Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Learning stuff

Little bit excited tonight, my Ma n Pa are currently somewhere in the air on their way Down Under!  We haven't seen them in over 2 years.   They will be here for 3 weeks, consequently I may be rather more absent than usual.

In the meantime, Robert has been teaching himself to write his letters.


This morning I signed him up to start School next January and noticed that most of the kids I know on the list are nearly (if not already) a year older than him.  I was a bit nervous about my decision so checked what his pre-school teacher thought this afternoon.  "Sandra" she said "he's ready."  She proceeded to tell me how he had  lectured her about something that he had 'read' on a piece of equipment this morning and how he happily gives a Show and Tell!  Phew!  He can't wait to be in Mrs B's class next year, not sure she feels the same...!

And talking about learning stuff, here's what I learnt over the weekend...


I have mastered the knit stitch and was doing ok on purl.  Not very exciting, but I was chuffed!

Monday, February 13, 2012

Doh!


I was planning to write a different post and then I thought "Hang on, I did that a year ago"  which made me realize that I have been blogging for over a year.  I then had a look at some stats.  I have 98 followers,  I have written 88 posts (89 if you include this one), and have had 24,577 views!!  I have to say that is nuts.  It made me question a bit why I do this and who I'm doing it for.  Originally it was a chance to have a bit more of a natter than you can fit into a status update on Facebook, a way to keep Mother up to date when we don't get a chance to skype in busy weeks and when a good friend wrote this...

"Ah, I loved reading this, it was like you were right next to me talking.
You make your day sound both chaotic and magical. At least you didn't include a trip to A&E!
Looking forward to reading your future entries, will almost be like popping round for a cuppa. Almost. 
B-A xxx"

... I was thrilled to pieces. 

However, I have occasionally felt a bit like being back at school where you have the cool kids and I'm hanging around on the periphery, not quite cool enough, but then I remembered that I was very happy that way at school.  I'm fortunate that as I get older I care less and less what other people think about what I do, wear, think and am more confident in my own skin, beliefs and values.  I don't need anyone else's validation to be happy.  If no-one but my Mum read this that would be fine, this is not a popularity contest (although bizarrely it sometimes feels that way) and if people want to spend time reading my ramblings, then I am firstly surprised, but also humbled and pleased that people find it entertaining enough to bother!  

I sincerely hope that any lovely readers can read between the lines and know that life is never perfect, my house is a bomb site most of the time, my neighbours are probably sick of the sound of me yelling, I'm sick of the kids fighting and so on!  I confess to missing mums back in Scotland who I used to be able to chat to and realize that my children weren't freaks but were in fact normal!  I don't know many of the older boys' friends' mums so don't have that support here and sometimes venting a bit helps. 

So thank you so much to any of you who read my nonsense and comment either here or on Facebook.  I do love a chat but don't always have the time to reply or comment.  There is a reason that "Chaos" is in the title...

I'll just leave you with couple of pics from the two Swim carnivals from last week, thankfully mostly good weather and fun was had, I even got to enjoy the first one without a Small Boy causing chaos and was accompanied by Husband who has never managed to get to one before.  




Day 1






Day 2

















Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Thongs...

...or Flip Flops, or Jandals.  After my Converse post here, I promised a flip flop one when the weather got better.  Well the weather's not a whole lot better (may as well have stayed in Scotland frankly!) but here are all our flip flops, or flongs as Robert calls them.

You can click to enlarge.  If you want to.

Contrary to the evidence, this is not a sponsored post, although if Havaianas would like to send me a new pair, I'm a size 39...

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

We Love Lego!

Every now and then there is peace in the house.  More often than not I find this unsettling and go in search of whatever mischief might be happening.  To be fair this is usually unnecessary.

After dinner on Saturday evening the kids disappeared rather than demanding to watch recordings of 'Outnumbered'.   I have now lost count of the number of people who think that Meg is just like Karen, but more worrying to us is just how like Ben Joseph is...  Anyway, I went in search of the aforementioned mischief only to discover this:














The two big boys had spent hours building a Superhero School with speciality classrooms, staff room, Principal's Office and even a janitor!  I love the attention to details like the water cooler in the back of one of the classrooms! 

In other parts of the room there were Ninjago dojos set up and there was some Harry Potter Lego action going on, but a small mishap (aka Robert) had occurred resulting in the Burrow looking as if it had been on the receiving end of an attack by Voldemort himself!

In related news, a lovely mum from school sent me a message during the week to ask if I would be prepared to make another Ninjago head cake for her wee boy's 6th birthday party.  I umm-ed and ahh-ed then said OK.   Here he is.