Benjamin's 1st Birthday!

Finally a catch-up post on Benjamin's first birthday! I have a lot of photos to share, and wish I had more time to write "stuff" to go in between them, but it is already late! My laptop finally came back from being fixed today, and I can now access my photos again, hooray! :) So, without further ado...

On July 9th, my sweet little Benjaminny turned ONE! A whole year old. Amazing. He napped for a long time during the morning so we didn't do much birthday-specific stuff. After lunch, he opened his presents, and then napped again, and we had his birthday cake after dinner.

Here are the first photos I took of him that day - tasting cows milk for the first time! They say 12 months for starting cows milk, so we usually just make it a "first" on their first birthdays. Sometimes ice-cream too! :) Here is Benjamin swigging back his drink at lunchtime (he had cheese, cream cheese sandwiches and Nutella sandwiches, because those are his favourites!), without knowing there was milk inside it! I he gave us "looks" as he realised it was different - I'm not sure what he made of it! He does much prefer my milk still, but it has pretty much dried up now so I am glad that he will tolerate cows milk in the meantime. He's still nursing just the same, for comfort, and that's GREAT with me because I actually want him to still be nursing when the new baby (and new MILK!) arrives in December, and then hopefully carry on until at least age 2. :)









After lunch, he had some tumble time with Daddy (mostly involving Benji being eaten or tickled - how he LOVES this game!). You can see how much he enjoyed it from the photos! :)











A little while later, the boys were eager for Benjamin to open some presents, as we STILL hadn't got to that part of his birthday yet! He was acting so sleepy and seemed really ready for another nap, but we brought his presents out and he opened two or three before heading off for his nap (he opened the rest afterwards, but I didn't get pictures of that). As I brought them, everybody started singing "Happy Birthday" to him, and ohhhh he just sat and beamed around at us all! I had no idea he would love being sung to like that so very much, being the centre of adoring attention, haha! He's the centre of adoring attention a LOT around here, but this was a certain intense focus and he really enjoyed it! So much so that when we stopped and set the presents down, he didn't take any notice of them at all, just started sort of making a sing-song sound with "words" that went, "Naa-naaa, naaaaa, na-na-naaaa" etc, over and over. He was giving us intent LOOKS as he did so, and we eventually realised he was "singing" Happy Birthday to try to get us to sing it to him again, haha! Sweet little peanut! :) So we did, and he breathed a heavy, happy sigh of relief and basked in the joy of us singing to him again, smiling round at us. As soon as we stopped, he prompted again, and again and again, ALL day long, hehe! In fact, just today after lunch he ate something or other with chocolate on it (I can't remember how or what it was!) and sat rocking in his booster seat at the table, singing, "Naa-naaa, naaaaa, na-na-naaaa..." and on and on, until I recognised it as his little "Happy Birthday" song from last month! The boys started singing Happy Birthday to him straight away and he beamed so happily at them, and enjoyed their singing right to the very end! It was obvious that he was remembering the association between the chocolate and the song we sang him as we ate his chocolate birthday cake on his birthday! :)

Anyway! So the first photo here is an odd one - he looks tired out, and like he's letting his mouth hang open or something! But I took it because it was the only "caught" memory of him "singing" Happy Birthday to himself! :) The boys were very excited about the present-opening and helped him a lot with the wrapping paper. He wasn't too interested at first, but he soon enjoyed pulling the paper if we started it off for him.













He got a CD of African music (for children), which ALL the boys love! We looked at the information about the various countries in Africa that the songs came from, and then put the CD on. Benjamin reached and reached for the CD player when the music started (a good sign that he really liked the music!). He likes to bop to some of the songs still, and we usually have this CD on several times a day still. Arthur and Matthew love it so much, and we have learned such a lot about Africa since Benjamin's birthday! (never mind my hair in this photo - it was having an unruly "frizz" day for some reason!)





After Benjamin's nap they played with the new toys and Benjamin opened a present of a few books from my mum. I didn't get photos! But then came dinner (spaghetti bolognese, because it was his joint favourite meal, along with my pesto/tomato pasta sauce on fusilli!), and after that we sat the boys at the school table for birthday cake! I didn't get a photo of the cake before we ate it, but never mind. You can pretty much see it from the first photo, but some of it is out of shot. I made a big sheet cake (the usual chocolate cake with chocolate fudge icing - Benjamin really liked that at Matthew's and Grandoug's birthdays, so I made it for his too!) and cut it into the shape of a big "1". I put one candle on it and Smarties all around the edge to set it off and look fun. Smarties are a treat for our boys so I knew they would like that. Benjamin has not had them before though, obviously!

I carried it in and everyone sang "Happy Birthday" and Benjamin looked SO pleased with life, hehe! He was fascinated by the candle but even though he looks like he's starting to reach for it in the first photo, he wouldn't actually reach out to touch it. He just wanted to see it. The boys blew it out for him, since he was too mesmerised by the flame to even take in the idea of blowing at it, lol! As soon as the candle was blown out, he set to work scraping the Smarties off the cake - not to put in his mouth, just for the fun of it I think! Funny boy! :) They all tucked in, and as expected, Benjamin reeeally enjoyed his birthday cake. The photos tell the story really - he got pretty messy and was rather possessive of his piece of cake! ;) Once it was finished, he even tried to start on the piece of kitchen roll in front of him that had some fudge icing on it, hehe!























