I haven't forgotten

I keep meaning to post and then get distracted by the lovely weather and by the time I get back I am exhausted. Lots of busy days here...last forest school at Blean on Wednesday, It is an all day one for the last six weeks or so and Munch has thoroughly enjoyed it. Adults are not supposed to stay so we went shopping in Canterbury and had lunch in the gorgeous whole food cafe which I discovered in my uni days.

Lots of playing has been involved this week. Mostly in the sand pit and paddling pool.....which explains why my carpet is full of sand along with almost everything we touch in the house :-(

Needless to say the housework has taken a bit of a back seat.....it gets once a day even if it doesn't look like ....otherwise I am constantly tidying up a little bit all the time and getting frustrated when the children make more mess.

Slowly having a clear out and trying to have a sort through as we seem to have accumulated a lot of stuff which we are trying to do without....less clutter should equal less mess right????? well maybe we will just have to see.
To this end we did a bootfair last sunday...although my mum bought Munch almost as mush as we sold which did not please the ginger ninja much.

Things have been getting us down a bit recently so the ginger ninja has decided our priority at the moment is for us to get our own car...which will be a diesel so hopefully a bit more fuel economic then mums big petrol car which we borrow at the moment and hopefully a bit bigger so that we can get all of our camping gear in it. Hopefully this will give us more freedom to disappear as often as we like and visit some of our lovely home ed friends who have offered us places to stay.

Lots of free play and reading has added to our week. lots of park play dates and even a jubilee party yesterday which Munch really enjoyed.

The trouble is I either forget to take photos or can't work out how to upload them from instagram ...the ginger ninja usually helps with the technical side of things and he isn't up yet. Too much happens for me to remember it all if I leave it too long between blogs, so probably not the most exciting read......gosh I almost forgot....shopping in CAMDEN baby.....went as a last minute thing with my friend for her birthday....lush...have not been for 11 years and forgot how much I love it. Could have spent a fortune but restrained myself....quite proud of my restraint actually....must be  a sign of maturity lol

Our week in pictures

lots of crafting and messy play this week. Faith is always drawn to the piano at either of the hall meets we go to and whilst looking for a restaurant we had been recommended we found this lovely park...lots of fun activities and a slide etc hidden behind the plane wreckage amongst the trees, definitely planning a return trip soon.

Lots of pictures from a family day on Saturday. Of course the first thing we did was light a fire before starting work trimming hedges etc at my grandparents.

 not quite sure why I have a picture of feet??????

my girls were totally in love with Nipper my uncles Jack Russell and took him for little walks and cuddles all day.

After we popped along to the sweeps festival at Rochester on Monday we met up with my Dad and his brother and walked around Leybourne lakes. Grace was fascinated to find a dummy tree and wondered why they were there. I explained that it was probably parents/ children leaving them for the dummy fairy once they decided they were too grown up to have them anymore.

Also this weekend Munch learnt to finger knit and now cannot go anywhere without a small ball of wool, as testified by her trying to eat breakfast in weatherspoons whilst finger knitting.

Throughout the weekend Tinkerbell was her usual sparkly, stubborn self. At the home ed meet on Tuesday she got straight into painting as you can see by her lovely white top. This was swiftly followed by plastering wotsits all around her face before finally falling asleep in the car on the way to drop Munch at her friends for a sleep over ready for forest school.

All in all a good weekend...met a few nice people, been keeping on top of housework (mostly) strip washed the nappies in the hope that they stop leaking before I get really upset as they are fairly new and cost a small fortune....had some preloved which worked amazingly well so went out and bought 9 more but we are having several issues with leakage so hope they will be ok...really cant afford any more. And also on the look out for a wrap maybe...my friend is going to lend us one next week after we return the lovely ssc buckle carrier she lent us to see which we prefer. I am not quite ready to let go of my baby yet and despite being incredibly broody I just want my little Tinkerbell to be little for a while longer yet......

Woah Noah

well, I thought I would change the background to match this lovely spring weather NOT. Actually to be fair I don't mind too much....we have had a couple of good days in between which we have made the most of. Things have been fairly busy here 2 birthdays in a week to orchestrate and lots of visiting relatives have not left much time for blogging. I have been adding finishing touches to my portfolio which needs to be handed in. Once that has gone it frees up another day and is one less thing to worry about.

 So apart from sign on a Tuesday night, work on Thursday and twilight shift on Friday  I have more time at home so hopefully can get started on the mass de-clutter that we so desperately need. Oh for the days when it would take 10 minutes to tidy the whole house and not much longer to rearrange a whole room..... On a serious note though we do have too many books ( I know, I know but they literally just sit there in our tiny house collecting dust and we need the room ) I have converted to the dark side with my lovely kindle and it takes up so little space. I love books, the smell and the comfort of sitting beside the fire curled up in an arm chair but unfortunately 1200 books in something which takes up the space of one book is definitely a winner at the moment :-(

I am trying to get a little more organised in our home, so that we do not keep wasting money for the most part, having cupboards/ freezer full of food but still eating out or getting take away due to lack of forward planning (ie defrosting something) is not healthy for our non-existent bank account.

Hopefully also I will have time, once we have less clutter to 'strew' some ideas for Munch to try and fire her interests a little more. She is not really one to ask questions as such about things an if she does and I try to encourage her to look things up she checks the dreaded wikipedia or something and goes with the first thing she sees. However, I have lots of lovely things pinned and lapbooks planned so hopefully we can build on these ideas and feel like we are actually learning. I know we try to be autonomous but I feel that school did not teach her the skills she needs....she seems to have little imagination left when it comes to things she wants to do so we just need to gently nudge her I think so that she knows she can make choices and follow her own mind. Wait hang...isn't that a bit contradictory? still, I know what I meant...she just needs to be shown the way as I think she is still a bit blinkered by the years of school training her to be a sheep.