Food to make you dribble

(photo of Barney, myself, and my Mum - taken 15th September 2008)

It's been a busy few weeks since the kids went back to school. Little Barney is really enjoying school so far. He looks forward to going in every day, although he couldn't go today as he has caught a cold. (One of the vices of going to school!) He only goes until midday for the first few weeks, but he still comes home exhausted from all the playing. I'm so relieved that he's settling in nicely, and that he's not crying or begging not to go. It makes life so much easier.

Annabelle has settled into high school just as if she'd always been there. She never has many stories to tell when she gets home. She just does her homework and gets on with it.

One of my highlights from last week was a morning I spent playing in our big bed with little Barney. I was having a lazy day, it was the weekend, and as usual Barney crawled into my bed for some 'Mummy Snuggles'. The best part of the day is mummy snuggle time. But on Saturday we spent all morning in bed together, chatting, playing, talking about the baby and school. We were laying on our backs staring at the ceiling when Barney remembered looking at the stars together in the deserts of America. Every day he mentions something from our big trip. So we lay on our backs and stared at the ceiling, pretending it was the night sky. Barney started to name ceiling paint spots after the planets. He's been reading a book lately about space and the planets and is learning the names and sizes of each planet in our solar system. So the light in the middle of the ceiling became the moon, the light switch was Jupiter, and various paint spots became different planets, stars, and comets. But intent on being correct, Barney had to get his space book to make sure the big paint spots were named after big planets, and the little ones after little planets. We had such a lovely time together.

The 3d baby scan, or bonding scan (see post below this one) has really helped the whole family to bond with our little unborn baby girl. But none more than Barney. Before the scan he would say to me 'I don't like babies, they are gross, I'm not going to cuddle it' etc. But since seeing Emily on the baby scan and watching the DVD at home with me a few times he has totally changed his feelings on the matter. He took the baby scan photos to school to show his teacher and the class, telling them 'this is my baby sister Emily Rosie'. I picked him up from school the day after the scan and instead of running to give me a hug, he ran to my tummy, flung his arms around my bump and declared "I'm sure I will love you baby Emily". Now and then he comes up to my bump and has a little chat with it, telling the baby how beautiful he is, and what a good big brother he will be. It almost has me in tears.

Jimmie hasn't been well the last few days, suffering from a fever and headaches, so I kept him off school today, along with Barney. The spent most of the day playing Pirates of the Caribbean together, with no sign of looking ill. But it was lovely to see Jimmie (13) being so patient with his little brother and teaching him everything he knows.

Yesterday poor Jimmie missed out on a trip to my Mum's house for dinner because he wasn't well, and boy what a dinner he missed! There's nothing like your Mum's home cooking, but this food was so divine that Dan and I were dribbling the entire way home just remembering how delicious it had been! Roast leg of lamb, steak & Guinness pie, roast potatoes, asparagus, pak choi, green beans, lamb gravy, mmmmmmmmm (I'm dribbling again) - all followed by a big strawberry pie. I ate enough for three people and Dan wasn't far behind me. Even little Barney managed a big plate of food through his sniffles. We weren't totally cruel though, we took a doggy bag of food home for Jimmie to heat up. He was pleased. We all watched the 3d baby scan projected up onto Mums living room wall like a cinema screen! It was great to see it in such detail. I could watch it over and over again anyway.

I'm sure I have a heap more I could blog about but I can't think at the moment. There's so many times I intend to write a post but I just run out of steam and don't have the energy. The BP tablets I'm on make me sleep far too much, and I'm constantly extremely tired. I thought I did so well at Mums yesterday , then I remembered I'd forgotten to take my medication, so that's why I had energy! Today though I did finally get a few things done. Lots of sheet changing, washing of clothes, ironing etc. But I also finally managed to fix the drawers in my bedroom which were falling apart.

Setlling back in

It's taken a little while to get used to being back at home. Especially as things are so different now. Neither of us are working at the moment, we don't have a car, or any money left, and we have the excitement of a new baby on the way. I've found it hard to settle back into home life. Firstly because we spent 5 glorious months traveling every day. Just waking up and deciding where to go and what to do. No ties and no boredom what so ever. Now, back at home I can't go anywhere as we don't have a car and I'm not well enough to get about the place. Secondly, life is not what it was before we left as we no longer have the business. Dan is at home, and taking over all the household chores, a) because I'm not well enough, and b) because he likes to keep busy. So, I'm a bit restless and redundant, although I cant complain as we've just had the best year ever.

