Happy Halloween!

Its that spooky time of year again ...



Daisy chose the biggest pumpkin, and got so tired scraping it out that she said 'I never want to do THAT again', which reminded me of when I had just had my first baby daughter...



But Mary was very pleased with hers ... i did the shape knife face cutting, BTW, otherwise they would look much better than this !!!



we have recently moved away all our high-chairs and I now have a wonderful place to take photos of stuff!



Matilda and Daisy, my year-round grumpy pumpkins! HAPPY HALLOWEEEEEEN!

an evenings work ... for busy hands ...

a friend wanted something for her nan, i had just had some freecycled fabric offered to me, but it was grubby and needing a wash. i pulled out some older stuff, with
a few textures and colours and some ribbon, and some 4 hole buttons ...

my sister is staying and she got out some knitting about 6 o clock when dinner was done and i started to cut squares. then the chids left the lap top, and came to
see what i was doing, daddy read to them and we put them to bed ...

at some point i called june to let her know she would have something fast, hubby put on batman and i flitten between floor and sewing machine and ironing board!
then i hand-sewed some buttons and backed the piece, pressed it and went to bed !

the next morning the kids loved it and i had lent my camera to a friend so all i had was my phone, but i took some pics of it before making a parcel. i knew i was going on a parcel run anyway ....



after the post office we took the girls to the park, and then came home for
lunch

extreme machining ....

trying to get things done, with an 18 month old that wants a piece of everything ...

her very clear speach includes the following words -

sewing
made
needle
sharp
careful
stab
pins
mummy's
sissors
and yes, machine ...!

of interest to UK HErs, a petition, if you please ...
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Home-ed-families/

preschool curcuit building ...

not really ... just some upside down duplo, and some glo sticks left over from our floodlit walk at abbotsbury gardens...

and daisy and matty dont go to preshool, either, i was just refering to their age bracket ...

i took these pictures in the natural light hoping to capture some of that glow. i love the busy hands. daisy and matty put this construction in a nappy box and you could really appreciate the glo sticks ...

hardware ....

we have legs ....



steve and i have been building the NXT alpha rex over a series of evenings. i love putting together lego. steve is good at finding the bits, and then likes doing robot programming on his laptop.
the robot can almost walk, with just legs like this.



the robot still needs arms and his head (twin sonic sensors), so that will keep us happy for a few evenings yet ...

i can has sammidge ....

how to get some packed lunches made for a HE meet-up, and keep the baby happy at the same time ...

mary loves food and loves being on the counter, and the idea of 'helping' me !

one of her most common words is, 'lunch' ...

Messy!

coasters we made for granny's birthday ...


messy daisy - thats finger paint not hand arm and face paint ... ho hum ...


matty getting stuck into it ...


meanwhile, inthe garden, mary finding some mud and water on the top of a manhole cover ... one of her more common words is sticky, and she often demands to be wiped !


i must say its great to have broadband again, after all that downtime last week ... not being able to post to the blog was very frustrating ...

slaters, billy-bakers, - what do you call yours?

i think our garden might be missing a few woodlice now, the girls play with them the moment they get outside, and you know how playthings get lost ...

bill over the road calls them billy-bakers, and when i lived in scotland the twins sean and dan called them slaters, and found me some very impressive ones, back when i hated touching them and pretended that i didn't!

the other day daisy saw one that she thought was doing a pooh, and shouted with glee, "he's doing a poooo! he's making compost!"
so, they have been listening when we chat about the garden!

no, its not a school room ....

it's my partly re-vamped dining room ...

and my 3 of my four girls love it ...

zoo for you!

i thought you might like to look at this wonderful work
a zoo made by children at the new yeovil HEC where i went with steve and the girls on friday ...the vulture and the siver backed gorilla show great use of fursuit fur scraps, and what a great face that bear has ...

next time we go, i will share some information on working with clay so that hopefully we dont have so many injured animals that we found this week! i might also do some sewing, of course !