Baking, baking, more baking and Brum.

On Monday K spent the vast majority of the day in the kitchen.  She was doing a practice run for this evening's 'Great British Decorate Off' at Scouts on the theme of 'the movies'.  So in the morning, she made three different shapes of cake, using the standard recipe provided, then in the afternoon cut them up and assembled and decorated this...

Lord Farquaad's castle with Shrek's swamp and Donkey.

Granny came to stay for a few days and Big Grandad brought her in time for lunch, for which he joined us before heading back home. 

At this point I perhaps should mention that since M spent Saturday night in her own bed (rather than in with me) by necessity, as since we had visitors A couldn't sleep in the spare room (three in a bed hasn't worked for us for a long time), she has continued sleeping there on her own by choice.  Before she moved back in with me when she broke her arm, her habitual sleeping place of choice was in with K, which K was fine with, but just as happy to sleep on her own.  We have on previous occasions had brief bouts of M choosing to sleep alone, but they haven't ever lasted very long, but this time really does feel different.  I'm sure there'll be times when she feels the need to come back in with me, but this may actually be the beginning of the end of co-sleeping!

One thing that seems to be the case with M sleeping in her own room, is that she is tending to get up earlier and on Tuesday she appeared by my bed at 7.30am, asking if she could do some baking.  I told her to go away, have breakfast, get dressed, brush her teeth and make her packed lunch for later and then come back and we'd see.  She was back having done all of the above by shortly after 8 o'clock, so I sent her downstairs to start getting things ready and hauled myself out of bed.  To say I'm not a morning person is playing things down somewhat and she was not only expecting me to help her with the little bits that she couldn't manage alone, she was also expecting conversation!  She didn't get much of that, but did however, make some very nice chocobanana and raisin cookies, most of which she took to Fun Club as this month is was the annual table-top sale.  We also took quite a few things that we'd sorted out as having grown out of or no longer needing in various ways, including the girls' dolls' house, although this was slightly reluctantly in K's case.  She decided it was okay, as long as the baby could still be called Lucy.

As well as the sale, we had an outside provider come in this time, a "Curious objects man" called Stephen (unfortunately I forgot my phone, so don't have any pictures, which is slightly annoying as there were some very interesting ones).  The children were split into 7 and under and 8 and over, and while the younger ones had a look at some curious objects, the older ones (including K & M) went upstairs and tried to identify objects in bags by feel alone.  Then they had a look at some curious objects, which included:

A clockwork roasting jack

A 300 year old knife used for blood letting.

A tonsil guillotine!

A strigil

A beetle-shaped boot jack

With the help of some clues for most of the objects the children guessed, came close or not in different degrees, but they all seemed to enjoy it, and the adults found it interesting too.

After Fun Club we went home and left Granny to have a rest while we went to have a play and tea with friends and then the girls had korfball, so a really rather full day!  While K & M were playing with their friends, I had a good catch up with my friend S and also had a look at First News, which is a weekly newspaper for young people and we've borrowed a copy to have a look at (chosen because it has an interview with a woman who worked at Bletchley Park during the war) and if K & M are interested then I think we'll probably subscribe, as it looks really good.

On Wednesday morning M wasn't up quite so early, but still much easier to get up than she has been recently, for her French horn lesson.  She even had time to play for Granny before leaving for her lesson at 9.15am.  After her lesson we came home and then K, M, Granny and I got the bus into town for some shopping (Granny needed some things and we also got M some new slippers) and lunch.  Then it was back home for K to bake the cakes that she needed for tonight.  She just about managed that before it was time for K & M's swimming lesson.

Today we were up even earlier, as we were supposed to be getting a train to Birmingham at 8.12am.  Unfortunately things didn't go too smoothly to start with, as we missed one bus by about a minute and then the one we did catch, which should have still got us to the station in time, sat at a stop for nigh on five minutes, so we missed the 8.12 and had to get the next one.  In addition to that I also forgot to take the memory sticks that we needed for one of the workshops, so had to buy some en route.  However, we just about managed to get there in time for the first session at 10.30am (although did take a taxi from the station, not something we'd usually do, which the girls found very exciting!) and after that it was all fine.

The reason for our trip to Birmingham was Thinktank's home educator day, this was our second time at one of these and we'd all really enjoyed the last one.  K & M had chosen (and fortunately were in agreement as you need to have an adult for each activity) their three activities, Gassy Explosions, Smarty Plants and So You Think You're Game Enough.

