversation. Sometimes I catch myself turning my head to see where the noise is coming from.

So anyway, the doc was a little more concerned about these new noises. She looked at my eardrum. Last time it looked normal. This time it looked 'dull'. She asked if I'd had a cold recently, which I hadn't. Usually a dull ear drum is a sign of a bad sinusy type cold. At least she could see something this time. So she phoned the hospital to see what had happened to my referral. She had written my referral letter in May. Then she wrote a second referral on 1st October when I'd been to see her again, as she felt it was more urgent than before. The hospital claim they didn't receive either referral letter and had no idea that I was waiting for an appointment. This made me crazy! They agreed to give me the first available cancellation. That was two weeks ago, and I still haven't heard anything from them. The annoying thing is that I should have already been seen by now. I'm pretty sure the first appointment will tell me nothing, and will just be to decide whether I need to be seen by a specialist. So I want to get that appointment out of the way.

I'm tempted to pay to be seen privately. If I pay for the first appointment I can re-join the NHS list at the next stage and be treated sooner. But I loathe to pay out good money when I should have already been seen by now. I'll call the doctor again on Monday and get her to chase the hospital again. In the mean time, poor Steve is probably sick of my constant complaining, especially at night time when I long for peace and quiet. I think I might go completely mental. Judging by the number of people who have reached my blog by googling 'pulsatile tinnitus', I am not alone.

Sam wins a prize!

2006-10-25T19:02:00.000Z

Just a quick blog to mention that Sam won a prize at school today. For English homework the children were asked to write a poem about a magic spell. Sam was very proud of his poem and read it out very dramatically. They didn't realise there would be a competition. But during English today they had a Halloween party and all the children read out their poems (once again Sam read his like a performer - no surprise there) and then the children had to vote for their favourite boys poem and their favourite girls. It was close between Sam and another boy but Sam managed to win in the votes and was presented with a spooky Halloween light up pen with bulgy squeezy eyes! Cool eh? You can read his poem on his blog by clicking here.

Photo's of us in Geneva

2006-10-25T08:25:00.000Z

We had a wonderful time! I will write a post all about it later on. Got lots of washing and housework to catch up on first. Here are the photos of us, in Geneva, Switzerland. There are a lot more photos of sites, mountains, the lake etc that Steve took. I will post them another day when he has decided which ones he's keeping and which he's deleting, and what not. But just for now, these are the photos that actually have either me, Steve or both of us in them.

Lake Geneva is famous for its huge water jet. In my next post I'll tell you all about that. He is one of the first pics I took of Steve, with the water jetting out of his head! (There was something on the lens of the camera, which appears on Steve's nose in this photo).

Lake Geneva, with the old town and mountains behind it, and the bridge. Geneva is surrounded by mountains, including the Alps.

It is possible to walk across the bridge to get to the Old Town, but it's much more fun to take the little boat taxi's across. And it was free for us to travel, because our hotel gave us free passes for boat, tram, bus and train!

Here we are in one of the Old Town streets. I was taking a photo of Steve here when a nice man came and asked if we'd like him to take the picture of both of us.

We spent a lot of time in cafes or restaurants. That's what Geneva is all about. Sitting in a cafe and watching the scenery.

Here are two photos of us taken at the top of Cologny, by a nice American lady. Cologny is the Beverly Hills of Geneva, where the other half live. The houses here were mansions, and they had this gorgeous breath taking view of lake Geneva and the mountains beyond. This was taken on the Sunday when all the locals where out relaxing in their yachts.

We found a square filled with these flower mountains, which I thought looked rather odd!

I think the highlight of the trip, for me, was climbing to the top of the Cathedral and taking in the panoramic view of Geneva. It was awesome up here, although we both felt a little dizzy. In this first photo you can see me in a turret with the huge jet spray in the distance.

Here is some of the view from the tower. The jet spray on Lake Geneva, and lots of little white yachts out sailing.

The mountain views were breath taking. In the distance you can see part of The Alps.

This is me, again, from the tower.

That's is for the moment, but as I said, I will be coming back when I have more time to write about all that we did. So that both myself and Steve can go back to read it in years to come. Until then, it's time for some seriously work.

Going to Geneva

2006-10-20T18:01:00.000Z

Just a quick note to say that we are leaving for our little trip to Geneva in Switzerland tomorrow morning. So there will be no blog posting for a few days, but I'll make up for that when I get back. Will miss the kids while we are gone, and hope that little Lukey isn't too sad without us. At the moment he seems happy enough knowing that we are going to bring him a present home.

Musical Sam

2006-10-19T22:50:00.000Z

Just a quickie blog post because it is almost midnight and I won't be able to get out of bed in time to get Sam off to school if I don't go to sleep asap. I'm just back in from belly dancing, then a coffee in Starbucks with Mum.

Today Sam and his classmates undertook another music test, in their music lesson at school. Every child had their own keyboard and headphones. They each had so many minutes to listen to the music which was playing (it was a carol, can't remember which, but it wasn't easy). Then they had to pick out the tune as best as they could on the keyboard, and they were marked. At the end of the lesson the music teacher stood Sam up and asked him if he had taken piano lessons. He said No. She said that he had done best out of the class, and that she had never seen a child so perfectly replay the piano without lessons, in such a short amount of time. She told him that he had an exceptionally musical ear. He came home with a rather inflated head, a huge smile and an ego to match it! That's two really nice encouraging musical comments for Sam this week. One from his music teacher, and one from his guitar teacher. Just thought I'd share it.

Everyone's doing it.

2006-10-18T23:03:00.000Z

Well, everyone else is going it so I thought I would too. The idea is to highlight in bold the ones you've done. Gone on, if you've got a blog give it a go.

01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said 'I love you' and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg
19. Slept under the stars
20. Changed a baby's diaper
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten drunk on champagne
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
27. Had a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb
33. Seen a total eclipse
34. Ridden a roller coaster
35. Hit a home run
36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
39. Had two hard drives for your computer
40. Visited all 10 provinces
41. Taken care of someone who was drunk
42. Had amazing friends
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
44. Watched wild whales
45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing
49. Midnight walk on the beach
50. Gone sky diving
51. Visited Ireland
52. Been heartbroken longer then you were actually in love
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger's table and had a meal with them
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow
56. Alphabetized your cds
57. Pretended to be a superhero
58. Sung karaoke
59. Lounged around in bed all day
60. Posed nude in front of strangers
61. Gone scuba diving
62. Kissed in the rain
63. Played in the mud
64. Played in the rain
65. Gone to a drive-in theater
66. Visited the Great Wall of China
67. Started a business
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
69. Toured ancient sites
70. Taken a martial arts class
71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
72. Gotten married
73. Been in a movie
74. Crashed a party
75. Gotten divorced
76. Gone without food for 5 days
77. Made cookies from scratch
78. Won first prize in a costume contest
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
80. Gotten a tattoo
81. Rafted the Snake River
82. Been on television news programs as an "expert"
83. Got flowers for no reason
84. Performed on stage
85. Been to Las Vegas
86. Recorded music
87. Eaten shark
88. Kissed on a first date
89. Gone to Thailand
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone
92. Buried one of your parents
93. Been on a cruise ship
94. Spoken more than one language fluently
95. Performed in Rocky Horror.
96. Raised children.
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
98. Created and named your own constellation of stars
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn't stop when you knew someone was looking
103. Had plastic surgery
104. Survived an illness that you shouldn't have survived
105. Wrote articles for a large publication
106. Lost over 100 pounds
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
108. Piloted an airplane
109. Petted a stingray
110. Broken someone's heart
111. Helped an animal give birth
112. Won money on a T.V. game show
113. Broken a bone
114. Gone on an African photo safari
115. Had a body part of yours below the neck pierced
116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ridden a horse
119. Had major surgery
120. Had a snake as a pet
121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
124. Visited all 7 continents
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
126. Eaten kangaroo meat
127. Eaten sushi
128. Had your picture in the newspaper
129. Changed someone's mind about something you care deeply about
130. Gone back to school (can't WAIT to do this one myself)
131. Parasailed
132. Petted a cockroach
133. Eaten fried green tomatoes
134. Read The Iliad - and the Odyssey
135. Selected one "important" author who you missed in school, and read
136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
137. Skipped all your school reunions
138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
139. Been elected to public office
140. Written your own computer language
141. Thought to yourself that you're living your dream
142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. Built your own PC from parts
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn't know you
145. Had a booth at a street fair
146: Dyed your hair
147: Been a DJ
148: Shaved your head
149: Caused a car accident
150: Saved someone's life

Stormbreaker

2006-10-18T18:45:00.000Z

Stormbreaker was a good film, although Jude said she enjoyed Romeo and Juliet more. Once again there was only one school there, plus us two. The manager looked briefly miffed as to why our school party only had 2 people, but I said that we home school and he was lovely enough. The other school decided to wait until the manager came in to say it was time to start the film (we'd all been sitting for 20 minutes by this point) before deciding to let their teenage school pupils go off to buy popcorn, 5 at a time. This meant a wait of another 20 minutes while 5 pupils at a time made their way out to buy refreshments. I've no idea at all why they waited till the film was about to start. But all in all the pupils were quiet and well behaved during the film, as were their teachers. Five minutes into the film the manager came in with a free box of popcorn each for myself and Jude! Wow. What a bonus! Wasn't that nice of him?