Neil ran a bath while they were finishing their cake, and Benjamin went straight from the table to the bath! ;) Until that day, he had still been getting his baths like a baby - in the big bath but on his own without the bath toys that the big boys play with. I would just sit him in, wash him, and lay him back to wash his hair. He loves his baths and so we didn't change a thing, until that day. I just suddenly thought since they all needed a bath INSTANTLY (they were all pretty chocolatey!), he might enjoy sharing a bath for the first time! We chose to pair them up (and generally still do, though they had their first bath ALL together last week, and the second one today - sweet sweet photos to come!!), and put Benjamin in the bath with Matthew. Nathey sometimes screeches and fusses when we wash his hair, and we didn't want to pair Benji with him because we thought he might get a bit freaked out by Nathan's noise! He had a lovely time in the bath with Matthew, and very much enjoyed the bath toys. He would not stop drinking out of all the cups and containers, no matter how we tried to dissuade him! ;) Matthew LOVED bathing with Benjamin, and Arthur was a bit put-out not to get the opportunity, but we switch their pairs frequently so they both get the chance. They LOVE Benjaminny-bean-boo! We all do! :)



After his bath, my four crazy little boys played some sort of racing game on all fours around the living room, shrieking and laughing continually (one of Benjamin's favourite games to play with his brothers - they love it too!). I sat and spectated for ages and could not stop smiling at them because they were so funny and sweet, all stark n*ked crawling around, with wild hair from being quickly towel-dried before they streaked off! ;) They continued until at least two of them had hiccups from laughing so hard, and then we got them into pyjamas and ready for bed.

The last photo I got of Benjamin on his birthday was of "teeth time", just after all the boys had their teeth brushed (they're all little enough to need us to brush their teeth still - Arthur would prefer to do his own but he doesn't get that privilege till he's 7! Good dental hygiene is just too important and the dentist recommends parents brushing children's teeth until age 7 so that it's done thoroughly enough, so that's what we're doing! He gets more free-rein in the mornings though). Benjamin LOVES having his teeth brushed! He only had 3 at his birthday (first bottom one onnnly just came through) and now has two at the top and two at the bottom (nothing more in the works yet). He has a teeny little pink toothbrush, because they randomly select the colour when you order them for a supermarket delivery (which we do!), and they brought pink! He loves it! So I am glad to have a picture of him with his little pink toothbrush at the end of the day on his birthday :)



They all seemed pretty tired out, but Benjamin didn't breastfeed to sleep. He often doesn't, and then I usually rock him in my arms, or else put him in his cot and sit next to it while he gets settled, and read. This time he finished nursing at 7.15pm or so, and I held him in my arms and sang Happy Birthday to him really softly as I rocked him, and some other songs, just letting him get sleepy. I watched the clock the whole time, because I remembered that at 7.15pm a year before, I was nearly there, starting to want to push, and getting ready to meet him. He was born at 7.30pm and I was so thankful to be in the same room a year later, walking him back and forth at the side of the bed - the same bed where he was born. I could almost see myself there as I walked and sang, a year ago. At 7.28 I knew my waters broke, and it was just such fun to relive it all in the same location, with the overwhelming gratitude that I had the same sweet precious baby boy in my arms going off to sleep, exactly one year later. At 7.30pm I sang him Happy Birthday again and felt quite tearful and just immensely happy and in love with my sweet Benji-boy. After another 10 minutes or so (where I just wanted to hold him, never mind if he wanted to go to bed, lol!), I put him in his cot and he slept.

Ahh, my sweet little Benjaminny! I am so happy to be his Mummy, and so thankful that God saw fit to bless us with him! I can't even put into words how VERY much I have enjoyed his first year, and while it's a bit sad that it's behind us now, I do look forward to the year ahead and the years beyond that. I don't really think too far ahead though, generally - I am too busy enjoying the moment! :)

I have more photos to come - quite a few of Benjamin, and I need to also post a catch-up photo post very soon about our trip to the beach, which we took the very next day after Benjamin's birthday! It was perfect weather and we just piled them all into the car and DID it! It was a lovely day, and I took lots of photos, which I'll post very soon! :)

Baby #5 is a....

Just a quick post to say that I had my 20 week scan today! Here's my sweet little treasure!



Everything looks great, the baby is measuring average for dates and all the various organs and parts look healthy and normal. So relieved and thankful! I posted in more detail at my pregnancy blog a couple of hours ago but got no comments, so I am going ahead and posting my lovely news everywhere else! I like to post big news for blog readers ahead of Facebook usually so people can "see it here first"! :) You can see a couple more profile pics of the baby at my pregnancy blog.

We DID find out the baby's gender!....

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That's right! Five boys!!! :D I am so happy, because I have felt that this baby is a boy from the early on. We picked his name at 5 weeks pregnant and I just KNEW that that was who was inside me from that moment on. His name is Samuel Robert. Samuel means "heard of God" or "God has heard" - I love that! He has truly heard my prayer for more precious little ones and blessed me abundantly!

PLEASE DON'T LET ON ABOUT HIS NAME AT FACEBOOK!!!!

We save the name for when we announce that the baby is born, for all but family and my bloggy friends! :) A lot of friends from church and so on follow me at Facebook and I don't want them to know his name until he is born. Thank you! :)

I will be back with a normal update soon! I just want to shout my news from the rooftops today! :D

Homeschooling update, at last!

