March 2012 - Newsy updates and photos

A "catch-up" post of little bits and pieces, taken from Facebook, just because I have been so lax at keeping this blog up to date and I know I will want to look back here and not see huge gaps!

March 1st

"Headache. Needed, ohhhh, 8 more hours sleep after waking this morning. Must pull self together!... Never mind, my day is looking up already! There's not much cuter or more uplifting than a 2-year-old singing, "Don' wowwy.... 'bout a thiiiing.... co' ev'ry lil thing.... gonna be alwiiiight!" and bobbing his head as he pushes his toy cars about!"

"Love it when my crockpot slaves all day long to prepare me a roast dinner! Smells great and I feel like I didn't lift a finger!"

March 2nd

"Back from a good midwife appointment! Everything is looking great, and my little one is very happy lying transverse these past few weeks. Hope he changes his mind in the next month or so!"

"Feeling irrationally distraught that there is no chocolate in the house. Coco pops do not count. Even good old hot chocolate powder isn't doing the trick tonight!"

March 3rd

"Just spent the last 10 minutes trying to comfort Arthur, who is only half-awake but in floods of tears over the fact that it wasn't a good harvest because the rain made dust fly up into his eyes, and now they're still stinging! He is SO sad about his harvest, whatever that was! I hope he just poked his eye waking up from a weird dream or something, and not that he'll have a nice case of conjunctivitis in the morning! :S"

March 9th

"Breech, transverse, breech, transverse, breech, transverse (or can be translated as heartburn, ligament pain, heartburn, ligament pain) - such an indecisive baby! ;)  Come on little manny, give head-down a whirl! It's not as bad as you think!"

March 12th

"Favourite nuggets from my boys today: (Nathan) "It's peace and quiet without Daddy here, isn't it Mummy?" lol! Also the term "false llama" instead of "false alarm", hehehe! Kind of makes up for the moment where I suggested using Samuel's nursery rhyme finger puppets to entertain him a bit earlier, and came in from clearing up lunch to find Humpty Dumpty with a brick wedged up his, erm, "hole", and rhyme being sung: "Humpty Dumpty needed a poo, Humpty Dumpty went to the loo..." followed by mucho exaggerated straining noises and the brick popping out. I don't know what happened next because their hysterical laughter prevented the sort of breathing necessary for speech or song, but Samuel was laughing along with them so I guess they did do as I suggested after all! :) "

March 13th

"In two months, Arthur will be the eldest of 6 children at the tender age of 7. I know that some feel kind of sorry for him and think he has it hard because of his position in the birth order and the number of siblings. I LOVED hearing from him (randomly!) this morning while he was watching Samuel toddle about and amuse the boys: "I love having Samuel and seeing him grow and change... but I think it's time I had some experience with a newborn baby again. It's been a while.... I can't WAIT until he's born! He'll be rolling and starting to get about in 2 or 3 months, and that will be fun, but I love when they're so sweet and tiny as well!" They all seem to love having a bunch of brothers close in age, and always ask when we'll have another one within WEEKS of a new baby being born. :) Love my boys!"

March 14th

"Have hit the 30s!!! Three-quarters of the way there, 10 weeks to go! I'm juuuust beginning to realise that I'm going to have a baby in NO time at all! Good thing we are so disorganised, because it means we have everything except a box of clothes (which was actually put away in the loft - gasp!!) still lying around the house from last time - nothing to get ready, yay!"

"We haven't quite got to fitting 5 boys in their room yet (disorganised, remember?!)! Samuel is still IN my bed - he has never slept in a cot. He is going to go straight to the "floor bunk" that Benjamin sleeps on, and since they have an extra long bunk bed and are tiny peeps who don't really move about much in their sleep, we are going to try top-and-tailing Nathan and Benjamin in Nathan's bottom bunk. That will have minimal upheaval for everyone, and no extra beds or furniture in their room! Not sure when it do it though, but I suppose it had better be fairly soon! :S"