After the film we wandered around the shopping centre. Steve was at home with Luke. They went for a walk to the graveyard and Luke came home with a huge wild mushroom, that is now proudly displayed on our nature table. There was a sale on in Debenhams and I managed to buy Sam and Jude a really nice pair of pyjama's at half price, Jasper Conran, no less. They are gorgeously soft and I just want a set myself. I also treated Jude to a new coat. But this is no ordinary coat. It is a designer coat, reduced down to £9.60. It was one of the only things in the sale that was in Jude's size. It's so grown up looking, a blue kind of trendy rain coat, with a belt etc. Oh I can't explain it, so I'll have to take a photo. It's the sort of thing I'd love for myself and she looks so trendy and grown up in it. Plus, she really needed it. So she was happy. We tried on loads of perfumes in Debenhams and came home smelling divine. It was nice to have some girly time with Jude.

Since then I've had a great game of playing Thomas the Tank Engine with Luke. I spent an hour finishing the invitations for Hannah and Davids engagement party and now have them all addressed and ready to post. (Jude and I spent almost 3 hours making the cards a few nights ago). Then Luke helped me to make some fresh pineapple, ginger and orange juice, with our new juicer. And he actually drank a whole cup of it himself. Then I spent half an hour helping Sam research various claims to the English throne after Edward the Confessor's death in 1066, for his history homework. Now I'm off to put Luke to bed. Steve is at college again, printing out his photos. I'm so tired. Looking forward to getting into bed and reading the last few chapters of Shadow Baby.

Romeo and Juliet

2006-10-17T18:20:00.000Z

Today has flown past. This morning Sam went off to school as usual, Steve left to catch the bus at the crack of dawn to his photography course, and Jude, Luke and I headed to lisburn to see Romeo and Juliet at the cinema. It was a free film, courtesy of Film Education Week. Tomorrow we are going to see Stormbreaker. My sister Hannah met us in Lisburn and took Luke for a walk round the shops. I didn't like the thought of trying to keep Luke quiet for 2 hours in a cinema full of teenagers. It turned out that there was only one school group, of about 80 teenagers, and us, a group of 2. I wondered what people would make of us being there. The manager showed us in, before the other school arrived. He was very polite and friendly and never questioned why we were there. Then the secondary school showed up. I don't know which school it was but the children, both boys and girls, year 3 apparently, were amazingly well behaved, and so were the staff! Much better than the group we got lumbered with last year. All the children filed in and took their seats, smiling at us, as were the staff. I kept waiting for dirty looks but didn't get any. The children all remained quiet during the whole film and seemed to really enjoy watching it. Which made it great for us, as we were able to concentrate and hear the film. When it was time for the film to start the manager came in and informed one of the teachers that it was time to start, and then also came and informed me that the film would be starting if we were all ready. I was well impressed! Hopefully Stormbreaker will be just as successful tomorrow. Although it's in a different cinema.

Jude enjoyed the film. I was aware that it was hard enough for an adult to follow, but she has enjoyed reading Romeo and Juliet this year so she knew the story well enough. I think Jude understood it as well as the year 3's. She was a bit embarrassed by the long kissing scenes and had a little giggle!

Afterwards we met up with Hannah and Luke. Luke burst into tears as he apparently missed me. (Not sure how he's going to cope when me and Steve go off to Geneva on Saturday!) But he soon perked up when we stopped at a cafe for a cuppa, where he was spoilt with the biggest piece of chocolate cake any 3 year old has ever attempted to eat. Jude had apple pie. Then Hannah got a call and had to rush off, so we came home, watched neighbours, picked Sam up from school, went grocery shopping in Tesco's, came home, unloaded and put away shopping, cleaned the fridge, cooked kids dinner, drove to Lurgan to pick Steve up from course (as he missed his bus), drove home again.... and that brings us to now.

Jude and I are going to write blog posts today for the greatest blog in history. A blog of one day, 17th October, written by thousands of different British people, which will be kept for historical interest at the British Library as a historical record of our national life, to be read in the future. What a great idea.

Home grown roast dinner, Sam on guitar, and pet spiders!

2006-10-16T18:57:00.000Z

Steve came home with a huge joint of beef a few days ago and so I thought I better cook a roast for my hungry family, who LOVE roasts. Two hours into cooking the meat I thought I'd have to pop to Tesco to buy some vegetables. Then I remembered the veggie garden in the back yard. (yeah, how could I forget, eh?) We had some potatoes left from our potato harvest, which I roasted.

I popped out into the garden to get some carrots and parsnips. I didn't really have any idea whether they were ready to dig up yet. I was under the impression that I would just pull the top of the parsnip and it would pop out of the ground. I also didn't know what size the parsnips would be, as they are hidden under ground. Well, you remember the story of the giant turnip that takes a whole village to pull? That was me. Dinner was cooking, and I was out heaving and pulling trying to get a parsnip or two out of the ground. The top came right off in my hand and so I had to dig around the parsnip. I dug, and I pulled, and I dug a bit more, and I wobbled the top of it. Sam thought it was hilarious and was taking photos of me from his bedroom window (they are not suitable for blog viewing I'm afraid). Eventually I got the first parsnip out and I was pretty pleased with the size and quality of it. The whole parsnip patch smelt divine. Sam dug out the second parsnip and both Sam and Luke dug out two varieties of carrots. One is a dwarf carrot, and the other isn't. We've got plenty more parsnips and carrots to keep us going.

Next year I'll definitely plant them again. It's amazing how they grow so big and strong from such a tiny seed. This whole gardening and eating our own produce really has made me appreciate the whole of God's creation so much more. It's truly awesome to see how God has provided all this fresh tasty food for us.

Here are some photos of our bounty...
A very stubborn parsnip that was quite happy to stay put. It's actually much bigger than it looks in the photo. Well, it was, before we eat it.

Sam with the parsnip that he dug out with ease, compared to mine.

Luke pulled some dwarf carrots.

My boys, looking like farmers, all proud with the treasure they had dug up.

Parsnips, carrots and shallots, from the garden.

All washed and ready to cook.
Parsnips, carrots, courgette and red cabbage, all from our garden.

One completely home grown meal. OK, so we didn't grow the beef, but still, its pretty impressive, right?

Does anyone have any idea if the parsnip and carrot tops can be used for anything, other than compost? I think I remember reading that carrot greens can be used for juicing.

Onto other news then. Steve told me at dinner time that Sam's new guitar teacher came into his shop to speak with him about Sam's progress. We have always known that Sam is musical. He spends all day every day singing and dancing. But his guitar teacher is really impressed with the speed that he has learnt so far. He's been having lessons for about 4 weeks now and is putting chords together to make songs that he knows. He sits in his room every evening (I can hear him right now) playing away on the guitar that was his Grandads when he was a boy. Anyway, his teacher said that he has never before met anyone with such a musical talent! I'm not sure whether this is a huge compliment or whether the guy just doesn't meet many people, lol. He said that Sam has learnt in a few weeks what took him months to learn himself. So he is very impressed. And I felt so proud at dinner time when Steve told me this, and Sam was hiding his face with embarrassment. So, if Sam turns out to be the next Jimmie Hendrix just remember that you heard it here first, on his Mum's blog. That's my boy! His teacher must be pleased. He is still teaching him without accepting any payment. He says that he gets so much satisfaction from seeing someone learn, someone that wants to learn, and that is all the payment he needs. Plus, he is a friend of Steve's. I really must get him a gift or something to say thank you.

Lastly, before I go, I keep meaning to blog about Jude's pet spider. Aha. A pet spider. It lives at the top of the patio doors in our study room. Every morning Jude spends about half an hour finding a dead fly, which she throws into the spiders nest. Every morning she tells me about it, but I never gave it much thought. Then, a few mornings ago she asked me to come and help as the little dead fly would not stick in the web. I threw it up a few times and then tried to put the fly into the net with my hand. "Don't do that Mummy" Jude said, "the spider will run out and try to eat your finger". "Don't be daft" I said. So I popped my finger into the net, and like lightening this spider leapt out from it's hiding place and tried to eat my finger! Of course I leapt back, screaming like a lunatic. Jude thought it was hilarious. She has been studying the habits of this spider for weeks. The spider seems to know that she will feed it every morning and waits for the little flies which she brings!

Every week we read a chapter from 'Secrets of the Wood'. Both Sam and Jude love this book, and Sam wants to keep reading it even though he is no longer home schooling. Every chapter in it is about a different animal, from the woods. Last week we read about Meeko, the squirrel. The author talks about each animals as he sits and watches them for weeks at a time, in the forest. He gets to know all about the personalities of the various creatures. Meeko is a thief, a nest robber, and a fighter. The kids were mesmerised by the stories of his adventures. The first chapter, about the mouse, had them enthralled too. It occurred to me that Jude has treated this spider in the way which the author treated the woodland creatures. She has watched it, learnt about it, gained it's trust and developed the caring nurturing side to her nature. This evening she did the same thing with the pet gerbils. She sat and watched them, for such a long time. We had put a new box into their cage, just on old food box. She sat and watched them as they filled up their cheeks with bedding from their old, half eaten box, and transferred it all to their new box. She watched them make their new home all comfy and warm, and then came to tell me all about it in detail. Jude has such a gentle caring side to her. Sometimes I don't know what to do with her. During the summer, when Daddy killed a wasp, she lay in bed sobbing her little heart out for a full hour. I know that she is sensitive to other living things. She cares for every creature, even a tiny ant. It's strange really. As a younger child she did not care at all for nature. It was Sam that, at the age of 4, became so overwhelmed during a walk in the woods that he had to stop with me and say a prayer thanking God for his beautiful creation. Whilst Jude spent the whole time whinging "what are we walking for? Is there a park at the end?"

Gosh I have rambled on far longer than I intended. I have to check some essays that Steve wrote for his course now (snore). Tomorrow Jude and I are going to watch Romeo and Juliet at the cinema, for FREE, as part of the national schools film week. Woo hoo.