Gassy Explosions was a hands-on lab workshop about acids and alkalis.  After some information about lab safety, and some questions and talking about acids and alkalis in general, the children got to use universal indicator to test various chemicals.  They chose an acid and an alkali to mix and 'caught' the gas that was given off in a balloon.  They got to show what happens if you make a reaction that produces a gas and trap that gas (mixing an acid and alkali in a film canister - it goes pop quite spectacularly).  Next they dropped some mints into bottles of lemonade, which although it seems to be a similar reaction isn't, which was pointed out briefly.  Finally, to end the session with a bang, we all stood well back while the session leader set fire to a hydrogen filled balloon.

In the lab!

There wasn't that much in the session that we couldn't do (and indeed haven't done) at home, but K & M still enjoyed it and got something out of it.

We then had a couple of hours to have our lunch and having met various friends there, we spent some time inside and out.  The outside area is particularly good.

Exploring pulleys.

On the big hamster wheel!

The next session was in the theatre, Smarty Plants.  It was fairly basic, but again still interesting.  First volunteers were asked to decide whether various things came from plants or not and while most of them were straightforward there was a silk tie included along with coffee, chocolate, wool, leather, wood, metal and more.  Then we moved on to how to classify things (very simply), what plants need to grow and reproduction.  There was a nice demonstration of pollination using an inflatable paddling pool with a bucket of 'nectar' (red balls) at the end, but the 'bee' (girl wearing a fleece on her legs) had to wade through the 'pollen' (other coloured balls which had something sticky, double-sided tape or velcro, I'm not sure) before she could collect the nectar.

Finally we went to So You Think You're Smart Enough, which was basically an introduction to coding using Scratch.  The children were talked through how to make the basis of a very simple game of a shark eating a fish, although both K and M decided they didn't like that and had the fish eating the shark.  I think that they will want to follow this up, as they both said that this was the session they enjoyed most.

We didn't hang around for long after our final session, even though we could have stayed another hour.  I did spend some money in the shop on various science kits that will be Christmas presents before we left though.  The trip home was less stressy in terms of timing, but ridiculously crowded on the train for the first few stops.  Unusually A was home before us and had started tea, which was good, because K needed to get ready for Scouts and M had a friend, I, (whose older brother also goes to Scouts) coming so they could bake, as they were both a bit envious of the activity at Scouts.  They had fun making and decorating cupcakes.

The decorating.

The end results.

Rather disappointingly the special guest judge, Jordan, one of the contestants from this year's Great British Bake Off, didn't turn up (not sure why, there was the suggestion that he was stuck in traffic), but K enjoyed herself very much, which is the main thing.

A bits and pieces sort of catch up.

We've been pottering along in a pretty laid-back fashion recently.  
K has finished writing her thank yous, still putting in lots of thought, time and effort into the designs.  She has also done a bit more maths, doing a worksheet about ratios, which we then followed up looking at a couple of maps which were to different scales. 
We've continued with the final Wombles book and both girls have been reading to themselves quite a lot lately.  K was given David Walliams' latest book Awful Auntie, which she really enjoyed.  Both girls have been getting Helen Moss' Adventure Island books out of the library and devouring them.  We have also finished the Tudors and Stuarts book of the Usborne History of Britain set.  

It's half term for schools round here this week and K & M spent a day doing gymnastics, which they really enjoyed.  I wasn't entirely sure whether it was a good idea for M in particular, but she was so adamant that she wanted to do it, having missed out on two of the days she was supposed to do during the summer because of her broken wrist, that I agreed and she did really enjoy it, although she was pretty wiped out afterwards.

This weekend we have had a busy one with a Halloween party for the girls on Friday, which they dressed up for in their own unique way.  M & I spent quite a lot of time painting a t-shirt for her costume, which we were rather pleased with. 

K & M, the vampire giraffe and the vampire polar bear!

We had friends visiting this weekend and met them at Calke Abbey for the day on Saturday, which we all enjoyed.  We explored the house and gardens and some of the grounds and watched the deer for a while, which was particularly interesting as the rut is in progress.  Although there were no major clashing, we did see one of the stags in particular seeing off some of the others very effectively.  