March 15th

"Wow, the fog just cleared to reveal a BEAUTIFUL spring day! :) I put Samuel down for his nap, and when I came out of the bedroom I could hear lots of whispering and shuffling about, which made me nervous! Went downstairs to discover an immaculately tidy living room and four beaming boys sitting on the sofa!! They cleaned up as quietly as possible to do something nice for me! They had put every single item (toys, rubbish, books, grown-up paperwork, EVERYTHING - it was an absolute disaster zone when I went upstairs beforehand) in the place it is supposed to go, and were planning to sweep the floor except I apparently came down too soon. Arthur said happily, "The fog lifted, and it's like we were being so good that even the weather was smiling on us!" Taking our science lesson to the park this afternoon as a reward - such a beautiful day for it too! :) "

"Utterly utterly utterly wiped out after an afternoon at the park with my little people. Just the loading and unloading of small personages in the van is enough to do my back in lately! BUT, lovely sunshine, beautiful daffodils, little boys running and rolling down hills and giggling together, sweet pictures of "nature" drawn by the older boys (so lovely to watch them sprawled out on the grass drawing the pretty surroundings), and a much more outgoing mother than me approached to say she had noticed I have 5 children, and that she has just had her 5th, and do we by any chance homeschool?!! She and her sister homeschool their many-children-between-them, and both live within 10 minutes from our house! Numbers exchanged for future park outings! :) Bonus!!

I'm only writing the peachy stuff! ;) They did not behave well going back to the van and I hurt my back catching Nathan, and ended up being grumpy and yelling :( A wave of hormones convinced me it was the worst afternoon ever for about 30 minutes. Benjamin sat in the time-out chair screaming for 20 mins straight this morning because he wouldn't say sorry for saying, "Stupid Mummy! I not listnin!" But yes, it has been a very good day :) Now to figure out dinner and survive the crazy hour(s) between now and bedtime!"

March 17th

"Cooling on a rack as I type!!! They look and smell faaaabulous!! :)"

Streusel-Topped Blueberry Muffins | Our Best Bites

www.ourbestbites.com

Neil is not a fan of blueberries, but when he tried these, he said they were soooo nice I had to make them again sometime! They really were fantastic! :)

 

March 19th

 

The weather was so nice and spring-like, but the breeze was colder than we expected! Lovely day for a picnic and feeding the ducks at the park with my little boys! :)

 

"Going to need a bigger picnic blanket..."

 

 

"Samuel watching his brothers run."

 

 

"My sweet little walking boy! 15 months old this coming Wednesday (already!)."

 

"Feeding the ducks - well, that happened right before this photo as I couldn't take photos and supervise the duck-feeding! Yes, I was nervous about them near the edge!"



"Some really pretty water birds - what kind is this colourful one? The boys were so excited to see it!"



"Loving the ducks! :) "



March 20th

"My baby is climbing up to my HEAD HEIGHT in the time it takes me to do anything at all that takes me more than 5 seconds out of the room!!!! Head height!!! I find him like a koala, lovingly attached to the side of the school bookshelf or something."

"He and Matthew have been my main climbers! Samuel responds better to Neil's stern voice than mine, although I try to make it as stern as I can and he gets taken down very seriously as soon as he's spotted - he knows he's not allowed! But he repeats repeats repeats. It is kind of wearing me out when I'm already knackered, but oh well. I am hoping if I persevere he'll stop doing it, as that's what happened with a couple of my others when they climbed things. Not with Matthew though, so I'm not sure this time! :S I do have helpers this time compared with when it was Matthew though! :) If I'm making lunch or going to the loo, they'll call out to say he's on the table (he fetches toys or nappy wipe boxes to stand on so he can get up there!), and Arthur is getting good at spotting his "step stools" and removing them before he gets his foot up. Arthur can also safely lift him off the low school table, which is a huge help on occasion!"