The weather has been awful since we got home... rain, rain and more rain. I'm desperate to get back out into my vegetable garden. The only bit of home life Dan won't want to take over, lol. I've made it out briefly, twice, in between rain showers. What was once a beautiful healthy vegetable, fruit and herb garden (see here for the before photo) is now a jungle of 4ft tall weeds! Oh, the heartache!


I've cleared a few of them away, but I really only manage about 20 minutes of gentle weeding before my blood pressure goes up again and I have to lie down in a dark room. I'd really love to be able to get some lettuces planted, if nothing else. I do find it so therapeutic. This is me in my weed garden sporting some lovely pink welly boots and a 16 week baby bump.

The kids are settling in quite well. For the first week we barely saw them. Barney still keeps discovering toys he'd forgotten about. And the bigger kids have been inundated with offers for sleep overs, trips out with their friends etc. Barney says he misses the RV and misses America. He likes to sit and chat about all the things we saw and experienced out there. The bigger two kids are using the summer to catch up on school work they missed. Annabelle only needs to catch up on some maths, but Jimmie has two hours of school work each morning, which covers French, Science, Maths and English. They don't seem to mind doing it. I think they realise they got a pretty good deal with the trip.

We're so proud of Annabelle!

Annabelle is about to finish her first term back at school. I wasn't sure how she would settle in. She tells me that she enjoys the company of her friends but preferred home education for the work. This week she brought home her first school report. Well, I was blown away by it. Not only did she get a fantastic report, but she also received her first gold credit card. They run a scheme i the school where you receive a gold card for every 10 good points that you earn. Your gold card is presented to you in assembly. Most of the children in Annabelle's class are receiving their 3rd gold card, after 6 years of schooling. Annabelle has won her first card after just 1 term. The Principal had her up in assembly an announced that they had never had anyone get a gold card so quickly and they all made a huge fuss of her. I think it did her self confidence the world of good and I felt very proud of her!

A new day

Today was Annabelle's first day at school. She was a bundle of nerves this morning when she got up and put her new school uniform on. The whole morning rush is something I haven't missed at all whilst home educating. "Have you done this? Have you got that? Have you brushed your teeth? Washed your face? Come on you're going to be late." Ergh, hate all that.

Anyway, here's a pic of my darling girl in her uniform...

We took Jimmie to school first and then Annabelle. Annabelle's school have a kind of 'turn up when you feel like it' policy. Children can arrive any time between 8.45 and 9.10am . Needless to say we'll be as late as possible most mornings. I took her into the school, we met with the principle, and she and I (and little Barney) took Annie to her classroom. The Principle had picked out a buddy for her. She was all clued up and prepared for Annabelle's arrival, bless her. This little girl was chosen to help Annabelle settle in, because she loves reading and is reading at a very high level, like Annie, and also because her Dad died unexpectedly last year, and she has had a difficult time. They must have felt that paring her with Annie would give her something new to focus on at school. The poor girl, how sad.

I felt quite sad walking away from the classroom. I have so enjoyed home educating the children. I don't know if this is the right thing for us, and for Annabelle, or not. I do hope she is happy there, and that she enjoys herself and makes lots of friends. I hope so much that I'm not letting her down, making a bad decision for her. I have told her, a million times, that she can change her mind and come back home at any time. She has a month to try the place out and think about it. After that we will review the situation and make a firm choice one way or the other.

Today I have to sift through all Annie's home school work. The new school wish to see it to assess what level she is at. They are going to keep her reading the same literature that she is reading at home, because she is so much further on with that. I feel a bit nervous about taking in her maths work, science books etc in case they don't think much of it. I'd hate to home education a bad reputation!

I'll post again when I find out how her first day went. Now onto other things. It's been a busy week, a fun week, and a sad week. This weekend we had J's kids sleeping over for 2 nights (you remember she had my kids the weekend that Dan gave me the ring? - well this was payback). It wasn't too bad actually. All the kids were very well behaved and the weather was beautiful so they were out in the garden a lot. We spent all day Saturday in the garden... Dan mowing the lawn, Barney and I planting seeds, and all the kids playing on the trampoline. Here are some photos...

Here's Annabelle and her cousin B, wearing matching t-shirts. They spent the entire weekend joined at the hip (not literally!) Whilst the others were out in the garden, screaming and shouting, these two were always quietly hidden away in a room somewhere, playing together.