This is me

2006-10-13T10:07:00.000Z

This is Luke's first ever independent painting. It's me. But you can see that, of course.

Yesterday evening I was stressed out, before going to belly dancing class. The constant headaches I am getting, along with the pounding sounds in my ear are getting to me somewhat, and I was getting rather stressed. Luke was worried that I was 'sad'. So he told Daddy that he was going to paint me a picture to make me happy! When I came home (at midnight) this painting was waiting on the floor in the hallway for me to discover. I almost cried as Steve said that he painted it all on his own. Face shape first, then eyes, then nose, then a huge smiley mouth. Isn't it just the most gorgeous thing? It melted my heart anyway. Luke has put some blue tac on it so that we can display it in pride of place for everyone to see.

Peter Pan

2006-10-11T15:05:00.000Z

In an attempt to inspire Luke to get dressed up into his new costumes I decided to read the story of Peter Pan to him. He was very excited about this and we put his new Peter Pan costume on whilst we read it, which added to the excitement. He has never heard the story before. After reading it I suggested a game. He was Peter Pan and I was Captain Hook the pirate. I put on the few bits from his pirate costume that fitted me and we had great fun! Jude took some photos so that Grandad, who bought him the costume, could see.

Ulster Bride Wedding Extravaganza

2006-10-11T08:56:00.000Z

As I mentioned yesterday, my sisters, Mum and I went to the Ulster Bride Wedding Extravaganza at the Odyssey Arena in Belfast, at the weekend. The bridal catwalk shows were the highlight of the day and I forgot to take the camera! But my sister Maddi took some very good shots on her mobile phone, some of which I'm putting on my blog (with her permission). I should have taken Jude with me, she would have just loved the models prancing down the catwalks in those gorgeous dresses. I'll load these photos on small, but if you want to view them better you can click on them to see the larger versions.

Autumn Nature Walk

2006-10-10T15:19:00.000Z

I'll start this post with a photo of Luke. Whilst I was away on Sunday Steve, Sam, Jude and Luke all watched the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory DVD. Luke got into the idea of eating chocolate quite quickly, by the looks of it.

Steve has gone back to work this week so life is returning to normal around here. It was nice to have him at home for a while, and I think he enjoyed it too. On Sunday I went to the wedding fair in Belfast with my sisters (including Hannah, the bride-to-be) and our Mum. I will put the photos that Maddi took onto the blog when I get hold of them. It was a good event. Busy. The catwalk show was probably the best bit, although I did enjoy looking at some of the stalls, including the wedding cake stalls, and the photography stalls. Hopefully Hannah got some ideas for her wedding from it. Afterwards Jenny and I went to Harry Ramsdens for dinner, because we were absolutely starving.

Talking of food. I went down to Boots today to 'officially' weigh myself. The plan is to get weighed on the first of every month, but life doesn't always fit in with that. I was surprised and pleased to find I'd lost 7lb, or half a stone, since my September weigh in! So all that belly dancing and refusing of treats did pay off after all. Now I'll have to keep it up.

I did a bit of exercise today! Pushing Luke in his buggy up the mother of all hills. I decided that seen as the weather was nice, we'd walk to mother and toddlers group today. But not a direct down hill walk, rather a scenic ambient nature walk. We had been inspired by watching Autumn Watch on TV, to go out and gather some of the autumn seeds. Also, Luke has been asking a heap of questions about the seasons. "Where has the summer gone?" "Why are the leaves falling off the trees?" "How do we know when it's time for Christmas?" etc. So I thought it would be nice to gather some autumnal things for Luke to create a little Autumn Nature Table.

In order to get to the country lanes, and walk that way, I had to push my over sized three year old uphill in a very badly designed buggy. Well, I should have lost another 7lb doing that, let me tell you! But it was worth it. We stopped by a field of sheep, where Luke got out of the buggy to call the sheep over. Then we found a big conker tree and collected some of the conkers for our nature table. A man stopped and asked us if we'd been watching 'Autumn Watch' whilst handing us some conkers that he'd found. It was nice to get some fresh air and walk to the mother and toddler group. Luke had 'Happy Birthday' sung to him there, and was all pleased about that.

After that we went to visit Daddy in his shop. Luke stayed there and watched a DVD whilst Jude and I popped to a few shops. I bought Jude some new clothes in Peacocks, which she was pleased about. She's looking rather trendy these days!

We were able to collect the car from Daddy's shop and drive home. As soon as we got in Luke said "are we going to make a table now with these conkers?" Bless him. We made a little nature display and have put it on the coffee table in the hall way. He can't wait to show his findings to Daddy when he gets home.

Now I have to go and get into my bed with Luke. Sometimes, in late afternoon when he gets tired, he likes to get into bed with me and chat. Usually the first thing he wants to talk about is our trip to Disneyland (last January), or what my favourite toy is. (Talking of trips, it's only 2 weeks till our trip to Geneva!)

Luke's 3rd birthday - Part 2

2006-10-10T14:51:00.000Z

Luke had a fabulous birthday and is still on a high from it all. Birthdays, at that age, are just so exciting. I already wrote a post below about his birthday morning, and here is the follow up about his party. Family, and a few friends, started arriving from 4pm. Steve had made a table full of party food and treats for our guests (later we discovered a huge bag of treats that we'd forgotten to put out). Luke waited until everyone had arrived before opening his presents, and then he played with each one that he'd opened for a while. He did very well for presents! Here he is opening a big scooby-doo from our friends the Connollys (see Connolly Family Self Build blog in sidebar).

He was also given this large wooden garage from his Nanny, which is now in our garage. He likes to have it out there because he has lots of space to lie down on a rug and play with it, and a million cars. Auntie Hannah and Uncle David gave him some cars, one of which was a cool battery operated mini, which drives around on its own, opening its doors and hooting, and seems to know which way it is going! Auntie Jenny and her girls gave him a Halloween dressing up costume which included a spooky mask, a skeleton outfit, and skeleton gloves. He hasn't got up the courage to try this one on yet, but he will enjoy it for Halloween. Auntie Maddi and Tom brought him a huge airplane, with little people, luggage and loading cars. This was his favourite present and he hasn't stopped playing with it. Although the train set is still a big hit, even though it's moved upstairs into a large space on the landing. Grandad gave him a cool Peter Pan dressing up outfit, which a lot of the grown ups wished they were still small enough to wear. He has been having great fun with the hat, boots and sword that came with this. I have put all the costumes into a large duck bin for him to keep. He can dive in any time he feels like a change of character.

Luke had spent days choosing which cake he wanted me to make, from our kids cake book. He changed his mind every day, but found the whole concept of choosing and making a cake very exciting. However, on a shopping trip to Tesco with his Dad he succumbed to all the glorious birthday cakes on offer there, and came home with a Scooby Doo cake. Jude and I put 3 candles on it, but Luke decided he deserved the whole packet of candles, hence the 10 candles on a 3 year olds cake. He blew them all out in one go!

Thanks so much to everyone that sent or gave him presents, money and cards this year. He did have such a lovely day.

Luke's 3rd birthday - so far

2006-10-06T14:07:00.001Z

I'm taking a moment to load on the birthday photos from the day so far. Steve is downstairs preparing all the party food, something which he wanted to do. I've blown up some balloons and Luke keeps asking "when are all my friends coming?" I thought that was sweet, as it's basically family. I asked him "which friends are you expecting?" and he answered "Nanny, Jenny, Bevin, Jessie and Abi". It's cute that he calls his family 'friends.'

Today has been so exciting for him. This morning, would you believe we had to wake him up? It was 8am and Sam was getting ready for school so we had to waken him. I had expected him to be up at 6am, or even before. He came up to our bedroom and opened his presents on our big bed, before Sam went to school. The excitement in his face and body was lovely to watch. He couldn't contain himself and had to scream to just let the steam out!

Here are a few photos of his present opening session...

Granny Jill and Grandad John from England sent money for this present, which Luke chose in the shops last week. It is a big Thomas the Tank Engine train set.

We didn't realise that the trains and bus in this set can be played with manually, or with batteries. So Luke was chuffed to discover that they had on/off switches and will go around the track on their own too. He has played with this all day. It's a real hit. I can see that it will get many hours of use.

We bought him some dressing up outfits for his main birthday present. Anyone who reads this blog knows how much he loves dressing up, but he has never come across an actual costume before. He was a bit miffed when he opened them as he wasn't sure what they were. We got him a pirate, doctor, policeman and fireman outfits. We had such a laugh playing doctors already. Luke was the doctor, of course, and I was the patient. Then Jude played patient, then a host of teddy bears played patients. Then he put on his policeman outfit and arrested Daddy!

I have to go as it's time to get ready for our guests. But there will be more blogging later, no doubt.

