GAMES WEEK...

Every few weeks I like to take a 'games week' : we down all books and do whatever style of learning we please ALL WEEK ~ be it games, outdoor play, screen learning, or anything else really. They have to keep busy and they have to stay off the PS2 or screen time that is just idling, but other than that anything goes really.

So the three littlest boys, and sometimes Lilo, spent a good deal of the time outside building dens, which was excellent in all sorts of ways ~ team work, problem solving (especially when it all slid down the bank), perseverance, safety (using garden tools) and of course good physical labour!

Then there's been some of this... 

a good deal of this...

and a fair few games of this, amongst the girls especially...

And now it's half term, so time for me to do some marking, DD to head off to his cousin's for the week and us all to chill ~ and maybe bake a bit :D

When the Internet goes down...

Today, well actually for the last week or so, our internet connection has been atrocious! Mostly we have soldiered on, but today it just went down ~ completely dead! As about 50% of the kids schooling involves computers for one thing or another, and a large portion of that requires an internet connection (strange how different things are for us now than when I first started out with Jake), this basically meant I had to give the children an impromptu games day!
They did what work they could, that didn't need internet, and then they spent a large part of the rest of the day play Monopoly city together ~ starting at 12.15 and finishing at almost 3pm!! 

Most stayed the course, but the little boys ended up going off to play after a while - I think they went and played lego upstairs. Minnie won ~ although she looks cheesed off here, she was thrashing them all!

I wasn't feeling like playing the game, so I had some luxury 'free' time to get my latest little crochet project finished. I only needed to do the breast overlay, the tail and sew everything together. I loved making this ~ especially working with the thread for the eyes ~ so fine, so rewarding!

A certain little man was more than a little chuffed with him (he'd asked me to make him a doggy with a tail) ~ and named him "Puppy" (of course!).

So today was quite a productive day, despite the lack of internet, and then just about the time we were packing up for the day, it came back on again, but VERY slowly! It seems to have picked up again now (thank goodness) ~ here's hoping it lasts!

So while I have a decent connection, I'll share some snap shots from over the last couple of weeks. There seems to have been a LOT of reading going on, which makes me very happy :D

Minnie has read Pride & Prejudice (devoured it to be fair!), dipped into Emma and given up and moved onto Sense & Sensibility ~ I think she's having a Jane Austin phase ;-)

TP recently finished reading Black Beauty - I'm proud of her for that - and is now reading 'Go Well, Stay well' ~ a book I read as a child about her age and absolutely loved . It has some deep and challenging content and she is gripped by it! I don't think I've ever seen her so engrossed in a book ~ even when she read 'Shadow the Sheepdog' (that Lilo is currently enjoying), which was probably her favourite book - until now!

Lilo, as I said, is reading Shadow the Sheepdog. This is a real step up for her, but I felt it was time to challenge her a little. She is still not great with texts that contain a lot of conversation, but as this story does not have quite so much as other Enid book, but it's also the KIND of story she would enjoy, I thought it would be a nice introduction to next-level reading. She is definitely enjoying it  and I hope it will give her the confidence and inspiration to continue in her reading journey. It's amazing for me to think though, that this time two years ago she was still almost completely illiterate. It's been a slow but steady journey for her, but she is certainly doing well on it now :D

DD is ripping his way through Five on Treasure Island and enjoying as much as I remember doing at his age. I think this was my favourite Famous Five book of all ~ and I read lots! They may not be perfectly 'politically correct', they may not even be brilliantly written, but the stories are perfect for inspiring the adventurous spirit in us! I just knew DD would be ripe for these and I was right ~ he can't wait to turn over the next page :D

Stitch is reading an abridged version of Robin Hood. It's actually quite a stretch for him, and he tends to rush himself a little (as he does in all things!), but he's doing pretty well. I feel perhaps he does better when he reads to himself than when he reads aloud to me, but that's rather hard to gauge!

Chip is enjoying some interactive Bible reading on their Hudl, amongst all the other many stories he loves to read and have read to him! He also has loved playing with these really cheap pegs that I bought for the chids to make 'dens' with (to hold up all the blankets).

