Forgot to mention the snowball fight

I won, honest!!

Snow much fun for Pepper

Pepper's first experience of snow happened this morning, and she loved it. She has been racing around in it down the park twice today and keeps wanting to go out in the garden to play in it with her frozen solid toys she has left out there.

N has been re-watching the videos on http://www.bigredhat.com the Oliart on how to draw a face has inspired her again this week, here are just a couple of the ones that she has done.

I was able to collect the pottery from daisyroots today, here is how it turned out... I am very pleased with my 2 xmas decorations!!!

We have been doing lots of guinea pig cuddling and have even managed to bathe Beatrix and Marigold. Marigold has been joining us on N's bed at night to listen to Peter and The Starcatchers (the book we are reading for book club).

N had all her hair cut off this afternoon - WOW!

I have been thinking of lots of things to do after Friday, and my plans for the lonely evenings are;

sewing buttons onto a canvass in an artistic fashion

watching films that I haven't seen in a long time or DVDs that have never made it out of the plastic

sorting through the bookcase in the HE area and (eek) putting some in a bag for Oxfam (gosh now I know where N gets her inability to part with her books from!!)

plus it seems there will be a HE mums xmas meal and someone has VERY kindly offered to have N for the night

So I think I should be able to keep myself busy, plus Eclipse should arrive the 6th or 7th yeah!

Fun Friday

Last night after eating too much cake I sat down to watch Crimson Wing (well most of it until Hubby came home and wanted to watch the cricket) Pepper was very interested in the flamingos.

This morning we scrubbed out the guinea pig cage, tidied up N's room so that all of the guinea pig things really do fit in (2 bags for the charity shop were filled), and did lots of guinea pig cuddling. Here is N grooming Marigold.
N cooked dinner for her and her Dad this evening, Pasta Bake a la N!!


Looks good doesn't it!! Apparently it tasted good too!! Not a scrap was left.

This evening was the xmas light turn on in Witney (even David Cameron turned up) not sure if he was responsible for this ice sculpture though.

N climbed up onto a steam engine, (it was allowed!!) and everyone went 00000 when the lights were turned on.

Daisyroots and another cake!!

We went off to Daisyroots this morning for a bit of 'family together' time before next week (8 days to go boo hoo). Here is a picture of N painting a horse. Hubby ALWAYS takes longest (mainly because he paints two things), next time I'm only allowing one!!! Bless, although we did have to wait quite a while for him it was really nice to have time to do something together.

This afternoon N had her first piano lesson, and this evening we decided to attempt another cake. This one is gluten free and it did turn out better I think, although I couldn't try the other one so I won't know until Hubby tries this one. It melted in my mouth when I tasted it. The trouble is gluten free tastes best on the day you make it and as hubby has gone off to football and won't be back until VERY late he will have to try it tomorrow when it is less impressive. The day after that and it will be practically inedible. (if there is any left that is!!)

Guinea Pigs and Reptiles!!!!

Well we have had a lovely couple of days with our new guinea pigs, they are very cute!

We were off to the animal care course again today and Niamh was learning about Reptiles. They had a bearded dragon and a snake. Someone is very kindly going to email me a photo of Niamh holding the snake, so I will post when I get it. She was very brave.

We came home for dinner and Niamh decided to use a set we had bought from the 99p shop ages ago cutting fabric to fit a magnetised card doll.......

The thing is, these sets you get from the 99p shop NEVER have everything in the box (remember the empty sand bracelets box) well this set had one piece of fabric missing 2 sheets of stencils, and a whole bag of sequins missing!

3 additions to the Woods' household

We drove off to Charlton Kings this afternoon, I am not sure N got much sleep last night and was very excited this morning.

We got to the family's house and the guinea pigs looked adorable, how can you walk away from that!!! We bought the cage and they gave us some bedding and food.

We have mummy Marigold, baby Beatrix and sister Sweetpea. (N Chose the names)

More Pets?

We had agreed a couple of weeks ago that N could have some guinea pigs in the spring. She has spent a good 2 hours EVERY day researching how to look after them online and in books, and has used her pocket money to start buying supplies.

One of my friends found 3 female guinea pigs online offered free to a good home as the family need to re home them. It turns out they are still available and we have arranged to go and look at them tomorrow. So maybe she won't have to wait until the spring!

N has started a new blog called http://www.niamhsguineapigs.blogspot.com please go and have a look at her blog I am sure she will be keeping it updated!!

not a very successful cake

Alma Mater has been ringing through our house for the last few days, and now that we have had the piano tuned it sounds beautiful. N is starting her piano lessons on Thursday.

We decided to make a cake this afternoon, well it is Sunday after all. I reached for the trusty Delia Smith's cookery book. All In One Sponge - sounded good. The recipe starts with the words...

'For me this is the best sponge of all and should work even if you've never made a cake before in your life'

That statement filled me with confidence - but this is how it turned out... even after N had made the special effort to hold the sieve up high as described in the recipe!!

I promise we used self raising flour!! never mind N enjoyed decorating it.

We've been feeling a bit poorly

We didn't make it to the animal care course on Wednesday and N's screams could be heard all the way to Reading (an hour away by car!!) she desperately wanted to go but just wasn't well enough. So she did some painting instead....



Friday was the day of the long awaited Farewell Dinner for the Australian Cricket Tour, yep Hubby is off to the other side of the world in 2 weeks time. We thought we had better dress up for the occasion...



