Well, of all things I had to do yesterday, I did manage most of them - quite an achievement! I did finish sorting the PM house, but didn't get to listing anything yet. I'm still hoping I might find a few more bits! I did sell the Previa (only £150, but better than nothing and better still because the guy was planning to try and fix it for his sister. I was somehow glad it wasn't going to be scrapped - dunno why!. I did clean the kitchen floor. I didn't blog or read round, but have done a bit of that tonight instead. We did all go for a drive after tea in the new bus - to the 24hr Tesco in Crewe to buy milk (just an excuse) with the kids in their pj's! It really is a bus, or a beast, depending on how you look at it, and it's really fab! Body work is really nice inside and out and nothing is falling apart. The boot is enormous (bigger than the Previa because it has more height) + the roof rack is pretty massive too :) Seats are not adjustable at all (except the driver's, which is mega adjustable in about 5 different ways), which is a bit of a draw-back, but never-the-less they are comfortable enough, forcing you to sit in an upright, but well supported position.
Mid-way through the day my tumble dryer packed up, putting an abrupt stop to my Saturday 'plough-through-a-mountain-of-washing' routine! :(#
Today, after church, P added the rails to the new arrangement in the girls' room and I spent the entire rest of day sorting through E's clothes! I have wittled out two boxes full for storage (one winter one summer), one crate full for a friend and a bag for another friend. She is still left with two 80cm rails FULL, a drawer of summer things, an undies & tights drawer and a nightware drawer! Something tells me she had/s too many clothes! The older girls have one rail, two shelves and a drawer each (A has two drawers). Am I being excessive in keeping so much? It's just that the girls just seem to have loads of clothes, but it all seems quite necessary - cardigans, trousers, shorts, cut-offs, skirts, dresses, long-sleeve tops, t-shirts, blouses, etc..! The boys clothese are so much simpler and they only have a rail and a basket each, plus underwear drawer and pj's drawer (trofast).
Now on to tackle finishing off N & JA's room, which is really just a tidying matter now my Mum has departed with all her bags (she brings soooo many bags!!). And then onto J2 & C's room, where I am trying to create a little extra space, but also store some of the toys that I am fed up of seeing in my lounge. Hmmm - it could prove tougher than I am hoping it will!
Guess what... it's now gone 1.30am again, and I never did do my pile of marking! So I am going to have to get up early enough to do it before school when the kids need their books to work in and will want to know how they did! I am too tired now though, so I need to be organised and awake in the morning - neither of which are how I would best describe myself in the mornings ever, especially after a series of hard-graft days & late nights!
Monday, November 03, 2008
Saturday, November 01, 2008
Nothing & Something to Say...
A pretty uneventful day. Paul bought the bus and says it looks good. I'll see for myself tomorrow afternoon when he gets home (via Ikea to pick up boxes). I cut E's hair into a quaint little bob. She is the only one of my girls that can carry that and it emphasises her pure blondeness, which I love :) She looks really cute and it makes her hair seem thicker too (it really is very thin and fine).
All the kids did a bit of 'homework' ; JA and J2 did Spanish. A finished her guinea pig poster, P finished her Greece review sheet, All did spellings, JA also wrote a short play (it must be short, it didn't take him very long!). Tomorrow I need to do some marking and they all, except J2, have a bit more work to do (see yesterday).
When they were done they all headed off to the Light Party (our churches 'alternative Halloween' event) which they all thoroughly enjoyed :) JA was there as a helper - supposedly!!
While they were out, and N & C were napping, I made a start of sorting out the Playmobil house for selling. I ended up with all but one window box restocked with flowers, which, considering the number I pick up off the floor all the time, is remarkable. I would have thought we would have lost more to the hoover than we have. Quite a few bits do seem to be missing or partly broken though, which is a real shame as it significantly reduce what we can get for it :( The Grande Mansions do not go on Ebay now for even a third of what we paid for it originally, even if they are in almost immaculate condition - which ours is not. Ours would be better described as 'well played with condition' - even though in reality it hasn't been that much. :( I must admit I will be sad to see it go, but the girls don't seem too bothered and it is simply too big to store for the next generation. Ah well, this is my first real initiation into departing with toys - toys and books are almost impossible to part with in my eyes, but I'm going to have to get used to it I think. I will be doing a lot more of it as the years go by.