In the grounds of Calke Abbey.

K got very upset at one point and was in tears, after a couple had a go at her and M, because she passed them without saying 'Excuse me'.  I'm aware that, although according to K & M (who were round a corner out of sight at the time, so I didn't witness it) there was 'loads of room' to get passed and K 'didn't even touch her', children's (including K & M) judgement of how much space they need to leave people isn't always what an adult would consider appropriate, you do not teach children manners by being rude to them! 

K & M particularly enjoyed a game that C had brought with her, that she used as an ice-breaker with students at university.  It's based on the idea that there's been a drought and survivors have to hunt and gather to survive, there are food cards and at the end of each round you need to 'eat' one of your cards.  Each round you draw a card that tells if you have succeeded in finding food, which means to receive 1-3 cards, lost some or just not managed to find any.  If you run out of food you will starve to death unless one of your group can and will help you by giving one of their food cards.  The aim being to survive for 'two weeks' (each round is a day) but also to keep as many of the group alive as possible.  There were tears the first time they played when K 'died' and M had a spare card and initally chose not to give it to K, but after they had settled down (M changed her mind), they wanted to play repeatedly.  K rarely survived because she would always save others if she had a spare card, as would M the vast majority of the time, whereas some of the grown ups were somewhat more pragmatic!

Today we all went to Green's Mill for a visit this afternoon, visiting both the windmill and the science and discovery centre. 

The windmill.

C found it particularly interesting because, as a professor of material science, she occasionally uses Green's function in her work, but knew nothing of the man who had discovered it.  We spent some time in the mathematically themed playground, there are various maths signs either on the equipment or the equipment itself is a maths sign, for example the see-saw is a division sign.

This evening we had a bit of unwanted excitement! The girls spotted a small fire out of the bathroom window by the neighbour's backdoor. Standing on the loo, I could see our neighbour sitting at the kitchen table oblivious, so bellowed his name repeatedly as loudly as I could (that's pretty loud!). His wife had smelled smoke at about the same time and was also shouting. Happily it was quite easy to put out, although a bike will probably need a new back tyre. M was really upset this point though and worried that another fire would start, so I popped round to find out what had happened so I could reassure her. The wife had accidentally set fire to a tea towel in the kitchen and had thrown it outside, thinking it was out and it must have still been smoldering and it caught the edge of some cardboard. Both girls were reassured and were soon happily listening to Daddy reading a William story.  Phew!

Things that have been happening.

Things have been pootling along quietly here lately.  We've been taking it pretty easy and not really doing much outside of the usual weekly things (piano and French horn lessons, swimming and korfball, ballet and Scouts for K).  M's still very much under the weather, to the extent that she hasn't been going to Brownies mostly (she tried last week but I had a call that she was feeling dizzy and grotty again and wanted to come home after half an hour), I think we will be paying another visit to the doctor soon, who said to come back if she wasn't better in a month or so about three weeks ago.

Things that have been happening: 

K has been writing her thank you cards.  She always puts a lot of thought into the design and from the glimpses that I've seen of the inside, and the occasional questions how to spell words, she's also writing more than just 'Dear X, Thank you for the Y.  Love from K', which is definitely progress on previous years.

The car has 'Pull Me' written on it - to reveal the Thank You.

K & M have both starting using www.studyladder.co.uk, which quite a few folk had recommended online and a friend had said that her children were enjoying it.  There is quite a lot that you can do on there for free, so I asked the girls to have an explore and see what they thought.  Initially M wasn't really interested having looked at one small section, but after K had had more of a look, they have both got quite keen and indeed have continued to be so.  I don't cough up for many things online, but have done so for this.  Time will tell if it continues to go down well, but for now they are asking me to set them tasks each day.

I've been continuing with The Wombles with M and we're now on the final book in the set The Wombles Go Around the World, so I think we'll be having a look on our globe to see where Orinoco, Bungo, Tomsk and Wellington visit.

K has also been doing some more maths, continuing with worksheet that's I make to go with this book.  We're onto the final section 'The Data Gang', so she's done a worksheet on average, including the brilliant rhyme that I saw on Facebook a while back and made a mental note about.

Hey diddle diddle, the median's the middle

You add and divide for the mean

The mode is the one that you see the most

And the range is the difference between

We have also, finally, picked up again with the Usborne History of Britain books, with Tudors and Stuarts.  It's been so long since we started it, that we went back over some of the pages we'd already read, but have now read about the English Civil War and Charles II has just come to the throne.

