Rain, Rain go away!!

Is this weather yucky or what. Not raining enough to make puddles for splashing in but drizzly enough to be miserable. I hope it clears up for the egg hunt at Thorpe Hall tomorrow, not least because I am manning a stall with my books and hope to sell a few.
We have had a nice few days. We dipped into more of our sonlight materials yesterday. We did some of the Singapore Math and the first story in the I can read it series. Sam seemed to enjoy the math more probably because we were using pattern blocks and playdough. As I am not matematically minded I find it a bit of a struggle not to be more biased in favor of reading. I have decided that we will start our sessions with math, rather than the other way around, which we have done up to this point. He asked for the pattern blocks again today after dinner so he must be enjoying them.

Went to story time at the central library today, unusually the librarian was very good. The few session we have been to in the past have been dire. We also had a good hunt around town looking for replacement eggs for our sea monkey set. The first set never hatched-due probably to operator error! We have tried everywhere and will now go off and try on line. we don't want the whole set, just the eggs.

We had lots of fun playing with the mudpuds this afternoon-thank you merry for having us over and hope you are feeling better soon. The day finished with a large helping of thomas on dvd while I raced to finish the baby blanket I am doing for my sil who is due any day. It is my first knitting project and I just hope she appreciates it for the love with which it was made rather than the way it looks! I didn't plan the colors of wool very well and it looks a bit garish.

yeah!!

As you can see I have finally figured out how to put pictures on my blog. Okay so it is a little fuzzy and not in the right place but I did it-and it only took 2 hours!! At this rate I will have published the easter pics by christmas.
This is a photo of my dad and sam at the airport just before we left.

Sam and Grandpa.  

A lovely weekend

This is my second attempt at blogging today-blogger at the first one! We had a nice easter weekend full of the usual things-egg dyeing, egg hunts, chocolate, church etc. Sam and I dye about a dozen eggs using our kit from the states and we then spent the rest of the weekend hunting them. A few surived to make egg sandwiches for M for lunch on sunday.

Saturday we visited a couple of our local english heritage properties-Kirby Hall and Rushton Triangular lodge. Sam enjoyed roaming around both, especially Kirby Hall as they had a egg hunt. Nothing like a cream egg to encourage of love of history and arcitecture in a toddler.

M had to work sunday so sam and I went to church and then to ride the trains at thorpe hall. He was so excited to see his favorite engines and their drivers. Everyone remembered him from last season and seemed pleased to see him. He decided that he was old enough to ride on his own so I spent most of the time watching him go round and doleing out money. Several of his friends turned up so he had a ball playing with them and chasing the trains. We had his friend P and his family over for hot cross buns after the trains and the boys had fun with all sam's new hot wheels.

Yesterday was fairly back to normal-tesco's and cleaning. M is on nights all week so he went off to work about 6 and won't be home until friday morning. We miss him when he is gone

I managed to fit in two runs this weekend. It felt good to take some time for me, even if though it made me realise how out of shape I am. I think I will sign up for race for life this year-I never managed to last year.

Spring has sprung...

or at least it felt like it up at Sacrewell farm today with the warm sunshine, the day old chicks and the gamboling lambs. It was actually our second visit of the week, we dropped in monday for a quick peek at the lambs & chicks. Today we went with "the boys" ( all our friends from antenatal class-we have been together just over 4 years). Sam was delighted to see them, as he hasn't seen them since we got back from holiday. He got to feed a lamb and get lost in the maze so he had a great time. It was a nice way to end what was a pretty productive day.

We had intended to go ice skating only to discover that it was cancelled. So instead sam finished off the easter cards we started yesterday. I did a dot to dot for the letters and he followed them really well. He wrote his own name-with the usual giant a. I wonder what that means? Can you do hand writing analysis on a toddler? Then we did a few pages of our new Go for the Code book. He really seems to enjoy the series. We then played with the pattern blocks that we got from sonlight. He was very methodical in making pictures with them but probably had the most fun making a tower and then knocking it over. Boys will be boys or at least mine will anyway.

I had a proud mommy moment yesterday-for the first time we went for a bike ride and I actually rode my bike instead of walking beside him. It is only a small thing I know but it was a big step for us. It was one of those moments when you realise that they are getting older. He was very grown up and kept asking when his training wheels could come off. I am dreading that time-not only because I don't think that he is ready to ride without training wheels but also because it is another one of those growing up milestones. It is an old cliche but they grow up so fast. It doesn't seem two minutes ago that he was a tiny baby. Oh dear this is getting very depressing, I had best move on to something less maudlin.