Finally a chance to post about homeschooling! I am loving it, and despite the slow start this year with a BIG gap while I was morning sick (which still hasn't quite gone yet at 18 weeks, but it's MUCH better now!), things are going well and I am happy and confident about it. It's much more laid-back and unstructured than I originally planned/thought it would be, but that's just happened by chance and it is working very nicely like that for now. I think I will need to become more structured with it eventually, but I'm happy with it for now.

School takes place when Benjamin goes down for his morning nap. Nathan is dropping his nap now so he's almost always up with us when we do school, but it is working okay. He and Matthew play, or draw at the table with us. Or both! Matthew prefers to watch Arthur's lessons for the most part, but still plays or draws too. I sometimes have real trouble keeping the little ones quiet or well-behaved enough to actually DO school with Arthur, and on those days I sort of want to pull my hair out and genuinely think I will NEVER be able to do this properly! Those days are not so fun. But overall I LOVE homeschooling. The boys are getting the picture about what to expect (behaviour-wise) during school time, and it's such a short "school day" anyway - we only do phonics/reading and maths right now, and each of those take maybe 20 minutes if that. I like to leave an hour or so for school, and I usually do something with Matthew when I am finished with Arthur too. Some days we play games from the reading curriculum and just continue until Benjamin wakes. It is working well for us to time it with his naps. It's really hard to do school when all four boys are up and milling around the school table! I found that I couldn't do it, and had to shift things to when Benjamin napped, for now.

Arthur's Right Start Mathematics curriculum (Level B) for the next school year has arrived, and I am being VERY controlled and not opening it yet! We still have about a third of the Level A curriculum left to do, but we probably do about 4 lessons a week (we have maybe 30 lessons left, or less) so I am thinking we might be finished by early September or so. I am planning to change our school year to match the calendar year. We started last year on Sept 28th - a little later than schools do here. Schools break up for the summer at the end of this week (except for private schools which break up a little earlier in July), but I expect we'll continue without a break. We currently have quite a loose schedule and aim for a 4-day school week, which is my long-term plan. That leaves one day a week for fun outings, field trips, and just projects at home that school does leave much time for on a normal day, like baking, crafts and so on. I like outings on weekdays because other children are in school so there are no crowds or queues! :) Arthur is not interested in taking breaks from school - and we take spontaneous breaks anyway where we feel the need, so we are not really going to do school holidays. I will expect to be taking most (if not all) of December off from school though, as the baby is due on the 13th. And all of January. I hope to get back to school by the end of Jan, but MOMYS (Mothers of Many Young Siblings) ladies are saying that with a 5th baby (and now I think of it, this should apply to any other baby, not just the 5th!) you should expect to take at least a month off afterwards, in terms of normal household routine and homeschool. So I will try to set my goal for starting back at the beginning of February. I like the idea of starting a fresh academic year after a big break like that, and that will also give us some extra time to tie up things like the Maths curriculum we're doing without rushing it.

Matthew is SO desperate to start school! He begs every. single. day. He only just turned 4 last month, but if he was going to public school he would be starting in September! That seems crazy to me! But true! :) He seems so young still, and I am not sure he's quite ready, but he's SO KEEN to learn the stuff that Arthur is learning. He watches Arthur's lessons with great interest and tries to copy part-whole circle sets and numbers and so on, on his drawing paper next to us, as I work on those things with Arthur - they end up with sweet little squiggles drawn on them, which are his "letters" and "numbers", and he is so proud of his efforts! He does do some worksheets to practise writing letters and numbers, but really we are still working on the fine motor skills of holding his pencil properly and control, etc. I work through a Kumon workbook with him - a couple of pages every day - to improve his pencil control, and that's fun for him to do. I do that after Arthur's maths and reading lessons, and Matthew looks forward to it so much! I am excited about starting to homeschool my second little pupil! :) But I would prefer to wait till February, as he will be that bit older. I am increasingly not sure that he can wait that long though, so I am thinking I'll review the situation in September, and probably end up starting him on Level A maths at that time, even if we break the lessons down into two parts (his attention span is SHORT) and do one part each day. The lessons are really short anyway, but that might be even more suitable for him.

Arthur's current phonics/reading curriculum is Rocket Phonics. I can't say enough great things about it! It's a different method to the Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, which I ALSO can't say enough great things about, but somehow Rocket Phonics is SOOOOOOO much better. It's great fun, very active, and an absolutely genius method of teaching a child to read with the 36-sounds helper system. I thought it would be complicated to teach him about "helpers" but nope. He has taken to it so quickly, and the fabulous system means that he can decode ANY word and read it without trouble. He is really enjoying the funny stuff he gets to read as well, and I know he will love reading the clues to the treasure hunts we're about to start (and the prizes that are INCLUDED in the curriculum!!! Soooo great!).

Matthew is learning the phonics sounds - we learn them by playing Go Fish and Bingo and such, as the curriculum suggests. He really isn't "getting it" yet, but that's okay. We will continue to play the games until he does - he LOVES playing them, and there's no timescale or deadline. So I guess I am already sort of homeschooling Matthew but in my mind, because I'm not "officially" doing so, I sort of don't see it that way yet! ;) Silly of me! Nathan surprised me recently by recognising and naming his numbers up to 10, and the letter "t as in tiger" on one of the Rocket Phonics flashcards! I am teaching him NOTHING because I am focusing on the older boys, and Nathan's only 2, but I guess he's hovering around absorbing stuff and taking more interest than he lets on! Have I mentioned lately how much I LOVE homeschooling! I am just as eager as Arthur to NOT take breaks. I love teaching my children!