March 21st

"School went soooo well this morning!!!! :) LOVE (rare!) days like these! Arthur has just scored 99% (he got one word wrong) on his Year 6 reading test, and is now starting Year 7 reading material!! (This is 6th Grade equivalent, and he's currently in Year 2 / 1st Grade) Matthew is finally reading short sentences, and learned to check his maths work with a calculator today (much to his delight). Samuel napped well, little boys played sweetly, the sun is shining... ahhhhh! I'll enjoy it while it lasts! :) "

March 22nd

"Have made wholemeal cinnamon rolls for breakfast!!!  :) (not being healthy, just ran out of white bread flour!)"

"Hyped-up children shrieking and running all over the house. Unwisely used my energy up decluttering for an hour (though the school area looks much better now!) and am flopping over the kitchen table for a bit! So tired - my eyes are just stinging! Night 5 of various pregnancy-related causes to another round of insomnia until after 2am last night. Must get more sleeeeep! Dinner is nearly ready though, and my knight in shining armour will be home within 30 minutes - hooray!!!"

"Advice needed: Samuel is my first thumb-sucker so I haven't come across any related problems before! He sucks his right thumb only, and really needs it to self-soothe. Lately his little bottom teeth have blistered his thumb knuckle, and it isn't healing. He's teething/drooling a lot right now. His thumb has several broken blisters that are really red and swollen today, and he is still trying to suck it to soothe himself but it's disturbing his sleep a bit as he usually sucks his thumb whenever he stirs at night. I can't think of what to do for the broken skin! Anyone been there/done that?"

March 23rd

"Eating cereal from a mug with a fork and kicking myself that I didn't put the dishwasher on before going to bed. Unfortunately I didn't have the foresight to get a spoon or bowl before running the dishwasher, and wasn't about to wait the 1hr 13mins left in the cycle!"

"Hollow tree awesomeness at the park - Samuel's life is currently chock-full of fun new experiences! :) "



March 25th

"Kneading dough in the kitchen while ALL SIX of the boys watch the Grand Prix with great excitement. Definitely feeling the need for a daughter at this moment in time! No apologies for the gender stereotyping - it's just TRUE! ;)"

"I have permission from the breadwinner to PURCHASE CURRICULUM!!!!!!! Doing so RIGHT NOW!!!! Sooooo exciting!!!! I'm buying Right Start Mathematics Level C for Arthur to move up to soon! He is about 3/4 of the way through Level B now, so it's time to buy the next one. I love getting maths stuff because of all the manipulatives in the package!! :) Also All About Spelling - I have heard so much great stuff about it, and decided we would go with that a while back. I think we can tweak it for UK spellings easily enough, like I have done with the Rocket Phonics reading curriculum. Arthur is almost finished with the phonics curriculum and I think I will replace it with spelling, and get a feel for whether it would work for Matthew yet, or whether the phonics aspect of that spelling curriculum would clash with the phonics one he's already doing for reading. Also Morrell's Handwriting, Book 2 (joined-up handwriting). They haven't done cursive writing yet and Arthur is ready to, so I need the next book of worksheets! :) I LOVE school shopping, it's so much fun!

I love Right Start and hope to keep it going right the way through, but it's pretty parent-intensive and each child needs a individual lesson. Next year Nathan will start, so I will have 3 different levels to prepare and teach, and then Benjamin starts the following year! I'm keeping an open mind for a curriculum that might be less parent-intensive and allow me to teach multiple levels at one session maybe... So I am interested in other options that people are using!"

"Woohoooo, just finished my ultra fun evening of school shopping!! :) Maths Level C, extra calculator and maths games book, handwriting book 2, and the deluxe All About Spelling kit plus levels 1 and 2 (and extra bee stickers) so that Matthew and Nathan can start their spelling lessons without me having to go back to buy more AAS stuff for a couple of years at least - otherwise the shipping to the UK is ridiculous! I can't wait for it all to arrive!!!! :D"

March 26th

"Where to go with my boysies on this gorgeous afternoon? Also the next 4 afternoons straight, since they're all going to be fabulous!"

