Our lastest pics from January 07

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?

Parent Teacher Interview

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.

Stormbreaker

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

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!

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.

Autumn Nature Walk

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!)

Who is that masked man?

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!

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.

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.

Isis Belly Dance in Belfast

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.

A Saturday Trip To Gosford Forest Park

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.

The day from hell ... and belly dancing.

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.

Fear of Failure

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?

Armagh Planetarium

Yesterday we took a trip to the newly renovated Armagh Planetarium. We stopped at Jude's friends house on the way to see if she would like to come. Much to Jude's delight, T was able to join us. We all had a great fun day, made more enjoyable for Sam and Jude by having a lovely well behaved delightful friend present.

The woman at reception really should not have been working in the tourism industry as she was moody, unapproachable and very unhelpful. Not a good face to the new planetarium.

We had fun despite her. We booked a show for the 3 older kids at 5pm. It was called Big and was designed to show how big the universe is. The lady at reception didnt want the kids to see the show without an adult present, and Luke was not allowed to go into it, so what was I to do? I told her they were old enough and well behaved enough to go into the show without me. Eventually the manager saw her attitude and came over to take control. He said the kids would be fine without me.

The planetarium exhibition itself isn't very large but they had extra activities on, with it being the summer holidays. The children all made rockets from empty coke bottles. They decorated the nose cone and wings which they stuck on. A bag of rocks was placed into the nose cone and the bottle was half filled with water. Then they went outside where a man launched their rockets into space. Jude's went the furthest, much to her delight. Sam later made an astronaut which he strapped onto another rocket and sent into orbit. It was quite funny because the rocket shot into the air and landed 50 feet away, then these little silver strips of astronaut clothing gently fluttered down to the blast off point. A poor naked little astronaut had been sent into space. Sam thought that was hilarous!

This is T, Jude and Sam outside the planetarium entrance.


Luke really enjoyed running around over the glass map of Northern Ireland.


All four kids did a bit of moon walking while we were there.


And here they are making their rockets.


Before the rockets were launched. Sam has Lukes rocket and his own, as Luke didn't want to pose.

Here is one of the rockets about to blast off!




Another room was set up to make astronauts. All of the kids loved this room, as they are all interested in crafts. T, Jude and Sam made astronauts while Luke got sticky and messy with glue and paper squares. He just loved it. He made a 'planet' picture (so he had obviously picked up the idea on his way round the planetarium that this place was all about space). They also made badges, and helped to make part of a big space collage.

Luke quietly making his planet picture.


Three happy kids and three crafty astronauts.


The astronauts enjoyed moon walking almost as much as the kids.

Thankfully, the weather was nice, so we took a walk around the observatory gardens. This was just as much fun as the planetarium. We took a look into two observatories and could see the big telescopes pointing up into space. There were various outside planet displays. One of them had a scaled down solar system. We stood at the sun and then walked to each planet in turn. The planets were made out of metal balls and you could see their distance from the sun and their size in comparison with each other. It really helped the kids to understand the sizes and distances between the various planets. Then we went for a walk into a little woodland area and played a hide and seek game. We all took it in turns to seek while the others hid behind trees. You wouldn't believe how much fun the kids thought this was. Even Luke took his turns at hiding and seeking.

One of the outdoor observatories.

Jude sitting on Neptune.
T came back to our house for dinner and we printed out and laminated a page of photos from our day for her to take home. She also took home a lettuce which she had planted from seed last time she was here. The kids all had a wonderful day and were so well behaved. All the way around the planetarium and observatory they asked constant questions about space and the planets, expecting me to know the answer to each and every one of them! We had quite a time finding out some of the answers. I was pleased to see how much they wanted to learn while they were there. Obviously a few weeks with no set work has allowed their natural curiosity to learn to thrive again.