Arthur adores maths. Reading he likes too, but he often gets frustrated with it because he is impatient and perfectionist, and those two things are not a good combo for learning to read! ;) He won't slow down and READ the word when he is in a hurry to see what something says, and if he makes a mistake therefore, and has to go back to re-read a word, he will just throw his arms up, act frustrated and refuse to do any more that lesson. I struggle with this as I find it REALLY exasperating! But we're persevering! He has no trouble learning anything so far, it's just the slowness of doing some things that annoy him! It's so bizarre to watch him write equations (lately the maths lessons are all about basic equations) with his own hand! I keep sort of staring at him writing in disbelief on occasion, because suddenly I can't fathom how my little baby turned into a boy at the table writing out __ + __ = __ correctly and at speed with his own fair hand! I love teaching him, I LOVE it. I'm so thrilled to be the one who has the privilege of seeing him grasp concepts and learn how to do things for the first time, and seeing the development beyond that, and I'm so excited about the years to come! I'm so happy that he's enjoying learning. The other day he came running to me in the kitchen to show me that he had broken into the pens drawer (NOT allowed without permission!) and written up his arm: 5+2=7! ;) His response to me telling him off for breaking into the drawer and writing on himself was, "But Mummy, it's the right answer!" ;) Unfortunately his brothers tried to copy him and, having no exposed skin at the time, scribbled on their sleeves and jeans with highlighter pen. Urgh! I still think they're sweethearts though, even though we have a few little issues to take care of! ;)

Right Start Mathematics is brilliant. I can't imagine needing anything else but Right Start for my little ones, up until the curriculum ends. They do Levels A-E and then applied geometry and algebra. Right now I am thinking we will have to drop maths lessons to 2 per week instead of doing them daily, once we start Level B in the new academic year, because otherwise if we keep up with doing school better than we did this year, we'll finish it in about half the year. I do want each Level to stretch to the full year, so I think I will do it that way. I don't think Arthur is going to be pleased! He LOVES maths. If he really wants more, I might fill it in with Math Mammoth on alternate days or something. I still have the first year curriculum but we haven't used it so far - Right Start has been all we've needed. If we were only doing Right Start every other day right now and Arthur wanted to do maths every day, I think we would be using Math Mammoth. But we got "behind" and so we're happily doing maths every day, which suits us well! :) It's so much fun! I have had to make a few little changes, like for the lessons on currency, obviously. I don't use any of the manipulatives or tools that came with the curriculum because they're only in US dollars, Canadian dollars, and Euros. I just use real coins (we have a LOT of loose change lying around that is now bagged in coin types and finally being put to good use!) and teach from the lesson with £ and pence instead. I thought it might be a faff to arrange but it hasn't been at all! :)

Arthur has completed nearly all the objectives for the Level A curriculum (I review his progress quarterly - they have a sheet for this). He still hasn't covered learning to tell the time or fractions because they're at the end of the curriculum, and he's constantly asking when we'll do the "clock lessons" as he's really eager! But he can tell time already to the hour and the half hour, which is all that's covered in Level A anyway. It was reassuring to me a month ago when I was panicking a bit about it being summer and us NOT being where I had planned for us to be as far as school goes. I felt so behind - though I DON'T have to see it that way at all, homeschooling is rather freeing in that respect but it's all too easy to fall back into "comparing" and over-zealous personal expectations when you're a homeschooling mama, I am learning! Anyway it was so reassuring to do a routine review of his progress and discover that he had almost achieved all the goals for the first year of maths anyway! :) There's a lot of practice and building on things already learned, in the rest of the curriculum, which is nice. Arthur is SO excited to start Level B!

Next year, for Arthur, I plan to add in some other subjects, but right now I am not thinking to do too much more. He currently practises handwriting about once a week - I help him write a letter or postcard to someone in the family and he draws a picture to go with it, and we take a trip to buy a stamp and he posts it himself. He loves doing that, relatives love getting his letters, and he is improving his writing and getting regular practise. I plan to increase the frequency of handwriting practise next year, start some spelling at some point, and continue with the Rocket Phonics. The curriculum is generally expected to take about 2.5 years to complete, at which stage he should come away from it with a reading age of about 10. It's a FANTASTIC programme! We just carry on working through it at his own pace.

I want to do more Bible lessons, and also start both of the older boys on drawing instruction lessons - I have the book I want to teach them from but I need to prepare by completing the course MYSELF first! :S I am ITCHING to start a science curriculum, and plan to do Apologia Science (sorry for lack of links - it's late!) for that, starting with the Astronomy course, but I am going to make myself wait (this is NOT easy, I cannot WAIT to start this! It looks so great!) until I can take both Arthur and Matthew through it at the same time - probably towards the end of 2011 or maybe when Matthew begins his second year.

Right now we do geography, history, music and science in "un-schooled" format - learning about things the boys are interested in as they arise. We got Benjamin a CD of children's African music for his birthday (that boy loves to bop to a beat, particularly an African beat for some reason, so I chose this CD for him and he loves it!), and the boys all love it. I didn't really expect it but it has turned into school for us too, because they are learning about the different rhythms and sounds, and dancing to it a lot and even mimicking the different languages to sing along. We are learning what the song titles mean in our own language. We have studied maps of Africa and our globe, naming the various countries in Africa and relating them to the countries where each of the songs come from. Some of the maps we've got have pictures of animals native to those countries, so we've been learning about those too.