Tomorrow I have to; prepare Sunday School, finish off sorting the pm house before the smalls wreck it even more (it's stood in the middle of my lounge atm), to list it, the mesh drums/stands and a couple of baby toys on Ebay, to get the girls sorted for ballet, to clean the kitchen floor (it's not nice!), sort out the sale of the Previa (Ebay also), blog at some point and catch up with those I haven't 'visited' in cyberspace lately, play with our new bus!, put away the shopping when P's done it, and cram as much else into one day as I possibly can - it's my last chance - school on Monday!
All the kids did a bit of 'homework' ; JA and J2 did Spanish. A finished her guinea pig poster, P finished her Greece review sheet, All did spellings, JA also wrote a short play (it must be short, it didn't take him very long!). Tomorrow I need to do some marking and they all, except J2, have a bit more work to do (see yesterday).
When they were done they all headed off to the Light Party (our churches 'alternative Halloween' event) which they all thoroughly enjoyed :) JA was there as a helper - supposedly!!
While they were out, and N & C were napping, I made a start of sorting out the Playmobil house for selling. I ended up with all but one window box restocked with flowers, which, considering the number I pick up off the floor all the time, is remarkable. I would have thought we would have lost more to the hoover than we have. Quite a few bits do seem to be missing or partly broken though, which is a real shame as it significantly reduce what we can get for it :( The Grande Mansions do not go on Ebay now for even a third of what we paid for it originally, even if they are in almost immaculate condition - which ours is not. Ours would be better described as 'well played with condition' - even though in reality it hasn't been that much. :( I must admit I will be sad to see it go, but the girls don't seem too bothered and it is simply too big to store for the next generation. Ah well, this is my first real initiation into departing with toys - toys and books are almost impossible to part with in my eyes, but I'm going to have to get used to it I think. I will be doing a lot more of it as the years go by.
Tomorrow I have to; prepare Sunday School, finish off sorting the pm house before the smalls wreck it even more (it's stood in the middle of my lounge atm), to list it, the mesh drums/stands and a couple of baby toys on Ebay, to get the girls sorted for ballet, to clean the kitchen floor (it's not nice!), sort out the sale of the Previa (Ebay also), blog at some point and catch up with those I haven't 'visited' in cyberspace lately, play with our new bus!, put away the shopping when P's done it, and cram as much else into one day as I possibly can - it's my last chance - school on Monday!
Friday, October 31, 2008
Possibilities...
Paul has an interview in Anniesland, Glasgow. Not sure when it will be yet, but watch this space :) Nothing is certain or set in stone, but it looks like it might be a strong possible.
It's been crazy in my house today. J2 and E each had a friend over and A&P had 2 sisters over to play (A&C). So in all 11 kids for lunch & most of the day - that made short work of a loaf of bread!! Surprisingly it was relatively peaceful - aside from the occasional crash & ride of drums. The children kept themselves very nicely busy. I managed to get on and sort out all my re-usable nappies for storage/sale/freecycle and sort out some fresh toys for N so that he is not so bored in the daytime. It's great bringing out toys I'd almost forgotten we had - a bit like an early Christmas. Hopefully it will help N a little next week, but it serves the dual purpose of helping me know what we could get him for Christmas without doubling up. In all honesty, he doesn't need anything and last year everyone put money in the bank for him I have then spent it over the year on odd things here and there that he has needed or I have thought he'd enjoy. But this year I think he will want to be opening stuff like everyone else, so I don't think we will get away with that again. I'm going to try and make sure that whatever I buy he can use for a good long time (value for money), or it's cheap and chearful and will 'break and bin' quickly enough to not add to our ever increasing ,mountain of 'stuff' (and then I'll put his real present in the bank!!).