There's been some experimenting... DD instisted on trying to get this Knex windmill to turn. I did try to explain that the design was not really going to work due to flat sails and general instability, but he had to try :D

And we have continued on making our Art Journal. I thought this weeks (which was a colour wheel) would be too simple for most of the children, but surprisingly they were all happy to do it and enjoyed it :D Nothing like going back to basics for a little reinforcement! This week will be on shading ~ I'm expecting that to be a bit more stretching for all of them!
   The week before last I was particularly pleased with Stitches work this week ~ love his cars! His pencil control and patience for these little projects has come on in leaps and bounds this year. I am so grateful for a few years of experience that has taught me not to panic, or push a child beyond points they are not yet ready to go. I may not always get it right, but I do more often than I ever did before. Stitch enjoys a little bit of writing and drawing, and is even beginning to enjoy colouring. His dexterity for these fine motor things is still a little challenged, but it's coming, slowly but surely and at his own pace. 

Blogging again!

Wow! Twice in a week must be a recent record ~ and this one might well be a blog without pictures! (shock horror)! 

In my Technical World...

You know how I was saying about my computer woes..? Well about a day after getting our new PC, I downloaded an update onto our perfectly functional 9 year old laptop and it effectively crashed it completely! :(

So I have spent several days trying to get that back up and running, and with not a LITTLE bit of frustration!

Eventually I've managed to get it running (thanks Tim M for your advise), but it took a complete system restore to get there. In the long run, this may not be a bad thing, as now it's running like new!! However, I do still have to try and get those updates onto the system without it crashing again ~ and when I have I think I will take it out of Vista up to Windows7 (which always seemed a much more stable & logical system than Vista). Vista is not even supported by Microsoft anymore without Service Pack 2 (which was the update that crashed everything), so I need to move it forward to keep it from dying a slow painful death anyway ~ that's if I even can!!

In my Home-Ed World...

The children started of this week in the 'normal' way and the first couple of days went well. Then, on Tuesday, I took TP, Lilo and DD for a swimming lesson (I'm teaching them now) and then swam my two miles. I got into the pool feeling absolutely fine and got out with a full-blown cold!! How does that work? Since then I've felt LOUSY. Just a cold, but an achy, heady kind of one. As a result I declared the rest of the week a 'games week' and next week is half term, so that gives me time to recover properly :D. I have spent these last two days marking their half a term's work (meaning I don't have to in the break) and sorting out the laptop. I can't tell you how relieved I was to hear that Windows start-up chime, but I don't think I've seen the last of my troubles yet! I tried to re-install just SP1 today and it failed, but thankfully didn't crash anything. Trying again tonight...

So, games week...

The children began yesterday by playing a great game of 'Settlers of Catan' (all but Chip, who was happily playing on PoissonRouge & Starfall on the new PC). To begin with all I could hear was Taz getting irritated with Stitch making too many mistakes, but being as Stitch is only 6, and hadn't played before other than on someone's 'team', I felt Taz was being quite unfair. I told Taz to treat Stitch with at least as much patience as he afforded my Mum (she's not great at games with lots of rules!) and things vastly improved! Stitch played the game really well once he got the hang of it :D. I think Taz won in the end, which would have pleased him too! 
Following the game, they sat and watched some old animated Horrible Histories DVD's until lunchtime. Then, after lunch, a few of them played 'Take 2' for a while (like Bananagrams, but played with scrabble tiles) - and then the 'school' day was pretty much done! 

I also managed to squeeze in a little photo-shoot to get some 'not-back2school' shots of Taz, and some better ones of Minnie (didn't like my first attempt with her). They can be seen over ... HERE...

I had said we would still do Art, but it just didn't happen. I fully intended to do it with them today instead, but again it didn't happen (mostly because I actually felt too rubbish to plan it properly).

Instead, today the children started the day by splitting up a bit: Lilo, Stitch and DD played Enchanted Forest and Labyrinth together, and then I believe Lilo played Junior Uno with Chip ~ she said he liked it :D.  The bigger three had a game of Carcassonne, followed by a game of Monopoly City (which they all agree is more 'fun' that original Monopoly, and is definitely quicker). The younger three wanted to join in with Monopoly, but the game had already started by the time they asked, so they dipped out and spent a good deal of time moping about not knowing what to do after that! 

Even Chip couldn't seem to settle to anything today. He played 'Paint', more PoissonRouge and a bit of Cebeebies on the PC, then came off and just got lots of things out, but didn't really play with any of them properly . I think he could have done with my company and attention tbh, but I was marking, restoring the laptop and generally trying to avoid being with anyone (feeling lousy). 