We are learning a lot about dinosaurs, since it's a huge subject of interest for the boys - they ask questions and we go online and find the answers! Little Nathey is often heard in his tiny chipmunky voice talking about "parasaurolophus" and "euoplocepalops" (okay he always sweetly mispronounes that one - it's 'euoplocephalus', but I LOVE how he says it, hehe!), which sound such BIG words for a little 2-year-old to say. It's just that they're part of normal conversation around here (and plastic miniature dinosaur play!) most days, so he picks it up. I still plan to do unit studies on things like this, but I haven't got those off the ground yet. I have a Stegosaurus one in the works and really I have everything I need to carry it out (a week of daily lessons, covering art, history, geography and science, related to Mr. Stegosaurus!), but have yet to put it all together and then actually DO it!

We read aloud a LOT. Arthur learned a lot about the history and geography of volcanoes when the one in Iceland caused all that trouble recently, as he was fascinated by it and we checked its progress online daily and watched YouTube videos for kids about volcanic eruptions and the science behind it. He uses volcanoes a lot in his imaginative play with Matthew now! :)

Oops I have just noticed the time! :S I could talk about homeschooling all night! I must go to bed - it's not crazy late like it often gets with me, but I need an earlier night tonight. I have just been soooo tired these last few days. I think it's pregnancy related because my bump has grown a lot in just these few days! I think my littlest sweetie is having a growth spurt! :) So glad to have managed to update in more detail about all the school-related stuff I have been wanting to mention! I'll update again soon!

Family gathering :)

Just a catch-up post! I wanted to post some photos of the family gathering we had a few days before Benjamin's birthday. My grandfather (Grandoug, as we have always called him, since his name is Doug!) turned 85 on the 5th of July, and he usually likes to have the family round for the day with a nice lunch in the garden. I LOVE Grandoug's birthday "bashes", because it's the only opportunity in the whole year when my family gets together. I love seeing my family, especially all together! I have a really small family. Each of my grandparents (on my dad's side - my other grandparents died a while back) are only-children, and my dad is an only child too. My mum has only one sister and she only had one child, so the whole family is very small! We never see my mum's sister and my cousin - they live a way off and I don't know, visiting just never really happens. But my grandparents live about 30 minutes drive away. They have always lived close and been involved in our lives as much as possible and I love that about them!

So our Big Family Gathering actually only involves 14 people, including children! ;) But it's so much fun! My parents live in France as you know, and so they don't always come over, but this year they did! :) I LOVE to see my parents! Bennie (my brother) and Sarah were there with their two little ones, and it was lovely. I took lots of photos because I so wanted to capture the event for prosperity, just to look back on fondly. They have a garden which the little ones love to run about in and play, and we took a little pop-up tent and some toys. My mum (Nana to the grandchildren!) took books to read to them. All the little ones LOVE Nana and Grandy!

I just wanted to post photos!

Lunch! My little ones LOVE Yorkshire puddings - they're so picky and that's about all they ate from the main course. *sigh* Dessert was yummy, and there were CHOICES! Matthew needed a serious wipe-down after eating chocolate ice-cream! ;) (I finally cut Matthew and Arthur's hair in time for that weekend - yay!):







My lovely Daddy watching his grandchildren from the table, and my beautiful Mummy with her newest grandchild - Rasmus (4 months here - isn't he GORGEOUS?!?!):




Playing football with the beach ball we took with us, and Benjamin's thoughts on the lawn (not great pics, but oh well)! Poor lovey! The grass was all dry and prickly and he did not like it one bit! He kept trying to crawl without using his knees, and then without using his feet, hehe! And then getting really fed up when he couldn't manage crawling without using either his knees OR his feet! ;) We either carried him about or let him crawl on a blanket, after a while.





Grandoug has various watering cans and a hosepipe attached to the garden tap, and the boys discovered it! Grandoug let the little ones come and get their cans filled and water the garden, and OH how they loved the privilege! Here they are watering :)






My mum brought her copy of A.A. Milne's "When We Were Very Young" (which she read to me when I was little!) and the little ones all sat around her and listened while she read it in the garden after lunch.



The grown-ups played football with the little ones (mainly Arthur and Matthew, though Nathan joined in here and there) for quite a while until they were all hot and tired out, and then Granny brought out ice-lollies for everyone! :) Here are the little ones under the weeping willow with Nana, eating their lollies (and looking somewhat bemused at me taking photos, for some reason!):




This is what Neil and Benjamin were doing during the "lolly break"! Benjamin's naptime arrived and he was rubbing his face and fussing constantly. I brought the Ergo with us, presuming to put him on my back at naptime so he could have a sleep, but when it came time for it, I felt so tired out that I didn't know if I could do it! Neil was happy to wear Benjamin for his nap, even though it took a fair bit of walking around the garden! Such a sweet daddy! :) Benjamin zonked right out after about 10 minutes but he stirred if poor Neil stood still for too long! He napped about 30 minutes in the end, which is way shorter than his normal naps, but much better than no nap!