I haven't been to bed before 3am all week - really trying to get the house straight and sorted even if it's not very clean. At least if its tidier it's easier to clean and it looks better generally. Problem is I am now pretty exhausted and getting grouchy, so when I walk into the girls room, after spending an entire day tidying it on Tuesday and a bit on Wednesday too, and find sooo much stuff out and bits spread everywhere again (due to have 3 extra girls playing in there I guess) it does make my heart sink a little :( It would have recovered fine if the girls had then continued on to put everything back away in it's right places - being that everything now has a new and better organised space to be in - but No! I go up to find, having been told they had finished tidying, bits scattered around, books and make-up stuffed under cupboards, things in the dressing up that simply are not (towel, nightdress), things just dumped on the nearest available surface through lack of thought where it should properly go, etc... Would you guess what I did?... Yup! I blew my top big time. I was SOOO mad with them. I am 'this' close to getting rid of everything and cancelling Christmas presents. If they continue to show so little respect for their things, or the time and energy I have put in over the last couple of days to improve things in their room for them then I might just do it. My guess they wouldn't let it happen again!!
Oh well, tomorrow is another day - I hope they will do better. I think I might make it a 'homework' day as they all have bits they need to do before school next week; Spanish practice, spellings, unfinished poster (A), unfinished Maths & History (JA). That will keep them busy and stop them making so much mess - maybe ;-)
It is a good time to be sorting though. I am managing to find things for the shoe box appeal parcels that my Mum does every year, for selling on Ebay to raise cash for Christmas, and to generally get rid of by whatever means so that there at least a little less to take with us when we do eventually move. Tbh - I am dreading it. We are going to need two big lorries I think - we have sooo much stuff! And sooo much furniture to contain it and us! But if it is organised before we start trying to pack hopefully it will go some way to making the whole thing less stressfull (c'mon, you've got to let me deream a little)!!
The Previa has a bid on it for £150 with 11 watchers, so it's sold at least this time (second listing), but I hope the bidding will go up a little bit.
It's been crazy in my house today. J2 and E each had a friend over and A&P had 2 sisters over to play (A&C). So in all 11 kids for lunch & most of the day - that made short work of a loaf of bread!! Surprisingly it was relatively peaceful - aside from the occasional crash & ride of drums. The children kept themselves very nicely busy. I managed to get on and sort out all my re-usable nappies for storage/sale/freecycle and sort out some fresh toys for N so that he is not so bored in the daytime. It's great bringing out toys I'd almost forgotten we had - a bit like an early Christmas. Hopefully it will help N a little next week, but it serves the dual purpose of helping me know what we could get him for Christmas without doubling up. In all honesty, he doesn't need anything and last year everyone put money in the bank for him I have then spent it over the year on odd things here and there that he has needed or I have thought he'd enjoy. But this year I think he will want to be opening stuff like everyone else, so I don't think we will get away with that again. I'm going to try and make sure that whatever I buy he can use for a good long time (value for money), or it's cheap and chearful and will 'break and bin' quickly enough to not add to our ever increasing ,mountain of 'stuff' (and then I'll put his real present in the bank!!).
I haven't been to bed before 3am all week - really trying to get the house straight and sorted even if it's not very clean. At least if its tidier it's easier to clean and it looks better generally. Problem is I am now pretty exhausted and getting grouchy, so when I walk into the girls room, after spending an entire day tidying it on Tuesday and a bit on Wednesday too, and find sooo much stuff out and bits spread everywhere again (due to have 3 extra girls playing in there I guess) it does make my heart sink a little :( It would have recovered fine if the girls had then continued on to put everything back away in it's right places - being that everything now has a new and better organised space to be in - but No! I go up to find, having been told they had finished tidying, bits scattered around, books and make-up stuffed under cupboards, things in the dressing up that simply are not (towel, nightdress), things just dumped on the nearest available surface through lack of thought where it should properly go, etc... Would you guess what I did?... Yup! I blew my top big time. I was SOOO mad with them. I am 'this' close to getting rid of everything and cancelling Christmas presents. If they continue to show so little respect for their things, or the time and energy I have put in over the last couple of days to improve things in their room for them then I might just do it. My guess they wouldn't let it happen again!!
Oh well, tomorrow is another day - I hope they will do better. I think I might make it a 'homework' day as they all have bits they need to do before school next week; Spanish practice, spellings, unfinished poster (A), unfinished Maths & History (JA). That will keep them busy and stop them making so much mess - maybe ;-)
It is a good time to be sorting though. I am managing to find things for the shoe box appeal parcels that my Mum does every year, for selling on Ebay to raise cash for Christmas, and to generally get rid of by whatever means so that there at least a little less to take with us when we do eventually move. Tbh - I am dreading it. We are going to need two big lorries I think - we have sooo much stuff! And sooo much furniture to contain it and us! But if it is organised before we start trying to pack hopefully it will go some way to making the whole thing less stressfull (c'mon, you've got to let me deream a little)!!