M has decided that she does want to learn French, which is something that I am very happy about, but also find very difficult.  As an ex-French and German teacher, unlike with other subjects, I have preconceived ideas about this that makes it tricky for me to see things in a different way, but we will get there!  

Today is my lovely mother-in-law's birthday, which has sadly gone completely unacknowledged by my father-in-law, who is ever increasingly living in his own little bubble with dementia.  Our parcel did arrive in time though (I only got it in the post yesterday afternoon, so was a bit worried it wouldn't), with home-made chocolates (by me), a card (by K) and crochet decoration (by M) and a cousin of A's called round and took her some flowers too.

M's freehand crochet decoration.

Finally, we (A, the girls and I) went to a concert, as recommended by M's French horn teacher.  It was a brass ensemble he had been recommended.  They were absolutely brilliant, both musically and in terms of the entertainment value.  They're called Mnozil Brass and are an Austrian septet, who play, sing and are just hilarious.  Do check them out on youtube, here and here for example.

Yet another long weekend away!

That makes the fourth in the space of a month and a bit, so after a Christening in Durham, a wedding in Dorset, a visit to A's side of the family in Kent, this time it was a visit to my side of the family near Wokingham.  The reason for the trip was the La Leche League GB National Workshop, which I've missed for the previous two years (it's always around this time of year, so there's always the possibility of it clashing with K's birthday).  It was on Saturday, but A took the afternoon off on Friday and we travelled down then to my Uncle B & Aunty R's, who were putting us up.  While I was at the workshop (which was excellent, and I met two online friends for the first time), A, K & M walked and then took the train and the bus to spend the day at Legoland, where they had a fantastic time and although they got rather damp from various rides were very fortunate not to get wet from above.

Over our evening meal with B & R, I found it very entertaining when M was talking with R about some little glass pebbles that R had in a couple different places.  M has a few and she was telling R about the ones she had, which colours and that she didn't have any in the colours that R does.  She was so clearly hoping desperately that R would give her one of each colour; fishing, but not asking outright as she would have done a couple of years ago.  R did indeed give her a few of the pebbles and M was chuffed to bits.

On Sunday B & R were leaving us for their annual meet up with B's siblings and spouses (so my parents and other aunts & uncles on that side), so we said our goodbyes in the morning.  We were off to meet up with one of my oldest 'computer Mummy friends', another K (I'll call her Kd here to differentiate) and her family, along with our mutual friend, C who we met for the first time a few years back.  When Kd mentioned on Facebook that she was going to celebrate an old friend, I's, 40th birthday about 18 months ago and the friend had the same name as my cousin (Uncle B's son), who I knew was about the same age and was pretty sure lived where she was heading for the celebration.  You will probably have guessed that it was indeed my cousin, who it turned out was the best friend from school of Kd's husband, ex-boyfriend of Kd and had introduced them to each other.  Kd and I have 'known' each other since our eldest children were tiny and they are now 11, and as toddlers they looked freakily similar and even now you might take them for siblings.  It was so lovely to meet them all and after very little time indeed it was as though we'd known each other 'properly', and not just online, for years.  The children got on really well too (always a bit of a relief!) and we were particularly taken with Kd's absolutely gorgeous cats.

C, me and Kd.

On Monday, A had a work meeting not far from B & R's (he stays with them a couple of times a year when he has meetings at the head office of the company that has just taken over the one he works for) and was then heading straight to Brussels.  The girls and I had agreed that we would go (again) to the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre, fortunately we had checked the night before, as we found out that it's not open on a Monday!  After some searching online and looking at where was near our route home, I found that Bletchley Park was not far off the motorway at a sensible distance between B & R's and home, so slightly reluctantly the girls agreed we should go there instead.  It turned out to be an excellent choice.  I think K & M are probably the perfect age to take at 9 & 11, as they still get in free being under 12, but are old enough to get a lot out of it.