In the eyes of a two year old

2006-10-05T22:10:00.000Z

Luke,
Tomorrow it is your third birthday. You are sleeping now. Today you were so excited when me and Jude wrapped up your presents. You came upstairs into my room and felt them all, tried to guess what was in them. You really want some new cars, even though you have so many already. You do love cars. I think you are going to love your presents. The three years that you've been with us have flown past so quickly. It seems like only yesterday that you were born, after hours and hours of labour. You were so tiny, our tiniest baby, at 7lb 15oz. You were perfect in every way. Sam and Jude came to the hospital to see you, even though it was midnight by the time they got there. Jude did not want us to tell her whether you were a boy or a girl. She wanted to find out for herself when she got to the hospital. We all thought you were going to be a boy, and we were all right. We all fell in love with you immediately. Before you were even born we all chose a song to sing to you in the womb. Sam's song has remained your favourite song till this day.
I remember that you were a very content baby. At night we would lie you in your moses basket next to our bed, and you would stare around the room until we turned the lights out. Then you would just close your eyes and go to sleep, like an angel. Every night we would laugh at the way you did that.
In three years you have blossomed into a bright and bubbly little boy. Before you were born I thought that you were going to be the little rotter of the family, and you really are, but in a lovely way. You are confident and feisty, bossy and stubborn. You have the most beautiful little singing voice of any 2 year old. You are a huge presence in this home, and you are the most loved 3 year old little boy on the planet. I couldn't imagine life without your constant chatter, your questions and stories, and your singing. These past three years you have brought so much happiness to our lives, so many wonderful memories, so much to laugh about. You have touched each of our hearts and we will always love you.
I look forward to another year, watching you grow and blossom, sharing precious moments with you. May this next year have as many wonderful times as the past three years have. Enjoy your birthday my little Lukey, and have a wonderful day.

To remember the 2nd year of your life, here are some photos which you took yourself recently. You used Daddy's expensive digital camera and snapped images of things that are special to you. This is, I guess, how life looks to you at age 2.

A good game of scrabble

2006-10-05T21:53:00.000Z

I forgot to put this photo onto my blog. A few weeks ago we had a good family game of scrabble, and we took some photos so that we could blog about it. I think the idea was that the kids would put the photos onto their blogs, but they forgot. I was just going through the photos when I found it. We had such a good memorable evening playing scrabble, having a laugh, spending quality (educational) time with the kids, that I wanted to put the photo on so that I can remember it in years to come. I was playing scrabble too, but obviously someone had to take the photo!

3 year old Egyptian belly dancing poser...

2006-10-03T21:26:00.000Z

The many moves of belly dancing Luke. My new Egyptian shimmy shaker arrived yesterday. It makes lovely jingly jangly noises and I've practiced my moves all around the kitchen whilst cleaning today. Luke's little eyes almost popped out of his head when he saw this gleaming, shiny, jingly scarf like thing. I tied it round his waste and he danced around the living room to the Egyptian music which was coming from the kitchen. He's quite a little mover, and wiggles his hips in time to the music. Never one to be camera shy, he was happy to pose, and to pose, and to keep on posing. I got 58 photos in all! Luke also took a few of me, dancing, but they are, ahem, not really suitable for public display.

After a little dancing Luke was still feeling the need to pose, and so we had a little drama session. It's never too young to start home educating, right? We concentrated on expressions, facial expressions mostly, and I discovered (well, I kind of already had a clue) that Luke possesses Sam's thespian talents. Have you ever seen a 2 year old (yes, he's still 2, until Friday) express so many emotions, so naturally? In order we have; happy, hysterical, sad, annoyed, sneezing, blowing raspberries, dejected, amused, aggressive, shocked, and entertaining. (And that's the shortlisted version).

At the end of the day he is just cute and adorable, and he can't help it.

So, there's been lots of photograph taking today, amongst other things. But if you'd like to see what culinary delights Luke is making in this photo, then please visit my food blog.

The torture of pulsatile tinnutis, and neurofibromatosis.

2006-10-02T18:28:00.000Z

I was just having a lie down in bed, but the pulsing in my ears is unbearable and I can't stand to be in a quiet place. It is driving me insane. Although I've been referred to a specialist (months ago) I have no sign of an appointment yet. It seems I could be waiting indefinitely. It's really starting to get to me.
And it's getting worse. It started months ago. A faint pulsing sound in my right ear, which would come and go and which I could only hear at night when it was very quiet. I used to almost have to 'listen out for it'. Gradually over the year it's got worse, louder, and into both ears. Last week it had got to the stage where it is a loud gushing heart sound, which I can hear during the day. I can even hear it with the sound of the TV and kids in the room. It is my heart beat, there's no doubt about that. I can hear it get faster when I'm stressed. But the sound is in my ear drum, not my heart, and it's clearly audible, not imagined. The doctor said it was unusual for someone so young to suffer from it, and so she referred me to the specialist. It is different to normal tinnitus, which can happen for no reason. Pulsatile tinnitus is usually caused by an underlying medical condition, and can be caused my small benign tumors in the arteries in the neck. I now have the sound in both ears, although worse in my right. But this week I am also hearing new noises. Electrical noises. They can last for anything between 5 and 30 seconds, these new noises, but they always stop, and once again I am left with the pulsing. It's almost as if my brain is an electrical circuit that is sparking and malfunctioning, in an audible way. My fear is that the electrical noises will become permanent too, and then I shall go mad, for certain.
When this first started I could get to sleep and then the noises would fade and I would have peace. Now I can't get any silence at night. I can't get into a position where the noise in my ears subsides, and to make it worse, the noises have started to wake me up! This is driving me crazy. I feel like I'm going deaf. I can't hear what people are saying on the phone, above the sound of my gushing heart beat. I miss lines in films because my ears decide to play a little electrical tune for a few moments. I can only describe it as torture, and if it gets any louder or becomes a noise other than my heartbeat I shall certainly be committed to an insane asylum.

Still, I should be grateful. There are far worse things that one could suffer from.

Which brings me to Steve. He went to the doctors today and had a gallon of blood taken for testing, poor guy. The doc thinks he may be suffering from an over active thyroid condition, which may or may not be caused by his neurofibromatosis, if a tumour is growing near the thyroid. He will get his tests back next week. She has also tested for a heap of other things. Steve was told that if an NF lump grew in an organ he would be ill. He has been ill, for many weeks. So far his lumps have all been in less serious places, mostly in his arm, in which he has undergone many operations. Maybe this is nothing to do with NF at all, but it's always a worry that a lump may be growing somewhere that could make him ill (his liver was mentioned by the dr). I guess we will know more next week when the results come back. He really needs a few weeks off work, to rest and recuperate. He has paid someone to run his shop this week so that he can have some rest, but we can't afford it, and he will not be able to do that again. I have offered to run the shop for him so that he can be at home, but then he will have to take care of the kids, which may well turn out to be a harder job than running a business! Oh we both need a good MOT and some new parts fitted.

I guess that's enough of a whinge for now. I generally cope well with stress, but worrying about Steve has taken it's toll on me and this afternoon I felt really quite unwell and upset. I just turned to jelly and had to lie down, only to be reminded of that hideous noise from which I can't escape. Writing things down like this is really quite therapeutic, and makes me feel an awful lot better.

Who is that masked man?

2006-09-29T14:44:00.000Z

Hello, hello, it seems I have so much to say since my last post, which wasn't that long ago. But I've only got 30 minutes to write this, then I have to go and pick Sam up from his guitar lesson, and Jude has already reserved the computer for the afternoon.

I'm just going to load on some photo's from our week. This one is a classic. This was taken on Sunday, when I pampered Steve for the day. Whilst he was on the trampoline with Luke, we snuck out with a clay mud mask and gave his skin a bit of a (long overdue) deep clean. Luke was a bit horrified. Sam wanted some too, but I only had enough to do his nose and chin. The next morning Sam woke up with a big spot on his nose! He was not happy and is sworn off of mud masks for the rest of his life.

Luke has had one of those weeks where he wants a constant companion. In between his helping me with the chores, Sam and Jude have been great at entertaining him. Here are Luke and Jude in Jude's room. They got all the carpet and furniture from Jude's dolls house and made a little play scene on the bedroom floor.

Here is a photo, taken today, of Jude doing her math work in the kitchen.

Yesterday was a glorious day, as is today, so I took the opportunity to work in the garden. It needed a lot of attention, and still does to some extent. I needed to do a lot of weeding and tidying up. The sunflowers were all dead (but one) so I cut them down and pulled out the old climbing sweet pea flowers. This has allowed more sunlight into the courgette and pumpkin patch, so hopefully they will grow faster now. I

harvested one marrow, a few courgettes, our first red cabbage, some french beans and some peas, along with the sunflowers (and a few small onions). We will eat some of the courgettes tonight for dinner, and I'll dry out those last few sunflower heads in the airing cupboard, with the ones that are already there.

In an attempt to further enhance our health I purchased a juicer. A good juicer, that actually works and juices whole fruits, not like the daft one we had before, which was so much hassle that we never used it. Today I went out at the crack of dawn to buy a ton of fruit. Jude and I made our first juice at lunch time.... carrots, apples, pears, grapes and ginger. It was really nice. We took some down for Steve to drink at work. I'm hoping it will be a big hit with the kids, although predictably Luke didn't like the healthy juice and opted for squash instead.

That's about all I've got time for at the moment, although I haven't had a chance to tell you about belly dancing, or that Steve is off work next week, but I have to go and pick Sam up.

We made the newspaper! Front page, no less!

2006-09-27T18:43:00.000Z

Well, weren't we surprised today to see our lovely photo in full colour on the front of the local newspaper! The photographer came out last week to take a photo of the kids with their sunflowers. He took a photo of them with the tallest one, which was 9ft3 at the time. We hoped it would get into the paper somewhere, but didn't expect to see it on the front cover! How exciting for the children. Even Luke was chuffed to bits. We will have to buy a heap of copies to send to our family in England. Here is the photo from the front page...

(click on it to see the real size version). I was slightly disappointed that they didn't mention that growing the sunflowers was part of their home education project, but oh well.