The other 4 kids spent a lot of time on the hammock or in the trampoline.

Barney spent Saturday morning helping his Dad tidy the garden, and Saturday afternoon helping me plant seeds. Here he is having a lift across the patio!

Barney has always been a great help in the vegetable garden. Here he is helping me to plant garlic. We managed to plant garlic bulbs, as well as calendula, spinach, 3 types of lettuce and radishes. There is still a lot more work to be done in the garden.

This is what our neglected veg patch looks like at the moment. It's basically been left all winter. We found a pile of carrots still growing, which Barney dug up for me. The herb garden is still there, but all the other beds need a little weeding and then some more planting. I quite enjoyed getting back into it again.

A change of pace

Well, well, how life can suddenly change so unexpectedly.

During the week Jimmie was involved in a school production, celebrating 25 years of integrated education in Northern Ireland. The 40 minute performance was very good (even though Barney insisted on yawning very loudly at every opportunity, causing ripples of laughter across the assembly hall, from Jimmies amused school mates!) They put on a very educational and enlightening slide show, with photos and captions from the last 25 years. Photos of all the bombs that had gone off in Northern Ireland, photos of protestant wall murals from Belfast, and newspaper articles from various conflicts from across Ulster over the last 25 years. It celebrated the integration of children from all communities in its school. To do this they presented another slide show, tracing the personal family lines, journeys and ancestry of some of the pupils. The whole presentation was quite moving, and I felt sure that Jimmie is in a great school, compared to the place that he went to before. It was wonderful to see diversity being celebrated, rather than shunned and hidden.

Anyway, Annabelle quite enjoyed her 40 minutes in Jimmies school. I could see her eyes lighting up. Any time I have mentioned the possibility of her going back to school she has burst into tears. This time I asked her, that if she could find a school like Jimmies, would she be interested in having a look around it, with no pressure to join it. She said yes, and got excited about it. I looked into some of the local schools. I was obviously determined not to send her back to her old school, and she was also adamant that she would never go back there.

I phoned the local Integrated primary school and spoke to the secretary. Places at this school are like gold dust, just as they are in Jimmies school. We were unable to get a primary place for them there when they were starting school age. The secretary told me that it was very unlikely that I would get a space in P6 for Annabelle, but that she would check with the principal for me. The next day the principal phoned me. She said that they had triplets leave P6 this week, to move to Spain. There were 2 children on the waiting list for P6 who had been offered places, and had just started at the school, but they still had one place left which they offered to Annabelle. To top it off, that evening was the school open night, for parents to come and visit, and wander around. So she invited us to pop in for a nosey, which we did. This morning we went back for a meeting with the principal. It turns out that her daughter is in Jimmie's class at the college, and she has heard all about him! She even told us about his Mika video on the blog !!!!!

The principal was lovely. I talked to her about how terrible life was in P6 for Jimmie at the old school. I explained how he often had up to 3 hours of homework, studying for the 11 plus. She relayed my fears and stated that P6 had not even begun their 11plus work yet. (I'm pretty sure that the 11plus horror started the first day of school in September at Jimmies old school.) She was very accommodating of Annabelle's home education. She asked that we bring her books in for the teacher to see, so that they would know what level she is at. When I explained what she was currently reading the principal said that it sounded as if she was way ahead of the average P6. She also offered that Annabelle could break into school slowly if she wished to, staying for a few hours a day at the start until she felt comfortable. I don't think that will be necessary, but was impressed that she offered.

When we came out from the meeting Annabelle said "I really want to go there!" I felt a bit sad about it, but also pleased for her. If she is as happy there as Jimmie is at his school, then it will be a good thing. I have told her to give it a 1 month trial, which is what we did for Jimmie. At the end of a month she can come back home if she wants to. We will see how it goes. So, from Monday 26th March I won't know what to do with myself. It will be just myself and Barney in the house. I hope to spend a lot more time doing things with him, instead of concentrating on Annabelle. A change of pace is certainly on its way for myself, Annabelle, and Barney.

The Secret Garden

This term Annabelle has been reading The Secret Garden. I remember that my Grandma bought me this book as a child, and it captivated me. So Annabelle was keen to read it too. Today she finished it. I thought I'd put this piece of work about the characters onto the blog, as I haven't posted much about home school work lately.

