A few more snapshots...

Butternut & Sweet Potato pie - home made, pastry and all, by the fair hands of Abbie. 
It was SCRUMPTIOUS!


Macro-art by DD. There were faces drawn on the bricks.

BBC-inspired art by Stitch. 

This took him three attempts to get it to work, 

simply because he thought he could adapt the instructions ;-)

Can you think of anywhere better to study your geography :D? 
He was having to hold the pages against the breeze though.

Meanwhile inside...DD cooked fudge.

He did really well, but then boiled it a little too long, so it crystallised and I had to rescue it for him. Thankfully I succeeded and it tastes alright, but perhaps a bit to 'strong' - a little bit liquorice flavoured we think - and it still has some grit to it. Next time...

  

At the same time, Abbie was doing some cooking with Chip - making cookies.

  

  

He did all the work. She really just helped him with the weighing and the order of things. Look how chuffed he is with himself :D

In other news, Abbie had her college interview today and has a place to do her Level 2 Btec in Patisserie & Bakery, with GCSE Maths and English concurrently. It was a bit of a boring, paper pushing exercise tbh, and they didn't know quite what to do with her 'no GCSE's' status, but in the end it wasn't an issue. The chap we met at the open day popped in and remembered her - and pretty much said 'no problem' - I think he can tell she is going to be a great student to have around. As she is starting a year early, they just need to pull down funding for her, but having looked at government stuff online tonight, that really should not be an issue for them, especially as they are already providing 14-16s educational courses.

And, Phoebe has her college induction day in a couple of weeks too. Again, I'm waiting on confirmation of a couple of details, but she looks good to do her VOP + GCSE maths and English a year early (alongside Abbie), which will enable her to jump early onto onto a Level 3 course next year.

It's all change - and it's happened quickly - and been a so much simpler process with Reaseheath than it was first time round with Jake at SCC.

Gym & NBW

DD had a Regional Assessment day for Gymnastics last Sunday. He did REALLY well and came away with a Silver (Merit) which means he averaged between 80-90% over the 6 pieces of apparatus. I'm so proud of all his hard work! We should find out individual piece scores too, but he has a couple of days off now :D

And tomorrow we have a 12th birthday in the house!

This week we are having a Non-Book Week (NBW) so I can get some marking done (I've only done Minnie so far ~ that took me a solid day!!) and because the chids were desperate too!

In Other News...

Chip has taken to painting a lot just lately (that and endlessly doing puzzles)

On this day we started out with sponge painting,

but it rapidly warped into finger painting

and then generally making a 'lovely' mess!

There is a reason so many of my children went to playgroup!!

We've had a few warmer days ~ not many, just a few



And one of these days Bugs decided to give DD some tennis tips.



He turned out to be pretty quick off the mark!



How did I come to have such sporty boys? ;D

He Came Second..!

Nervous as he was he put his all into his gym competition today and it paid off!  

The competition was him and 7 other boys his age in the NW region ~ and he came joint silver on the floor :D

The little boy he drew with was the overall winner and DD missed overall third by only 0.2 marks (which would have given him bronze on vault and bronze overall).

His coaches and I were VERY happy with him.

A Glimpse...

That's how yesterday afternoon looked here: Lilo giving Stitch skipping lessons, Bugs giving DD tennis lessons & Chip pottering about amongst them all :D

DD has his first gym competition this Sunday ( just vault and floor). He's apprehensive. I'm wondering if it's going to be worth it! It's a REALLY early start, a 2 hr round trip to Wigan (meaning the whole family have to miss to church) and then 2 hrs there for about 5 mins of competing! Thinking he won't be doing too many of these just yet, but hopefully it'll be a good experience for him.

A Morning Glimpse

I'm hopeless at 'real' blogging these days, 
but I thought I'd share a little snippet of Wednesday morning with you...

Chip decided it was a puzzle day. 

He hasn't done too many puzzles up until now, but has suddenly got the right idea

And today it was hard to get him to move on to anything else!

Above was an attempt to do so, he did it for a short while, then back to the puzzles.

Problem with puzzles and Chip ~ he still requires an assistant and if there isn't one available launching ensues!

In other parts of the room TP was reading, & DD was reading to me.

A little after this Minnie took over with Chip and I did "All About Spelling" with DD and Lilo

Spelling is still a constant struggle for Lilo, but at least we have phonetically correct spelling now and she is making good progress. Most days she gets more spellings right than wrong now :D In the end, on this test they both got 20/25 with only a couple that they both spelt wrong ('oyster' being one of them, 'while' being another!). At the moment we are just running over a few of the more difficult-to-spell words, but when we are done we will be already on Level 3. 

In the study, Bugs was working on some editing of shots he took whilst at Focus On Imaging on Tuesday ~ which is really another post in itself...

Most of this time Stitch had been working on the laptop (probably on Reading Eggs) and at this point something required a LOT of attention... (there are a good many of these moments in our days!)

And all that before snack-break @11am, when I put my camera down and it disappeared for some time!!

Probably after snack I did some maths with DD & Stitch, DD worked on Explode the Code (Online) and before lunch we did Geography  all together. We were looking at 'Geomorphological Processes' this week ~ they all loved learning that word :D!  For Bugs and Taz it was a quick revision of material they have already covered (in more depth) in their Science this last year, but not for the others. I often get groans when it's time for Geography, but in reality they all find it quite interesting, so I ignore the groans!

I've no idea what happened the rest of the day, but there'd have been some older kid's maths and English going on, and Taz did some Science I think.  He did his end of module test today (Thurs) and got 100%, so now he's moving onto the next level course ~ he's chosen Biology, which I must admit surprised me rather. When I chose Biology at school it was because it was the only science I really understood, but I know he's chosen it because it genuinely interests him ~ which is a much better reason! Scarily like his dad, who did Maths, Music and Biology at college, Taz would like to do Music and Biology too (and said so before his Dad told him that's what he did!). Actually Taz could probably also manage Maths if he wanted to, but I'm almost certain that won't be a choice he makes!

So there it is, a bit of a morning here - in pictures.

Give a Boy...

... A Camera... 

It's Paul's very old phone, but when I convinced him to get it, 

it wasn't for the phone, it was for the camera!

The phone is now pretty much defunked, as the buttons are quite unresponsive, 

some don't work at all, and the screen is cracked,

but the camera is still brilliant.

DD has been NAGGING for a camera for sometime.

We bought him one for his Leapfrog Explorer, but it ceased to function (for whatever reason).

So, I gave him TP's little Vivitar hand-me-down, but he got SO frustrated with it, 

as it really requires the most steady of hands (never bother with Vivitar!).

Eventually, I bought a new battery for the Cybershot, found the charger and handed him it.

He is now one very happy boy, and has been clicking away ever since!

(his)

This was his first 'shoot' ~ outside in the almost-dark 

~ shooting birds!

(his)

No challenge there then!

(mine)

A little bit of Gym ~ in the park

Happy Birthday DD ~ 6 Years Young!

Stitch made one too....

In fact, they all felt compelled to spend their pennies!!

Lilo made a rabbit, Minnie - a bear and TP bought some sparkly sandals ~ she already has a 'Bear Factory' bear.