Alex has Skillz

Alex learned two new tricks whilst on holiday. He learned to sit up (as long as he has something to stop him falling sideways!) and he learned to blow raspberries. Both useful life skills!

Puckering up

Alex in full raspberry mode!

I have a video of Alex blowing raspberries, but I'm having trouble uploading it. Keep checking back, I'll get it up eventually!

Half Term and Hallowe'en

Last week was half term with Halloween falling in the middle of it, so I was able to enjoy having all my Podlings home together again. I made chocolate play dough for them on Monday, which provided hours of entertainment all week. We made pumpkin faces out of paper plates and did lots of colouring. Poor Lily took ill mid-week and turned out to have a nasty bout of tonsillitis, which meant we had a very low key Halloween. I decorated the lounge and dining room (no photos surprisingly), they all got their usual basket of goodies in the morning and Emma and I did the pumpkins in the evening, but we decided to leave all our usual Halloween fun until Lily was feeling better. Thanks to the wonders of penicillin, Lily was feeling much better the following day, so we made chocolate covered apples, played the doughnut game (see video below) and had a good game of Ghost Hunt as soon as it was dark enough. (Ghost Hunt was a gift from my sister for Tom's birthday last year and the Podlings all love it). It was such a shame that Lily was ill during half term, but we managed to have a lovely week regardless. Now I'm counting down to the Christmas holidays so I can have them all home again!

Fun with chocolate play dough

Play dough has universal kid appeal. At nine years old, Tom still enjoys playing with it.

They were making cakes and fairy cakes with the chocolate play dough, so it wasn't long before the wooden cakes and tin tea sets came out and we had a full blown party on our hands. I even had to light the candles I had put out for them to use in their play!

The Podlings made pumpkins out of paper plates, orange glitter paint, black card and chalk. We used these to decorate the dining room for Halloween.

Emma spent much of the week dressing up in various costumes. It's not really worth dressing her in proper clothes when we are home all day!

Emma helped to gut the pumpkin. Her verdict when touching the inside of the pumpkin for the first time: "This is really gross!"

Adorable!

Lily was really feeling poorly on Halloween, but she desperately wanted me to draw something spooky on her face with eye liner. She was thrilled with her web and spider, even if she did only have it on for half an hour before we had to clean it off so she could go to bed.

Emma making chocolate covered apples

Playing 'The Doughnut Game', whereby I hang ring doughnuts up in the conservatory and the Podlings have to try and eat them without using their hands. Apologies for the state of the conservatory. We don't really use it once it gets colder, so it becomes a bit of a dumping ground!

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Sunset, Sea and Sand

A few pictures and some video from another sunset trip to the beach. I love these days with my family so much!

Tom wanted me to photograph his drawing in the sand

Tom's Violin Debut

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Emma and I had the very great pleasure of watching Tom play the violin in his very first concert this morning. I was positively brimming with pride! Tom's class have only been learning the violin for 10 weeks and have made incredible progress during that time. They played four pieces on the violin and also sang us a song. To perform all that in front of not only their parents, but also the entire school (staff and pupils) after only a few weeks of learning is a testament to both the skill of the violin teacher and the commitment of the pupils. I am very, very proud of Tom for doing so well. 

The sad thing is that, having made such incredible strides, Tom's class now have to pass their violins on to another class, so no more violin for Tom. This is, I think, an incredible shame. Tom has expressed an interest in carrying on with the violin, so Mark and I are going to look into the practicality (and crucially the cost) of a small violin and lessons. It is my great hope that each of the Podlings will want to learn at least one instrument. I know that Lily would love piano lessons (we have been holding off as we think she lacks the patience required at the moment).

Mark plays the piano and I play the piano and the flute, so it would be lovely if the children were musical too. I believe that learning an instrument not only gives great pleasure, it also teaches valuable lessons in discipline, dedication and commitment. I have to confess I had rather hoped they would choose instruments we already owned (piano, flute or guitar...my sister started to teach me the guitar, but I left home before we had got very far. I still hope to learn someday). However, if Tom really is serious about wanting to learn the violin, then it is certainly worth looking into. We would need to be sure that he would stick at it before we rushed into anything, so we will see.

I took some video from the concert this morning. Tom is in the front row, second from the right. I'm so proud of my boy!

