Deborah's 2nd Birthday, trip to Smoo Cave, New Extension, etc

Here I am again, finally updating my blog! One of these days (not!) I'll be more organised and do more frequent posts, rather than the occasional overload of photos all at once! :-P But for now, here's a mega dose of photos and I'll include 2 links to Facebook albums with MORE photos (a virtual trip to the north coast of Scotland where we went to Durness and saw Smoo Cave, and another album of the work begun on our extension - a new sitting room!)

Earlier this month (13th of October) was Deborah's 2nd birthday. She talks *so* fluently (and sooooooooooo much) that it seems unreal that she's only just 2 - more like 3 going on 4! But yes, she's only just turned 2. :-) I always thought Benjamin was very advanced with his speech when he was little (and he was) but Deborah tries to use as many words as possible for everything she says. When a word or two could quite easily suit the situation (and most children would only use a couple) she uses a whole sentence - or two! For example,  Clement would probably just say "it's dark" when he goes upstairs and there are no lights on. But Deborah says "It's a little bit dark up there." It's quite funny really, though sometimes my head could do with a bit of quiet so I can think! ;-) The other day when she was talking too much (or too loudly) and was told "shh" she replied (very indignantly) "I was *just* wanting to talk!" (like duh! what's wrong with that?). I had to burst out laughing! ;-) She also likes to do everyone else's jobs and will get angry if she's not allowed to put things in the rubbish for someone else, or wipe up spills - sometimes she even thinks she should be doing the cooking(!), changing nappies, etc. Anger management is *not* her strong point. :-/ But she is still a very sweet girl who loves to do things for others and *always* ready to give a hug and say sorry, *even* when she didn't cause the wrong! If she sees Clement upset or crying she'll say "I need to give Clement a hug" and run to embrace him. And when it comes to helping out with jobs around the house, she doesn't really need to be taught. She sees something done once, and instantly she knows how to do it (like I found her putting dirty laundry into the washing machine for me and she took the pairs of socks apart and opened them all up before putting them in - without even being told to do it! I think by the time she's 10 or 12 she'll be running the house for me! ;-) So yeah, that's a bit about our 2 year old! Here are some photos from her birthday.

Opening presents!

A lovely doll that her Aunty Leah made for her!

King Benjamin! (dressing up for Deborah's birthday)

All dressed up - except the birthday girl! She had new dressing up clothes too (as seen in a photo below) but refused to wear them at first.

A dolls house!

Fun with presents - and holding her doll in her lap at the same time! :)

Here's the birthday princess! :)

and her cake! I cheated and bought sugar decorations off the internet, as I had a busy Saturday (guests leaving the holiday house, etc) so needed something quick & simple to make.

Pleased with her cake - success! :)

Elijah, who will soon be 5 months old! He's getting so big and will be over 17lbs by now (as he was nearly 17lb when weighed by the health visitor a few weeks ago). He's so delightful and cuddly and you can't help but smile back at his lovely smile! (or so I think anyway!)

This is him nearly a month ago (so just before he was 4 months old) - he's already changed so much in looks from here, but a cute photo!

A few weeks ago we decided to have a walk in a nearby forest, which is just down the road from us. The weather was a bit cold, but not enough for coats and mittens yet, so was really lovely. We took along a book about what's happening in nature (around the world) in October (we have a whole series of books for each month of the year - published by Orpheus Books) and there's an "I spy" list at the back of the book for things like mushrooms/fungi, falling leaves, nibbled acorns, freshly dug burrows, etc and the children really enjoyed looking for things in the list. Benjamin who has not really been enjoying the outdoors lately actually had fun, so was brilliant. The fact that we were going on a "treasure hunt" focused him on something positive, rather than worrying about any of his phobias or sensory issues. I'm looking forward to the November book next week and we'll have to plan another nature walk.

Biggest 4 on the nature walk.

Me and my 5. Yes, Elijah is here - in a sling and hiding under my poncho to keep him warm. He loved looking at trees and other things along the way and then finally fell asleep and napped for part of the walk.

