Camping, of sorts.

This weekend was spent mostly in a field. I help to organise a camp with one of the forums I'm on and it was this weekend at our local scout camp - local so I can go to my own bed at night if needed. That's one of the perks of organising it! The kids had a fantastic time. I barely saw them on Friday as they were off playing with friends and exploring. Isaac and Matthew camped on Friday night and Isaac wanted to stay in the tent on Saturday too but that didn't work out as Isabel kept escaping under the door and mama patience was wearing thin so we jumped in the car and came home. It was a great weekend and having said last year that this was the last year I was being involved I seem to have already committed to another year. We'll see if I can manage to camp next year. There aren't many photos as my camera hardly made it out of the bag all weekend. 

Today has been a quiet day at home recovering. The highlights of the day have been a local teen friend who comes and plays with the kids for some pocket money in the holidays and then the veg box arriving. Isabel worked her way through a whole bag of peas.

Isaac has a lovely henna butterfly left over from the weekend.

Evening Recital

Sunny Daze

We're all a bit limp. Loving the weather and the ability to spend a lot of time outdoors but there's not much sleeping going on and it's beginning to make us wilt. Or maybe that's just me. 

Another Isabel classic this morning of wanting a coat on the hottest day of the year. Thankfully she took it off once we got to the park. 

There goes my cookie... I should be a lot slimmer the amount of my food that disappears into my children. Unfortunately I think I portion size as though they're always going to steal it and some of the time they don't.

We did a little bit of painting outside this afternoon. Isabel mostly did herself and the furniture...

Isaac found the roll of sticky labels and put them to use...

Iz was concerned for the little baby snail in the water. She spent a good 10 minutes watching it before poddling off to do something else.

Florence Day

In the midst of busyness and sunshine and moving sofas and catching trains there is the ghost of a girl. She would have been 3 today. Jeanette and her family are in my thoughts. 

Helpers

For those of you who don't know, giving a 2 year old a punnet of blackberries in the car is not a good idea. It seemed like it at the time - well it didn't but it seemed better than the alternative which would have been toddler meltdown and complete inability to get her back in the car. Plus requesting fruit should be encouraged, no? We do our main food shop online so that we don't have the stresses of shopping in a big supermarket with small children so it's a bit of a novelty to shove them both in a trolley and potter around a supermarket for a few bits and bobs. Isabel almost always requests fruit. Isaac varies in what he wants and is very good at helping unload the trolley onto the check out. So there we were. Two tired children and a bag of shopping and whilst Isaac was happy to have a fairly unremarkable muffin Isabel wanted blackberries. Not one or two. No that wouldn't do. It had to be the whole punnet. 

Combine all of this with driving around and around a small village trying to find somewhere to park so that we could go for a paddle in the village and blackberries being launched into the front lead to an abrupt stop on a country lane and a part punnet of fruit retrieved. The squished berries in the back only got cleared up today. 

The dog wouldn't eat them but he did find bits of bread sticks and all sorts of other things (it's better not to ask). Both kids happily play in the front of the car whilst I clear out the back. The dog sticks around until the Dyson appears when he goes off to see if he can wander down the street without me noticing. Isaac being Isaac and the sunroof was too tempting. He did take a cloth to the roof of the car though so at least he was being useful. 

All manner of things were retrieved from the back of the car - 5 socks, a pair of wellies and many toys included. Isabel reclaimed the wellies almost immediately.

I wouldn't say the car interior was clean but it's no longer a health hazzard.

Oh and a public service announcement to anyone with split rear seats and small children - you'll need to clean underneath... how all the food make it down that tiny crack I have no idea but it was pretty grim under there.

I give it till the weekend before it's a mess again.

Muddy play

The park is so soggy underfoot with all the rain that it was a slippery and muddy affair to go and play there this weekend but we ended up being there for 3 hours and only about 5 minutes of that was in the playground. A group of 4 older ones (3 and 4 year olds) spent ages in the climbing tree, climbing and role playing (there were cars and missions to get strawberries as well as firebombs and goodness knows what else). It was really lovely to watch them play. 

There used to be a tree stump by the climbing tree. It was a bit uncomfortable but a good height and a helpful perch for feeding smaller ones or just resting weary grown up legs. It's gone though - not sure why. So there was a lot of leaning on trees and attempts to play muddy football with the smaller ones.

This weekend was the Learning Trust - Trusting Learning conference in Surrey and it's been a great weekend to meet other home educating families (hi Jo) and for Matthew to explore a lot of the topics that I read up on in books and on various blogs and yahoo groups. Isaac went to play with a friend today so that I could go for the day and we took Isabel with us. She was lovely and patient and seemed to enjoy lots of time with both of us even if we were listening to speakers and talking to other grown ups. I don't think she's ever really spent time with us without Isaac being there.

Paddling

We went to the climbing wall at Northleach yesterday and as the weather was good we stopped for a paddle on the way home. The plan was to go to Lower Slaughter but we couldn't find anywhere to park so we went to Bourton instead, much busier but still fun and with the bonus of chips in the car on the way home. 

The water was very very cold so it took a while before either of them wanted to paddle and then Isaac didn't stay in for very long. Isabel would have stayed all day I think. There were a lot of tourists taking photos of them as they were the only people braving the water. 

Look no rain

For a few hours at least we had no rain. I'd like to say we made the most of it but really we just managed to get out of the house for an hour or so before tea in between buying dog food and eating pizza.