We have booked the flights for Dublin for M's confiration ceremony. We really like the city and are looking forward to sharing it with M's parents. As we are there for a few days hopefully a)the weather will be good and b)we will get to explore outside of dublin. Sam is looking forward to dinner at our favorite restaurant there and to having a ride on their new light rail system. We didn't get to go on it when we were there in sept.

a camping we will go..

We have signed up to go to the muddlepuddle camp in june. sam is very excited as he has never been camping. m hopes to be able to join us for a day or two, which would be wonderful. Now we have to get our tent out of the loft and check to make sure it is still all in once piece. It could take us until the end of june to find everything!
Have had a busy weekend. M wanted a new suit for his interview next week so we trooped into town. Unfortunately he didn't find anything but sam was delighted to find that we now have a lush in peterborough. I have never known a toddler to get so excited about bath bombs. Luckily the one he chose turned the bath water a lovely orange color, unlike the last one he had-a christmas pudding one.

We spent the rest of the day planning the reorganisation of the house. we are going to turn the dining room into a grown up living room and the living room into a playroom. the table is going into the kitchen, which involves taking out some of the working tops. It will take a few months to get everything done but the end result should be a house that is more liveable without toys in every room.

We have also set up frank's new tank so he should be in there by the end of the week. Sam can't wait to turn frank's old tank into a marine tank.

Now that things are back to normal from the holiday we are going to get back to doing a bit more. Our first project will be a scrapbook of the trip. sam took so many photos I don't know how we are going to fit them all in! My job is to delve deeper into the sonlight stuff and do some forward planning.

does minimum wage apply to a 4 yr old?....

We had an usborne event today and sam was a big help. he helped to set up the display, he chatted to customers about his favorite books-even if they didn't want to hear and then tried to help me put the orders on the pc. our math lesson today consisted of me calling out stock numbers and him trying to find them on the keyboard. he seemed disapointed when we ran out of orders! he has decided that he is going to use the money I pay him to ride the steam trains at thorpe hall. now he is 4 he will have to pay the princely sum of 40p to ride. I can't find a link for the trains at thorpe hall but if you are local they are worth a visit. they run from easter to october every sunday afternoon and they are narrow guage mini engines with carriages for passengers. It is a great way to spend a sunday afternoon. we went so much last year that all of drivers and the conductor knew sam's name.
Have cleared out a shelf on the bookshelf for all of the sonlight materials. had a quick read through one of the IGs last night and I think we are going to enjoy this. It leaves lots of scope for adding things to suit us and for skipping things that don't.
Sam watched the leapfrog dvd that we picked up in florida again today, twice. I think I will look into getting the rest of the series.
Back to happy faces and mudpud tomorrow. we are both looking forward to seeing our friends, we have really missed everyone while we were away.

where does he find the energy!?

We have been up since 6 and have had a busy day playing, walking in the woods, grocery shopping and looking for a new tank for our oscar Frank and still he claims he is not tired! I can hear him the in other room saying that he doesn't want to be in bed and that he can't sleep. I am tired why isn't he? If only we could tap into this energy source we would make a fortune. He hasn't stopped talking either, I never realised that boys could be such chatter boxes. He is very entertaining, though.
I have given myself until after the easter holidays to read through all the sonlight materials and come up with a plan of action. I will probably follow their recommendations but will want to add in things like arts and crafts. I got the first two go for the code books which we will start next week. we really enjoyed the one that we have already done.
S was given sea monkeys for his birthday for a friend and he and M set up the tank this afternoon. He is really looking forward to watching them, I just hope they do something interesting.

Comming back down to earth

having had such a wonderful vacation comming back to reality is a bit hard. We all enjoyed ourselves so much, especially sam. He really enjoyed spending time with my dad and my stepmom. One of my favorite bits of the vacation was going to the jimmy buffett concert. M, C and I had a blast and s really enjoyed spending the night with the in laws. Can't wait to see him in concert again.
now it is back to real life with a bump-bills, laundry and unpacking. I think we brought back enough toys to start our own toy shop!
One of my main priorities is to look through all our new sonlight materials and to work out when we are going to start and how we are going to schedule our time. I think we are both really going to enjoy all of the materials and I have asked M to be in charge of the science. He is much more science orientated than I am.

5 minutes to my self

we are still on holiday. matthew has gone home and we are staying with dad and amy. dad tooke sam to a fanstic dinosaur store over an hour ago and they still aren't home! I dread to think what he is going to come home with. I hope they enjoy themselves. sam adores dad but can get a little over excited at times. all in all we have had a good vacation. sam has loved seeing all our friends and family, especially their pets! he also came on leaps and bounds with his swimming. when the weather was nice he would spend all day in the pool. I see they are home, will finish later.