We had some guests staying in our holiday house a few weeks ago and it was a beautiful day with lovely sunshine when I was making up the beds. I decided to take a photo of the sun coming in the window! ;-)

I don't remember what the noise was, but my boys are wearing their ear defenders while jumping on the trampoline here! :-) We moved it to the back garden while the work is being done for the extension out front. So the kids have all their toys, bikes,  playhouse, and trampoline out the back, which seems more ideal - except that the sun doesn't really reach the back garden during the winter. :-/    Speaking of the extension, here are some photos of the first day of work! Our friend Andrew (who is doing the work) let the children sit in the digger, which they found *very* exciting. We now have concrete in the trenches and the next step is for the blocks to come to build the foundation. It will be really nice to have a new/bigger sitting room and more living space downstairs (where we spend most of our time anyway). https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151446210499256.580928.719584255&type=1&l=405b2a0b9c

 

 

 

There were 3 in the bed and the little one said, "This is fun!" :-)

Deborah's "big girl bed" (the bottom bunk in Abigail's room). She's very excited about having her own space - though I've been rather forgetful and she's not slept in it yet! [oops] I always put her to sleep in my own bed and then just move her to the cot (also in our room) at night and need to get organised enough to put her into her own bed now.

Elijah is excited to find a box of Lego next to him!

The children found a few flags in a cupboard (bought last year after some Royal event when they were reduced in Morrisons for 10p LOL) and gave one to Elijah. He was actually waving it and looked very cute but by the time I got the camera he had stopped.

Some "paper plate snails" that the kids made at our homeschool group last month. I was trying to dream up an idea at the last minute for a craft and an online friend suggested paper plate crafts and I then found this idea online! The kids seemed to enjoy it and glueing pieces of tissue paper was something all ages could easily do.

Some of the kids from our homeschool group visiting the Raigmore Stone Circle. The stones have been relocated from their original ancient location nearby (when a road was put in). My children have been fascinated with standing stones and stone circles, etc ever since we learned about Stonehenge in The Mystery of History last year. I'm not sure the other children in our homeschool group are very interested in stones (LOL) but my children had been wanting to go see them for months and finally got there this week!    A couple of weeks ago we had an afternoon trip up to the north coast of Scotland. We went to Durness and visited Smoo cave - the largest sea cave in Britain. I decided to take photos as we drove along, so if anyone would like to have a virtual trip to the north coast of Scotland, you can see photos at this link here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151439837549256.579780.719584255&type=1&l=f09c3604bd

A lovely jumper that my friend Naomi knitted for Elijah! :-)

Benjamin wanted his photo taken with his certificate to say he had completed the Primer level of Math-u-See! We started it last year (before he was school age) and finished it in the first month of him being officially "school age". We're now on to Alpha level, though Benjamin is finding it rather too simple. I'm yet to sort out how to give him work that isn't difficult enough to be frustrating, yet challenging enough to be fun!

Look at me trying to sit up! ;-) This was just before he was 4 months old.

Abigail and her baby brother

Dressed for winter! It was really cold last week and today brought snow! brrr

 

My new pushchair! ;-) The amazing Mountain Buggy Duet! I've been interested in this buggy since it was first launched a little over a year ago (I think). But the price tag was rather high and being a new thing, no bargains to be found secondhand. But last week I found their official stockist selling a slight second (but brand new) model on eBay at a very good price. It was their 3rd to list (tho I didn't notice the others) and they went within hours of listing, so I snapped this one up. It's *really* impressive - the narrowest side-by-side double *ever* - the same width as a single buggy! It really is amazing, so easy to push, and will take a buggy board so Clement can tag along with the youngest 2 in seats. (Tho he's trying out the seat in the photo above.)

Deborah and Elijah in the seats - and Benjamin had to give a cheeky grin in both photos!