After he woke up, he even let Nana cuddle him! He is wary of anyone unfamiliar picking him up or even approaching him sometimes. He warmed to Nana quite quickly though, as they all seem to! :)




Birthday cake time! Tradition has it that I always make Grandoug a birthday cake for the family gatherings, ever since my teens. Often I do a novelty one and work to amuse or surprise everyone when it's revealed - that's always fun! But the last few years I have been hard pushed to get a cake baked and decorated and everyone out for the day in time, so they have been a bit more basic! Everyone's favourite is the usual milk chocolate cake with chocolate fudge icing that I make for the boys' birthdays. It's all I seem to bake, but it's always because it's requested, not because I can't make any other varieties! ;)



More confirmation of how Benjamin loves him some chocolate birthday cake (I baked his birthday cake only 4 days later!) - he was sitting on Neil's lap when Neil was trying to eat his piece, and it was demolished in minutes!




Near the end of the afternoon, Grandoug wanted a family photo which we thought might be near impossible to achieve! Then I remembered I have a timer on my camera, so I set it up so that everyone could be in the photo. The little ones were so patient at the front while I did a few test-runs with poor outcomes, lol! I had to press the button and then RUN back to my place, and I had the 1.7mm lens on the camera so it had to be FAR away from everyone! ;) I am not hugely pregnant yet, but it was not a graceful manouvre, I can tell you, hehe! Nathan went all shy at the last minute and would not leave my arms, so in the end I had to press the button on the camera with Nathan in my arms and then run with him back to my spot - hence the fact that I'm flustered, breathless and not even composed for the photo (or looking at the camera!) by the time it snapped! ;) This is my lovely family:



We had such a nice day! Having learned from last year, we gave the boys sandwiches and stuff at 6pm before we left and then put their night nappies and pyjamas on, and drove home. In the past we've arrived home at 6.30ish only to have to feed and put to bed several very tired and cranky boys, and they've ended up with a really late bedtime when they needed the opposite! So this time Nathan was asleep before we even arrived home, and transferred to bed for the night without waking (even when we brushed his teeth, bless him!!), and the other boys all went straight to bed after brushing their teeth and were asleep quickly. We were EXHAUSTED - I felt quite nauseous and lightheaded for the evening which I put down to not drinking enough fluids during the hot afternoon, and also just being up on my feet way more than I usually am. I'm starting to feel tired and breathless a lot more with the pregnancy now, so I need to take it easy where I can and remember my fluids - and I hadn't that day. But it was such a lovely day! :)

I will post again soon - I have MUCH to say, especially about school, and yet more photos! I want to catch up about Benjamin's birthday, and the trip to the beach we took the day after as well! :) SOON, I promise!

It's Benjamin's 1st birthday!

I MUST update this blog! I always say it, but I have so much news all the time, but no time to write about it! Oh well! :)

Today is Benjamin's first birthday, and to commemorate my sweetie pie turning one, I have FINALLY managed to finish his birth story, which is over at my pregnancy blog if you are interested in reading it. I had people asking (rather impatiently, lol!) for me to finish it and post it, so I am mentioning it here too - it's DONE! :) I think I set a new record in my award-winning long-windedness though - be warned! ;) It's over 15,000 words long!!!!! I had no idea I wrote that many, but it's really just a record of EVERY detail for my own personal benefit. You're welcome to read it though, if you can spare a few evenings! ;)

I will have to update again another time (hopefully very soon!!) about Benjamin's birthday. I have no time right now, and next time I should have photos to go with the update!

The other thing is that the next round of Through the Bible in 90 Days started on July 5th (I am frustrated with myself because I meant to blog about it well enough in advance for anyone to read about it and decide to take part, tsk!!), and though I had no plans whatsoever to do it again before next year, here I am having completed the reading for Day 4, and on I go! :) The thing is, I have recently begun to feel HUNGRY to read it all again. I put the feeling aside, thinking I would just read the bits I wanted to read, but I really just have such an appetite to go through the whole story again in depth, not just dip in and out. So by the time July rolled up, I was eager to join in! I was going to do the 90-day challenge every January, but I'll be having a baby in mid-December so I don't think it will work out for Jan 2011! I'm excited to be reading again, and I feel less SET on completing it in 90 days this time - more relaxed about it. I actually have the Bible in 90 Days Bible this time, and I'm reading from that, not my own. I'll be updating about that at the usual checkpoints, but actually I haven't even signed up for it yet! I am just "on schedule" with what I know others are doing. I must find time to actually head over to the blog that hosts it (which slips my mind at this instant, oops!) and sign up and take part! The community aspect is important to get through the challenge. Anyway, yay - I finished Genesis and I'm into Exodus now! :)

School is currently going WELL (woohoo, it's been a sloooow start this year!) and I have much that I want to write about it, but never mind, it will have to be another time. I'm behind at my pregnancy blog too (17.5 weeks now and haven't updated since 15 weeks!) but I plan to catch up soon! I'm just so busy in my evenings, and not using the laptop as much as I used to, as well as reading the Bible, preparing school and so on, and I do not get online for longer than a few minutes in the day otherwise chaos reigns in the house! ;)

I will be back soon though!

Matthew's 4th Birthday, and other updatey stuff!

Time for an update! I meant to do a further update on Benjamin, but time just passes, and at least I got a couple of catch-up posts done for him fairly recently! :) He'll feature in this post plenty, so I think that'll be okay! Look, see? Here he is with his head in my camera bag, lol! ;) He can't resist my camera bag if I leave it lying around!



