Almost April Over...

I seem to find myself wondering, almost every single month, where on earth the last 30 days have gone! But they do, and life moves rapidly along side time...

So April was a whirl of... actually I'm not really sure tbh!

Main events included:
~ Phoebe Henna-ing her hair...

  

~ A family trip to the park (and brook) one afternoon, when the sun was really WARM for the first time.

    

~ and a visit of the Watoto Children's Choir to our church - which has given most of my children quite a 'taste' for visiting Africa ;-) They were incredible!

Other than that there's just been the run-of-the-mill home-ed life stuff and quirky family stuff here and there.

Stitch has been stretching my patience again. I'm not sure who's most to blame for my impatience with him. He is inherently bullish ~ charges at everything and takes care over nothing. I find this incredibly frustrating. It's not that he's not willing to DO any work, so long as he can do it REALLY fast and charge on to the next thing! He doesn't see the point in any of it. I think that's the problem and I lack the creativity these days to spoon feed him inspiration! The work he produces MIGHT be really good, but it's so illegible (not for lack of ability to write legibly anymore, but through lack of effort to do so) that I can't really 'mark' it (or even read it) to help him improve. He doesn't care though and I think I struggle most with his not caring. Eventually, last week, I had reached almost boiling point and decided something had to change in the atmosphere. 

Some weeks ago DD had asked how butter was made, Thursday afternoon, I decided, was the time to find out. I told them all to down their books and we headed off on a 2 mile round trip to the Co-Op and came home to 'make butter.' It held their attention for a short while - at least until the double cream 'turned,' but after that they lost interest and just did gym and romped in the garden instead. I persevered with the single cream until it turned a bit, but to be fair it did take AGES and gave me blisters in the end! Some friends of mine had by then taken Stitch and Chip off my hands to play at their house (to give me a break :D)

Before this week escalates out of hand too, I have decided we are taking a trip out tomorrow. So we are heading to the Imperial War Museum in Manchester for the day. Stitch of course has declared his complete disinterest and Phoebe is not terribly keen either, but is coming all the same. Jake has the week off this week, so he is joining us, and Heather (his girlfriend) might even meet us there too. It's an early train and a full day, but we can be home for tea, so it's great to be able to do. We are so fortunate to have three major cities within an hour's train ride - and the beach also - I keep telling myself we should make better use of our railcard!

The challenging part of my 'solution' to the Stitch problem (i.e. DO more non-book based learning) is that it throws DD into a spin! He likes to slot everything into tidy little compartments of learning and know 'where to write it down' on his chart. He can't cope if I say 'anywhere' - because these things cover a plethora of learning. He needs his 'boxes'. He is quite content with his books and tick-boxes. It's not that he doesn't enjoy the other stuff too, he just needs to be able sort it out in his head and if he can't then HE kicks off! H'edding 8 (now 6) such different children is not without its issues ;-)

One trip they are all keen to do though is a trip to Media City, so I've tasked them all with getting themselves Blue Peter Badges in the near future, and then we can go for just the price of the adult admissions! :D

On another topic; this weekend Abbie, Phoebe and I headed off to Reaseheath College's open day to have a look at their options going into next September. Reaseheath offer 14-16 education and are happy to have under 16's on campus. It's a very different environment to South Cheshire College - and to be honest, felt more accommodating and friendly all round. Abbie was brave enough to go off on a 'tour' by herself, to look at the Patisserie and Bakery course, whilst Phoebe and I went on the Animal Management tour.  

Abbie was very impressed by the look of the P&B course and after discussion with staff, has applied to do Level 2 BTec P&B alongside GCSE Maths & English. This will mean college 4 days a week (3 +1) for a year. She'd  be able to get her M&E out of the way before tackling any Level 3 courses :D. She could then carry on with L3 Btec in P&B (or Food Technology/Dairy if she wanted to change), or she could explore her other idea of doing Performing Arts at South Cheshire. She is very happy and quite excited about next year now, I think!

Phoebe is likewise applying for a course next year ~ a L2 VOP in Animal Care (equivalent to GCSE) and MAYBE, depending on what the college decides to do, her M&E alongside that too. She would be taking her M&E a year early, but would then be able to head straight into a L3 Btec Animal Management the following year, without having to do those as well. However, we threw the college a little by asking if we could do it this way, so we are waiting to hear back from them on that. It would be good if she could be in the same class as her sister, as they could then work together on difficult things, but failing that, she can do her M&E alongside her L3 Btec the following year - no issue. Either way, as of Sept she will be at college 1 (or 2) days a week too. 

I'm so glad we have such a fabulous agricultural college on our doorstep which enables Phoebe to follow her dreams :D And I am also grateful that the same college has begun to offer other more 'out of the ordinary' courses too, and we have managed to find something that Abbie should enjoy doing. Both girls can travel on the bus together (which is free from our village), and they and Joel can all walk to the bus-stop together because they go from the same place, at roughly the same time. The future is shaping up nicely for my teenagers :D

A Cause for Celebration!

It's not every day that your son get's baptised and for us this is a major celebration :D

Yesterday evening Taz (and 4 of his friends + one of mine) made this committment ~ I am one happy Mumma!

Congratulation son ~ I am so proud of you!! You make my heart sing. You make my eyes cry!! Love you lots ♥.
May God go with you every step of the way: every path you travel, every bridge you cross, every trial you face ~ may you know His loving hand of Grace on your life.

Happy Easter Everyone!!

Good Friday from the Roof-Tops

All images courtesy of DJBrianPhotography  (Bugs) ~ edited by me.

TOO Long..!