The Previa has a bid on it for £150 with 11 watchers, so it's sold at least this time (second listing), but I hope the bidding will go up a little bit.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Suddenly Things Got a Whole Lot Louder!
Today JI got his new 'Kit' - a set of brand-new (reduced price) Arbiter Flat's on a rack. He was absolutely thrilled (understatement of the year) as he didn't know they were coming! Neither did I actually - I was expecting them tomorrow! They came without instructions (nightmare!) so J2 and I spent the whole afternoon figuring out how they went together; what drum went where and how! Victory at last and here is Daddy just adding the finishing touches, tightening things and tuning up! J couldn't even stay off them for a minute while we fitted the last floor tom in place! (Notice the shorts!!) I am very impressed with his playing - he is completely self taught so far!
Then lastly, on Friday we pick up our new car... how nervous am I about that! I so hope and pray we've made a better purchase this time. We are all out of cash now and we have a birthday less than a month away (E will be 5) and Christmas only 56 days away!
At least Joel's Christmas is already done and dusted - although I'm not too sure how he will cope with that on Christmas morning. I might have to tie a ribbon on the kit just to remind him! Or, we might buy him a proper stool to go with it at a little extra cost, just so he gets something. These look nice and I think they would do the job well for him. I feel an Ikea trip coming on!! A wants Sylvanian Families sets, as does P, so that's easy but not cheap! They have agreed to sell their Playmobil Grand-Mansion (3 years old now) because they really don't play with it much. It is huge and takes up loads of space. They will use the money for SF stuff, so that will help. JA inherits the mesh-head drum kit (it was half his anyway), but the cymbals are broken to bits and one of the heads is torn, however, he hardly ever plays it; it's not really his thing. So, he has agreed to sell what's still good, probably as separate bit; the good heads, and the stands, and use the money for whatever he would like new. I'm hoping this way the kids will feel they have new things without us spending too much money this year - after-all, the car is for us all! P wants a decent music system for the car (not sure what it's got yet though) and I'm looking at this one on ebay - and in a way we will all enjoy that too. I would like a GPS so we can start treasure-hunting - it's not for me alone - honest! Not sure what to get C & N yet, but might invest in some Mellisa and Doug toys, if I can get hold of them (I have a shopping list!!).
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Lets Try Again!
Following the disastrous episode with the Previa, which I am now selling on Ebay (3 watchers so hopefully will go tomorrow) for as much as I can get for it, we are trying again, but this time we have bought a 9 seater Tourneo. Paul is going down to Gt Yarmouth to collect and pay for it on Friday and staying over with some friends in Kings Lynn. It'll be good for him to catch up with them too as we haven't seen them in WAY too long.
It's very scary buying another car from Ebay, but is really our only choice with the money we had (our savings) and the fact that we are unable to get credit (past history) and therefore finance is not an option - not that we want it anyway. We would rather not have debt hanging over our heads these days. God willing this will be a great car for us and as it has been 6 monthly MOT'd I can't see why it wouldn't be. We won't have any money left for repairs for a while so I pray it doesn't go wrong or need anything at all until we have built up a little fund for it - which is what we have to do.
It'll be lovely to travel as a whole family and will save the added expense of me and train fares. The added bonus for us is the roof rack of course :) That was something we were thinking we might have to add for our camping trips anyway, so we are saved that expense. No tow bar, so, unless we had one fitted, a trailer is not an option, but we will wait and see how much we can pack into the bus itself! We have hired a Tourneo before (about 6 years ago my Mum drove us to Chester Zoo for the day) and it was a comfortable drive with lots of boot space, so I'm hoping for many happy holidays in this one. P says it will be a little odd to go back to manual again, but he has been using Mum's car this last week so I think he is back in the swing of it. Shame it's not an auto though - I was more keen to learn with the Previa because it was. Maybe I will just stick to letting P do the ferrying and I will stick to walking with the kids when I need to. I have no desire to drive really and the thought of driving a bus, well, it's just a bit too much for me!
On another note (and probably more important in many ways)...