Matthew turned 4 on June 14th! So now my littlies are 5,4,2 and 11 months. Benjamin only has a couple of weeks to go until his first birthday - I can't believe it! In some ways it feels normal, and like a full year really HAS gone by. At other times it's just surreal. We never did get around to purchasing a 2010 calendar, so we're being really, er, frugal (or just lazy?!) and re-using our 2009 wall calendar, which didn't have much written in it for last year anyway. We have had to cross out the number dates and re-write them as they're a day different, but it is serving us well enough for now! MUST buy a 2011 one before the year is out, hehe! Anyway, when I am pregnant, I put my weeks of pregnancy as a number in a circle through the entire pregnancy on my wall calendar - it makes for easy reference. It's sometimes a strange feeling to flip over to July to check things for next month and see "Baby Due!!" on the 8th, haha! ;) Or writing my little circled "16" (I'm 16 weeks pregnant today, yay!!) and seeing 38 in a circle a few days before it. Or seeing "20 week scan!" written in for July 28th (which is when our big scan is - so excited!!) and then on July 30th it says, "Register birth 10am today" hehehe! We really should use a different calendar for each year! Apart from anything else, it can get confusing when you're pregnant both years and have various midwife appointments written on there! ;)

Sooo, our summer birthdays are in full swing! I have some photos from Matthew's birthday - some very obviously "birthday" ones, and others of the boys just playing together. To save time I am going to post them through Blogger instead of uploading them to Photobucket and then editing their size, etc. The only thing I don't like about that is that the photos are too small for my liking, but you can click on them to make them bigger. And then they're humongous! Oh well! It's much quicker and since it's a weekday - OH! I mentioned this at my pregnancy blog but not here - I am currently not using my laptop during the week. I use it at weekends, but I am finding that if I switch it on in the evenings, I have ZERO willpower and end up staying up waaaaay too late. In the week this affects, well, everything really. But mainly school, so I need to stop. I tried to just STOP, but apparently I have no willpower whatsoever! So I did a little trial of not using it at ALL during the week, and what a difference it made! I went to bed at 10.30 or 11pm every night (embarrassingly, I go to bed HOURS later than that usually, when I am doing allll the things I do online in the evenings), was obviously more refreshed in the day times, and got great things done in the evenings instead. I felt more relaxed during the evenings, spent time with God - praying, reading the Bible and such - wonderful! I read books that I have been meaning/needing to read for ages and just not finding the time. I did a lot of school preparation and planning, and actually did some tidying and decluttering too, while listening to worship music! It felt GREAT! In the daytime, Neil works (or trains to eventually work!) on the main computer which is in the kitchen (out of the way of the boys since it's gated off). When he nips to the toilet or something, I tend to RUN to the computer and quickly check or update Facebook, or check my email, hehe! So I do get a LITTLE internet time in during the week.

Some evenings, maybe once a week, I have something I need to research or check online, usually to do with school, or a question that I need to ask at a forum. So then I switch on my laptop and do what I need to do, but inevitably I end up staying up later than I should on those evenings, because I wander on to do a ton of other stuff that I hadn't planned to do! I have just NO willpower when it comes to computer use! :S

Tonight after I prepared school for tomorrow, I talked with Neil about ordering the next year's Right Start Mathematics curriculum for Arthur, and he gave me the go-ahead so I got out my laptop to do that! Exciting!!!! :D And now, well, it's getting late so I should go to bed soon, but I really wanted to update here just to vent some excitement about school stuff, and then I realised that I still hadn't updated about Matthew's birthday, or posted photos that I had planned to post, and here we are! ;)

Anyway - back to where I was before this aside! So I am uploading the photos through Blogger as it's quicker and I need to cut some corners since it's a week night!

Here's Matthew opening presents, with various excited little onlookers! :) His favourite present was the matchbox cars he had asked for. He didn't even want anything else, just "new toy cars", so he was thrilled with those! He was also really excited about a Thomas the Tank Engine activity book (that's what he's grinning at, and what the other boys are looking at with him) and some stickers. He got a Playdoh spaghetti factory set from my parents and tons of books, which he loved too. We also got him a Melissa and Doug "get up and go games" set - the sandwich stacking one. Arthur LOVES it, and Matthew seems to like it too, but he would rather play with his cars so far! ;) Neil made our card (from us and the other boys) - we usually try to make the birthday cards ourselves for our little ones, themed to something they like. Neil made a (very good!) triceratops card! Matthew was soooo pleased with it when he opened it! :)

I can't remember what else he got... not many other things, because we are purposely trying to downscale birthday gifts this year. Partly we have very little money, and also we have a lot of children! ;) We also don't want them to expect piles of gifts - a few carefully chosen ones from us and books and a special present from my parents is plenty. My grandparents give money which we usually don't spend on yet more toys - more likely clothes that he needs or just save it. Neil's side of the family either just send cards or actually don't acknowledge our children's birthdays much at all. Which is a whoooole 'nother matter that I struggle with, but that's not for now! ;)

Anyway! I digress yet AGAIN! Photos! :)







Later in the morning the boys were all playing with cars at the window - they like to have a "shop" on the windowsill and one of them will be a car "deliverer", another will run the shop, and another will collect and drive away cars! :) They love this game and will play it for absolutely ages, before someone starts to get a bit too bossy and then it all falls apart with arguing and screeching and all that fun stuff. But they generally play ever so well and are absolute best friends. They were extra excited to include Matthew's new cars in the game that morning! Those were mostly under Matthew's control though! ;)

Look at my biggest boy! Arthur is looking so much taller and "older" to me lately. I can't believe he'll be six later this year! He insisted on wearing one of Matthew's tops that day, which is why the sleeves aren't quite long enough! ;) He is lining cars up on our (very battered!) sofa arm. A certain tiny boy is so eager to join in and be "one of the boys" lately, trying to drive cars along the floor and get involved in their games wherever he can!