Nearly Autumn - homeschooling & having fun

This little boy is so delightful - such a joy to cuddle and talk to him. The other day I was sweeping the floor while he was sitting in his pram and every time I looked over to see if he was ok, I was greeted with the most lovely smile. Just looking at him makes him smile. :-)

We started back at lessons over a month ago (after summer holidays). It was nice to have a break but always fun to get back to the books again! I often have people ask what curriculum I use, so thought I'd mention a bit here. After all the years of homeschooling when I was growing up and helping my siblings, I've seen such a wide range of stuff. My opinions change over time too. One thing I do like is to have a mix of curriculum/publishers. It seems one company will be the best at science but not very good at history, etc. So I like to pick and mix and find what I like best for each subject. Benjamin is doing Math-u-See for maths and Abigail is doing Tee-Jay maths (Scottish schools curriculum). We are doing Abeka for science and some Italics books for handwriting. We have spelling books from Christian Liberty Press - they seem really good and the children are enjoying them - spelling tests too! :) And best of all, The Mystery of History, which we all love! We started it last year (vol 1 is a huge book!) and are still working through it, though are already around 520BC, so have covered quite a lot so far. I won't say everything is perfect, or that I like all the suggested activities, but it's the best history curriculum I've found and I love that it's in chronological order! It's a lot of fun to cross the world reading about what happened in different places at the same time, learning who lived at the same time, etc. The children especially enjoy making a time line as we go along. Here's a picture of it below:

Our history time line! Sometimes they draw their own figures/pictures for it, but other times I make use of the fantastic resources available on the internet and print pictures from there, which the children colour in. I've decided to use a ring binder to keep it in; the sheets are inside plastic sleeves so they stay clean & dry when they look at it.

This was taken in early August, on Benjamin's first day of homeschooling as a "school age" boy! :-) We were learning about the Ishtar Gate and Benjamin wanted a colouring picture to go along with the lesson. So after a bit of internet searching I found this image which turned out a great picture to colour.

Deborah was colouring her pictures when the above one was taken, and here she is trying to show me hers and that she wanted to be included too!

So here's all 4 of them - and Deborah is wondering why her brothers are making such silly face (and loud noises)! lol

This is what Benjamin does when he thinks it's a bit boring to learn how to tell time! :-P We were using the Math-u-See blocks to learn about the minutes on a clock and rather than think about that, he started creating a design in the middle of our circle. I have to say, teaching him is going a lot better than I thought it would. In the past I couldn't persuade him to write his name or other things like that. But so far, he's (mostly) working hard at his lessons - writing his spelling words everyday, doing a page of handwriting practice, some maths, history, science, and LOTS of time spent reading books in his "spare" time. But as the above picture illustrates, sometimes he just finds it boring (probably because he knows it already) and he has to find a more interesting way of doing it, or just something altogether different. For example, a sheet of math problems might be handed back to me with the word "no" written as an answer for every problem. Or he wants to write his numbers soooooo tiny that only he knows what they are! But hopefully I'll get the hang of it and work out a healthy balance of enough practice for him to learn something (master it) without being tedious. He picks things up very quickly, but also needs practice of course (esp when it comes to writing things), but since he only needs to look at something once and then remembers it, he finds "busy work" totally annoying! Which is unlike Abigail, who is happy to have busy work, as long as it's something she finds easy! So yeah, it's a bit of an adventure teaching a child with aspergers/high functioning autism (esp when he wants to verbalise/make noises/move/jump/etc the whole time!), but can be fun & exciting too.

Deborah & her 2 big brothers hanging out the window :)

Elijah in the Bumbo for the first time - sometime last month, as he already looks quite different!

Such a sweet little boy

Staring at something - and holding his favourite toy!

My dear husband and my smallest darling boy :-)

Peacefully sleeping! And yes, he still loves to sleep at night - I can't complain, he's perfect! :-)

His favourite toy again! It really is great - so many places for him to grab onto, very lightweight, and great for chewing! I'm sure I saw it mentioned in an email from Mumsnet recently - saying it was a best buy for baby (at around £10!). But I got this from a charity shop last year - only 10p, so really *was* a fab buy!

He's really strong and eager to learn how to sit up on his own.