I was supposed to cook lunch today too, but didn't feel up to that even, so, for the first time EVER, Taz did it ~ and he did a really good job! It was an easy enough lunch, but I was still proud of him :D. While he was in the kitchen, busy chopping onions, the girls each made him a birthday card (involving watercolours, so they did some self-motivated art in the end). They've made a nice job of them too :D.

After lunch no-one seemed to really know what to do. I think in the end they all went and built towers with the Giant Jenga in the lounge ~ funny how they all enjoy that!! 

When Paul came home they all suddenly decided they'd like to go swimming! So, Paul dutifully dropped Taz, Minnie, TP and Lilo off at the pool, took DD to gym, collected Jake (Bugs) from college (after his residential) and came home. Stitch and Chip were disappointed not to go swimming too, but I was really not feeling up to it tonight (otherwise I would have been swimming my miles) and Paul didn't want to take them, because he had a couple of calls he needed to make. Chip went in the car for the ride (and a nap) though and Stitch just played on the Wii for an hour, which was probably better chill-out time for him in the end anyway.

Jake had a great time away in Wasdale, with college. Says they didn't do much walking, but what little they did do the other kids whined about! He's used to hiking up hills in the Lakes, so to him it was odd not to be. I asked whether he had lots of late nights and early mornings ~ he replied, "No, just early mornings ~ going to bed early mornings!!" He thinks he had about 10 hours sleep the whole week!! Glad he had fun though :D I'm looking forward to seeing the pictures he got, but I doubt I'll see him until sometime in the afternoon tomorrow!!!

OK ~ so just one picture...!

Give a Boy (II) ...

... A Stick!

and it can be so many things...

Maybe a thrashing instrument..?

but on this occasion mostly a javelin!

The Olympics lives on :D

Baby Boasting!

Little man like to watch videos of himself ...

over

and over

and over

again!!

The bigger kids like to play BANG ~ almost as much! 

Park Fun

After yesterday being such a bizarre day in term of weather ~ snow, sun, hail, sun ~ today was beautiful and sunny all day. The kids got up this morning and got on with their school work very nicely. I laid in WAY to late, having stayed up till the early hours hunting through old photos for last night's post and then making party invites for the girls party later this week. So when I eventually arose ~ driven my a cup of coffee courtesy of Taz :D, I announced to all that we were going to quit school for the rest of the day and head off to the park for some fun together. So that's what we did ~ took bikes, scooters, football, rounders bats and ball & frisby and headed off. We had a really lovely time together playing rounders and a version of french cricket ~ that's the advantage of big families! :D Even Stitch joined in - he has a fantastic over arm throw and can even hit the ball a little bit, although he does tend to hold the bat upside down and throw it as the ball hits! I also played a little footy with him and was amazed at his dribbling skills - fast, straight and accurate :D

At around 4 I call Paul to see if he wanted to join us. He was just leaving work and essentially (at least this is how I read it) said he would join us shortly. We stayed in the park another hour, by which time it was beginning to get cold and the light was fading. Still no Paul. I gave up as the children were beginning to get cold and we headed home. When we arrived he was already there! I was a BIT annoyed, but he claimed he hadn't said for sure that he was coming... In my mind he hadn't said he wasn't, so he was! A Mars and Venus moment me thinks!

Anyway that was our day, except for me out to music practice tonight ~ it feels really good to be singing again :D

Pictures from today over on my 365 :D

More Firsts...

Sometimes I wonder where my little baby is going - he suddenly seems to be mastering new things each day. I guess it will be using the potty next!

Today's first were drinking from a cup (at his request) and holding himself (avec nappy) and saying 'wee wee' whilst sautering off to the downstairs loo! Oh - and eating a slice of apple!