There were multimedia guides to use as we went round, which had a family tour option as well as the adult one, and it was excellent.  As well as description of the what happened in the different buildings around the place, there were clips about various different people and others to put the work done there into the context of the war and various puzzles and codes (admittedly mostly fairly easy ones) to have a go at too.  Among other things we looked at all of the stages that it took to get from the coded Morse Code messages that were picked up to the decoded and then translated from German and then sort of disguised to look as though the information were gathered by a spy (code-named Boniface), so that the Germans wouldn't realise that the Allies were able to decrypt their messages and about how that information was used.

The office in the library of the mansion.

K in the Post Office.

The Memorial to the works at Bletchley.

A busy few days.

Tuesday was Fun Club which was a science session.  There were various things to watch or have a go at, including dissecting a heart (which predictably K & M steered well clear of) and making a model of a lung (using a plastic bottle, balloon, plastic bag and elastic band - unfortunately the neck of the bottles we took were too big, so we'll be having a go at that one at home).  The girls also had korfball in the evening.

Wednesday was even busier.  We started off with a trip to the dentist, followed by M's horn lesson.  Then after an early lunch we got the bus into town to go to the monthly HE ice-skating meet up (our first since July, as it's not on in August and M was still getting over her broken wrist for the September one).  After skating we walked up to Knit Nottingham, so I could get some wool to get started on my next crochet project, a jumper for M.  Then it was back home for a bit of a rest, and K finished off the worksheet that I made for her on the subject of volume, before swimming lessons, then tea and the final of The Great British Bake Off.

Today was also busy but in a home-based way.  This morning we had the piano tuner coming first thing and a friend coming round to drop off books for me to take to the LLL Leader Day this weekend.  The piano tuner finished just in time for us to dash out for the girls' piano lessons.  After lunch our friends E, C, L & J popped round for a cuppa and play.  Among all this we've been doing household jobs, cleaning and tidying, and M has had most of the books on dinosaurs that we have out (and we have a lot), looking through them in preparation for the lapbook she has decided she'd like to make.  Finally this evening K has been out at Scouts.

Birthday!

Hard as it is for me to believe, my first baby is 11 today.  She's had a lovely day, despite the awful weather.  We met up with friends at Belton House and although the children would have spent the whole time in the adventure playground even though it was raining the whole time, they made do with the last half an hour before we came home.  K has received almost everything on the birthday present list I asked her to write in case I was asked for ideas, which was very modest and included a bike helmet for her sister who needed a new one. When speaking to Granny this afternoon, when Granny said she'd have to start thinking about what she might like for Christmas, K told her she didn't think she'd need any Christmas presents because she had everything she wanted now.  Both K & M have been having a go with Rush Hour, a logic puzzle game that she had from Granny & Big Grandad, which she's very pleased with.

Me & K aged about 7 months.

K last month.

Blood and maths

We've had some ups and downs since getting back from Kent.  The lowest thing was M having some blood taken for testing following a trip to the doctor.  Despite some local anaesthetic cream, it clearly really hurt (she later said it was nearly as bad as breaking her wrist).  It was very difficult, we teach our children that they have control of what happens to their own bodies, but although M was screaming for the nurse to stop, that would have been worse because she'd then have had to go through the process again, so I had to overrule her, because I knew that was the better option even though it felt wrong.  I really hope we don't have to go through that again.

Apart from the usual weekly things (piano lessons, French horn lesson, swimming, Brownies, Scouts, although korfball was cancelled), K had a catch up ballet lesson (she usually goes on a Saturday, so has missed the last two) we went to friends on Tuesday for a play and tea for the girls and multiple cuppas and chat for the mums, and we went into town on Wednesday. 

K in particular has been getting quite mathsy this week.  She's enjoying continuing with coding on Khan Academy and has outstripped my admittedly very limited knowledge, so we're having to try to work out together what the problem is when she calls on me for help.  Both girls like playing some of the games on mathsisfun.com including "classic breakout" and highest level that any of us has reached involves trying to hit numbered bricks in the order of the Fibonacci series.  I gave K the numbers on a piece of paper, so she could try to do so and when she'd had a go, asked if she could work out how the sequence worked and she did without any help at all.  This led a couple of days later to exploring Fibonacci some more by watching a series of videos, again on Khan Academy, called Spirals, Fibonacci and being a plant which were fascinating! 

In other news, we've finished another Wombles book (The Wombles at Work), the girls and A have been acting out Mr Men and Little Miss books with various cuddly toys, M is working on making an activity book having been working through one that she was given as a present a while back and I've finished another crochet top, this time for K.