"Aaaaargh, so gorgeous outside, school finished by lunchtime, and it's 3pm and we're STILL home!! Hope we can still make it outside today. Fed up of poo now, and nobody's even poorly! I was wiping someone's bottom upstairs and Samuel took his nappy off in the living room and did a TEETHING poo on the floor, then stood in it, walked it about, picked some up and ATE it!!!! Ewwwwwww. The clean-up and bath took me ages! When I got downstairs with him, Benjamin had done a poo and needed a nappy change. Poo has used up the entire time since lunch!!!"

"Never mind! :) Socks and shoes on, ready to go out - 3.37pm! Dinner will just have to be a bit late, because the sunshine is way too lovely to miss!"

"Totally worth the afternoon of poo and the late outing, especially according to Samuel, who was (once again) thrilled with new experiences outdoors - this time waving a big stick, climbing all over logs with brothers, and practising walking up and down hills without falling over. The weather was gorgeous - soooo nice to be outside on a day like today! :) "

In response to a comment on this photo about Samuel's blondeness (!):

"Love that baby! It has been fun to have a true blondie! Neil's sister is blonde, and his brother is strawberry blonde. My dad was blonde until adulthood and his dad was really "platinum" blonde - his hair is absolutely SNOW white now! :) Neil and I both have red hair in our families so I'm hoping for a red-head at some point too! :) We also have the full range of eye colours! Arthur's are brown (like my mum's - mine are mixed and Neil's are blue), Matthew's are green, Nathan's are dark blue, Benjamin's are mixed like mine but mainly grey, and Samuel's are blue blue blue! :)"

March 27th

"I know it's not everyone's thing, but there is just nothing like starting the day breastfeeding my 2- and 1-year-olds together, snuggled on the sofa, and looking down to see them holding hands - their clasped hands resting on the "shelf" of my tummy with their baby brother inside. Absolute "happiness is..." moment! :) They don't usually hold hands - more often there's some sort of invisible possession line, and a little hand that crosses it might get slooowwwly poked back over the line by an offended finger! ;)"

"The day is soooooooo beautiful! No idea what to do with my poor littles. I hurt my back yesterday taking them to the park, and it is getting worse this afternoon so I can't take them out anywhere today Oh for a garden!!!! Thankfully they're happily building Lego and playing tents and so on, but it doesn't seem right when it's so gorgeous outside...

The garden is ridden with biting spiders! We did actually buy some heavy duty spray a while ago, but ended up deciding not to use it as we didn't feel comfortable with all the chemicals, and we just haven't got anywhere since then with the whole issue! Not really sure what to do (if anything) about the garden now... We were "moving house" a few months ago, but we always stop the process when I get to my 3rd trimester as we find it better to just have a baby first and move after - trouble is we've done that 3 times in a row now, lol! DEFINITELY moving after this baby is born though, so that would solve the problem I suppose. They all dug up the front border for me this afternoon, in the end, and had a lot of mucky fun!"

March 29th

"32 weeks pregnant (only 8 weeks to goooo!!!!) and off to see the consultant this afternoon with my lovely doula. It's the "permission for a homebirth" appointment, but I have a lovely consultant so he will likely just say, "So, do you still want to have the baby at home?" and I'll say, "Yes." and he'll say, "Okay then!" ;)  Unless this little manny is persisting in his choice of transverse or breech position... I will find out later!

The choice is mine to make, but because I am a "grand-multip" (having birthed 5 babies), there are "increased risks" (which are not really backed up by research but doctors stick to them anyway) so they like to see me and go over said "risks" at a 3rd trimester appointment. They do strongly recommend that I give birth in hospital, and they did so last time as well, but I don't need to have permission and have weighed up the risks for myself and chosen homebirth every time (except babies 1 and 3). I do consider it carefully though, and will go into hospital if I need to!"

"Consultant appointment went okay - my baby is head down now, yaaaay! He also feels "average" size, which is a relief (last baby 9lbs 9oz and I'm LITTLE!). Lots of scary stuff told to me about postpartum haemmorhage though, which was unsettling. I have to meet with the head of midwifery in the next couple of weeks to discuss having a homebirth, AND see the consultant again in 4 weeks to tell him what I want to do. I want a homebirth, and a natural 3rd stage. He is fine with the homebirth but not so much with the natural 3rd stage. Brilliant doula is doing research on stats and figures and so on, for the appts. Tired now."

