Matthew's Christmas Play

We Love Christmas

Have A Nice Cup Of Tea

Snowmen Quite Like It

Sing Merrily

Three Cheers For Christmas

Encore

Joe's busy day

As promised, Joe took the camera to preschool with him and took lots of photos of his day....

Smile!

Too Close!

Joooooce!

Eyes Down!

Brrrrrr!

School Dinners are Yummy!

Spot the Snot!

Pink Ghost

Blue Ghost with 2 Occupants!



More Snot-Spotting!



Too Fast!



Designed and Built by Joe

 







Maybe it's us, or a bear?

 

If you go into the garden today you're sure of a big surprise..... yes, those innocent looking tracks could be........

A BEAR! because we do have bears in gardens you know, or so Joe informed me this morning!

I had taken photos of the tracks I found in the garden and was trying to identify them online. Joe came in and asked me what I was doing and when I told him he said I was silly, they were just from us walking. I told him I thought that was unlikely, and showed him the photos, which is when he decided it must be a bear.

So what do you think? I still haven't decided what they are, rat is most likely as we have lots of those, but maybe, just maybe, we have found a new species of miniture bear that lives in the hedges and gardens of Suffolk!

I'm being called, he can't get his trousers on - "they are just too wiggley" ......

Joe - he says this is his vampire look!

There's nowt so queer as Hens!

Our darling hens dropped their egg supply by half around the end of August and by October we were getting just one a day. November came and the eggs went, with no sign of any since. Until today. With snow on the ground and air so cold their water bowl re-froze after I removed the ice this morning, they decided to lay! Joe thinks it might be because he's been feeding them his leftover sugar puffs.....

Joe's Charlie and Lola afternoon

Tuesday is our home day usually, but today Joe went to pre-school for the morning while mummy helped at school. After school we went to do some shopping and Joe was allowed the Charlie and Lola magazine.  We also got some chocolate to melt down into advent calendar chocs!

When we got home we started by making the chocolates which could have been more successful, we'll wait and see what they're like when they come out of the fridge!

Then we had some fun with the craft set that came with his magazine. We read the story, did some desert collaging, and made Charlie and Lola figures.

Joe made a crown

And we took Charlie and Lola for a snowy adventure!

Snow days

Matthew's snowman

created from this

 

Fun in the snow on Saturday (throwing snowballs at me while I tried to take photos from the safety of an upstairs window!)

We're back!

Computer now works and after a week or so keeping away from it we're now ready to begin again!

Away for repair

Our computer has had a dodgy power switch since we first got it but Comet staff told me this was a common problem and as it would have to go away for repair I have put it off until now. With warranty up at the end of the month and the problem more and more annoying I have finally arranged the repair. It will be collected tomorrow from Uncle Neil's work (otherwise I have to wait in all day with Joe - so not happening!) and will be away for 5-7 working days. They will then email me to tell me it is coming back but I will not get the email as I will not have the computer so delivery will no doubt be attempted when I am not here! Anyway, this means that we will not be able to post any more blog entries for at least a week. I am now going to disconnect the computer and smother in bubble wrap before delivering to Neil this afternoon. It also means Matthew can't do his online homework but I guess he'll live with that!

Book Week

Ah yes, the joy that is Book Week. Sent to torture parents is my theory.

First, I spent my morning yesterday in school writing a story with Matthew. A task I had expected to be easier thanks to the practice at story writing during half term. But NO! It was just as bad as previous years, we got annoyed with each other and this year had the added bonus of Joe there too. We did eventually get a story written about a King with too much furniture who hosts Antiques Roadshow - it's still at school for now but will be published when it returns!

Next challenge is the Book Fair. I LOVE the Book Fair in principle, they usually have some good offers and as a household where books are one of our favourite things, new ones are always welcomed and the school gets profits as well. BUT, they put the large folding bookcases in the art area between two classrooms. This area holds just a few tables so really is not big enough for parents and children to look at the books after school. That bit I hate! They have said we can order from the catalogue so I might look at that, but it's just not the same as choosing your book off the shelf.

Then the worst part. Friday. Dress up as your favourite book character day. Matthew loathes dressing up with a passion. He always has and always will. Just like Laura has the extrovert gene enough for the two of us (some of her facebook profile pictures would give Granny a heart attack!), Joe appears also to have Matthew's share. Joe has an Iggle Piggle outfit from In The Night Garden that should just about still fit him.