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Tom's School Assembly

Mark, Emma and I attended Tom's school assembly this morning. Tom's class have been learning about evacuees in the Second World War, so the assembly was themed around this. Tom made a rather adorable little evacuee and looked really sweet in his Daddy's flat cap. Tom seemed to enjoy himself more than he usually does at these events, though he had clearly had enough by the end. He is not one to enjoy putting on a performance, but he did really well and even joined in with the singing. He has come a long way since reception, when it was clearly something akin to torture to him to have to sit through these things.

It was a sweet little assembly and the children had obviously worked hard given that they have only been back at school a few weeks. I didn't manage to get any good photos since I had a wriggly three-year old on my lap for the whole assembly, but I did manage to get a little video of the children singing 'Run rabbit, run'. It is songs like these that make Mark and I feel a little outlandish. The pronunciation of 'run', 'gun' and 'fun' have a distinct Northern flavour and we are finding it strange that the children now think that Mark and I sound odd with our Southern accents, since they are now more used to hearing all their teachers and friends!

Tom is third from the right.

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Emma likes to move it, apparently...

Emma tells me that Lily taught her this song. Quite where Lily picked it up I don't know, though I seem to have half a memory that it was in the film 'Madagascar' which the Podlings watched a while back. Not our usual taste in music, but undeniably hilarious when sung by a three year old!
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Sudbury Museum of Childhood

The April showers we have been having lately may well bring forth May flowers, but they are also preventing any weekend country rambles. An indoor activity was definitely on the cards for this weekend and so we chose to take the Podlings to Sudbury Museum of Childhood. We took Tom and Lily there when I was expecting Emma, but for some reason we haven't been back since despite its not being too far from us. We are members of the National Trust, therefore it counts as a cheap day out for us, so there is no excuse really.

We invited Mark's parents to join us and we met them at the museum early in the afternoon. We had a wonderful time and the Podlings enjoyed themselves immensely. As well as the exhibits, there are many hands-on things for the children to do and play with, which means that the grown ups get to read a bit of history without the children getting bored and wanting to move on too quickly.

Something that really struck me when looking at Victorian toys compared with more modern toys was the quality versus quantity balance. Victorian children may have had only a few toys, but they were of excellent quality and treasured because they were so few. Children today have toys of much cheaper quality and so many of them they hardly seem to notice when something gets lost or broken. It really brought home to me that our children are missing out on something very special in our modern materialistic society.

I took a lot of photos, but didn't want to use flash since we were in a museum. None of the pictures came out very well, but I hope they show what a lovely day we had and how much we enjoyed ourselves.

Emma loved the wooden play kitchen 

Lily had a go at being a chimney sweep and crawled through the little fireplace and flue they had on display. The little sweeps get to have their cheeks smudged with 'soot' to show they have been brave enough to crawl through the chimney. 

Tom playing with blocks 

Emma pouring up tea at the teddy bears' picnic. One of her favourite toys at home is her tin tea set, so she is a dab hand at pouring pretend tea. 

Lily's favourite part of the museum was the dress-up chest and the changeable scenery to allow the children to make up their own plays. 

Lily posing in a princess costume

Emma feeding a 'baby' in the baby area of the museum

The Podlings putting on a play 

There were lots of toys for the children to play with 

A short snippet of the Podlings putting on a play

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Walking the Dogs

During my parents' recent visit, the daily walk with the dogs was the highlight of the Podlings' day. Tom and Lily would take it in turns to walk Molly and Flash and Emma tried to walk Molly whenever she could. Two dogs between three children doesn't always work, but Mum tells me she isn't getting a new dog every time I have a baby, so I guess we'll have to make it work!

Most days my dad would head out with the three Podlings on his own, but I went with them a couple of times and naturally I took my camera! Don't be fooled by the sun in these photos. Shortly after they were taken we were all drenched by one of those sudden April showers so typical of an English spring!



Tom was having a wonderful time running around with the dogs and I caught a little bit of film of him playing with Molly.

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Ticket to ride

Emma's imagination is blossoming wonderfully and she is always engaged in some kind of imaginative play. I was particularly amused by her antics this morning and whipped out the camera. She makes me laugh every day...she's such a darling!
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(Excuse the background noise. Mark had the cricket on.)
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Emma sings Alphablocks

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Alphablocks is an excellent CBeebies programme that teaches children phonics. Mark and I love it as much as the Podlings! I credit the Alphablocks with helping both Tom and Lily with their phonics since they both had a sudden, dramatic improvement with their reading at about the time I was putting the programme on for them a lot. I can already see Emma picking up the basic letter sounds from her favourite episodes and she loves to sing along. One of our favourite episodes is 'Why?' in which the letter Y laments not being a vowel. Here is a short video of Emma (in pyjamas) singing along...

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School Christmas Concert

Tom is the rather adorable camel on the far left of the middle row.

Last week both sets of grandparents, Emma and I descended on Tom and Lily's school to watch them in their Christmas concert. Tom was a camel (and a very cute one) and I have included a short video of Tom doing part of his dance in the concert. He did really well, especially since his costume was clearly driving him nuts!

Poor Lily! She was removed from the stage in tears before I was able to get a picture of her. Her class were all dressed as children on Christmas eve and they all looked adorable in their nightclothes, slippers and dressing gowns. Unfortunately, Lily saw us all in the audience and started crying. Not because she was afraid to go on stage, but because she missed us!

Lily loved preparing for the concert and was really excited about it, but she did warn us that she was going to cry if she saw us. The school did four performances of this concert and Lily was all smiles in every one except the one I went to. In fact, a friend of mine who went to a different performance told me that Lily was making eye contact with her and beaming throughout her entire performance! She always does this to me! Next year I think I will tell her I'm going to one performance and sneak into a different one so I can actually see her!

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.Apologies for the shaky footage. It is hard to hold the camera steady when you have a fidgety two year old on your lap!

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In which Emma fails to co-operate!

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Emma has been able to recognise and name shapes for a little while now (square, circle, triangle, heart, star and flower). We were drawing together this morning and Emma was happily naming all the shapes I drew for her. I suddenly thought 'Oh, the grandparents would love to hear this', so I grabbed the camera and started filming...at which point Emma stopped co-operating! I know that the grandparents love to see the outtakes too so I thought I'd share the videos anyway. In the first video she is too distracted by the camera to pay any attention to the shapes...

In this second video she seems inclined to co-operate to start with and then gets distracted by a noisy wood pigeon in the garden. She spends the rest of the time trying to copy the pigeon...

Never work with children or animals!

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Dance fever

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Lily has a purple singing dragon toy that Emma is rather fond of. For some unknown reason, the toy went into overdrive this afternoon and started singing everything like a prospective member of the chipmunks. Best dance music ever apparently...

(Apologies for the state of the kitchen...it's been one of those days!)

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Peekaboo Podling

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Every morning after breakfast, Emma and I go upstairs to make all the beds. Every morning, without fail, she will sit on Lily's pillow after I make the bed and play peekaboo with the canopy. Every morning, that is, until the one I take the camera with me to try and film her doing it. Then she cuts the game short...typical!

Here's the best I could do...
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Look who's walking!

Naughty Emma

A short video of Emma doing her best to destroy my home! She was laughing so much she gave herself hiccoughs! I should have stopped her, I know, but it was so funny!

I must apologise for the ghastly mark on the carpet. I hadn't noticed the Podlings had spilt anything until after I had filmed it for posterity. I seem to spend half my life cleaning marks off the carpet. Oh, the joys of motherhood!

Just for you Nanny and Grandad...

A short video of Lily enjoying the gift my parents sent for her. It is a rather nifty painting turntable. You put your paper/card on the turntable, put on a few drops of paint and set it spinning. The resulting patterns are quite lovely and it was a big hit with the birthday girl.

A wholegrain diet

Emma expanded her diet to include wholegrains during our beach trip...grains of sand! The first thing she did when she put her hand into the sand was to grab a handful and eat it. I thought that would put her off doing it again, but no! It turns out that Emma really likes to eat sand. We tried to keep her on the blanket and in the tent because every time she felt sand beneath her hands she grabbed another handful and shoved it in her mouth before we could stop her. When we put her in the sea, she would wait for the waves to go out and then take the opportunity to partake of some grainy goodness. Odd, odd baby! Still, for your viewing pleasure, I have included a video of Emma eating sand. Thankfully, she was none the worse for eating half of Talacre beach!

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Dance, baby, dance

My first attempt at uploading video to the blog shows Emma dancing to one of the tunes on her 'Pretty Please' tea pot. Every single time she hears this tune she starts bobbing up and down and waving her arms around in exuberant fashion. She has been dancing with gusto all day, but by the time I thought to video her doing it, the length of the dance had diminished. She was jigging to the whole tune earlier today.