March 30th

"Oh how I love my children! I love my 7-year-old's loving care for his brothers, and my 5-year-old's face shining with soft pride when he learns something new that his big brother already knows. I love my 4-year-old's cute little phrases and the twinkle in his eyes when he is thinking of something mischievous. I love my 2-year-old's squidgy tummy and the combination of sweet independent ways and still being my baby. I love my 1-year-old's laugh when I eat his tummy, and the intensity in his eyes when he is trying to tell me something important in a language I can't understand. I love my unborn baby stomping on my bladder (yes, he's breech again today), and letting me know he's doing okay in there. I love my husband for working so hard to enable me to stay at home and spend all my days, hours and minutes with these precious little people that God has blessed us with. I am not sure what I have done to be this richly rewarded in life. I am pretty sure it's NOTHING, but God is gracious, and I love Him. And those are my main thoughts for today :) "

March 31st

"Productive day in the boys' bedroom! They now have L-shaped, staggered height, quad bunks due to a bit of repositioning, and an Ikea Trofast storage unit won at eBay has made the room somehow more spacious than it has ever been before?!?! Almost ready for Samuel to move in with the boys. He is so excited to be in there with them and always cries when I take him out to put him to bed! Tired out now, but very happy with the work done today! :)"

 

 

Daffodil muffins and more Pinterest inspiration!

At Pinterest recently I saw a lovely idea - little chocolate cupcake "pots" with fondant green shoots poking through the "soil"! I didn't want to use fondant, but I pondered the idea for a while, and last week when the boys were marvelling at the daffodils coming out everywhere, I thought of what to do for our activity.

Yesterday we had time to make some daffodils out of yellow card shapes which I stapled to green drinking straws (bendy ones worked GREAT as daffodils have that sort of bendy neck). Then the boys twisted orange tissue paper around the tips of their index fingers to make a sort of cone shape, and then glued those rather delicate cones onto the staples in the centre of the petal cut-outs. That part was a bit fiddly for the 5-and-under crowd. We put them in a glass jar to dry until the afternoon:



After lunch was cleared away, we set up to bake a dozen chocolate-chip banana muffins! Here are the boys all lined up on the bench ready to make muffins! Samuel wasn't supposed to be up on the bench with them, but he moved like lightning and was so pleased to be there that I let him for a while :) This picture really makes me think, "Woooooaaaah, I have a lot of little boys!!!" because suddenly instead of 3 little boys, a toddler and a baby (like when I last checked!), I seem to have 5 little boys (at times) or 4 little boys and a toddler. Gulp! They're growing up so fast!



The muffins, out of the oven, cooled, and "iced" with Nutella! Mmmm....



Then all we had to do was press the daffodil straws into the muffins! Happy Spring!! :)



While I am here I will quickly post a couple of pictures of an activity inspired by various lacing pipe-cleaners activities at Pinterest. We have pipe-cleaners already, and I chose some fairly big-sized beads at an online crafty shop, which were bright coloured AND shaped like sea creatures (bonus, lol!)!! They have 4mm holes so were perfect for using with pipe-cleaners. Today I put them together as a fine motor skill activity for the little boys, and because they were new, EVERYONE wanted to try them out. They all loved it, even Arthur! Benjamin was already working on one of his workbox activities, which happened to be posting coloured wooden beads onto sticks that were stuck into balls of playdough, and he LOVES that, so he wasn't interested in trying the new beads. I think he might be a little young for the pipe-cleaners anyway.





I am lurking on eBay pretty much all the time these days. There are some great Montessori-style bargains to be had if you wait long enough. I don't bid much above the starting price for anything, so sometimes I am waiting months to purchase something I want, but it's worth it! LOVE me a bargain! ;) I have all of Benjamin's 3rd birthday presents sorted already (some wrapped already!!!) and his birthday is in July! I will post pics of my finds as I get chance, and as they turn up and start being added into our school days. Must go and make lunch now!