Whilst talking about the newspaper, I read an article in it about the problem with dogs fouling the pavements. There is nothing that disgusts me more, than people who let their dogs poo all over the place. Would you believe that Sam found a doggy poo bag in our garden, opened it, to discover the dog muck inside! Someone had picked the mess up and put it in a bag, then lobbed it into our back garden!! (A garden which is clearly filled with childrens toys - swings, slides, trampoline etc) What sort of person would do that? Anyway, there is a dog in our cul-de-sac that is allowed to roam the street from time to time, and it has taken a liking to our front garden. Currently there are 3 piles of dogs mess in our driveway, and today Luke trod in some. I shouldn't have to worry about the kids in our own garden, especially when we live in a quiet little cul-de-sac, not even on a main road. I'm trying to get Steve to go and politely talk to the neighbours about it, but he is reluctant, so it looks like I will have to do it myself. I'm thinking of trying a sort of "a dog keeps fouling in our garden, and we would be grateful if you could keep your dog out of our yard, so that we can pin point the offending dog and deal with it" approach... Sam thinks we should get photographic evidence, and Steve thinks we should leave a note at their house. Anyone got any suggestions? I really don't want a fight with the neighbours, but I can't stand that they let their dog foul in our garden, while their own garden is all neat and clean.

Three quality hours with three quality kids.

2006-09-25T18:52:00.000Z

I went out of my way, yesterday, to give Steve a relaxing day. He slept all morning after the exhaustion of the fair, and then I ran him a big bubble bath, and tried to make the room as calming as possible, with incense, candles and music. Then I bundled the kids into the kitchen and tried to keep them quiet, so Steve could unwind. Our bathroom is downstairs and Luke was very interested in the music and smells coming from the bathroom. Steve was so relaxed at the end of the day that he decided to cook a curry. He kindly cooked enough for two nights so that I didn't have to prepare dinner tonight. (Monday nights are always hectic as Jude has to be at brownies by 6.30, and I'm always trying to squeeze dinner into that half an hour slot when Steve gets home at 6).

In the evening (Sunday) we all watched half of a DVD about Esther, from the Bible. We will watch the other half next weekend. It was some fun trying to explain to the kids exactly what a harem is, and why the king was 'interviewing' prospective wives, but they seemed to enjoy it. It was nice just to sit with them and watch something like that. We have a few of the DVD's from that series, (Samson, Jesus, Paul, Moses, Abraham etc). Sam and Jude watched the Jesus film a few months back.

Today was a pretty good day. Nothing amazing happened, but we have all been happy. I spent an hour doing some maths with Jude. I can give her more help with maths this year, since Sam has gone back to school. He had the bulk usage of the mathematical side of my brain last year (it's not a very big section of my brain and is quite spongy). I found out that she had been working out answers to division by drawing lots of lines, eg 25 divided by 5 would be IIIII, IIIII, IIIII, IIIII, IIIII, answer 5. Could I explain to her how to work it out any other way? She started to get upset, as she tends to do if she doesn't understand something. As usual, I told her not to get upset. I explained that it doesn't matter if she doesn't know how to do it, as she hasn't learnt it yet. I said that I wouldn't be cross, even if she got it wrong every time. I told her that I'm bad at maths so I understand how confusing it can be. She was welling up, as usual. But this time she managed to keep it in, and actually enjoyed learning with me. I tried to explain that she could work out division if she knew her times tables. It was hard going, but eventually the penny dropped. She was answering those questions that everyone hates. The first one was along the lines of "there are 30 chairs in 6 rows, how many chairs are in each row?" (of course it wasn't written simply like that, it was written as a riddle!) I managed to show her that the question was 30 divided by 6 equals what? But she couldn't divide in her head. So I asked her if she knew how to do 6 X ? = 30. She knew the answer to that was 5. But I couldn't get her to see that it had anything to do with the original division question. We got there in the end but sometimes I wonder if I'm making the learning process harder because I don't really know what I'm talking about. I will need to spend a lot of time with her this week to make sure she really understands the concept.

After all that maths I spent another hour playing with Luke. I got down onto his bedroom floor and played cars with him. I find it fascinating to watch him play. You can see so much of his little personality by watching him in his little fantasy world. I picked a car, and he picked a car, and our cars went to the cinema together. Then we picked another car each, and these cars went to the beach, where they encountered a crocodile that tried to attack them. Then Luke got all the cars out of his car box and we lined them up in neat equal lines, which he loves to do. I tried to take a photo but couldn't find the camera. He put certain cars together, buses went next to each other, tractors went in front of one another, then he arranged all the red cars together and got all excited about the colour red, showing me all the things in his room which were red. There is nothing he loves more than to share his special things with someone else, whether it's his favourite toy, place or movie, he loves to share it and share that specialness with someone else. I quite enjoyed myself!

This evening I spent another hour with Sam. He was all excited about his English homework and asked for my help. He had to research a flower and write notes about it. At school they will write a report about the flower. He told his entire class that his mum is a professional gardener! "Well, you are practically, aren't you Mum?" He chose the nasturtium for his study and we learnt all sorts of interesting facts about the plant. Then he spent 20 minutes telling me all about 'Troy". (Not the DVD!) In stageschool they are studying the Greek story of Troy for a play which they will be putting on at the end of term. The whole story obviously really sparked his imagination. I felt sad that he was no longer home educated, as we could have done a big study on Troy while he has the interest, to run along side his drama.

I went out into the garden with him to look at the nasturtiums, and realised that the garden requires some attention. Some of the sunflowers were blown down in the gales. The play house was blown on top of my parsnips which have been crushed, the peas have gone mouldy and died and need removing before they infect the red cabbages, which are now HUGE and ready to harvest, I think. I was delighted to see a huge marrow, lots of courgettes, and some tiny weeny (plum sized) baby butternut squash pumpkins. How exciting. The winter vegetables are now starting to thrive as the summer ones die off.

This afternoon I also watched the first in the new Jane Eyre drama series, which was on last night. I recorded it for Jude as she showed a real interest in the adverts for it. So we watched it together and she really liked it. I never did read Jane Eyre, but if I find it in my book shelf I might try to read it before watching the rest of it. Otherwise I'll never read it.

Well, I'm off now to relax a bit for the evening. Just going to tuck the kids in and then chill. Plus I plan on looking up a few bean and lentil recipes.

Visiting Laura

2006-09-24T12:23:00.000Z

Here are two photo's from our weekend. The first is little Luke looking adoringly at his big cousin J. The second is my sister Jenny (on right) with our cousin Laura, who I haven't seen since she was about 12 !

Yesterday Jude went to work at the Coleraine CD fair with her Dad. I took Sam to stage school and then Luke and I went round to Jenny's to see Laura, who was staying for the weekend. She has just moved over here to study at University. It was good to see her after such a long time, and she told all of the news of our other cousins (her brothers). I haven't seen them since they were little boys and I couldn't believe that they are now grown men. Even though I've grown up and had kids. It's funny how we forget that everyone else grows up too.

Today is Sunday and we are doing nothing really. Next week we will be going to Dublin for the Sunday meeting but this week Steve wasn't up to it. He worked a full week in the shop. Then yesterday morning he woke at 6am, loaded a van full of records and CD's (they weigh a ton) into the van, drove to pick up another dealer (cd dealer, not drug dealer!) and helped him load his stuff into the van. Then he drove a good few hours to Coleraine, unloaded the van, lugged everything into the fair, worked all day at the fair (made hardly any money) and then did the same thing, but in reverse, on the way home. He is absolutely shattered, and has gone back to bed for the day.

Hospital appointments and newspaper photos

2006-09-20T16:13:00.000Z

What a busy day it's been. I'm not feeling at all well now. I feel like I need to sleep for a month. I've noticed I'm getting tired every day, just like I used to before I started making bread from home milled wheat. I'm going to get back into making a loaf every day again, as it's so beneficial to my energy levels.

Today Luke had an appointment at the Royal Children's Hospital in Belfast. Our appointment was for 10.30am but we weren't seen until after 12.30. It seems that they give everyone an appointment for 10.30 and then just let them all sit for 2 hours or more. Jude came with us, as she thinks that going to the Royal is a good exciting free day out. There are plenty of toys, and the whole place is like a kids museum - umbrellas hanging from the ceiling, display under glass floors, playdough to create with, dolls houses, castles, things hanging down from the ceiling. It's like an indoor adventure playground. When we got to the orthopaedics outpatient department there was a children's theatre group putting on a performance! How exciting! They were all dressed in ridiculous costumes, one was playing the guitar, one playing the accordion, and they had a flea circus with them. They perform various acts with performing fleas, which were quite enchanting. We had the camera with us, so Jude stood up to take a photo. The performers relished this photo opportunity and started posing for her. "One more", they kept saying, pulling different poses. She got some good shots. It seems that they go round the hospital performing in the various wards for the children, which is lovely. They were there for about 20 minutes after we arrived, but then the kids entertained themselves for another hour and a half while we waited to see the consultant.

Eventually we were seen. The consultant was lovely, and very good with Luke who hates people looking at his feet. He had already taken his socks and shoes off to show me that there was nothing wrong with his feet, and so he didn't need to see a doctor! The consultant asked him to walk up and down the room, and then played with his feet a bit. Once again they told me that he is unusually flexible and he should be enrolled in a dance or gymnastics class to help strengthen his ankles, and because he could have a natural talent because of his flexibility. I must look into that. This time the consultant decided it is time to do something about his feet. They are not improving on their own. So he now has an appointment in October to get a plaster cast taken of his feet. They will then use this cast to make him a special pair of insole type supports, moulded to the shape of his feet. He will need to get his feet cast every time they grow a size (which is very often, I can tell you!) It's going to be some fun trying to get him to wear them.