Morning school pottled along while I busied myself in the study making labels for our new Workbox System (soon to be implemented). Afternoon school was supposed to me History (Romans) and Maths ( Singapore MPH), but our printer is not happy with its refilled ink and won't print the materials I need atm + the sun was shining and we all just wanted to be outside. A game of Carcassonne was suggested, but not warmly received by all (some, but not all - mostly coz it was so nice out) and they had been playing bubbles (again) over lunch, so a brain wave came over me - happens rarely you might know! I almost caved to their pleas to not 'do school' - I just made it feel  like we weren't. I collected the 'Zome' and proceded to make a cube in an attempt to recreate this - it worked once - and that was enough - they were hooked! They then spent the next 2-3 hours playing with Zome and bubble mix (just plain ol' Fairy liquid and water 1:4). They learnt the word 'bubbleology' and instantly declared themselves to be such scientists! Mid afternoon I asked them to tell me what they were learning. Their responses were (as best I can remember them - I just wish I would remember to record on my phone when I ask these questions!); 

• "Triangles are harder to get good bubbles from, but 3D shapes are good." (Abbie)
  
• "House shapes and hexagony shapes work the best, but squares are quite good too." (Joel)
  
• "Double shapes with big spaces make great double bubbles, but if the spaces are too small the bubble just goes in together." (Phoebe)
  
• "If the mix is too thin or too thick they just pop all the time." (Jake)
  
• "You can make bubble mix with washing-up liquid." (Phoebe)
  
• "Whatever shape we make they always go to round." (Phoebe & Joel)
• "Sometimes they are so big they are all wiggly." (Joel)
• "The bigger they get the harder it is to get them to float." (Jake)

Not bad for an afternoon's fun :D. Check out all the pictures on my Picasa album. (click at the bottom of the oage), but here's a few of the best ones to pretty up the blog :D.

LONG week!!

It's been a mish-mash of good and bad this week. It was our non-book week and these are supposed to be a rest for me and a change for the kids, but tbh I'm not sure that they work all that well in the first regard as I usually end up more stressed at the end of them than I do when we are in routine. 

Monday - C had a bit of a temperature so we kept him home just in case he went down through the morning. As it was he was fine most of the day and has been fine since. We started off the day with squircle board which for this week's theme was The Vatican and person of the week was The Pope. They were interested enough in it (even if I did struggle to get stuff together for it). I had planned to make a rosary bead as a craft to go with, not that we are Catholic or anything, but just as something about a different 'strand' of our Christian faith. As it was that never happened because I didn't get round to resourcing it! After squircle board the children tried to re-act Jake's play of a part of Melusine. While they were doing that I spent some tot-school time with C working on shapes and patterns with this;

Sadly the 'play' ended up with the boys squabbling (as usual) and me taking over as 'narrator' - really no big issues, just J2 not being able to accept not being in charge! Once that was over the kids all got measured ready for our 'drawing to scale' activity. Was amazed to find that Jake is almost 160cms already - that's 5'2"!! He's not yet twelve - he will be as tall as me by the time he reaches his teens at that rate! Also interesting that there was only 1cm between J2 and A (representing 2.5 years in age!!). We then took a break for a bit & later in the afternoon I sat them all down and did an ad libbed lesson on drawing to scale. This actually meant a little bit of explanation on decimals and how they can be translated to fractions (of cms). I was amazed at their seeming level of understanding. When I asked what 5/10ths was E (age 5) - with the help of a little picture - was the one who saw it was 1/2. It was complicated to teach three concepts in one, but somehow I think they really got it and the drawing went really well. They drew themselves 1:10 (hence the reason for the decimals lesson). I didn't teach them about ratio, but simply said they were going to draw themselves 1/10th of their real height, which in effect meant they learnt about ratio too without knowing it was called that. They did some great pictures of themselves and I want to keep the outcome as a memento of how tall they are just now and how they all drew and coloured at this age.

Tuesday - Thursday 

We decided (with a little persuasion from me) to make a start on this. I bought it ages back, along with some others in the series and ever since we did an American Indian one, Boo has been begging to do the other one. I didn't want to do the same type of thing again just yet + storage of the gorgeous models is an issue! Instead I persuaded them all to have a go at this because we can make a lapbook with the models (as most of them are flat). They did succumb and we had a good time with it for the rest of the week. We have learnt about the seven systems of the body (an overview), types of body cells, some types of body tissue, the brain and it's functions, neurons, eyes, and ears. We didn't quite finish off all I had hoped - which was to do sight, touch and smell and complete 'The Nervous System' (and associated organs), but we can pick up next non-book week. That's the beauty of lapbooks :)