JI turned 10 on Friday! It wasn't the most exciting BD for him because he didn't get much in the way of pressies. He wants a drum kit, so the deal was that all his BD and Christmas money would go towards getting one. As we don't have all the money in yet and what with the car... we didn't have the money to put up front for a kit before Christmas (as we had hoped to) :( He is mad into Gogos atm, so his day was made with a gogos sticker book and several packs of the same from various corners of his world + a 'Stig sticker book' that Paul got him as a little something to open. He was chuffed with that so generally happy enough and then today P took him and his 3 best 'mates' to see High School Musical 3 followed by a MacDonalds. So he's a satisfied lad, although the sooner the drums are purchased the better in his eyes - of course!
On my part - I can't believe I have two sons in double figures already! Where did that time go?! before I blink N will be 10 too - and I will be grey (although thankfully no signs of that yet)!
It's very scary buying another car from Ebay, but is really our only choice with the money we had (our savings) and the fact that we are unable to get credit (past history) and therefore finance is not an option - not that we want it anyway. We would rather not have debt hanging over our heads these days. God willing this will be a great car for us and as it has been 6 monthly MOT'd I can't see why it wouldn't be. We won't have any money left for repairs for a while so I pray it doesn't go wrong or need anything at all until we have built up a little fund for it - which is what we have to do.
It'll be lovely to travel as a whole family and will save the added expense of me and train fares. The added bonus for us is the roof rack of course :) That was something we were thinking we might have to add for our camping trips anyway, so we are saved that expense. No tow bar, so, unless we had one fitted, a trailer is not an option, but we will wait and see how much we can pack into the bus itself! We have hired a Tourneo before (about 6 years ago my Mum drove us to Chester Zoo for the day) and it was a comfortable drive with lots of boot space, so I'm hoping for many happy holidays in this one. P says it will be a little odd to go back to manual again, but he has been using Mum's car this last week so I think he is back in the swing of it. Shame it's not an auto though - I was more keen to learn with the Previa because it was. Maybe I will just stick to letting P do the ferrying and I will stick to walking with the kids when I need to. I have no desire to drive really and the thought of driving a bus, well, it's just a bit too much for me!
On another note (and probably more important in many ways)...
JI turned 10 on Friday! It wasn't the most exciting BD for him because he didn't get much in the way of pressies. He wants a drum kit, so the deal was that all his BD and Christmas money would go towards getting one. As we don't have all the money in yet and what with the car... we didn't have the money to put up front for a kit before Christmas (as we had hoped to) :( He is mad into Gogos atm, so his day was made with a gogos sticker book and several packs of the same from various corners of his world + a 'Stig sticker book' that Paul got him as a little something to open. He was chuffed with that so generally happy enough and then today P took him and his 3 best 'mates' to see High School Musical 3 followed by a MacDonalds. So he's a satisfied lad, although the sooner the drums are purchased the better in his eyes - of course!
On my part - I can't believe I have two sons in double figures already! Where did that time go?! before I blink N will be 10 too - and I will be grey (although thankfully no signs of that yet)!
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Blog to Blog…
Not blogged for a few day because life's not been that exciting really! Today was not that exciting either, but thought I'd blog anyway J
The day started well and having Mum here for a couple of weeks (her school is on half-term already) means I get an extra 45 minutes in my day when I don't have to collect C, as she does it in the car for me . Everyone seemed to work fairly well today and we got quite a lot done, although somehow I think Jake managed to get away with a couple of bits of incomplete work (hmmm). I spent some time working with E today because I somehow felt there was more time to do so. We began by learning the letter 'n'. Last week we covered 's', 'a' and 't' - which she seems to be remembering ok if she visualises the pictures that went with them - especially the 't'. She apparently knows the letter 'i' (which I didn't realise) and today she actually sounded out s-i-t and read it as 'sit' - her first real read word!! YEAH!! Tomorrow we cover 'i' (which, as I said, she seems to already know), so we might do 'p' as well and put six letters under her belt to practice on over half-term week. These are great letters to springboard reading from too as so many CVC words can be made with them - watch this space.
