Lots of new things.

It's been an eventful and exciting start to the year with lots of new things.  For a start it's a new decade for me, although my change-hating girls have determined that I am now thirty-ten, as they don't want me to leave my thirties.  I had some lovely presents including this cushion that K modified specially for me.

It's Mr Happy!

Another first was a trip to Leicester to Orchestra Unwrapped, organised by a lovely HE mum, J.  It's a 'schools' event, that also welcomes home edders, aimed at 7-11 years to introduce them to orchestral music.  There were a number of pieces to listen to and a specially written audience participation piece, which you get a cd and booklet to prepare for.  We all really enjoyed it and K & M are keen to go again next year.

The really big (although rather small) new things, however, are Beatrice and Bob.  Shortly before Christmas, some friends discovered that one of their two newly acquired young rats had arrived with them already pregnant.  We have been talking about the girls having rats as pets for over two years and indeed had agreed to them having them for Christmas just over 12 months ago, but they decided that they needed to do more research about looking after them first.  The subject had been broached again though and when we were invited to go and meet the babies when they were just a couple of weeks old, K & M were very keen.  The babies were incredibly cute and one thing lead to another and 10 days ago we brought Beatrice and Bob home.

M and Bob.

Bob!

Beatrice.

Not everyone's cup of tea, I know, but they really are great pets.  They come out of the cage for exercise and exploration every day and K & M are doing pretty well with looking after them and helping to clean the cage (they couldn't manage it by themselves yet, as it's really big and takes some doing).

In other news, thank you letters are all finished (just), even the unnecessary ones (to each other, us and people they saw and thanked at the time) although for the first time they have decided to send a joint thank you for presents that were for both of them.  We have also finished reading Piratica and are now well on the way to finishing the first Molly Moon book, which the girls were given for Christmas by their occasionally childsitter (I'm not allowed to call it babysitting), who is a lovely teenager who lives just across the road and occasionally plays with them just because.  And finally, K has agreed somewhat reluctantly to write a review for me for a book she borrowed from the library, Precious and the Monkeys by Alexander McCall Smith, and I'm looking forward to seeing what she has to say about it.

A game-filled Christmas and New Year!

We have been given several fantastic games and played even more, so I thought they deserved a blog post of their own.

We received four games for Christmas, one of which was one we already have, one was a suggestion I came up with when asked what we would like, another was one some of us had played before and the final one was completely new to us.

The one we already had (and in fact K was given it for her birthday in October as well!), was Forbidden Island.  K, M and I first encountered it when we went to the board game cafe in Oxford when we visited Uncle S and Aunty P a while back and indeed I spent some birthday money on the game as a result.  The girls and I all really like this game, which is a cooperative one, although A thinks it's okay but finds it gets a bit samey if played too often.

The game that I suggested, was one that we had come across at one of the Imagination Gaming sessions at our local library, Take it Easy.  It involves places hexagonal tiles on a board to try to make coloured pipes reach from one side to the other unbroken, which gives points according to colour and length of pipe.  It's particularly good because it can be played solo as well as in groups of up to six and it involves a bit of maths at the end.

Part of our marathon Boxing Day games session.

Concept was the one that some of us had played before, again at a session at the library with Imagination Gaming.  It is very clever (if somewhat frustrating at times!).  We haven't played it competitively, but I don't think it's necessary to do so to get plenty out of it.  You place the markers by the icons on the board to get across the word, name or phrase on the card (there is a choice of nine options with varying difficulty).  This was one of A's turns in which he used just three counters - the main counter is on literature/writing/book, and the other two on woman/female/wife/feminine and small/lower/below.  Answer hidden below the picture - highlight to reveal!

Little Women

The final game which was, as I said, completely new to all of us, is a card game called Sleeping Queens and it was another hit.  It's fairly quick and reasonably straightforward and can be played with 2 to 5 players (although it's much quicker with 2).

We played all of these on Boxing Day, along with a game of Monopoly.  K & M do not employ classic tactics when playing this and generally decide to be 'nice' to each other and either A or me, depending on who out of the two of us does something that they don't approve of (which is usually buying either one of their favourite properties, Old Kent Road for K, The Angel Islington for M, or a property of a colour that someone already has, thus 'scuppering' them from being able to build houses).  Being nice generally consists of attempting to ignore when the approved person lands on their property.  They are also far more concerned by securing their favourite property than trying to make money.