We also started a study today about Emmeline Pankhurst and the Suffragettes. I remember learning about that at school, when I was a child. With it being voting week this week, it seemed quite in keeping. We plan to develop this into a study about women's rights, across the globe. Annabelle is currently preparing a blog post about Emmeline Pankhurst which will be on here later.

Here is today's little bit of character study from the Secret Garden.

Click on the image for a larger version if you wish to read it.

Flowers Are Red by Harry Chapin

Click play on the little music box in the right hand side column to hear the song that goes with these lyrics below.

Flowers are Red
by Harry Chapin

The little boy went first day of school
He got some crayons and started to draw
He put colors all over the paper
For colors was what he saw
And the teacher said..
What you doin' young man
I'm paintin' flowers he said
She said... It's not the time for art young man
And anyway flowers are green and red
There's a time for everything young man
And a way it should be done
You've got to show concern for everyone else
For you're not the only one
And she said...Flowers are red young man
Green leaves are green
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than they way they always have been seen

But the little boy said...
There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in the flower and I see every one

Well the teacher said.. You're sassy
There's ways that things should be
And you'll paint flowers the way they are
So repeat after me.....
And she said...Flowers are red young man
Green leaves are green
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than they way they always have been seen

But the little boy said...There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in the flower and I see every one

The teacher put him in a corner
She said.. It's for your own good..
And you won't come out 'til you get it right
And are responding like you should
Well finally he got lonely
Frightened thoughts filled his head
And he went up to the teacher
And this is what he said.. and he said
Flowers are red, green leaves are green
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen

Time went by like it always does
And they moved to another town
And the little boy went to another school
And this is what he found
The teacher there was smilin'
She said...Painting should be fun
And there are so many colors in a flower
So let's use every one
But that little boy painted flowers
In neat rows of green and red
And when the teacher asked him why
This is what he said.. and he said

Flowers are red, green leaves are green
There's no need to see flowers any other way
Than the way they always have been seen.

Oil Painting - Evacuation Train - By Annabelle

Annabelle painting this oil on canvas painting last year for the local library World War II art competition. She didn't win but we recently entered it on a site for kids and she has received two comments from real artists. The site is to promote creativity in children through artwork of writing. They have authors and artists who comment on the childrens work. You can read her comments by clicking here. Annabelle says "The Evacuation Train during World War II which took the children out of London to the safety of the countryside. The children are saying goodbye to their parents on the platform. I painted this for a competition but I didn’t win."

Home Ed trip to Castle Espie

Here are a few photos from Dan's birthday yesterday. (See post below).









Today we went on a little home ed group trip to Castle Espie in Comber, to feed the ducks and take a nice walk in the fresh air. A few families turned up and there were even a couple of girls for Annabelle to play with.

Barney wasn't in great form to start with, due to his very late night last night. He didn't want to walk anywhere, complaining of a head-ache (not sure he has ever really had one of them) and so I had to push him everywhere in the buggy (another pound of fat burnt off for me! Wahey - 6 lbs so far). We fed the ducks. No one fell into the lake this time, thankfully.

After a while he started perking up and got out to play. This time he played quite a lot with the other children, rather that just on his own. He really enjoyed himself. On the way home we popped into J's house for a cuppa. Now Im off to a double belly dance class (double class, not double belly! LOL)

Home Education Trip to W5 Science Museum in Belfast

Today was the day Barney had been waiting for since the excitement of Christmas had died down. The trip "with other children" to the W5 Interactive Discovery Centre in Belfast. W5 is one of the best places in the world for children, especially the young ones. It's like a dream land! And best of all, we always go on school days when it's so quiet that the kids have free run of the place. We were invited to attend this trip with a group of other Christian Home Educating families. I was pleased to see a few familiar faces there, and many new ones as well. It was a good crowd that attended and there were plenty of children of all ages to keep each other company.

Annabelle was delighted that her friend from Enniskillen had driven all the way to Belfast for the trip. I had told her not to get her hopes up that she would be there, but she was, and so I didn't see Annabelle for most of the day. It was great that she had some girl friends to go to the older, more educational, upper levels of the museum. Usually she gets lumbered for hours in the play area with me and Barney. I keep meaning to take her on her own sometime so that she can really make the most of all the wonderful things to do there.