Happily playing together in a fun pop-up tent - a great way to help contain the toys they've dumped out! ;-) And morning lessons with the oldest 2 are soooo much easier when they decided to play together in the next room!

Summer

My darling little boy at 8.5 weeks old - full of smiles & giggles! :-)

Big blue eyes! :)

Finally getting round to updating this blog. We've had a nice break from schoolwork over the summer (even if it's not been a particularly warm/sunny summer). Sometimes I think the school holidays are more for me than the kids ;-) though they've enjoyed going out on their bikes and being able to spend the whole mornings outside when the weather is dry. But all good things must come to an end, and this time next week we'll be back to lessons again. I'm kind of excited about a new school year. I'm mostly organised now - with ordering some new books, pencils, exercise books, etc. It will be a bit more of a challenge now that Benjamin is school age. It's not always very easy to get him to do specific tasks (esp if he's not in the mood for it) and when it's not a good day, I'll often only focus on Abigail's school work, and leave him to read books on the couch. So trying to do regular lessons with him might be difficult, but hopefully it will go better than I think it will. I think the hardest part is trying to keep 4 occupied at once, not to mention a 2 month old baby too! :-P But I've bought some large colouring/activity books for Deborah and Clement - and a workbook for Clement too. So hopefully if I've got something to keep them busy with at the table, they'll be less likely to draw on their older siblings schoolwork.   

Giggles

 

 

 

 

 

Here's a photo of our self-catering holiday house in Edderton. We had just about finished decorating/furnishing it in the weeks before Elijah was born, but we didn't advertise it until he was a couple of week's old. We had our first guests (a family of 5) staying in it last month. They said they really enjoyed it, so that was good to hear! We were probably rather late in the year to get many bookings for this summer, but hopefully as time goes on more people will find out about it. Should anyone be interested in finding out more, our website is:http://www.highlandbreak.co.uk

This is the sitting room area of the holiday house. The photo above this one was the master bedroom with double bed, and the 2nd bedroom has a set of bunk beds & double futon. So it will sleep 6 + baby.

Tandem baby wearing! ;-) Last week I was trying to get the dinner cooked, but both Deborah & Elijah kept crying. So I decided to try 2 slings at once, and it was great! they were both happy. And most amazingly, it was really comfortable too!

Last month we took the kids to a small museum in Invergordon. I found it quite interesting, and the displays were good for being such a small place. Benjamin had seen a sign for it a couple of months ago and *really* wanted to go there, so we finally got round to going. :)

An Iron Lung - I have to admit, I'd never heard of one of these. Can't imagine people having to spend *years* of their life in here - just to be able to breathe. :( This was on display in the museum, along with lots of other stuff from the old County Hospital in Invergordon.

Not sure if this is readable about the iron lung, but here's an interesting article about a man who *still* finds it necessary today to use one of these devices - amazing! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3182096.stm

A model oil rig! The boys always love to see these out in the Cromarty Firth and thought it was great to see a model of one.

Not sure what Deborah is pointing to here

Invergordon has lots of lovely painting on the walls of building around the town

A massive cruise liner that was in the harbour that day - which means the streets were full of foreigners! lol

Benjamin's favourite spot - on the couch right next to loads of books!

I've done a bit of reorganising of the children's rooms this summer. I bought this storage unit for Benjamin's room. It has nice tall spaces, which are just perfect for all the over-sized books that don't fit on normal shelves.

And this one for Clement's room, which holds a lot of books too.

Found the kids like this one Saturday morning - a pizza party!

Some lovely flowers in the hanging baskets on the front of the kids' playhouse. Only problem is they require *full* & intense sunshine to open, which means the ones below the lower windows have been a bit wasted, as they don't get much sunshine most of the time. But they *are* lovely when they open!

Abigail & Benjamin decided to recreate a scene of demolishing a North Sea gas rig, after watching a programme about it on the BBC iPlayer. They're quite creative kids! lol

Me and my littlest boy - though he's a lot bigger than this now, as this photo is a few weeks old.

Enjoying an ice cream when the sun shone! :)

Deborah

Sleeping beauty - at around 6 weeks old.