Benjamin's 6th Birthday and ordinary days too!

What every little girl loves - a little brother to be her dolly! :-) I have to admit doing that sort of thing with a couple of my brothers (sorry, guys! :-) ). Anyway, Deborah has been playing with her dolls a lot and taking them for walks around the house in the toy pram. The other day she begged to have Elijah inside, so I finally did it (of course staying right by her) and they were both *delighted*, as you can see from their faces!

Last week was Benjamin's 6th birthday - a day he's been waiting to come for *months*! He doesn't understand/cope with time and waiting very well, so he got a bit stressed at times, wondering how long a month/week/day was, etc. It's the "unknown" that really upsets him most. So to make things a bit easier, he knew that all the presents I was giving him were Lego, so then he felt it wasn't so scary, as he knew the brand at least! :-) Here he was coming downstairs in the morning to find his main present - a large Lego Viking ship.

The order of the photos isn't quite right, but here's a mixed lot of Lego (thanks to ebay!) with lots of rare and interesting pieces - which they've had lots of fun with over the past week.

"The Lego Book", which starts with the history of the company and information about lots of sets, and dates for things, etc - just Benjamin's sort of thing! He already had the Lego Ideas book, as well as one of Minifigures, so he was excited to get this "missing" one.

The cake - simple and not very perfect, but it made him happy. It's easy when your child just asks for some Lego on top of the cake! lol

Birthday boy with birthday cake - he wanted his big ship in the photo too!

figuring out how it works

Abigai's present was a set of books - she loves Pippi Longstocking!

Clement got a vintage (as in, issued the year I was born!) tug boat, with a variety of minifigures too! It's just the right size for him to carry around the house, as he does every day with Lego!

Deborah is mad about stickers, and Mr Tumble too - so she loved this!

A very educational minifigure - Cleopatra! And perfect timing too, as we studied her in history the week before! :-)

Elijah getting excited about a present that hadn't been opened yet...

"Come on brothers, this is going to be exciting..."

And exciting it was - a big box of mixed Lego pieces!

Then a few days after Benjamin's birthday, more presents again!!! My lovely brother Nathanael ordered presents for all of them. This is Deborah with her magnetic "sticker doll" set, which she's had a lot of fun with.

Clement was so excited about his dirt bike set that he brought it to lunch! :)

Abigail with her apron, hat and cupcake set!

Clement with his set before it was built

And Benjamin got a fantastic fishing boat, which he was really excited about - esp since he's not had a Lego shark before, nor a "little boy" minifigure! :-)

Then the next day (yes, more presents!!) Our friends the Macphersons got him a really fun Hot Wheels ramp set, which has been popular with all of them! He's reading the instructions in the photo here ;-) (can't see his head) while the others are playing with it.

This is from some weeks ago - our Billy bookcases from Ikea! We bought the tall narrow ones and fixed them with their corner brackets. I'm *really* pleased with the results - lots of storage space, and I like how it fills the corner there. Very good value too (esp when you buy the white ones, which are half the price of "oak" coloured ones!).

Elijah was helping daddy put the bookshelves together! ;-)

We made some honey spiced cakes the other week, meant to be based on an ancient Roman recipe! We've enjoyed learning so much about the Romans and aren't finished yet. I'm sure I've said a few times how much we enjoy The Mystery of History ;-) - even if we prefer to skip some of the suggested activities, or occasionally disagree with the "opinion/viewpoint" presented about some events/historical figures. But on the whole, it's a fascinating book and has developed a deep love of history in the children - esp the oldest two, but the younger ones listen keenly too (even the 2yo!). We've only got 6 lessons left in volume one and have just ordered Vol 2 last week, which the kids can't wait to start. But I know we'll be dipping back into vol 1 over the coming months to refresh our memory of certain details as we go along.

My smallest girl, who wants to be all grown up! She's begging us to teach her to read, as she's finding it *very* hard to not be able to read like the older ones. Clement (who will be 4 next month) is coming along really well with reading and read his first simple book the other day. He's pretty must mastered 3 letter words, which is exciting. So Deborah is demanding reading lessons too, and working on the sounds of letters. Lots of fun! :-)

My "baby", who isn't looking much like a baby at 9 months now! I think I'll be surprised if he's not walking *before* his birthday in June (Benjamin did at 11 months) but of course, you never know. He's certainly thinking about it and getting mroe and more confident on his feet - and *running* along the couches.

Hands :-)

Wearing his lovely Tots Bots "Spread a Little Nappiness" t-shirt. Not the right weather to have his nappy visible, but of course, there's a lovely Tots Bots cloth nappy under the trousers - best brand of nappies in the world! :-)

Abigail is *always* crafting and creating stuff! Here she's made a crown for herself and a band w/ feather for Deborah!

So, I guess that's about all for now. It's meant to be nearly "spring" here, but we've had snow this week, so its quite cold still. Hopefully this will publish properly, as I'm sure it's got a record amount of photos included! < oops >

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! :-)