We were planning to go to W5 after the appointment but there was no time left. We did go to pizza hut and had the buffet while we waited for Uncle David to finish at Uni. (We had Aunty Hannah with us). Then we drove back home with them both. They are, at this moment, getting some portrait photography done, to celebrate their engagement. Then I drove to the school to pick Sam up, drove Jude to archery, drove Sam home, drove back to archery to get Jude. Then we had the photographer from the local newspaper out to take a photo of the children with their tallest sunflower, which is now 9ft 3.

The boy in Sam's class who thumped him, thumped him again yesterday. The boy tried to tell the teacher that Sam had kicked him, but a classroom assistant had seen Sam working away, minding his own business. So this boy was suspended for the day. His parents were called to collect him. He didn't go back to school today either. Sam was glad to see that the school are doing something about his behaviour. The violence is not just directed towards Sam, but anyone who happens to be within reach, it seems. After the surprise of Sam getting into the higher maths group, he came home today all pleased because he had received his first 'grade'. They grade work A to D for attainment, and 1 - 4 for effort (1 being the highest). For Sam's RE homework he was graded A+, 1. He was delighted! He seems to be doing really well at the school so far. A little praise really spurs Sam on to do better. Something which was sorely lacking at his old primary school, where he was constantly put down by his teacher.

I find it so hard to think of good titles!

2006-09-18T20:30:00.000Z

I've got so much to blog about from the weekend that I'm sure I will forget most of it. We spent all day on Saturday at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, near Holywood. I quite often take Luke and Jude there on a Saturday whilst Sam is at stage school. It's Luke's all time favourite place. He dreams of taking various friends and family members there, to show them all his favourite trains. But this time we spent the whole day there, for the purposes of Steve's first photography project for his HND. We spent the first half of the day at the Folk park. Luke has never been there. It was a sunny day and we walked around the old Irish buildings, saw a man printing from an antique printing press, and another man weaving a rug using an old machine, then we had a picnic outside one of the thatched cottages. Steve spent the whole time taking photographs while we pleased ourselves. We didn't get many pics of us, just artsy fartsy things. After lunch I took Sam to stage school and then we went to the transport museum and had the usual Saturday fun there. Steve took a heap more photos.

On Saturday evening we went to Jenny's house warming party, which was a good evening for adults and kids alike. The food was lovely, and so was the company.

Sunday was spent relaxing. Well, that was the plan, although I spent most of the day tidying, so that I could eventually relax. Not much to report there. Jude stayed at Auntie Jenny's house for the weekend.

Today I had to pick Jude up after taking Sam to school. On the way home from Jenny's we stopped at B&Q, Homebase and M&S. I bought myself some sushi for lunch, which was such a treat! It was so so yummy.

Sam was upset when he came out of school today. There is a boy in his class who seems to have some behaviour problems. He keeps punching people, for no reason. Today it was Sam's turn to get punched. In the arm, during science. He was just sitting, doing his work, when this kid punched him. Sam has seen him do it to other children in the school. This child has no friends and will end up very lonely if he carries on this way. Fortunately the teacher saw what happened and sent the boy to sit on his own. Sam went to see the head of year at the end of the school day, whilst I was sitting alone in the school car park wondering why my child was the only child that didn't leave the building. She was very good to him, and listened to him. He explained how he had seen this boy hitting and punching several children. She told him that he had been reported 5 times today for the same thing! She told Sam that his parents were coming to the school this evening. She said that he had got away with it in his last school, and he thought he could get away with it here too. Sam said he wasn't too upset by it, but obviously the stress of having to report to the head of year took it's toll on him, and he had to let all that emotion out when he got into the car. He spent all evening running to the toilet with stomach cramps. I'm not sure if this was caused by the stress of the situation or not. His head of year told him to ask me to phone her tomorrow to discuss what had happened. She seems like a very nice lady. I tried to explain to Sam that perhaps this boy has issues that we are not aware of, and that he should try to understand that maybe his life is more complicated than we can see, or perhaps he is very unhappy. I hope that this boy leaves him alone from now on. Apart from that incident Sam seems to be enjoying this new school.

He came home with some surprising news! They did a maths test on the second day of school. Maths is the only subject that they stream the children in. I was worried about Sam's maths as I had taken him back a year when he left school, as his confidence was so badly knocked by his old P6 teacher. I was worried that he was still behind in maths. But today the classes were put into their new maths groups, based on the results of the test that they took, and Sam was put into the higher group! Well blow me down with a feather! We were both pleasantly surprised by that!

Anyway, here are a few photos from our week for you to enjoy...

Luke emptied an entire bottle of lavender sleepeasy fabric conditioner onto the utility room floor. He then attempted to clean it, by putting on a pair of wellies, and sliding about in it with an umberella and a few tea towels. The floor was like an ice rink, but the whole house (and Luke) smelt divine. (notice the purple shimmer to the floor)

Yes, here we have Luke all dressed up in half the contents of my underwear drawer!

Mummy and Luke having cuddles in my bed. I thought this was such a cute little picture (apart from the neck underwear)

And two photos from our trip to the folk museum.

Isis Belly Dance in Belfast

2006-09-15T19:12:00.000Z

Well, well, well, whoever knew that belly dancing could be so difficult?! And so much fun! Last night me and Mum went to our first class, in Belfast. It was a good laugh. The lady gave us all Egyptian scarf type belt things, with jingles discs on, to wear whilst dancing. I think the idea was that if you were doing it right you'd hear the jingles. So we all donned our hip scarves and stood in a large circle around the room, with the instructor in the middle. There were about 25 women there, at a guess, and they were all new to belly dancing too. So that was a relief. After swinging our hips and doing our stuff in a large circle we got into 3 lines and tried a bit more. I'm sure we all looked a sight, and there were lots of giggles from various ladies. By the end of the lesson we were shimmying our hips in time to the music. We even managed a little dance forwards and backwards by the end of the session. Check out the Isis Belly Dancing site, and go to the link for the gallery to see photos of the type of thing we were up to.
Mum has downloaded a heap of belly dancing music for us to practice to, and we've both ordered our own scarf belts from Egypt. This is the one I ordered. I'm quite looking forward to the next class, although after practicing in the mirror briefly I am now quite sure that I looked like an elephant having a fit, but who cares when it's fun?

This morning I went out for breakfast with my friend C. Then we did an hour of shopping. I managed to pick up a bargain pair of black high heel shoes reduced from £25 to £5 in Dorothy Perkins (and shock, horror, they actually fitted me!) and a pair of trendy comfortable hush puppy shoes at a not so low price of £45. (You can see them by clicking here - in the olive colour.) I needed some comfy shoes as all I have is my trainers. I find it so hard to get anything to fit as my feet are so narrow.

Yesterday Jude, Luke and myself visited W5 in Belfast for a trip with some other home educating families. Jude found her friend and they went off round the building whilst I sat with Luke. He mostly played in the huge train section, but also had a go in the toy supermarket, and the play cafe, as well as a drive in the mini car. Then we all went to pizza hut for lunch. It was a good day, and the place was so quiet as everyone else was at school.

Tomorrow we will be spending the whole day at the folk and transport museum. Steve is going to take a heap of black and white film for the first part of his course, while we are there. Then we will take Sam off to his drama school for the afternoon. It will be an exhausting day because afterwards we are off to my sisters house warming party. Sunday will definitely be a day for relaxing. And maybe washing, and a little ironing, and possibly some vacuuming. I'll look forward to that.

Schools are pants.

2006-09-13T12:28:00.000Z

I've had Sam on the phone from school twice today. Firstly, we agreed he could take guitar lessons. I gave him the form and cheque straight away, but he couldn't find the music teacher to give it to her, and the office wouldn't take it. He finally found the teacher today who told him he was too late, all the guitar lessons are fully booked, as are the piano and drums. All they had left was trombone. He has no interest in learning that. So he was a bit gutted, I think.

Secondly, the school has a system for lunches. Every child has a credit card type thing. You send your child in with coins, which they load into a machine. It puts the amount of money onto the card and they use this to pay for lunches. On the first day of school the machine wasn't working properly. Everyone put their money in (£4.50 for Sam) but the machine didn't register it. Sam later put another £10, and some more money this week. But he phoned me today to say that there was only 12p left on his card. I phoned the office to ask what has happened to all his money and they told me that on the first day any money put in didn't go onto the cards properly. Instead of telling the children this, so that we could rectify it, they just left it. It will get sorted if and when parents realise that the child has no money. How crazy. Half the parents won't realise it's happened and the catering company will have made a small fortune!

Edit - Steve has managed to organise guitar lessons with a friend of his who lives next to the school. This guy has offered to do them for free as he wants to start teaching guitar and will use Sam as a sort of guinea-pig to see how it goes. So that's good news! He's a nice guy too, and plays in a gospel band. Excellent news. Sam will be pleased.

News schools and new colleges

2006-09-13T10:26:00.000Z

Steve left this morning at the crack of dawn to catch his bus to college. It is his first day on the 3 year HND Photography course. Right up until Sunday he wasn't sure if he was even going to do the course. Yesterday he made up his mind to give it a try. I hope it goes well for him. I really hope he enjoys it, and that it's a source of pleasure, rather than stress. I'm hoping that he really enjoys that time away from work and home every week, with something to concentrate on, other than making money and running errands.

Sam has left for school. He seems to be enjoying it so far. Now that all the 11plus passers have been taken off to the grammar school, Sam seems to be top of the class! Which he is really enjoying! His favourite subject is English (never was before - but it's amazing what difference a nice teacher can make to a subject) and from what he tells me, his English teacher uses his work all the time for examples to other kids. He decided yesterday to write an extra essay about literary genres to "impress the teacher". Well, blow me down! Sam? Taking on extra work? They must have drugged him or something.

