Monday… and Tuesday (and a Jolie Ronde ramble)

Monday

No J and E today (I hope, cos otherwise we missed them :shock:) but CHEF sports, which the boys enjoyed, then off to the park, which I think they enjoyed even more 😀 L seems to have adopted SB as an honorary big sister and spent a lot of time playing in her vicinity, if not actually with her.
Then we came home and did a bit of a manic tidy, as well as some Maths and English which suddenly became incredibly appealing when mentioned in the same breath as tidying up 🙄
Friends who are moving much nearer very soon came along here for tea (after collecting keys to their new house 🙂 ) and lots of increasingly riotous play.

Tuesday
Maths and English passed off relatively painlessly today, then we pottered, made lots of (very glittery) Christmas cards, the children did some online activities from the Natural History Museum website and I finally got round to cancelling my ATL membership – usually I only think of it when we get the DD notification, which is too late! I shall miss the mailings and magazines (not that I have time to read them all anyway) but it’s silly to keep paying for something we don’t need. Although, having said that, I’m thinking very seriously of doing a Jolie Ronde franchise, so may decide to take up ATL again anyway. Ho hum. Jolie Ronde is fab! The boys have both done classes (J still does, but there isn’t one currently for K’s age group) and learned loads whilst really enjoying themselves too. Unfortunately the franchise is not cheap and even once the up-front fees are paid you still have to buy materials through them (fair enough) and pay a royalty per pupil per class (so classes would have to be charged for even if I did them as an HE activity iyswim) – and then when you finish all teaching materials have to be returned 🙁 I’ve been canvassing CHEF to see if there’s enough interest (you have to have a minimum number of pupils to start too) and it looks promising, but I think to make it worth doing I’d have to find one or two ordinary classes to teach as well, where I wouldn’t feel bad charging enough to start to recoup some set-up costs and where I would have a straightforward group of children of similar ages and abilities. The course is set up to run in fairly strict (school) age groups, with a few years of entirely oral/aural work and then gradual introduction of reading and writing from about age 6/year 2. I know that some of the children in those age groups interested in an HE group would not yet be reading/writing, plus there will be children who have not done any French… A good reason, I guess, for it to be an HE parent who takes on the teaching rather than a “normal” teacher 😉
Anyway, I digress :frog:
So, Tuesday…
After lunch K sat in front of a large pile of shoes claiming to be unable to find his pair until we were late for dance, at which point I gave up and got them for him (clearly my eyesight is far better than his 😛 ) and we then had to drive in order not to miss the class 😳 but salved our consciences (well, mine) by collecting three heavy boxes of books from Bob to save him having to carry them home over the next three nights. The class was good, apparently, and K came out full of beans 🙂 L had said she wanted to go, but changed her mind when we got there so we spent the time reading our way through the pile of books some kind soul had left on the windowsill while J worked his way through a magazine (an educational, age-appropriate one, honest – can’t remember the title but it was so good we’re thinking of taking out a subscription) and we all cooed at baby R 😀
Just enough time at home to open the boxes and see which books were to hide, which to put aside for other people’s present and which could be looked at straight away and then had to rush out to J’s French club, where L and I huddled under our lovely new babywearing poncho and read more stories with K – oh and excavated my handbag to find lots of only slightly fluffy mini Smarties from some long-forgotten party bag, which made K and l very happy 😉
Home again, home again, jiggety-jig, via a pop to the Co-op to get ingredients because we suddenly remembered that it is the last B-a-R of term tomorrow and J wanted to make chocolates to give to all the helpers, then back home to watch Blue Peter and make truffles of various sorts – the ganache ones can’t be shaped until tomorrow, when the chocolate mix will be set enough to roll into balls, so that will be a nice start to the day :cheer: until we suddenly realised how late it was and had to phone Bob to bring chips home for tea ( 😳 but we did have lots of veggies with them 😉 ) or we’d have starved and had to eat all our freshly-made chocolates :norty: 😆
Just as they were going to bed J remembered that we had mentioned St Nicholas’ Day when talking about Advent a few days ago so they all had to get shoes out to put by the front door with apples and carrots in for his horse – and now Bob and I have to scour the cupboards (or perhaps pop out once again to the good old Co-op) for something to put in them…