Homeschool update! :)

We are currently in Week 6 of our new academic year! This week is less focused on academics as we are working pretty hard on consistent discipline - things are not as they should be, and haven't been for EVER, and now I am getting some great mentoring from my dear friend Shannon and things are starting to improve at last! It does take FULL focus though, so I am trying to let go of the huge clutchy throat thingy that happens when I ease off on school work for a moment! ;) I just want to get school rolling well and KEEP it rolling. The keep part is my weakness, and so far we are doing better than we have before. I am not crazy about easing off this week but correcting the boys' behaviour, training them up in God's ways, and discipling MYSELF to manage my household with more peace and efficiency is a higher priority. I am making sure that, if nothing else, we get Bible done every morning. That's the most important part of school, so if that is done, all is well! :) We are doing workbox activities and things as well to keep them busy.

I have been wanting to update as we go along with school, but I haven't had chance. Just grabbing the quick opportunity now to start a post and upload some photos, even if I have to finish it later. I should be making lunch, but I figured the camera might as well be dumping photos onto the computer while I do it, and if I start the uploading process I can make the lunch while it happens! ;)

School is going well with the big boys who are doing the academic stuff, except that Matthew is less than thrilled with pretty much ALL schoolwork, and I'm starting to wonder about what to do with him from this point onwards. That's probably for another post, because I wanted to update mainly about the littler boys with photos. Matthew DID enjoy working on our solar system project though! :) We are doing Astronomy (Apologia Creation Science) for the year and Arthur is ecstatic about both history and science so far. Matthew could take it or leave it, but he is enjoying some of the projects. I didn't really like any of the suggested activities for the first chapter of the textbook, so I searched the web and found a solar system craft project that I thought they would enjoy much more (also I wanted a FLAT display project rather than a 3D one, which would be fun to do but we'd need to find space somewhere to display it, and we are already working on a 3D diorama for history that will use up some space to display).

Here's the link to the original idea I found online and pinned.

Here's our work! We used aluminium foil like the idea I found, to cover cardboard circles, but instead of using Sharpies (my kids HATE the smell), we used acrylic paints. I think it has less of a lovely shiny effect, but it still worked nicely! The planets are rounded up to the nearest centimetre, relative size in comparison to each other - I found a website somewhere or other and calculated the sizes if we made a model. They are not accurate relative distances apart, of course, because that would mean we need like a FIELD to display them on, lol! But the size thing made it fun. The sun is just a wall of yellow and orange tissue paper because it would have been humongous compared with the planets, so I just made it a "wall" section on the edge of the line of planets. The boys painted the planets based on the photos from the Hubble Space Telescope that we found online, and photos in our huge astronomy encyclopedia. Arthur has already learned a bunch of stuff about moons and other asteroid belts and so on, and kept wanting me to include them, but I thought it would be better to stick to the basic solar system for now! ;)

Our favourite planet to make was Saturn, because I cut an extra piece of cardboard for the rings, which we covered with foil and then thickly coated it in white glue, and totally covered that with multicoloured glitter. It sparkled sooooo beautifully when it was dry! The photos don't show it well enough. Anyway, when it was all dry, we mounted the planets on the black paper with double-sided foam tape, I added labels for the planet names and their categories, and the boys added a load of shiny star stickers. We had so much fun making this, and it looks great on the wall!

The photo is really not that great because it's so distant, but it's a BIG display (Jupiter is 22cm in diameter) so in order to fit it all in the picture I had to take it from further away. The second photo is to give a better view of Saturn's rings, but I'm not sure if the picture will click big enough to show it too well. Never mind!





The little ones are enjoying their school activities. Nathan and Benjamin watch a DVD (educational for the most part) while I do maths, handwriting and reading with the bigger boys in the kitchen, and that keeps them busy and quiet for a while when they otherwise wouldn't be. Samuel is always napping at this time. After that they get to do workbox activities. Some days we run out of time, but not often. We do them in the afternoons more often now, because the morning is just FULL of academic stuff with the older two.