My other strong desire atm is to have E recognising the numbers 1-10. She has 1-5 down flat - no trouble there, but 6-10 she seems totally stumped on. I'm really not sure why, but she cannot move on with number work in any way really until she can at least verbally label and receptively recognise these numbers. She had done a workbook page on the No.9; writing, drawing objects, colouring, counting were all included in the page, but immediately after the book was shut she had no recollection of what number we had been working on! So I got out the flash cards. I'm not one for 'drill' tactics on the whole - can't think of anything more boring, but the softly, softly is simply not sticking with her and I think that short, sharp shock might work better in this instance. I laid out 6 (as she seems to have almost got this one sorted) and 8 (because she likes the 'train-track' clue on this one) and got her to repeat them over and over. Then I called out a number and she had to point to the right one and say it as she did so. When I thought she had it sorted I added in 6 and then she forgot the lot! After 20 minutes we stopped. By then she was befuddled and we weren't gaining any ground anyway. It was very frustrating, to see her apparently know a number one minute and completely not know it the next. She was tearful too and said it was too hard L ! I don't want her to hate school, so I tried to explain to her as best I could, why it is so important that she try to learn these numbers.
Later in the evening P - with his special-needs skills - had a go at teaching her too. Admittedly he was a whole lot more adept at it than me and seemed to make it more fun for her (she was giggling instead of looking glum - how does he manage that?!), but he didn't actually do anything very different to what I had done (I must have learnt some techniques from him along the years J) and he came across the same hurdles as I did: she came away just as confused by those numbers as she had done earlier. So I think over these next two weeks we are going to have to FLOOD her with 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 - and HOPE that she gets it! Scary to think that she would actually be learning 13-20 right now, were she at school! Bright as she is, she would already be getting left behind - or riding on the backs of her friends' understanding!
She is definitely going to be linguistic I think - and tbh has very little interest in numbers (maybe why she isn't learning them easily). I guess she sees no reason to learn them just yet, whereas she sees a point in learning her letters - she desperately wants to be able to write stuff down. That was her little achievement today; a piece of slightly more than emergent writing. She wrote n - E - i - i - S - e on a piece of paper - really big and a bit giggledy-piggledy, but none the less the letters were all formed correctly and she could tell me what letters she had written when I asked her. She asked me what she had written. Now, I have read Peggy Kaye's 'Games for Writing' and I know this is an important stage - it was her first 'story' - her first real attempt at writing her very own word! I told her she had almost written 'nise' (spelt wrongly I know), but she also like the sound of the 'neeeice' - what's the betting she makes up her own meaning for it too because that's the kind of thing she would do that none of my others would have thought of doing. In fact I don't recall any of my others going through this stage at all - I hope I didn't just fail to notice it L.
The day was rounded off by a game of King Size Uno (only ours is jungle animals). C played this too and He and E really enjoyed it. C won 4 times out of 5 and the last two times I didn't even really help him pick his cards. He could match the colours, and with a little prompting the numbers - he even knew when to play a 'colour pick' card. I was VERY impressed with him. He seemed to understand it almost as fast as E and certainly his concentration was more sustained. E got silly towards the end and stopped really thinking about what she was doing. She did manage to win one game though (phew!). I think that may be coming out again tomorrow J.
On the subject of C - he is learning his numbers too - and may just learn to recognise them before E does at the rate he is going! He knows 1, 2 and 3 consistently already J. C has a real keenness to learn stuff; numbers, letters, colours, shapes - anything! He is asking lots of questions now (including 'why?' !!) and seemingly taking in the answers quite well. So as long as his language can keep up with his inquisitiveness he will be fine!
If any of you are wondering what is happening about us moving - we are making enquiries, but we are not at liberty to reveal any info atm!
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Car Update
Quintessentially our car is done for L . It turns out that the head gasket has gone and on Previa of this age it's a very major repair that will cost us over £400 to have done, so that just about makes it not worth our while as we are pretty certain there will be other things go wrong with it before too long. Maybe that's us being pessimistic, but it has cost us a lot of money already since we bought it and we do feel like the person who sold it to us knew what was on the cards, but c'est la vie - stuff happens I guess!! So now we have to decide what to do next. We think we are going to try to sell it for however much we can get for it - spares, repairs or scrap! Then we might cash in our savings to get us back on the road, but that will leave us with no reserves anywhere, so that's a little scary - and our savings really aren't that much anyway. It's a dilemma!
School's been good this week, but I'll blog that tomorrow maybe.
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