Joe does not want to go as Iggle Piggle, when I made the suggestion he responded with "Or, I could even go as Upsy Daisy?". Not a huge problem you may think (if you have never experienced In The Night Garden!), until you see that Upsy Daisy is a dark skinned girl with multi-coloured dreadlocks and stripy tights.  

I'm all for letting him express himself but this may be a step too far. Especially as we don't already have the costume for that!

We have settled on not mentioning it to Joe again until it is too late for him to be anything other than Iggle Piggle or a policeman (because that's the only other dress-up set we have!), and Matthew agreed to be Horrid Henry as he just wears normal clothes. Horrid Henry wears a blue top with a yellow stripe. Matthew has no blue tops for me to sew a yellow stripe on. He wears jeans, Matthew has no jeans because he hates wearing them. He wears green trainers, and strangely enough we don't have any green trainers. The messy hair bit Matthew can achieve without even trying! I've tried the charity shops in Stowmarket and Bury, next stop is Asda to see if there is any hope of putting together an outfit within the next 48 hours and if all else fails we will spend tomorrow night writing a book with Matthew as the lead character!

Half Term - Friday's Halloween Funday

 Friday was the best day of our half term!

Granny came with us to the First Flicks cinema event at the Regal in Stowmarket. We saw Lost & Found and the Gruffalo. Everybody loved it and we even got cakes in the interval!

Next we took Granny to Abbey Gardens where we carved pumpkins and took part in their Halloween Quiz, winning an extra prize for finding the spooky ghost bat hidden in a tree. By the time we'd found all the answers everyone was worn out (especially Granny!) so we took Granny home and then headed home ourselves. The boys put their pumpkins on the doorstep and we lit candles inside them, we were very impressed with how well they turned out, Matthew carved his himself so his was extra special. Joe got a little carried away with carving so his has an extra large back door in it!

Half Term - Wednesday/Thursday

Wednesday morning was spent in Bury, first with a trip to the doctor for Joe and then playing in Abbey Gardens.

Joe still seems very tired all the time and as we're now over 6 months from his illness I had expected to see improvement. The doctor agreed with me and is writing to the consultant at the hospital asking them to see Joe again. Joe and I both had our flu jab while we were there but he has to go back in 4 weeks for a second dose - he will not be happy when he finds out!!!

In Abbey Gardens the boys played in the play area and we collected leaves - lots of them! Now we just have to decide what to do with them?

Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning were spent at home doing not much. I record a few programmes the boys like and they spent the morning catching up on The Large Family, Meg and Mog, Octonauts and Gigglebiz. I don't mind them watching television but I don't like them watching for the sake of it so recording some of their favourites works well. 

Thursday afternoon we went to Granny's house to see David, Mary, Toby, Abigail and Maisie. Matthew was a little confused that Maisie had been named after the Maisie Mouse books but I suggested perhaps this was not the reason David and Mary chose the name! Neil, Carol and Anna arrived too and the boys had great fun with so many people to play with. Behaviour started to slip a little and we came home for tea, although when Andy called and spoke to Joe he was informed by Joe that "I am the one who is being good" and when I suggested this wasn't entirely accurate he changed it to "well I am the one who is worst likely to get in trouble". Indeed!

Half Term - Monday/Tuesday

Matthew had Ipswich Town football training at Portman Road for both days thanks to Uncle Neil & Auntie Carol who very kindly paid for it as a birthday present (if anybody would like to know what Matthew wants for christmas, they run more courses in February half term, Easter, May half term and over the summer!).

Joe and I dropped Matthew off at 10am on Monday and went off to Baylham Farm for the day. We were the first people in when they opened at 11am and Joe had a great time without Matthew there stealing all his animal feed!

On our way round we found some very long sticks, we think possibly dead reeds as they are like hollow tubes and were growing by the river. The sticks came home with us and unfortunately caused  an accident before we had even reached the car! Joe somehow managed to trip over his stick and landed on the gravel, ending up needing plasters on 3 fingers of his right hand and across the palm of his left. After that we decided to head back to the car and have some lunch, then a doze, before heading back to Ipswich to collect Matthew at 3pm. Joe fell asleep in the car before we reached Ipswich!