Here are Benjamin and Nathan enjoying the chicks and eggs colour-matching activity that I posted about recently:





They love them, and Matthew can't seem to stay away from them either. He is WAY more drawn to pre-school activities than school ones - it's so interesting to teach him these last 6 weeks. I am learning a lot about his developmental stage and his learning methods, and I need to review some things... I will try to post about that another time though.

Samuel is awake and active if we're doing workboxes in the afternoon, and gets HIGHLY excited seeing the boxes come down off the shelf and the boys take off with their first activities. He has started to cry if he's left out with no activity to do! He's 14 months old so I hadn't presumed to start him on any sort of workbox type activities until he was 18 months old at least. But he is starting to want a turn with the other boys' stuff when they've finished, and it's hard to keep him off their things, so I am beginning to put some things together for him! Exciting! :) My little manny is getting so big so fast!

He likes the twist and sort pegs, which I didn't think he would be at ALL ready to do yet, but there we go! He can twist and lift off the circles from the 3-pronged peg, as that's the easiest one, and he can put them all back on again. He gets frustrated and skwawky about the other ones, but he does try so hard! He's twisting circles off the 3-pronged peg in the first photo below, and putting it back on in the second one. He also likes the little wooden puzzle in the photos below, the square one with 9 pegs (okay, a couple missing which need gluing back on, but hey ho!). He can fit the pieces on and take them off, but obviously the actual challenge of the puzzle is way beyond him for now. He loves the fine motor skill practise of the pieces on the pegs though, and gravitates to this one often.




I saw ideas through Pinterest mainly, that led to me making a REALLY simple and cheap activity for Samuel. I actually thought Benjamin would go for it, though it would be easy, as a fine motor skill activity. But when I made it this week, Samuel was SO very excited to see it that I gave it to him first.

It's a 4-pint plastic milk bottle with a hole cut in the side of it (washed thoroughly first, naturally!) and the lid off. I bought some bright coloured rainbow pom poms for £3 online, just because they are attractive to play with. They're 25mm pom poms, but I realised that I could have bought 38mm ones as they squash down quite small (they're soft and fluffy and gorgeous!). Anyway, the idea is that they post the pom poms through the top of the milk bottle and retrieve them through the hole in the side. Samuel got the hang of it straight away, which surprised me for some reason. Not that it's rocket science or anything, but I keep thinking he's a little baby who sits around mouthing toys still, lol! I guess he's growing and changing faster than I'm keeping up with! He is loving the toddler activities, and you can really see his accuracy at some of them improving day by day.

Here are some photos of him doing the pom poms/milk bottle activity this morning after his nap. He concentrates hard on the process, and the milk bottle is lightweight so tips over fairly easily. He just says, "Uh-ohhh..." and picks it back up again! :) He is one for completing the whole job before retrieving the pom poms, which is interesting for me to observe! Benjamin likes to put a couple in and then get them out, but Samuel was having none of that. He likes them ALL in first, and he claps to applaud himself after successfully posting EVERY SINGLE ONE in, hehe! Sweetie pie! :) After they're all in, he peers sweetly in the hole in the top, and then picks it up to get them out of the side:








Then he loses interest and prefers to try to get his hands on my camera :)





Benjamin likes the pom poms and milk bottle too, and gets very focused on putting them in, but at 2 years and nearly 8 months old, he doesn't do this activity for very long. He prefers chucking them about after a bit! ;) He does love the activity (no photos of this one though) that I put out for him where he has an empty ice-cube tray and some pom poms, and a pair of jumbo tweezers to transfer them with, and is getting good at manipulating those now. Here he is this morning, joining in with Samuel at the end (the delapidated cardboard box thingy behind them is the remains of last weeks "house" made out of two BIG boxes that arrived containing a bigger car seat for Samuel! HOURS of fun with that since last week, seriously!):





Must make that lunch! Here are two more of Samuel that I took this morning, just because he is as cute as a button and I love him soooooooooo! :) Sweet little beep!