Eeeek! Serious catching up to do!

I’m not even going to think about the rest of August, except to mention a few highlights.
These would have to include the christening of my friend’s twins (the ones I donated EBM to 🙂 ) which was the day after the Festival of History, the CHEF visit to Knebworth where Bob took K and L on the dinosaur trail and maze trip while J and I went round the house and did the Tudor treasure trail (and then did the dinosaurs too ) and then we all met up at the amazing Fort Knebworth adventure playground, rode on the little train and had multiple turns on the very long slides 🙂 and a couple of African drama sessions. These were more music than drama, really, but definitely giving free rein to imagination and very play-based; both J and K loved them (and even L joined in where she could) and are very much looking forward to the remaining two sessions in the series.
Bob has already blogged about our stay with his parents, including various meets with other slingers and a few imaginary friends 🙂 so I guess that brings us to September 😉

September started with “our teenager” Alice coming to look after the children for a day. I had hoped to use this time for lots of sorting out, but then realised that I was preaching on Sunday (all age worship at our home church) as well as having the last of the children’s summer picnics (brunch on Saturday) to prepare for, so it was really a blessing that she was coming, but not quite in the way I’d hoped…
Saturday 2nd proved to be rather gloomy and drizzly, but there was nevertheless a small, hardy, group of us at the playground (not as many as we’d hoped, but definitely quality, if not quantity 😉 ) – the parents huddling under shelter with the food and Thermoses while the children, undeterred by the weather, played happily and were occasionally pinned down for long enough to be fed a bite of croissant or muffin 🙂
The service, despite my reservations and with help from both Bob and the children, went well. (Muses: perhaps I should start a separate blog for preaching – or perhaps that would just be another thing to fail to keep up to date! I guess at least I could just put the services in…) It was followed by coffee (and very tasty biscuits) and then a small group of us went to the Grad Pad for lunch – just making it in time before they stopped serving 🙂 It was great to have the chance to catch up with friends – and one of them was the man who had collected our Sonlight Core K books for us, so we drove home with those in the boot and spent the afternoon trying not to get too far ahead with the reading 😆

Monday was the first Mustard Seeds of the new academic year, and both J and K decided to stay for the whole session. As part of the story activity we started to learn a new poem about Creation, which I really need to get in writing, as my memory is currently appalling (sigh). On the off-chance that someone may recognise it and correect my errors, here it is (we’re adding to it each week, so this is last week plus today’s additions):
God said “Earth” and the world spun round,
God said “Day” and the light beamed down,
God said “Night” and the sky turned black,
God said “Land” and the sea rolled back.
God said ??? and a shoot pushed through,
God said “fin” and the first fish grew,
God said “wing” and the first bird soared,
God said “fur” and the jungle roared.

On Monday evening we went round to tea with J’s friend B and had a lovely relaxing time. Bob joined us after work and we stayed far too long (having made my apologies for missing a local preachers’ meeting :redface: ) but sometimes fun is more important than sleep, I find!
Tuesday again found Alice with us, this time taking K and L out for the morning so J and I could do some things together and then keeping all three occupied so I could get started on a bit of batch cooking. Having worn ourselves out on Tuesday, Wednesday was a quiet at home kind of day, curling up on the settee and reading, with the occasional foray onto the PC and lots of Duplo building 🙂
Thursday was the usual parents and tots (this week including Roman clay pot-making for the older HE children, and meeting a new HE family), followed by a toddle into town to buy birthday presents for the parties we were off to at the weekend. Also found some K’nex in a charity shop 🙂 Since school term has now started 3:15 found us at the school gates to pick up B and bring him home for tea. The children all played with K’nex for over an hour, which meant I could cook tea and also make flapjack and pound cake for Friday Club, as well as putting together a few lasagnes to freeze 🙂
Friday club has also started up again, this week with a nature walk which ended with each child choosing a tree to draw and paint. We’ll do the same walk again in a few months’ time to see what has changed and hopefully record the changes through the seasons. Must get some decent watercolours for this, as our cheap tray of paints is really not up to the job! We finished late, which meant a bit of a rushed picnic as we had arranged to meet another new HE family mid-afternoon…

Friday evening was spent getting ready for a busy weekend, including a moment of tragedy as Bob managed to break J’s Roman cup 🙁 J was heartbroken, but cheered up when he remembered that his auntie Polly is an archaeologist and has a birthday in September. His present to her is to be a 3D Roman cup jigsaw 😆