Tuesday meant day 2 of football and the weather forecast was for rain, rain and lots more rain! Once again we dropped Matthew off in Ipswich but this time Joe had a choice of going back home for the day or braving the rain and going to Felixstowe. He decided that with wellies and raincoat we could handle the rain and so off we went to the coast. After an unsuccessful trip into Felixstowe town searching for gloves (Auntie Jill bought Matthew some last christmas that Joe realy liked - we've been searching everywhere trying to find them!) we went to the port to watch the cranes and the boats. It was a very windy day and we think the port might have been closed because of that. We didn't see any boats being loaded or even arriving, but we did watch the tugboat go round and round in circles! We stayed in the car and ate lunch, went for a very short walk along the stones and then got back in the car just as the next heavy rain shower arrived. When we reached Ipswich the rain had properly set in and become far more than a shower!

At the end of the football course there is a presentation, with the children having taken part in a tournament today to earn points for their team. Once again Matthew's team managed to come first and he was rewarded with a trophy to bring home (he has quite a collection now!). Matthew has come home soaked through but thankfully Joe and I avoided the worst of it and only our coats got a soaking!

Joe's story

We were waiting for Matthew to finish football on Monday and Joe decided he wanted to write a story....

Once upon a time there was a King who lived in a palace. The King was a farmer and in his palace was his farm. On that farm he had ducks, a cow, a pig, lots of sheep, a highland cow and lots of other animals. The King was having his dinner, for his dinner he was having sausages with chips. That was the King's favourite dinner. The sheep had sausages, chips AND apples for their dinner, the cows had sausage, chips, pears AND apples for their dinner. The ducks just had water and the pigs just had chips for their dinner. After dinner the King had some chocolate magic stars. THE END

Guilt

Children have this unique way of making you feel guilty, even when you know you shouldn't really.

Today Joe played with his duplo. When it came to tidy up time he wasn't interested, informed me he would not tidy it all up because it would "just take far too long". I told him that if he got on with it we would be able to play a game together, perhaps the Lego Build A Robot game they love sooooo much you wouldn't believe. Something like 3 hours later he had been sent to tidy up the duplo so many times I lost count and there was no way games were going to happen. Family life carried on, Matthew came to his little brother's rescue and helped with the tidying (it's been very much a angel or devil day for Matthew today with no middle ground!), we ate tea, gave Skott a lift into town and then it was bedtime.

Joe has just woken up. I retrieved Joe from the stairs and gave him a very sleepy cuddle while I calmed his tears and asked him what was the matter. Apparently it is my fault. Over and over again he was telling me, "we didn't play the game mummy, we were going to play the game". Turns out, Joe's misbehaving and not getting his game is obviously playing on his mind so much he has had some kind of dream wake him up distraught that it didn't happen! He did say we had to get up and play it now because I'd said we would play today so tomorrow is not good enough, but thankfully he then fell  straight back to sleep leaving me to feel guilty for not giving in but actually following through with the warned consequences of not doing as you are told ....!

Baylham Farm

Almost time for the farm to close for winter so getting a few more visits in! The season tickets we have are excellent value and we've used them loads. Baylham have just won Visitor Attraction of the year from Tourism Suffolk and to celebrate are letting children in free all this week so we're hoping to get some friends to come with us during half-term.

The boys all did some tree climbing as usual, although it took 3 attempts to get a good photo!

Favourite animal for the boys is always the Highland Cattle. This time we had a nice surprise when we saw there was a new calf born on October 17th. She is Morag's first and is very cute and fluffy, and very active! Matthew thought it was amazing that she could jump about so fast already.

Parents Evening

So this week we went to Matthew's Parents Eve. Lately he's seemed very fed up with school and a little detached so I told them so.

Turns out he's more like me than I'd realised (or perhaps just wasn't ready to admit to?) and while his academic levels are way above average, he can't get creative or use his imagination at all.

Really I should have worked this out sooner, I mean, he can never come up with a story when he's in trouble, his answer is always "I don't know" while Joe will tell you the aliens did it. Or the chickens. Or Matthew. Anyway, he is far too sensible in his thinking and we need to find ways to unlock his other side.

When we got home I suggested we write a silly story, taking it in turns to write a line or two, then passing it on. Whatever made me think this was a good idea with Andy around I don't know, but it certainly showed he takes after me and not his father! It worked, we wrote an entirely ridiculous story and Matthew promptly went off to write one all on his own. We have set ourselves a challenge of a story a day during the half-term break and will see where that gets us at school.

Stories to follow.....