Oh so busy...

It's been almost 2 weeks since I last blogged. Time flys when you're busy!! Also Paul has been at the computer a lot writing his doctrinal statement for his application to Elim (for the ministry), so there hasn't been a great deal of chance to get on here either. So what have we been up to... let's see...

The other day we made some cool gingerbread families!

This was to reinforce the sound 'er' (gingER) from Joel's Jolly Phonics, but I felt it was a fun thing for everyone to do, only on that same day I decided to spring clean the house! The children did try to 'help' plenty. Bless them - they really tried hard. The girls were really wrapped with their green dusters, but how much dust they cleared I'm not sure - more like redistibuted it!!

And we had Ellie's dedication on Sunday this week - with all the family up to visit

dedication day (1)


Dedication Day (2)


My beautiful baby!


School is going well. Jacob seems to be getting used to the new scheme of things and life does seem to be generally more peaceful. We have also re-introduced a reward system for first-time obedience (well we can try at least!). This time the boys each have a paper racing-car on a drawn race-track. They each have to complete three laps in a week (10 spaces per lap) to get their 'treat reward', but it is a race to see who gets there first. Of course who ever wins continues moving and gets a 2p bonus for every 'extra' space the go. The main reward itself is not money (they earn money for chores - 50p for 10 small jobs), but something they have 'wanted' - this week they are striving for beyblades (they were buy 1 get one free!!), last week an S-Club CD.

The girls are joining in on this too. They have flowers to add to a stem for their reward, but there is no competition factor in theirs - they are too young for that yet I think, or at least I don't want to encourage anyway!!

Other things we have been looking at this week or so have included:

Collecting leaves from trees to try and identify the trees. This unfortunatly was not too successful as we need to not just collect single leaves but 'small branches' in order to get an accurate match. It was too hard with one leaf for even me to work out what was what!

Major discussions on Dinosaurs and how they became extinct! Now this I was hoping to start next year's history with, but looks like the 'moment' has arrived - but why is it always at bedtime! This discussion arose at 9pm - not the best time for major theological debate with a 7yr old! Anyway I went away and did some research and came up with this website; The Dinosaur Trail. I think it's great, so today we looked at just a few pages. Jacob seemed quite keen - I think because the information was coming from 'The Internet' rather than from Mummy he was more willing to accept what it was telling him.

It fills me with excitement when I see that Jacob is one step ahead of my plans, but that I am heading in the right direction for him. Sometimes I feel I don't know him at all, other times I realise I am actually quite tuned in! And one of the best things about this is that Joel gets to learn along side, by osmosis or otherwise. Both my boys seem to be 'swallowing' facts at the rate of knots at the moment and are hungry, hungry, hungry. I just hope I can satiate that hunger well enough. I'm thinking maybe I am going to have to keep their minds busy through the summer - maybe some project work might be in order. Something I've not ventured into before, but hey, why not give it a shot!

Just while I've got your attention - I'm setting up a small-business website: editmypics.co.uk - offering photo' editing services. I'm trying to earn myself a little 'pocket money' to help pay for schooling. As you may have guessed, my hubby is a student at Bible College and money is tight, so check out my site and put the word out for me - and use me!! The more people who look me up the higher up the search engines I'll come too!