Boxing Day Monopoly.

The day after Boxing Day we spent a lovely few days with my parents, seeing various family and friends.  K & M were particularly excited to meet their new cousin, Treacle, who is a rescue greyhound that Uncle M had got just a week earlier.

On the way home on New Year's Eve, we visited friends for lunch and more games!  There we encountered two more new games including Mexican Train, a domino game (but the dominoes go up to double twelve), which we all enjoyed, and Sequence, which can be played individually with two or three players or with teams (in multiples of 2 or 3) as we did.  The girls also had a game of The Game of Life Zapped, which they really like and we finished off with a classic game of Pictionary.

Today was yet more games and lunch with more friends, who had requested we take over some of our new ones that I had mentioned on Facebook.  So as well as Sleeping Queens, Concept, Take it Easy and the delightfully bonkers Big Fat Tomato Game (which we have had for a while), all of which we took with us, we were introduced to Moustache Smash.  There were eight of us all together, so we couldn't all play all of the games and K also played (and won!) The Settlers of Catan, which we have borrowed previously having been introduced to it by them.


In other news, both my girls, but M in particular, have decided that I over-share, so although they are still okay with me blogging, it'll be a bit less personal to respect their feelings on the matter.

Classic K.

K doesn't particularly want me to broadcast this, but I want to have a record for posterity.  She had to fill in a form for Scouts this week, something to do with a new database that they're doing.  She filled most of it in herself, but there were a few bits that she wasn't sure about, so gave it to me to finish off.  When I looked through to see what was missing, I noticed that she had ticked 'Other' in the section about religion, but hadn't filled in the box to say what that other was.  When I questioned her about this, given that we are nominally at least RC, she told me 'I haven't come up with a name for it yet.'  Further probing revealed that her religion worships four animals, a giraffe, a leopard, an elephant and a butterfly, all of which hatched out of flowers in Africa shortly after the dinosaurs died out!  It's not a proselytising religion, so she's not out to convert anyone and I don't have much idea what if anything else is involved, but it certainly sounds interesting!

Making all sorts of things.

There's been lots of making going on lately, quite a lot of which is for Christmas presents, so I can't give many details as I don't want to spoil surprises.  This is one that M made for her best friend J and gave her this afternoon, so I can share this one.

A shuttlecock fairy for the top of the Christmas tree!

M has been doing lots of crocheting and has finished, with a bit of help from me but very much mostly her own work, Daddy's Christmas present.

K has also been doing lots of making, I think more cards than presents, but since she hasn't needed any help, I don't really know what it is she's been doing!

Inspired partly by a lad at Asfordby who had a little box and was collecting money for his local foodbank, and partly by Blue Peter who had a report on them, on Thursday the girls and I went to the supermarket with a list printed off our local foodbank's website.  A & I had agreed that some of what was effectively his Christmas bonus should be spent on a donation and both K & M asked me to take money out of their bank accounts so they had a trolley between them too and we delivered it on Friday morning.

This morning, rather later than most people if our street is anything to go by, we put up our Christmas tree, which has come in from the garden for its second year.  As ever K & M have shunned convention and this year have gone for a giant panda by the name of Polly for the top (last year was a glow in the dark diplodocus!).

Polly in position.

The final effect.

This afternoon we had the girls' friends A & J round and the four of them spent almost the whole time making a film trailer on the ipad that their friends had brought round.  I had to step in once to adjudicate and argument between K & M, but generally they discussed, negotiated and compromised really well and they were all very happy with the final result.

In other news, the sloe vodka and sloe gin that we made with sloes from A's uncle's farm in Kent is very good.  I've made some rather lovely sloe vodka truffle chocolates and some chocolate enrobed vodka sloes.  The sloes from the gin are now starting the process of turning a bottle of red wine into sloe port!

Can't believe I forgot this!

On Thursday last week K & M noticed that there appeared to be a wooden train in very good condition in a skip outside a house about half a dozen doors down from us.  On closer inspection there seemed to be an awful lot of stuff in there that had no business being thrown away.  Both girls were as bothered by the waste as I was and M was also very taken by the train and asked me if she could have it and I replied that I thought it would be okay, but that she should probably ask first.  She and K knocked on the door a number of times that day, as we went passed several times, but it wasn't until it was dark that there was finally someone in.  In response to the girls' polite request, they were told that they could take anything they wanted. 