As an aside, but relevant all the same, I have been sadly stunned by how LITTLE Jacob knows about all this - considering he got Level 4 Science SATS. He didn't know the 7 systems of the body. Even once he had been informed of them he couldn't clearly sort out which system he thought each major organ should be in - meaning he does not have a very thorough understanding of the basic functions of any of the major organs of the body. I know science and memorisation of facts are NOT his strong point at all, but really... I am SO glad I decided to push this now because it will be teaching Jake the stuff he should already know without him feeling like he is being patronised by me. Hopefully it will give him a starting point for some more serious science next year. I can't imagine he is ever going to do anything really scientific in life and I have considered dropping 'science' as a whole subject out of his curriculum entirely (giving him more time to focus on art and dance - and the things he excels at), but in reality a) I don't think he would really want me too as it "can be fun sometimes" and b) I think he should have at least a basic level knowledge of how the world hangs together. But it does make me wonder exactly what science (if any) he did at school!

Integrated Tot-School.

At some point in Tuesday C played with this a bit (note the ever present Hula Hoop packet!),

 at other points he joined in with us a bit and did some colouring along with the others. He was disappointed not to be able to cut anything out of the project work, but was not content to do some cutting out of his own, so we did have a melt down or two :(  However, he did enjoy joining in with our make-believe 'ear' (toilet roll and greaseproof paper), and the couple of games we have played to help get ideas across; for 'NO BONES!!' one person calls out an action like "skip", or "hop", etc... and then at some point shouts "no bones," at which point everyone else flops to the floor like jelly - amidst fits of giggles as they all land on top of one another! Mine can play this game endlessly it seems & they ALL love it! :) Ellie calls it the floppy game and has wanted to play it everyday since Monday! Then "SILENT MESSAGES" is designed to help them understand the workings of neurons. They all stand in a circle holding hands. On the word "Go!" I start of a timer & one person squeezes the hand of another. They pass the squeeze around till it gets back to the beginning hand. The last/first person then shouts "Stop!" The idea is to see how fast they can get the message round. A variation on the theme is to stand them in a line finger-tips to finger-tips and pass 'tickly fingers' along the line (and maybe back again) as fast at they can . This is actually a little harder, but possibly better as a visual illustration of how the dendrites and terminals of the neurons work. They were fascinated to think that while they were acting like neurons the neurons in their own bodies were doing the same thing, only at lightening speed!

Thursday pm

The smallest ones went for a rest and I played Ticket to Ride with the older four (P 'teamed up' with Jake). J2 won - with 8 journeys under his belt!! A lost, but not by a great deal and she did remarkably well considering her age (8) and the fact she had NO help until the very last. Jake & I drew scores exactly. 

If you are wondering why all this lovely together-school stuff would be more stressful than our normal routine I can explain. I have an 11.5 yo joker-boy in my classroom, a 10yo hoppity, "can't control my laughter" son who sits opposite, an 8yod getting to the 'I know everything before I do' stage, a mousey 7yod who forgets what you said 2 seconds ago (& who is quite capable of giggling along with the others) and an airy-fairy 5yod who takes every item of fact and makes it part of her fantasy world!! Mix that together with a 3yos who wants in on the act and a 20mos who climbs up and dances in the middle of the table you are working on to make sure you notice him!! That makes quite a cocktail and it's not very conducive to everyone listening and learning sensibly, 'front lead' teaching from me. Now one-on-one these kinds of 'free(r)-style' weeks might be even more fun and not requiring of the 'teacher' bit so much, but in a mixed age group that haven't quite learnt enough respect for the next member, I get a headache! They all call out comments (although that is getting better), one makes jokes, and they all try to be the first to show off how much they know, or worse still I have one that rarely answers anything because she knows if she says nothing for long enough someone else will give the answer! It's not like we aren't doing the hands-on fun stuff too, but I have to do a bit of 'teaching' for it all to make any sense to the younger ones (and maybe the older ones as well it seems). On Tuesday morning it did actually get to a point where I wasn't willing to continue trying to 'keep order' and I made them all do an hour of silent book-maths instead! They were not happy but it did the trick. The girls were 90% better after that, but the two big boys still mucked about too much for my liking and so had to do ANOTHER hour of maths after school. I don't like using maths as a punishment really, but it needed to be something they were least likely to need me for help with and that they didn't want to do! I gave them all a straight up chat after school and said that if things didn't improve drastically not only would I call off THIS non-book week, but I would be considering not scheduling them in at all next year - and I would scrap non-book DAYS as well. This definitely got them thinking and they did majorly improve for the rest of the week - now they need to show they mean it by keeping it up next time round! I am not into 'crowd control' - that's not what I want my HE to look like. I want it to be good fun, but I need them all to understand that it is only fun when it is fun for everyone - and that includes me - and for it to be that way they need to learn to learn a lot more respect for each other (and me) so that everyone gets a fair share at taking part, I can think clearly and not get be-fuzzed & grumpy and we can all learn together and from each other. School should not be a competition - it should be am exhilarating ride!!