This time was the first time that Barney has really relaxed in the place and just enjoyed himself. The play level of W5 is just amazing. It has a mini kids supermarket (Tesco) complete with groceries, till, shopping baskets etc. There is a play cafe, you can build a double storey house, drive a mini, play with water, trains, sand, dolls houses, explore a castle, watch yourself perform music on TV... I could go on. It's a wonderland for any three year old (even for adults!) But usually I have to go to every area with Barney and watch him. In the car on the way there he was so excited that he never took a breath, and constantly chattered. When we got there he ran straight into the mini supermarket and didn't look back. He was happy to know that I was sitting at a table with the other Mums, chatting. Every now and then he came to tell me something or show me something, but this time he wasn't anxious about getting lost, or not being able to see me. It was awesome! I was actually able to have a conversation (several actually) and not worry that Barney was lost somewhere.

There was a new 'thing' there that Barney loved. A huge (life size) wooden puzzle. It was a lady, "a Mummy" as Barney called it. You could remove each part of her body to see what was underneath. You could take her skin off to see her organs, and then take them off to see her skeleton. Well, Barney just loved this and many times I saw the staff putting the wooden body parts back in after he had left them piled on the floor. Recently he has taken a great interest in what goes on inside his little body. A few weeks ago I heard him telling his older brother Jimmy (with great delight and animation) that he has a little balloon inside his tummy, called a bladder, which holds all of his wee-wee's until its time for him to let them out! Cute?! I bought him a book in M&S about the human body. It has lift the flap body parts etc. I intended to keep it for a year or so until he was old enough for it, but he discovered it and spends minutes every day pouring over the book with a look of deep concentration on his face. Then he will ask questions like "what is that Mummy?... A brain? That's funny.... Do I have a brain? ... Ha ha, that's funny... What colour is my brain?" So the wooden body part puzzle was right up his street. Maybe he's going to be a doctor.

After a few hours of playing, chatting and having lots of fun we joined all the other home educators for lunch in Pizza Hut. That was an experience! Pizza Hut obviously knew that about 50 of us were coming for lunch because they had saved 3/4 of the restaurant for us. However, they did not get extra staff in for their usually quiet lunch time and one poor guy raced in and out of the kitchen preparing pizza's as fast as he could. We all sat where we wanted to. As you can imagine all the children sat together. And all the parents (Dad's as well as Mum's on this trip) sat together too. The lady I sat with said something that made me smile... "you can really tell that our home educated kids are lacking in social skills can't you". Ha ha. So true. That is everyone's first concern when we mention HE, but all our kids were sitting together, chatting away, socializing to their hearts content. When the waiter came to take our orders he said that he had to order and charge per table. When we pointed out that most of the tables only had kids at them, and that those kids were from different families, so he couldn't possibly give them a bill, well he was stumped. We suggested that he take orders per family, but he just couldn't get it. "The computers wont accept that, we have to do it by table". My friend pointed out that sometimes we have to adapt to suit different situations, but he just wasn't getting it. She suggested we give each family a table number, family number 1, family number 2 etc. "The computers wont accept it, I have to charge per table!" He he. Some people do not have the ability to think outside of the box. When the man sitting at our table politely said "sir, would you like us to take our business somewhere else?" the waiter finally agreed to take orders from each family. So daft. I was in stitches.

Finally we were able to eat, except we all went for the all-you-can-eat pizza buffet. But the little man in the kitchen couldn't cook the pizza's fast enough. Hence you couldn't eat all-you-could-eat, because there wasn't enough to eat. It was more of an all-you-can-find pizza buffet. Still, it was all good fun and the kids had a great day.

Annabelle has now gone off for a Brownie pack holiday for the weekend. She was very nervous about going. I hope she enjoys herself. Jimmie will be going in to school tomorrow (Saturday!) to help with the open day. He is representing Geography, seen as he got the highest Geography grade for the term. Who'd have thought it eh?

Photos are below. There are two youtube videos of the kids at W5. If you want to see them click here for video number one, and click here for video number 2.

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?

Our latest pics from Jan 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 Barney 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. Dan bought me a nice box to keep them all organised in, and I've numbered the back of them in case Barney 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 Annabelle making another one of her papier mache cats. This was taken yesterday.

As well as this one of Barney 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 Annabelle 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 Barney played with Jimmy'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 Annabelle, Barney and myself set about turning it into a jungle. Barney 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, dont you think?

The Red Plate

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 Barney 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 Jimmy 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 Barney 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 Jimmy'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.

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!)