This week the after school clubs start. Sam has signed up for drama (no surprises there!), choir, and cooking. In his first Home Economics lesson he impressed the teacher, all the kids, and himself, by being the only one who could cook. The fact that he could single handedly make a spaghetti bolognaise rocketed his popularity with the other kids and the teacher (at least that's the way he makes it sound). Thanks to his Dad, Sam is regarded as something of 'the cool kid'. This is a new experience to him. His Dad owns the coolest shop in the town - the CD shop - the coolest, hippest place for teenagers to hang out after school. From the day he started, teenage girls kept saying "oh there's the kid who's Dad owns the CD shop". This makes him automatically cool. Two teenage girls chose him as their 'pet year 8' for the year and they look out for him all the time. Yesterday at lunch time Sam was surrounded by a crowd of teenage girls, all wanting to talk to him and asking him about the shop. His class mates all watched in envy at his popularity with the girls! (Honestly, this is what he is telling me... ) In between lessons, travelling from class to class, Sam says that along the corridors big kids keep saying "hello Sam", "hi Sam", "how are you Sam?" and the kids from his class think he must be really cool because of it. So, so far he is enjoying it. Sam's never been one to shun a bit of attention from anyone!

OK, Luke's begging me for breakfast, so I better go and feed the poor little mite.

A Saturday Trip To Gosford Forest Park

2006-09-09T17:39:00.000Z

The sun was shining today, so we thought we should make the most of it. Steve was at work, but I decided to take the kids to Gosford Forest Park to run off some steam and enjoy some nice weather. But first off, we had to give Luke a bath. He got into Jude's makeover box, and came upstairs in his pyjama's, looking so proud and announcing "Mummy, I had a make over!"

I love Gosford Forest Park. We have only been once, but have meant to go back all summer. Today it was a glorious day, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and all the animals at the mini animal farm were in good form too! Jude took charge of the camera and took 122 photos of chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, lambs and trees. (I'll not post them all!) Luke was delighted to discover a turkey. I had been telling him the story of Henny Penny, this morning, and when he asked "what's a turkey lurkey?" I had told him that we'd find a picture of a turkey on the Internet. But when we saw the real thing, that was just great. All the birds came running straight to us. They must have been looking for food, now that the hoards have gone back to school, and stopped visiting them.

After walking round the animal farm, we stopped in to the little cafe, where the kids had ice creams. Then we headed up to the walled garden and forest area. Jude has just started reading 'The Secret Garden', so I think that this walled garden really appealed to her. Inside there is a pond, which was drained, so the kids were able to play in it. I sat by this empty pond for well over an hour, while the three kids ran about, played, explored and used their imaginations. There were trees that were shaped like huts, and the kids made homes in them. Sam spent an hour inside one, making a stick fire and swinging from the inside branches. Jude played with an empty water balloon and ran about all over the place, and Luke explored every nook and cranny, occasionally asking me to come and find him. It was nice to see them enjoying themselves so much. It really is quite a magical place.
We took a walk into the forest, outside of the walled garden. It has the most amazing trees from all across the globe. Honestly, it looks like Jurassic Park should have been filmed there! All the trees have a plaque at the bottom with their name on, and even though he can't read, Luke ran up to each one excitedly calling out "Mummy read this tree's name now!"

A lot of tree climbing fun was had by all (except me). Jude got stuck in one tree, and then landed in a swamp and got her feet covered in slosh. There was lots of screaming, laughing, calling and giggling, ringing through the forests, from our family. But we took a few minutes at one point to stop and use our senses. We listened for a minute to all the sounds of the forest, and then we took in the smells. We took time to look all around us and take in the scenery, and then used our fingers to feel the bark and moss.

We can't wait to go back there. Luke just loves being out of doors, and Sam and Jude seem to enjoy each others company more now that Sam is away at school during the day. Luke asked a million questions, told a million stories, and showed me a million things on our way round. His mind is just like a sponge, waiting to absorb as much as possible from the world around him.

This last photo is of a ring of mushrooms that we found on the forest floor! It looked quite amazing. The kids each jumped into the ring of mushrooms and was magically transported to another time or place. They could be gone for hours but it seemed like just a split second to any onlooker! Jude went to Australia, I think, and Sam went to India. You might have to click on the image to open the larger version to see the ring of mushrooms properly.

Our 10ft tall sunflowers

2006-09-08T21:35:00.000Z

We just had to put a few photos of our 10ft tall sunflowers onto the blog. Steve took these pics today. This is the view of them from the road behind our house, not from inside our garden. Some of them aren't on view from the road, but these tall ones look fabulous! Luke planted these from little seeds way back in May. He is so pleased with how tall they have grown. It's been very educational for him.

Wedding dress-up time

2006-09-08T16:14:00.000Z

While I'm able to post photos, he are a few from our day today...

Hannah was here and we got all my old wedding stuff out of the loft for a laugh. (She is planning her wedding). Here is a photo of Luke, who made a bed inside the box to my wedding dress, and then performed a little ditty from 'The Little Shop Of Horrors', whilsts asking me to take hundreds of photos for his blog! Every time he does anything unusual he says "I'm taking a photo for my blog!"

And he is gorgeous Jude in my wedding dress, vail and tiara. She's such a cutie!

Finally... flower photos on the blog

2006-09-08T16:12:00.000Z

I was finally able to upload the flower photos onto the blog.

The day from hell ... and belly dancing.

2006-09-07T16:01:00.000Z

Do you ever have one of those days, when almost everything goes wrong? It started out as a bad day as soon as we stepped foot out of bed this morning. Steve was going to be off today, so that was exciting. He got up to get Sam ready for school, as he hasn't done it since he started. I thought a nice lie in was in order. But no, it seems that Sam went to bed too late last night and was not in good form this morning. Firstly, it is a PE day and he needed a towel for the showers. Easy, put a towel into the PE bag, right? No, a towel doesn't fit in a PE bad so he puts it in his school bag, then I suggest he may need a carrier bag to bring the wet towel home in. Anyway, there was all sorts of teenage moody grunts coming from his direction. I dragged myself out of bed to get him ready myself because I could see they were going to be late without my intervention. Bye bye beautiful lie in. When I came downstairs Sam was refusing to eat or drink and wanted to go to school on an empty stomach. Steve was agreeable to this, for some reason. He finally got out to school, in a bad mood. So of course I spent all day hoping that he was OK, and that he perked up when he got there.

I got back into bed. Steve told the remaining kids that he would take them out to breakfast and give me a break (for some reason I never get invited out to these breakfast dates). Anyway, they got ready, got all excited, when the lady working in Steve's shop phoned in sick. So Steve had to go to work and spend the day in the shop, despite it being his day off. That sucked. I had planned for us all to go to Gosford Forest Park or somewhere for a nice family walk. So the day started on a down note, and I was not in good form.

It got worse. Jude quietly started her studies and kept a low profile until she came and asked me about some work, and I realised that I hadn't yet printed it out. So I tried to. But our brand new Dell Printer has broken. Big time broken, and I think it will have to go back. So by this time I was steaming. Stupid damn printer, my life would be a whole lot better if I just threw the computer out of the window! I spend most of my life fixing things. I took a deep breath. Went downstairs. Had a bath. Luke was in good form and we had some cuddles and tickles. His little laughs and smiles soon had me feeling tip top again.

At midday there was a knock at the door (see post below) and there was a lady delivering me a huge beautiful bouquet of flowers! The day was starting to look up again. That really did cheer me up, big time. What a surprise! They were completely unexpected. They are now proudly displayed at the window in the living room. They are gorgeous and smell divine. I tried to put a photo of them on the blog, but this new beta blog very rarely lets anyone post any pictures. It's still not working now. You can see them on flickr in the post below if you want to though.

I picked Sam up from school at 3.20 and was greeted by a child who had discovered the horror of communal showers! Why on earth do they make young children, and adolescents, take showers together in one big shower. You'd think in today's society, that communal showers in schools would be a big no-no. But this is only a new school. All the kids were horrified beyond belief, and most of them managed to sneak in with their PE shorts still on (hence Sam coming home with a wet bum and trousers). I'm wondering whether I can send in a note saying I do not approve of communal showers, and won't let my son take part in that. I don't know if it would be any use. Why do they subject children to such things during a time of their lives when they are more self conscious about their bodies, than ever? It's crazy. As if kids don't have enough to cope with, worry about self image, peer pressure, studies etc.

Well, its 5.15pm and Sam is doing his homework. He says that he does miss all that free time. Jude finished her studies at 1pm and has been free to enjoy herself since then. Sam is still slogging away at 5pm. I must say, the homework he has been set every day so far, is reminiscent of work completed in P1! It's all been colouring! Seriously. On a good note, Sam's whole class were tested today in Music to see how musical they are. I think it was basically testing for a musical ear. "Is this note higher than this one?" Questions like that. Sam said when the teacher asked who plays an instrument, all but one child put their hands up! The test results were read out at the end of the test, from lowest score (an apparently harp playing lad) to the highest score. And guess who got the highest score? Yes, my Sam. He was glowing when he told me. Apparently he let out a big cheer and jumped up in the air when he found out. His teacher calmly said "well done Sam". It must be nice to be the best at something.

