Daddy's home!

It's been rather unusual here just lately.  A left on Friday for Washington DC and got back home at lunch time today.  It's not at all unusual for him to be away over night, but very rare that he's away for more than two in a row and certainly not over a weekend.  Not only that, but his trip clashed with a day away for me.  As a result, K & M had a whole day with a lovely teenager, Af, who lives across the road, they were perfectly happy with the arrangement, so much so that when I got home almost 10 hours after I'd left them, they asked if I could go away and come back later!

Monday was the first Asfordby group of the year, with the theme of recycling.  We all took toys, books, clothing and so on that we no longer wanted and could have a look through things other folks had brought with them, and take things you did want and anything left at the end was taken to local charity shops.  There was also a big pile of boxes and containers for box-modelling.  This was followed by some outdoor play, which seemed to involve the discovery of a small, shallow pond and resulted in some rather muddy children!

Tuesday was our usual busy day with piano, gymnastics and korfball.  Both girls have also been working on their Christmas thank you cards.  M has nearly finished with just one left to finish, although apparently it's going to take a while, as it seems to involve some sewing of some sort.  K has got a few left to do, but I'm hoping she'll be done by the end of the week too.

Today was mostly all about Daddy coming home.  It started off with M making a welcome back sign...

....and from there ended up with the girls turning the house into an art gallery. 

A Golden Eagle in oil pastels by M.

This afternoon, while A went out in order to try to stay awake and therefore hopefully get over the jetlag sooner, the girls and I had a look at some resources on the human body that we'd borrowed from friends who we are visiting tomorrow and are going to take back.

M - the human body!

As well as putting all the bones and organs in the right place on top of M, we also did them straight onto the mat and added all the labels.  We had a look at this activity card about the heart and talked about why we have a pulse, as well as the different parts of the heart and where the blood goes. 

I tried to persuade K & M that it would be interesting to buy a heart from the butcher to dissect and have a proper look, but they were very far from convinced!  We started to read a book about all the 'animals' that live in and on the human body, but only got as far as the bacteria (80 different types in the mouth alone!) and viruses, before we needed to get going for the girls' first swimming lesson of the year.