Anyway much red wine was drank by me in particular. It was all very impressive having David Barby off the telly to auction off the donated lots and at the time bidding whilst drunk seemed the thing to do. I maintain that even sober I still would have been after the house of commons tour and lunch ,but that went for £200 :( . I also thought the cookery demo for 4 people seemed good, so I was quite happy to bid for that, and was very pleased (even did my happy clapping) when I won it. A little while later there were 2 Wedgwood bowls up for grabs, our table was at the back and I didn't have my glasses on so, I shouted 'STOP! I want to look at them close up I don't have my glasses on', which clearly to David Barby means I really want those I'll buy them and they were mine apparently!! Never mind every time I look at those bowls I will smile to myself how I had never really bid for them but had to pay for them and take them home anyway!

Just found photo's online

Just found some photo's online of N at a dance workshop she did in the summer, she can be seen on photos 12, 13 and 14

http://www.whitestarperformers.co.uk/picture_library/

camera free week

Well its been a week since I posted and I have no photos to show - mainly because I keep forgetting to take it out with me. So here is what we have been doing..

Wednesday - N started the animal care course in Reading, I stayed for the first session, but assured her that is not happening every week!! I have more xmas shopping to do!! The first session was really good though. They were looking at Rodents and had chinchillas, rats, guinea pigs, rabbits etc etc. I am actually pretty annoyed with myself that I forgot my camera, and as I only have a £9 phone with no camera facility I missed the MANY photo ops. Someone did take a photo of N bathing a guinea pig, so hopefully I might be able to get a copy of that emailed over to me.

Thursday - I seriously can't remember what I did on Thursday.

Friday - It was the day for our monthly meet up at Funtime in Carterton with other Home ed families. I came home with 3 extra children!! N had fun though.

Saturday - N had Abdabs amateur dramatics in the morning. Hubby and I managed to get together for a hot chocolate and a latte (me / him) and a cake (yep they had gluten free ones) in the church green cafe thing which normally looks empty. N had an outdoors birthday party to go to in the afternoon, bonfire, toasting marshmallows, a Famous Five type mystery to solve, much fun was had, when I arrived to collect N and her friend she was prancing around in a short sleeve t shirt.

Sunday - N was feeling very ill, when will she learn to keep a coat on??

Monday - N still feeling sick, but more from the fact that Aiden is out of X Factor and Daddy has gone away for 2 days.

Tuesday - Today!! N has a friend to play today and then gymnastics before tea. Daddy should be home in the evening yey!!! She is excited about her animal care course again tomorrow. Note to self - remember camera!

Pian-Pian-Piano!!!

We were most excited to come home from gymnastics this evening and find the free piano has been delivered. N & I were putting it to good use straight away!! I was thrilled for N as she learnt a 5 note two-handed song from sheet music tonight before she went to bed.

I just need to get it tuned and we are away!

N is starting her Small Animal Care course tomorrow in Twyford, fingers crossed the place is easy to find.

Hobbycraft AHOY

After picking up L on Friday morning, we called at Hobbycraft on the way home and purchased lots of lovely things. After lunch we (Me, Hubby, N & L) decided to make mosaic coasters from kits we had bought earlier..........

Hubby did the Zebra, N did the dolphin, L did the Whale and I did the sunflower (I know it doesn't look like a sunflower does it?:!!!)

As N finished her coaster first she wrote some poems for her sister (who she adores by the way!!), here is one of them...

Leanne Leanne you are so feminine

Leanne Leanne you are so rad

You are calm even when I am mad

Your skin is tanned

Your eyes are blue

Your hair is curly

Leanne I love you

On Saturday I took L to Northampton Uni to look around, I really enjoyed looking around the art department at the students work and seeing all of the different crafts they can try. E very kindly looked after N while we were out and I think they had lots of fun together. Us older ones stayed up late laughing on Saturday night as usual.

On Sunday N & L used decopatch papers to decorate two papier mache boxes we had bought from Hobbycraft, L did the book box and N did the treasure chest, I think they have turned out really well.........

A spot of Spiro-mouse in the afternoon..........

And I baked some rock cakes and cupcakes ready for Nanny and Grandad in the evening.... N wanted to decorate of course!!!....

slow cooker and xmas is all I can think about

Okay, let me explain. I have a new slow cooker, I haven't had one before, and all I can think about is what I'm going to cook in it. Although Hubby and I are on a diet we seem to get through food like wild fire and I seem to be shopping for food every day! (p.s we are losing weight by the way, nearly 3 and a half stone between us, yey!) Anyway I keep finding myself browsing the slow cooker recipe books and then kind of making it up!

Secondly as hubby is going away in 4 weeks time I am trying to get lots of xmas things sorted out early. The job of writing the tags is normally his (fair as I do all the shopping and wrapping) and I didn't want him to get out of this task just because he is going to be on the other side of the world, so we started wrapping the childrens' presents early - so Daddy has still written the tags! Plus I needed to order a new xmas tree as we need a smaller one this year as hopefully (fingers crossed) we will have the very kindly given free - piano in the conservatory as well.

Anyway even with all of this running through my mind we have been up to this...........

make a teddy bear kit, this was on Halloween while we were waiting to go and collect N's friend, who was coming for tea and then Trick or Treating with us.....

We went to the wildlife park again on Monday afternoon, look at the their great pumpkin display, yes I know Halloween is over but if I had made decorations this good I wouldn't want to take them down either. I notice that their faces are permanent marker - this is a much better idea than carving, after all you can cut open the pumpkin afterwards and put all the flesh in the slow cooker!
They have two reindeer there now - see yet another reminder that xmas is coming....

We have also been to buy some decopatch papers and material ready for xmas presents that N is making for family.... (xmas again it seems to be taking over my life)

Tomorrow we are going to pick up N's sister, she is coming to stay for the weekend, I am off to take her to Northampton Uni on Saturday to see if she likes it. I never went to Uni so I am weirdly excited to see what its like!

N has emptied the button tin and is merrily sorting them all into piles as we speak so I better go, why do these things always start at bedtime!