Moving on...

P went away on Thursday to his Grandad's funeral in Portsmouth, leaving me solo for the last couple of days. So after all the busyness of the day I ventured out to kitchen to cook tea. When tea was done I was seriously flagging and I think Jake saw this and kindly volunteered to bath the small boys :) He duly did so very well while I washed up. He even managed to put N's nappy on and was so chuffed with himself for doing it right - "Wooo, I'm a real big bro now!!" That was such a blessing as it didn't mean I had to face a sink-full of dishes late at night or in the morning :) He can definitely pull out the stops at times. Shame he let himself down though by omitting to tidy his room, or put away his clean pile of clothes (which he should have done while I was cooking tea), thereby hindering the actual putting to bed of the baby by about 1/2 hour - but also, at the same time, getting me out of another exhausting game with the big boys! I had said (why do we do this to ourselves?!!) we would play their new Star Wars Risk game that they got for Christmas, but that we haven't had time to look at it properly yet - if everyone else was in bed by 8pm - which in the end they weren't ;) Boys came down and played Hue Knew together while I read my rss feeds and emails. Not long after they went up at about 9.15pm my Internet went down, so I played on ACCF for a bit and paid off my mortgage part one :) Then I went to bed!

And that about takes us up to speed! Today was Friday group at my friend's this morning, followed by Lasagne for lunch, which, thanks to having been able to get the kitchen tidy last night, I made this morning before I went out - I am never that organised!! There is something about P being away that means I get all 'driven' but by 9pm I am done for - except I stay up - don't ask me why! (My answer would be because if I don't blog now I will forget my week). N went for a rest after lunch and the others played nicely. The kids go out to club at 4, but before they went tonight I got them to do all their chores (rabbits, tidy rooms, tidy lounge & hallway, clear & wipe table) so that tonight would be easier. I didn't have Jake to help me tonight because he is at a 'half knight of pear' (half night of prayer - sleepover - fun night). Once they had gone C went on Reader Rabbit Nursery for a bit, giving me a window of peace - well maybe, only by the time I had finished washing up from lunch N had woken from his nap all grumpy and C was bored of the computer :( I put 'Cars' on for C and snuggled N on my lap - at least that way I would get to sit down quietly for 5 minutes, where N promptly fell back to sleep :) Once he was settled I put him down on the sofa under a blanket and set to writing a bit more on this blog... A few sentences later the rest came home (ho hum...). Round 2!! P and I set to in the kitchen (not long cleaned up remember) making promised scones for Tea. If A had made them she can do them alone, but P wanted ME to make them with HER - so like the nice Mummy that I am, I did - and they were lovely and she did really well, but the mess..! After scones J2 remembered that I had said we would have Angel Delight for pudding today and had not done it at lunch time, so he set to making that in the kitchen and dishing it up for everyone - more mess..! N & C woke up and played in the lounge - more mess..! By bedtime tonight I was running well out of steam, so this time J2 offered to help (no little kid's baths tonight), so he went up and tidied his room while A read C's favourite book to him (One, Two, Buckle my Shoe...), then tucked C up, said prayers with him and put his music on. He then went and read stories to the girls. I usually try to keep it to a shared story, but he read at least two! Said prayers with them all and put on their music for them :) He came downstairs looking a little more weary than when he went up and declared that it was more tiring than he thought!! It was nice though as it gave me a few mins to be with N and just chill with him - not that he really ever chills much these days except when he is asleep! J2 & I then played with N together for a few more minutes and he asked me how to put N's nappy on, so I showed him, but N was in manic, reaching overdrive mode, so it would have been impossible for him to do. Once N was down in bed J2 ate the last scone and got a big hug from me before he went up to bed.  At LAST I get to finish my blog - the mess can wait till morning!! Now I'm done & I'm off to bed - I've no more energy left for today and I have 3 girls to get ready for ballet in the morning!

A Really Cool Game...

Hap'd upon this game and got hooked! Go have a look!