I asked Jude to take a shower. I was happily putting my flowers into a vase when I noticed a dripping sound. I went to investigate and discovered a huge crack along the hall way ceiling with water dripping through at rapid speed! I ran up stairs and burst into the shower room. Jude was already out, getting dried. The shower seemed fine, not blocked or overflowing. I raced back downstairs and dragged the huge heavy book case from under the drips, in case a whole torrent should come through. I can't believe it! We had the electrician out yesterday to fix our faulty electric box, and now it looks as if we need to get a plumber out. Thank goodness I had a bath this morning! Keeping a home is like putting your money into a bag of wholes. It cost £300 for Sam's uniform, but we already had a letter home this week requesting us all to purchase special black drama t-shirts from the school. Seemingly, a plain black t-shirt does not do the trick and we must purchase one with the school logo on. Today Sam brought home a letter about music tuition. Sam used to play the violin at primary school. That stopped when he left school. I promised him that he could have lessons on a new instrument when he started high school. I had imagined (perhaps foolishly) that the school lessons would be subsidized (as they were at the primary school). But no, they are more than Jude's private piano lessons. He wants to learn the guitar; at £10 a lesson that's going to cost another £300 a year. Oh boy.

Did I mention that I have signed up for belly dancing lessons?? Oh yes, I kid you not. My Mum wanted to do them and no one would go with her, so I agreed to give it a try. That'll make for some interesting blog photos!

I got an call today from the local newspaper asking if they can come out and take a photo of the kids with their 10ft tall sunflowers and their vegetable garden! So it looks like we'll be in the paper. Cool.

So, its been a bad day, with a nice surprise, which kept my sanity. We have a babysitter this evening so we'll be having a night out without the kids. What do you suppose could go wrong? Food poisoning perhaps? Wish me luck.

Flowers galore!

2006-09-07T12:22:00.000Z

Guess what just turned up at the door? A HUGE bouquet of flowers! I think that's possibly the first time that's ever happened to me. Except for the ones delivered to the hospital after the birth of my babies.

I was shocked because it's not my birthday or anything special. I was feeling really miserable all day, and I thought Steve had finally latched on to a good way to cheer me up. But when I opened the card, they weren't from him. They were from my Mum! Thanks Mum! How lovely. Luke and Jude were so excited and Jude took a photo of me and Luke with the flowers. They couldn't have come at a better time. I was having a horrible day... printers broken, Steve supposed to be off work but wasnt, doubting myself as a mother, all that stuff, when they turned up and brightened up my day.

It's been a flowery week. The people in our fellowship also bought me some flowers to say thanks for everything. Luke actually arranged those in a vase for me...

Seen as this blasted Blogger wont let me upload photos (AGAIN!!!!!!!!!) you can see pictures of the flowers by clicking here.

Blogger Comments

2006-09-05T08:48:00.000Z

A few people have had trouble posting comments on my blog since I switched to the new beta blogger version. If you have a standard blog account you will not be able to post a comment on my blog by signing through your blogger display name. Instead, you need to sign the comments by clicking the option 'other' and filling in your name (and your blog address if you have one). If you don't have a blogger account you should be able to leave comments by clicking 'other' and signing your name. Don't forget to fill in the word verification code.
If you've had problems leaving a comment could you please try it now, leaving a comment on this post, and seeing whether it works.
Thanks!

Fear of Failure

2006-09-04T11:57:00.000Z

Half way though our first day back at home education. Sam, of course is away to real school. Jude has been quietly getting on with her reading. Today she has a piano lesson. She hasn't practiced all summer long. I don't mind really, she's been having fun. But today she sat at the piano and couldn't remember how the piece went. I played it to her on the flute, but explained that I didn't know how the piece went either, but I was reading the notes and playing what I read. I tried to get her to do the same. Jude has an immense fear of failure. Reading the book, How Children Fail, I now understand and see this more. She will not have a go at playing a piece by sight reading it. Instead, she memorizes each line of the music, and plays it from memory without looking at the book at all. What a difficult way to play the piano. I tried to encourage her to try to sight read it. I said to her, it doesn't matter how bad it sounds, how many mistakes you make, it can sound really dreadful, but at least try to look at the music and play what you read. Instead, she burst into tears and ran off to her room. Her fear of failing is so immense that she won't even try. I am at a loss as to what to do about it. Other than encouraging her to try, what else can I do? She can't complete all her grades in piano by memory. And she does love to play the piano, she is not forced to do it. I notice she is the same in maths. If you try to explain something, and she doesn't understand it, she cries and gets so terribly upset. No matter how much I explain to her that it doesn't matter if she can't do it, if she doesn't understand or if she makes a mistake, it doesn't change her behaviour. At school the teachers told me she was very bright, but she took so much longer than everyone else to complete her work, because she was so afraid of making a mistake. Ah, what am I to do?

A silly carrot, I mean nut, and ramblings...

2006-09-03T21:01:00.000Z

Well, I'm feeling the need to blog, but I'm not sure what about yet, so I'll just see what ramblings come to me. I'm loading some digital photos onto the computer, so they will remind me of all that's been happening over the last few days. It's 8pm on Sunday evening, Luke is asleep, Sam is taking a shower ready for school in the morning, and Jude is getting ready for bed. Steve is tidying the garden or something, I'm not sure. He never sits down.

Tomorrow is the start of Sam's first proper week of school. Friday was more of an induction day, but this week he will really get to see what high school is all about. He didn't seem overly enthusiastic about the place when he came home on Friday. The most exciting thing that happened was that the till in the cafeteria wasn't working so they all got a free lunch! I'm remembering today what it was like in the days when both Sam and Jude went to school. That Sunday evening check list of 'are the uniforms clean and ironed?', 'is the homework all done?', 'are there forms to be filled in?', 'do the kids need a shower or bath?' Sunday evenings in the home educating family are usually pretty laid back. Tomorrow Jude starts some more formal work. I haven't asked her to do anything over the summer holidays. She hasn't even practiced the piano. She is starting on some new books this year, and continuing with some old ones too. The new books are Madam How and Lady Why, It couldn't just happen: fascinating facts about Gods world and Kon Tiki, Across the Pacific by Raft. I have no idea yet if these new books are any good, but we'll soon find out. They were, of course, recommended on the Ambleside Online Curriculum, so I didn't just pluck them out of thin air!

I've just loaded on the photos and they have jogged my memory a bit about our weekend.Today Steve and Luke dug up the first carrot from our veggie plot. They aren't really ready to be harvested yet, as they have a bit more growing to do. But once Steve discovered that there were actually carrots growing under those 3ft tall green grassy carrot tops, he could not resist to pick one. Then he insisted, like a child, to have his photo taken with it, for the blog, as if he was the one who actually planted it, watered it, fed it, weeded it and cared for it. So here is his special photo of our first carrot.

And here is a cute photo of one of our glorious sunflowers, in bloom.

Steve took this photo of Sam, Jude and Luke on Friday morning, before Sam left for school. Doesn't he look smart in his uniform? Luke was so excited about it. He asked me "can i go to school too?" I explained that he couldn't, so he asked "why? Are they shooting there?" What a strange question, I thought. Then I realised he must have been thinking about archery, where he can't go because they shoot arrows. Then he told me that they read lots of books at school. He must have decided that from the amount of reading both kids did as part of their home education, when they would tell Luke "shhh, I'm doing my school work".

Sam took it upon himself on Saturday morning to draw a picture of our house. I thought he looked so studious and artistic sitting in a chair on the lawn, with his paper, pens and an umbrella to shield his artwork from the drizzle, that I had to take a photo. It was a very good picture and if I find it I will scan it to put on the blog tomorrow.

Oh yes, last night we were invited to Mum's friends house for a lovely dinner of curry and rice. They are the family who own the dog Diamond, that we cared for. The food was lovely, and Mum cooked a scrumptious apple and blackberry crumble for pudding. Oh boy. The kids were well behaved, and even Luke managed to be good natured and charming until almost 10pm when he decided he needed to go to bed.

I found a blogring devoted to International Adoption, and read some blogs that really pulled on my heart strings. Oh I better not start blogging about that now or I'll be here all night.

Well, I'm off to bed myself now. It is 10.15 pm, despite me starting this blog at 8pm. Blogger wouldn't upload my photos and I got cheesed off and left it. Then I came upstairs to do some yoga (that's another story for another time) and got lured into the computer room (the way Steve does when he goes past a Chinese restaurant) and low and behold, blogger was working again. So here I am. And now I've gone.

Pretty girlie things, and getting ready for school

2006-08-31T19:38:00.000Z

Spent all evening getting Sam completely ready for school. He is now in bed, waiting to be tucked in, having an early night for a fresh start tomorrow. It's his first day at the college. I'm sure he will love it. First days have got to be fun, right?

Yesterday Mum was here all day and we took a drive to Craigavon where my Mum lost her purse in Matalan! Luckily someone handed it in, but we had some fun re-tracing our steps and looking for it. Mum was a bit panicky, as you would expect. I had to buy Sam some trainers for PE, and a pc mempory stick to take to school. We all had lunch together in Sainsburys, where Sam reverted to a 2 year old and ran riot. You can't blame the lad on his last week before high school.

I was getting stresssed about it all this evening, not coping with it. Trying to gather together the last few bits n peices he needed (a wash cloth and a tea towel !?!) I wanted his room tidied and he was doing it real slow. Just as my stress levels were bubbling over Jude came to me with a surprise. She had been quietly sitting in her room making me some beautiful things. I love the little things the kids make so much, they just melt my heart. Luke made me a picture today of worms - basically a lot of lines - there was a Mummy worm, Daddy worm, Sam worm, Jude worm and two Luke wormies! He had all the length corresponding with how tall we are. Here are Jude's beautiful things that she made me. Aren't they adorable? She's just adorable too.

Reece's Rainbow Ebay Auction For Charity

2006-08-30T09:40:00.000Z

Please click here to visit an ebay charity auction for Reece's Rainbow adoption fund for children with Down's Syndrome. This months auction is to raise money for Cesar in Guatemala. I see so far no one has bid any money on him, which is such a shame. Please take a look at it.