Liebster Blog Award -thank you

Last night I was given the Liebster Blog award by the lovely Jo over at Dandelions,ducks & doughnuts. This has really made my day and I am really happy that someone enjoys reading my blog. Especially as all I do lately is moan.


The Liebster Award is designed to be awarded to ‘small’ blogs with less than 300 subscribers to spread the blog love and get them out to a wider audience. The rules are:
1. Post displaying the award (done), linking back to the person who awarded you (done)

2. Choose your own blog picks (below) and let them know they’re awarded

3. Hope everyone discovers some new favourites

4. Revel in the blog love!

Ok, so I would firstly like to award this to Jo  She is a mum with six children just like me and she also home educates one, just like me. Her posts make me smile and it is nice to hear from someone with a similar set up to my family, And she officially has the coolest blog name ever!.

http://dandelionsducksanddoughnuts.wordpress.com/

Next is the lovely Catbus, who also has a large family and home educates. She writes beautifully and has offered me a lot of advice and lets me moan on at her over facebook about home ed.

http://allaboardthecatbus.blogspot.com/


Lastly I would like to give the award to Skippedydoodah for having the best blog ever (gush). I found her blog by accident after searching BLW and I have been hooked ever since. I love reading her posts and I am mucho jealous of her crafty ability.

http://skippedydoodah.wordpress.com/

So thats it I would love to pass this on to all the lovely blogs I have but if I started I would be here all day and Lola's demanding food, but I would just like to say I enjoy reading all of them for their wit,wisdom,advice,ideas and support.Thank you to all you lovely Bloggers.

Gabrielle

It is Gabrielle's 8th birthday today. I remember the day she was born like it was yesterday. I was 38 weeks and supposed to be getting induced at 39 weeks but she had other ideas and contractions woke me up at about 6am.
MrB had been sleeping in the other room as I was really uncomfortable the night before and had kicked him out of our bed. I woke him up and told him I was in labour and he grunted at me and said "What again" (we had had a few false alarms) he has never lived it down.
He eventually believed me and got up, the house was still quiet as the older three were still asleep.
It was a very eventful couple of hours - I insisted that MrB go and rescue our kitten who was having a fight with another cat outside, Our kitten then jumped through the window and attached itself to my (quite painful) bump in terror.
I thought it would be a good idea to have a bath and while in it my ctx got suddenly worse- mrb became convinced I was about to deliver in the bath and had to drag help me out sharpish.
Once in the hospital things went really well and I delivered Gaby two hours after I arrived.
Now I know I'm biased but she was beautiful the rest of my newborns have come out looking a bit like plucked chickens and got better as they got older but she was gorgeous from the start, she was a beautiful peachy pink colour and looked so fresh and new and just perfect.
Everyone was amazed by her hands she looked like she had stopped off for a manicure on the way out.
We had an overnight stay and came home on Mothering Sunday. Since then she has made life so much fun, she still has her style and can carry off any outfit often comes down wearing bizarre combinations that actually look good.
She is our girly girl, and likes all things pink but has a huge interest in creepy crawlies too.
She is the drama queen of the family and likes to play the diva our nickname for her is Golden Globe Gaby.
It is hard to believe that 8 years ago I was holding my perfect squishy newborn and now I have this beautiful girl who wants to collect worms in the garden during the day and  then spend the evening in the bath with a face mask on.

Happy Birthday Gaby boo love you millions.

What A Week

Quiet

The house is quiet. This is such a rarity that it feels odd, I don't like the thought of one day the house always being quiet. I moan a lot about housework but I just know when I don't have to prepare a meal for 8 every night or wipe a sticky surface down for the third time that day, I will miss it. I can't imagine my life without a small person needing me and I don't want my house to only have grown up stuff in it.
No cbeebies, No peepo, No giggling coming from upstairs when they should have been asleep an hour ago.
Hold your children close tonight and enjoy the memories you make together.

Just Photos Today

Bad Mood Bear

Day two of the fog and I am staring to wonder if is having some kind of super scary mind bending power effect on Lucy. Of course I may have just got freaked out by that film The Fog but jeez she is in a really bad mood.
Alice is home today,she woke up in the night complaining of a sore eye and good Mum that I am I gave it a quick wipe and sent her back to bed so felt a bit bad when she woke up with a bright red swollen eye! I did think she had conjunctivitis but her eye is back to normal now and she has come down with a cold (excellent germ sharing skills there Lola) so I think she needed a duvet day.
Anyway Lucy seems to be having jealousy issues today because Alice is home and it is driving me mad. She has spent most of the day upstairs only appearing if she wants to tell me I'm unfair or that she hates Alice, The favourite phrase his hour is "Well she is your favourite" sigh that is so untrue by the way, I do not favour my children I dislike them all equally.
Stuff we have done today this morning Lucy made scrambled eggs for breakfast all by herself and I taught her how to use the washer.. she asked I didn't decide to suddenly train her up as the cleaner.
We did some word games and then we decided to write a book for Lola except Lucy decided she wouldn't help and retreated upstairs.
The book was nice though about a Little Bear who loses his favourite book and goes through a park to look for it. Alice enjoyed drawing and did the front cover and blurb plus all the illustrations.
I think Lucy got the creative bug then as she said she is writing a book but we are not allowed to know what it is ...sigh.
All is calm for now, an hour to go til the school run and Alice and Lola are watching Toy story and Lucy is somewhere plotting against me hopefully cheering up.

