What should have been...

...an ordinary school day turned into a 2 hour cookery session! Minnie and TP decided to make 'cupcakes' - and yes, it took them two hours to get them into the oven!! But they were worth it ~ no help from me, except for just before they were about to start spooning into the cases I looked at the mixture, which was more like thick milk, and asked them if they were SURE they had put enough flour in? After insisting for a bit that they had, eventually Minnie realised that although they had set the measure to '2 cups' they had, for some mysterious reason, then only filled it to one and were a whole cup short on flour! Mistake rectified, the mixture looked a lot better and they carried on alone! Here's the result ~ they were GORGEOUS!;

(this one made us laugh, we thought it looked like a flopped over turkey chick!)

Whilst they were slowly spooning those out into the cases, Bugs decided that he'd like to help me cook lunch. We were having cooked lunch because Thursdays can be a little crazy these days; Taz has Youth Band, then both boys are at Scouts, and Paul races out to adult band practice as well ~ all between 5 & 7.30pm! So he helped me cook tuna pasta bake and announced to me that he really loves cooking and can't wait to 'get creative' in the kitchen! Quickly followed by the idea of maybe doing Cookery at college, coupled with his photography (which he's still very keen to do). Not a bad combination of subjects ~ food and photos ~ very creative & arty and going happily hand in hand :D We'll see...

To be honest, today never really got started HE-wise. Bugs got up and got on, as did Taz, but I never got sorted for the younger ones. I decided in the end that I wanted to spend some time with Stitch as he gets a pretty raw deal from me too much of the time, so I spent a whole hour playing on the DACS with him ~ his new favourite activity ~ and he was one happy little man. He played so long he actually got to a point where he had had enough and went off to play something else (a rare thing). Just lately he is turning into a real techno-baby. He loves anything technological and is really quite good with them all. His obsession with the DACS though is one thing I am happy to encourage (he even knows how to connect it to the PC with the USB cable and turn it on!) ~ it works on his colour recognition, labelling & application, cause & effect, mouse control (yes, the DACS uses a stylus, but as a result I have seen a marked improvement, in just a week, in his ability to control an ordinary mouse for colouring on poissonrouge. I think he has learnt to notice the little pointer and once he learns to slow his mouse movements down he will have it sorted), creativity, and all sorts of other great skills :D It's brilliant!

BUT ~ just in case you were thinking of heading out and getting a DACS ~ we have had this about 3 years! We could never get it to work with XP or Vista. It wasn't the hardware ~ I knew that ~ but it would always freeze up after a few seconds and this, according to the reviews I've recently read, is a common problem. HOWEVER Fisher Price have released a software update for Windows 7 (why didn't they think of that before!) and guess what ~ it works!! No problems AT ALL! :D )

It's turning out to be a very creative week :D

My postcards arrived from Jessops. I have had 10 of my favourite and best photographs from around our village made into postcards. I am going to try and sell them and generate myself a little pocket money (or at least get myself known of!). They won't make me much, because unless I charge an extortionate amount I will only make 10p a card, so it's hardly going to be a get rich quick scheme! That said, if I sell some it will make me FEEL great :D!! I've also made a photobook of the area to sell, but I got a discount on it. If I had to pay full price for it I don't think I could sell it at a price that would earn me a profit ~ shame, it's lovely! :(