What more can I say than ~ my goodness, where did that month go?
I'll try to catch up with a little help from my old friend flickr.
I guess the over-riding theme of it has been sadness though :-(


June is a month of birthdays for us (as I already blogged) and I decided my gift to myself this year would be a 'new look', so I enlisted the help of my good friend (who was once a professional hairdresser) on the day before, and hey-presto;

TP joined in and decided she'd like a drastic chop too. I've always resisted her pleas before, but couldn't really in the light of my own change! So off came hers too...

The day of my birthday was tinged with sadness and worry. I woke to a bazillion lovely wishes on Facebook and my family gifted me with many lovely camera accessories from my Amazon wish list. It couldn't have started better! But later in the morning I was rung by my Nan to say my Aunty was extremely poorly and nearing the end of her battle. Later my Mum called me (when she arrived there) and we discussed my travelling down after I put the kids to bed (leaving a friend to babysit until morning) ~ to say my final farewell to Debbie. I really wanted to say I loved her just once more ~ before she left this life. It had been too difficult to phone her in recent weeks as her sleeping patterns were so erratic and prolonged. Mum, however, felt she would make it to morning and thought I should book an early train, as to arrive late at night might be too disruptive ~ so that's what I did. Due to arrive at lunchtime next day (it's a 3hr trip). I went to bed with a heavy heart. I woke to a text that said my Aunty Debbie had passed away at just before 5am ~ when the stay-awake nurse nipped to the loo and everyone else was sleeping :-(.
I still can't believe I didn't go by my instincts ~ or that I didn't get to hold her hand and say goodbye ~ or kiss her goodnight :-(. I still feel a little cheated. BUT I know she knew I loved her, I was praying for her everyday and I love her still. I hope she knew I tried!
Her loss is deeply felt. Ours is a very small family ~ just my Nan, my mum, Aunty Debbie, Alan (her husband), Sam (her son ~ only just 16) and me. We are close. Debs was the one who always brought the laughter with her ~ she was so creative, so artistic and SO witty! She was only 14 years older than me and I shared a room with her whenever we stayed at my nan's when I was small. She was the closest thing I will ever have to a sister really. I loved her immensely and it's really crap that she's gone (s'cuse my choice of words, but that's what a blog is for...)!!
I stayed with my family for a couple of days and while we were there Baby cut his first tooth! Paul came to pick us up on the Sunday morning. The funeral was on the following Thursday ~ just a week after she died, so we travelled down again for that (taking only Bugs, TP and Baby). Paul's Mum was kind and came up on the train, to look after the other children for a couple of days for us. 
The funeral was hard ~ so many people I knew from years ago when I was small came (school friends of Debbie's) . Our extended family came ~ the last time I had seen them we were celebrating Debbie's 50th Birthday together ~ just 3 years ago :( and I had a different babe-in-arms then! But it was also a lovely celebration of who Debs was and what her life had meant to so many people. I miss her...
RiP my beautiful Aunty.

Then it was back to normal ~ home-ed carried on. The children and I all needed to keep things 'normal'. We've enjoyed some lovely family times during these warmer evenings ~ water fights and family football being some of the highlights.

Baby cut his 2nd tooth and is thoroughly enjoying the feel of them, showing everyone his toothy grin (taken 30th June)...

and then he learnt to sit (he's really stable now, but still likes to launch himself backwards) ~ this was taken the first day he did it (20th June)...

About 10 days ago he learnt to drink from a cup, but he prefers us to hold it still...

Yes ~ there have been definate UPs, but then... 
as if this month wasn't sad enough... we woke one morning to find Mr Rosie (pet rabbit) dead in the run and minutes later Beth (his sister) laid down and died too. Cause unknown. They had their nails clipped at the vets just the week before and a 'once over'. They appeared healthy and well. It remains a mystery. They were about 5 years old.
The children were amazing. TP and Taz dug a hole at the back of the fern field (less visible from the house in the event of a fox...), put them together in a cardboard box and buried them. Paul made a little plaque for them and engraved their names. So sweet. So sad :-(

RiP Beth (black) & Mr Rosie (grey).

On Thursday last week we finished up 'school' for the year with a games day ~ always good fun...

Friday, Paul was away at a church leader's conference for a couple of days, so I dutifully trooped 7 kids on the bus with me into town for the Toddler group, end of term, 'Teddy Bear's Picnic' (that cost a mint!). The buses in both directions were late of course. They only run once and hour to our village (and we missed one by 7 minutes so had to play hide-'n'-seek for an hour in the church grounds while we waited) and then it's a mile walk to (and from) the bus stop home ~ we were all a little weary by the time we got in, but it was fun!! Stitch especially enjoyed the 'bumpy bus', but not so much the walk home at the end of the day!

On Saturday it poured with rain, so we stayed in and made pizza - from scratch! It was delicious and fun!!

And yesterday ~ we had a fabulous day in church...

• Paul was 'promoted' to Associate Pastor (from Assistant ~ small title change, big impact on position we hope).
• Sunday School prizes were given out for the year and the Youth Band led the whole service (they were brilliant).
• And 'we' (the church as a whole) moved into our OWN premises!

Other thing of note ~ Taz has begun having 'proper' drum lessons. We found a good teacher (someone who used to work with Paul in fact) and he is doing well, although the teacher says he still hasn't quite got a handle on what Joel is capable of ~ I think Taz is better than the teacher thinks he is!! But he is learning to read drum music and a few 'polishing' things so that is great too :-)


It's been a month of so many ups and downs...maybe the summer will be a bit more stable. I don't anticipate being bored though ~ I have tonnes of 'stuff' to get done, for 'school', home, church and maybe even me. There's some photography tutorials I want to read, as well as catching up on my magazines and I also want to do some more of my genealogy work I started last summer)! I think we are holidaying in September, so at least I don't have to fit that in just yet..!


If you got this far, well done!!
Catch you later :-)