So on Friday afternoon, after Uncle S & Aunty P had left, first just K, and a while later M too, went skip diving!  They brought at least half a dozen bags full, mostly of toys but various other things too, most of it in immaculate condition.  There are a few things that they are keeping but most of the rest they cleaned up if necessary and some has already gone to a charity shop with more ready to go.

Very proud of my girls.

It's been a while...

I've got out of the swing of blogging lately, partly because it's been fairly quiet round these parts recently, so it doesn't feel as though I've got that much to say.  In addition to that though, M has some concerns about becoming famous, even though I have the settings such that you need the link to find this blog and I only refer to the people by their initial!  I have reassured her that she really doesn't need to worry about this and she has agreed that I can put things 'on blog' again.

Last week was Fun Club, which was the traditional Christmas show, where anybody can perform.  There were quite a few musical numbers and also a little nativity play by one family.  K has never been up to take part, although M has played the piano for the past few years.  A couple of months ago she had decided that she would play the French horn this year, but changed her mind a few weeks later and didn't change it back again.  They enjoyed the show though and joined in with the carol singing afterwards, which I accompanied on the piano.

On Wednesday, immediately after M's French horn lesson, we headed into town.  Ages ago the girls had been given cinema vouchers for taking part in research at Nottingham university, which needed to be used by the end of the year, so I suggested that we go and see Paddington.  K & M were a bit sceptical, but agreed to give it a go and we met Z & R at the cinema and R came in with us.  In the 11 o'clock showing on a mid-week morning there were a surprising number of people there, most of whom were over 60.  We all really enjoyed it and would thoroughly recommend the film and thought Paddington's hard stare was particularly good.  Z met us afterwards and we had lunch together before we had a wander around the Christmas market and then parting company to do a bit more shopping before heading home in time for the girls' swimming lesson.

On Friday we had visitors, Uncle S & Aunty P came for lunch.  It was lovely to see them albeit fairly briefly and we agreed that we must go and visit them again in Oxford early next year.

Monday was Asfordby, with a Christmas crafty theme, although the older children, including K & M, spent most of their time playing outside.  Afterwards we went back to friends' house and after some disagreement, it seems that there is a plan afoot to put on a short nativity play at the next Asfordby which is the Monday before Christmas.

In other news K has been experimenting with her art supplies today.  She has been using watercolour pencils and pastel crayons in her pictures, which I think are rather good.  I'll ask her permission to take photos to add here later.  Both girls have been continuing to read quite a lot, at the moment as well as the How To Train Your Dragon books, they have two books by Chris Riddell out of the library at the moment including Goth Girl and the Ghost of a Mouse, which they have both enjoyed. 

Following our completion of the Usborne History of Britain, we've started on a timeline on lining wallpaper.  So far I've put on the monarchs of England (Britain from 1603) back as far as Alfred the Great and will be adding on things that we read about.  At the moment I have been doing most of it, but I'm hoping that the girls will join in some more as we add more on and the plan is to expand to other parts of the world too.

The timeline.

Things we have done this week.

• Been to Asfordby, where there was a bring and swap session, where we took lots of things and only came home with a few (this is a good thing!)
• Piano lessons - for the first time in a month for various reasons - and practice.
• M's French horn lesson - and practice.
• Swimming lesson.
• Scouts for K.
• Read the final book in the Usborne History of Britain series; Britain Since the War, which filled a gap in what we had learned about Berlin on our recent trip, as it mentioned the Berlin Airlift, which although clearly was covered in The Story of Berlin museum, we had started to get rather hungry by the time we got to that part and had stopped looking at everything!
• Continued reading Piratica
• K has been doing crafty things, making flowers, a tiara and various other things out of tissue, paper, foil, pipecleaners and other things.
• M has started crocheting a hat for A.
• K and I listened to an episode of The Infinite Monkey Cage about Bletchley Park.
• M has bought, and read, two Daisy and the Trouble With... books on ebay. 

I'm sure there are other things, such as starting the monthly tidy up of the bedrooms, but given that I've been feeling rather unmotivated this week and feeling that we haven't done much, I think that's pretty good going!

Oh and I've had about two feet cut off my hair and posted the ponytail off to these people.