Fed up

I am so fed up today, Lucy is having a meltdown for various reasons.
1)Because I don't want her to sit on Club Penguin all day
2)Because I have given her new clothes, this is not her fault though she has sensory issues and now the jeans she is wearing have been crafted by the Devil himself if you believed her,
3)She doesn't want to come on the school-run with me because it is foggy,

I am fed up because.

1) The toddler has a cold and has also had a wee on the settee so now I have to strip it down and wash it.
2)The house is a tip, I have fell so far behind on housework that the hoover thinks it's a coat hanger and the kids played hide and seek in the ironing pile.
3)MrB although helpful around the house seems to think he lives in a giant wardrobe and has strewn his clothes all over.
4)I'm very tired because I stayed up until 1am,watching the ER box set.
5)TheSon hates me today because I sent a note in to his teacher and put two kisses on it without realising.
6)The dog is on some sort of freak out at the moment and spends his days trotting, yes trotting like a horse upstairs and crying when he can't see us.


Ahhh well better stop moaning and try and get this house and various children back in order

Making Poo In The Kitchen

So I may have previously mentioned that Lucy is very into the Human Body at the moment. We ordered this book last week and it arrived on Saturday. The book is amazing and well worth the 2.20 I paid for it. It has simple pictures of the body as if it were a machine and explains things clearly and sensibly.
This morning we sat down and looked at the digestive system and 5 minutes later we were in the kitchen mushing a banana through a fake digestive system! Lucy thought it was hilarious especially squeezing the bottle to make the fake poo come out. We also found this site which explains the process very well.
I didn't take pictures our experiment this morning but if anyone wants to try it this is how we did it.

1) Add some food to a bowl (we used a chopped banana)

2)The bowl acts as the mouth use a hand blender for teeth and start grinding up the food, add some water which will act as saliva.

3) When it is suitably mushy pour the mixture into a bottle (food pipe) with the bottom cut away . Have another bowl (stomach) underneath filled with water (stomach acid. If you want add green food colouring to the water. When all the mixture is in the stomach, smoosh it around a bit more.

4) You now need a smallish bottle with a couple of tiny holes pricked into the side. This is your small intestine.
Slowly pour the contents of the stomach into the small intestine when it is all in you can if you want add a couple of drops of paint/food colouring or oil to act as the digestive juices.

5) Now hold the bottle on its side and squeeze gently. Some drops will come out of the small holes. This is the useful particles from the food  being taken by the body and used elsewhere.

6) Larger bottle with small holes again for the large intestine ..pour in contents and squeeze to show some water being removed which then becomes part of your blood. You are then left with a lumpy mixture (browny red if you use food colouring) it was a bit too sloppy (TMI) so I added 2 cups of porridge oats and we had made a poo!!!

7) Hold the large bottle upside down over a mixing bowl (toilet :D) and squeeze the bottle squeezes out the poo and that is the end of the process.


I hope this makes sense!!

Update

It has been a quiet here partly because MrB was home from work for the week and also Lucy had a rotten cold and all she wanted to do was chill out and watch DVDs.
Things are getting back to normal though, Lucy is into books in a big way especially non-fiction. We must have bought around 40 last week from various charity shops and Amazon. Her favourite is a questions and answers encyclopedia which she is constantly looking through, this has also piqued an interest in the Human body and she has become a little bit obsessed with the documentary channels and the constant A&E programmes they show.
We set up an account on Maths Whizz this morning and I was pleased that she could already do fractions. I am hopeless at maths so when any of my kids show a bit of talent in that subject I am a little in awe :).
Have also decided that we need a little bit of routine first thing or we tend to stagnate all morning  and before you know it 11.00 has arrived and nothing is done. So know when the other girls set off for school we are looking at a website called This Day In History. We look at what has happend and then Lucy chooses one which she is interested in and we do a bit of research on it, So soon we we will be full of random General Knowledge!
Other stuff Lucy did some painting with oil paints last week, my bath is still covered in little flakes of the stuff (sigh), then at the weekend we took inspiration from this Blog   and made homemade paint it was a lot of fun and the girls enjoyed making it aswell as painting with it. You can find the recipe here.

Faster Mummy!



A morning at the park

Oil Paint

Lola trying it out



Homemade Paint

Poppy's Princess

Sunday Moning Pyjama Painting!

 

Gardeners' World?

Just me and Lola today, MrB has the week off and has taken Lou to visit his Mum who is out of hopital now but still ill.
I feel like I haven't spent any time on my own with Lola for a while so I am planning on having some fun with her later and lots of smooshy cuddles.
I just wish the weather was a bit better I am so ovr Winter now and want to spend some decent time outdoors-the garden is like a muddy bog at the moment and very boring to look at, I do plan on changing that in the near future although I am a complete gardening noob, it can't be that hard though can it? [deludes self].
Anyway I am on the lookout for lots of pots for the back of the garden to fill with flowers -which will look pretty and stop the dog escaping hopefully. I want to use the small side for veggies and the big side for the kids to play in.

Watch this space...........

March! How did that happen?

I can't believe it is March already and that we have been homeedding Lou for a month now! Time just seems to be passing at a scary pace.
Nothing much happened last week all of the kids were at home so it was all a bit hectic and Lucy seemed to be in the mood from Hell for about 3 days too.
We did make play dough which ended in tears (Mine not theirs) after a full bottle of food colouring ended up on the floor.

This week seems to be going much better -we are meant to have finished the Victorian project now but Lucy is still so interested in it all we are just going with the flow. Today she has been reading about Queen Victoria and has just spent an hour working on her Family tree which she found in a book.
Talking of books, we went shopping today and found a load of bargains in the charity shops I am very pleased that I got this lot all for under a tenner: