Tag Archives: kids

Walk, hair cut, and conversation.

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1) The kids and I left early for school this morning – normally we end up in quite a rush. It was a beautiful sunny morning, and we all enjoyed the walk to school.

2) The kids both had their hair cut this afternoon – they both looked so smart afterwards!

3) Yesterday I had a conversation with a friend of my mum. It went something like this…

“Are you the daughter who knits then?”

“I do knit, yes”, said I.

“I don’t knit anything as complicated as you do, but I have to thank you for helping me!”

I was somewhat baffled…

“Oh”, she went on, “inadvertently of course. I’d knitted something and it was too small, and I was going to give it to my granddaughter, but then your mum told me to try blocking it. I did, and it worked! It fits perfectly now!”.

🙂

Happy skin, in time, and tired.

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1) I’ve been putting an intensive moisturiser on my hands at bedtime the last couple of nights. After slathering it on, I put on a pair of cotton gloves.  After only two nights, my skin is feeling much happier, and the eczema is finally calming down.

2) I was a little late in leaving to pick the kids up from school this afternoon, but a brisk walk cleared my mind and even though I was late, I still arrived before the kids got out of class.

3) I’m tired, after a busy day and a long evening meeting. I don’t feel like blogging this evening, but I did anyway, and when K calls down from upstairs asking me if I’m coming to bed.  The answer is yes.

Breakfast, teamwork, and zumba.

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1) Tea and toast (and fruit juice). One of the best starts to the day 🙂 .

2) Both the kids wrapped up warm and went out to help K begin to shift the one cubic metre of play bark (delivered on Monday) from the front to the back garden. I made the dinner (and washed the dirty clothes afterwards!).

3) After weeks of not finding a time we were both available, my friend and I were both free the same week, and I gave in to persuasion and went to Zumba for the first time ever…  Twenty minutes in, I remember asking her how long the class lasted.  The answer was one hour.  Hmm.  The next time I looked at the clock however, it was thirty minutes later, and we were just about to start the cooling-off phase.  I found the class itself a lot of fun, and was pleasantly surprised by my aerobic fitness.  I have a feeling I’ll have a few achey muscles over the next couple of days though…

Weekend fun

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1) Kids dropped off, one to Boy’s Brigade, the other to the school disco, I enjoyed a quiet half hour to myself on Friday evening.

2) A youth leader’s training session at church – thought provoking, and fun.

3) Sunday afternoon pizza with the youth group.

 

Found, opportunity, and dry.

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1) After a fruitless search, spread over several days, I finally found the perfect yarn for the special Christmas project I have planned 🙂 .

2) As a parent, I take my kids to school each day and leave them there. Six hours later, I pick them up, and listen to what they care to tell me (and, from what I gather from other parents, my kids tell me quite a lot) about their day. But that’s just the bare bones of the things they recall. It doesn’t give much of a sense of what their day is really like.

The school are very good about having Open Afternoons, and other events where parents are invited in, but it’s not the same as just being there, observing what it’s really like on a day-by-day basis.

So, whenever I have the opportunity to be in school, as I did today, I take it and appreciate the time to just be there, and observe, and listen, and learn, and understand just a little bit more of what their school life is like.

3) The sky stayed blue (mostly) all day. The views across the valley were beautiful, and the river sparkled in the sunlight. I could even see the sunset earlier this evening. We had a lovely evening walk, meeting K on his way home from the station, and the air around us felt dry – not damp and misty. It didn’t rain all day 🙂 .

Tidied, walking in the sun, and reading.

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1) The kids and I tidied the “Art Cupboard” (really the under-stair cupboard containing all the craft/art supplies, plus various items of kitchen paraphernalia, and the ironing board, vacuum cleaner, brooms and so forth). It was a fairly mammoth task, but we all felt good when it was done.

2) We walked to the library, enjoying the sunshine, after a day of heavy rain.

3) The kids had been arguing a fair bit today, but at the end of the day they both settled happily (and quietly!) into bed for silent reading time – both engrossed in their new library books 🙂 .

Weekend fun

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Woo hoo – school’s out for summer! The end of term was pretty hectic, but we’ve had a more relaxed weekend, and it’s been good to start to catch up with ourselves a little.

Some beautiful things from the weekend:

1) Friday night dinner – delicious, eminently repeatable, and isn’t the colour fantastic? It isn’t every day you get a pink dinner!

 Beetroot risotto, topped with roasted beetroot and parmesan shavings.  

2) Saturday night clear-out…  we looked through the mountain of schoolwork brought home by the kids over the last few weeks, and reduced it to a few special representative items.

M found it a fairly easy process, A wanted to keep most of it, so a more painful process for him.  We hope he’ll thank us in twenty years time!

3) Sunday night reading…  I thought M might enjoy reading Little House in the Big Woods, by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

She was initially a little daunted by the small text size, but gamely gave it a go, and has been glued to her book at every available opportunity ever since. She read two chapters yesterday. So proud of her 🙂 .

 

Taking flight, handing over, and next week.

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1) The birds have been enjoying both the peanuts in the bird feeder, and our newly scarified lawn. Everytime I go out to the garage, a flock of birds take flight. They soon come back though, as soon as I am safely inside.

1a) They also seem to be enjoying this damp weather – as I’m out for a walk, I realise I am walking to birdsong.

2) I’m tired tonight, and I’m glad K is there with the energy to kid-wrangle and get them into bed.

3) With our walk postponed because of weather for the second week running, my friend announces that next week we will meet no matter what, even if we just end up going out for a cuppa and a catch-up.