Thursday, 28 February 2013

New Lounge, Lessons and More Illness

Our new lounge (sitting room) which we are *really* enjoying! :-) As you can see from all the curtains, it is full of windows. This is something especially appreciated in the north of Scotland where we never get enough sunshine. Having said that, the past 10+ days have been bright & sunny. A bit unusual for this time of year, but it's been lovely! So yeah, this is our new room. This photo was taken the same evening we got the carpet fitted, so the sofas were the only thing in the room. We have bookcases and lamps arriving from Ikea on Saturday, so the room is coming together! :)
All 5 children happily playing in the sunshine here!

The large foyer/entry room has proved to be very useful for holding this large set of shelves, where all our homeschooling materials can be organised and kept in one place. (Peter built the shelves several years ago - before we even moved here - for another purpose and they've been in Clement's room since we came here. But now they finally have a place and purpose!) Anyway, the plan is to get doors made for the shelves, so it can be hidden away/tidy! The plastic boxes at the top that were hanging out in this photo are gone now and have been replaced with boxes that fit within the shelves. And we've adjusted the shelves, so now we have 2 shelves with plastic boxes up there. Hopefully I'll manage to relocate some craft supplies from my kitchen cupboard into some of these boxes. :-)
The lounge was a quiet place for the little ones to nap when they were down with the flu the other week - awful fever, chills, aches from head to toe, and very weak. In fact, for a whole week, the youngest 4 were ALL sleeping out there - all day long it seemed. It really drained them of all energy and they hardly ate anything for a week either. I was down with it too, but not as long as the children had it. And for some reason Peter and Abigail never got it. Thankfully by the beginning of this week they were better, which was a big relief!
Here's Abigail and Deborah in the kitchen cooking with mummy! We were making custard for a banana custard flan, as pictured below:

It seems Abigail likes to talk with her hands! ;-) LOL I was trying to tell her to just have a normal face, and she threw up her hands in the air to say she didn't know what that was! haha
Deborah with a book - she can be found "reading" a book many times a day, all day long. In fact, she'll often bring her daddy a book in bed in the morning and ask for it to be read to her. And if you suggest she reads it by herself, she's quick to "shout" back "I *can't* read!" and act rather annoyed that it should be suggested she can! lol I think she's probably annoyed that older siblings can read books and she can't - she's one of those children who doesn't feel she can grow up fast enough! :-)

Here she is matching up socks for me while I fold the laundry - and she did it all by herself too!
Life couldn't be better for Elijah here - paper in hand and a big box of Lego! He doesn't just shove it in his mouth like most babies would. He actually likes the feel of the Lego in his hands and also running it through his fingers, etc. I don't leave him unattended with it (as some pieces end up in his mouth eventually) but that is NOT the main thing he does with it. I bet he'll be building with it soon! ;-)

Yes, I do love his beautiful smile! :-)

Standing up and wishing he was able to walk!
Cousins - Elijah & Preston having fun together. Leah and Caleb and their kids are away back to America today :-( but we got to see them all a couple of weeks ago. We're going to miss them being in the same country as us. But hopefully they'll be back again next year for 6 months.

Shona & Deborah on swings

Benjamin chilling out at the park! lol

Abigail & Benjamin

Sweet little Brooklyn! :-)

Leah pushing the "baby" boys!

Biggest 4 at the park
Cuddles with Elijah when he was poorly

Benjamin reading stories to the little ones - very cosy by the wood stove!

My happy little boy! :-)

What we did in science today - parts of a plant. The kids enjoyed colouring all the parts, and then cutting & glueing them in place.

What my fridge always looks like - covered in their colouring pages. I often search the internet for a colouring page to tie in with what we're learning about in history, to help the little ones join in too. So then we end up with 4 copies of everything! :-) We read about Spartacus yesterday and tomorrow we're on Julius Caesar. We don't have very many lessons left, and will soon need volume 2 of The Mystery of History! :-)