No shortage of tiny helpers for Arthur here! :)




I happened to catch Matthew spontaneously giving Benjamin a kiss on the hand as they were playing! Oh my heart strings!!! :)



Benjamin crawled off in the end for some personal practise time at "brumming" cars, since he wasn't getting in on much of the action with the big boys! ;)



Birthday Cake!!! :D




Matthew asked specifically for a chocolate motorbike cake and it had to somehow involve Smarties (the British chocolate ones, not the US sour ones!) - I had noooo idea how I was going to make a motorbike out of chocolate cake! I googled but didn't really come up with much that looked do-able. In the end I found a simple card-topper at eBay in the shape of a motorbike. I used the picture of it on my computer to draw the parts of the motorbike and then cut out coloured fondant to those shapes. I reeeally dislike ready coloured icing! It's practically toxic! But I didn't know how to make an exciting looking cake without some bright colours, and it was a special occasion after all! :) I didn't let Benjamin eat any of it though. It was stuck onto the cake with normal chocolate icing so I just peeled off the fondant and he ate the rest! :)

I could not believe how enthusiastic Benjamin was about the cake! He has never really had proper birthday cake before, icing and all. I had planned to make a simple plain sponge cake for his birthday, but the photos say it all really - I am pretty sure if he could talk, he would be requesting chocolate cake with chocolate icing for his birthday cake, so that's what I'll make him! ;) Everyone seems to request that, so I end up making it for every birthday cake I do! I can make other cakes but only Neil prefers plain cakes to chocolate, so it doesn't happen often! Here's Benjamin loving the cake! :)



I'm thinking Nathan liked it pretty well too, hehe! ;) He likes the icing best - look at it just hanging off his face, haha! He kept mumbling, "Delicious cake!" as he was piling into it! Nathey LOVES him some cake...



Benjamin eating his cake again, pausing for a drink, and then reaching for Matthew's, hehehe!





We were going to offer Matthew the choice of going to the zoo late morning for the rest of the day, or just a typical run about at the park, but Neil overheard Arthur giving him more options than we'd considered at 6am, before we'd even had chance to talk to Matthew about it! He was saying, "Now Matthew, for your birthday outing, do you want to go to Bird World? Or the farm? Or the park? Or..." and so it went on! Surprisingly (and somewhat thankfully!), Matthew told Arthur that he wanted to go to the park. Arthur was most disappointed, lol! Matthew is such an easy-going little boy with no great urge to do exciting or unusual things just because he can. He always enjoys them, but he loves his "norm". When it came time for us to go to the park in the afternoon, he didn't want me to go! I usually put Benjamin to bed for a nap in the afternoons and that's often when Neil will take the boys to the park for their run-and-climb-and-explore. So I stay home with Benjamin since he's napping. Matthew knew we could go with them (I would have kept Benjamin up since it was a special day) but he still just wanted his usual outing which he enjoys so much, with Daddy and the boys. They went and had a great time, and came home in time for cake in place of afternoon snack! :) We sang Happy Birthday and Matthew blew out his FOUR candles before we even got to "Happy Birthday dear Maaaa-thewww!", hehe! He just couldn't wait! ;) We did keep on singing in the dark all the same though, to the end of the song!

We plan to go to the zoo over the summer but NOT when it's too hot, as that does not strike me as much fun! None of us are overly great with hot weather, especially me (and especially when pregnant!) and we're having a run of hot weather right now, so we're waiting. We ARE going to go to the seaside while it's hot though! :) We haven't done that in a long time - Nathan and Benjamin have never been! Arthur and Matthew have been asking if we can go to the beach this summer, and we have agreed. We plan on several day trips if the weather is good enough, ideally over the next few weeks before the schools break up for summer and the beaches get more crowded on nice days. I can't tell you how much I LOVE homeschooling for opportunities like this! A husband out of work is also helpful! ;) But we can literally hit the beach or the zoo or anywhere else, at any time of year, avoiding the crowds, any time we want to because the children don't go to school (and get cheaper rates everywhere too!). And I love that particular perk! :) Right now we are hoping to go on Friday, since it works for us, low tide is getting towards a better time to coincide with us being at the beach, and the weather is going to be hot. Hot enough so that we'd be better off out of London and at the slightly cooler coast for the day. I will absolutely take my camera but I don't know how well I'll do at actually capturing photographs of my little ones experiencing the sun, sand and sea, since I am likely to have my hands extremely full chasing after my sweeties and playing with them! :) But I'll definitely try to get some memories on camera.

I have a ton more I wanted to write - especially a long-overdue entry about how homeschooling is going, and what we're doing, and what I am planning! I sooooo want to write about it! For now, I will have to go to bed. I am glad to have updated about Matthew's birthday! Benjamin has three teeth!!! Two top middles and one bottom middle. No sign of more coming for now. His new toothy smile melts my heart every single time he flashes it at me (a thousand times a day)! I adore that baby boy! I have pics of him ready to post but no more time now. I'll try again soon! :)