We went to Home Ed group today, which we had planned on a theme of Notting Hill Carnival, seeing as the carnival is this weekend. :)As we got to the library where we hold our meetings we went to our room to discover that the library staff had decided to hold a craft session for the public there. On checking the bookings spreadsheet they could see that we were booked in but thought we didnt meet in the holidays so decided to use the room anyway. Without ringing me or emailing to check first. Mmmm. How annoying!Anyway, they managed to get themselves sorted and we finally go into the room around half an hour later. We looked at some posters of the Carnival, looked at other festivals and celebrations in some books and searched the web for information. Then we made our own carnival masks and a carnival float out of giant boxes.Here's how we did:

I recently wrote an article for our local NCT magazine on how we ended up bed sharing/co sleeping with our youngest children. It was a gradual process (read the kids just wouldnt sleep in their own beds and eventually we gave up the fight!) but I am convinced of the benefits. This was how the boys were at around 1am last night together in the middle of our bed. My gorgeous Elijah being the protective big brother even whilst he was asleep. He rolled over and just put his arm around Barnaby, who then snuggled up even closer. My heart melted.







Church this morning was all about Jonah:







This afternoon we cleaned out the chickens. Here is Elijah helping. Dad's leg in the background lol.










I should really introduce the chickens, so in no particular order here are the girls of the household:
Lisa. She is definitely Head Girl. She was named by Lachie (after Lisa in the Simpson's I think) and she is pretty smart. She is an Amber Star and in this picture she is around 17 weeks old.













The Black Rock is Betty. She is the last in the ranking. Until today I thought she was quite dim, but seeing as she was the only girl who avoided capture for a louse powder application, Im not so sure now :-D

And here is Mabel. She is the middle girl, and her loyalties lie with whover has a tasty treat on offer.

Still no eggs from any of the girls yet, but we hope to get some soon - I cant wait!

This week has been a busy week. Monday we took advantage of the dry weather and visited Coombe Abbey Country park with some friends and a picnic. The weather was very kind, and by lunch time it was positively roasting! We enjoyed our picnic until the wasps ventured over. We made music in the woods using all kinds of sizes of twigs - some were more like branches, and we finished the day off with a ride on a donkey. Pie was very pleased with himself as you can see.
Tuesday, behold! More sunshine! So we headed over to Coventry Memorial Park for a splash in the sprinklers, a picnic and then onto Spark in the park for lots of fun with inflatables, crafts and games and God's Holy spirit being poured out in abundance! It was an awesome day. I only wish we could have gone back for more.Thursday we went on a Nature Explorers session at Ryton Pools Country Park. Pie loved hunting for all the small creatures in the wood and looking at them with the magnifier. He even managed to do a little work sheet.

This is us in the woods!

And here is Elijah's work:
Elijah enjoyed writing so much he has been doing some more this weekend:

Also this week - we have made some lovely new blue play dough and played with it lots! We have looked at some fabulous touchy feely sparkly alphabet flash cards given to us by our lovely friends Willem and Jocelyn and some brilliant sliding number flash cards too. Elijah already recognised the letters 'C', 'D', 'E', 'L', 'M' and the numbers 1,2,3,7,8. He is also brilliant at counting things up to the value of 10. All thanks to wii fit boxing - the knock out countdown has taught him everything he knows about numbers lol!

Ok, so I havent managed to blog here since March! But its still 2010 so that's something. This is our last summer before Elijah would be going to pre school if we were going down that route. Seeing as we arent then I really dont have anything to be sad about in that respect. But our 3 older boys will be going back to college/school in around 3 weeks time. And for that, I feel sad. It has been wonderful having them around this holiday. I really have appreciated what fine young men they are turning into.

This week Con had been going into work with his Dad to earn some pocket money and gain a bit of worldly experience. I think he has found it hard work in some respects (Dad is a carpenter) but it has also taought him that he needs to do well to get into uni and follow his dream of being a computer games programmer/designer/artist/sound engineer * delete where applicable (he hasnt decided where he wants to specialise yet lol). It has been a lesson in discovering his physical limits too as he has discovered that his back isnt all that good at coping with the physical demands of carpentry - he has a scoliosis of his spine of about 40 degrees.

Derry has spent most of the holiday sleeping, eating and growing, with occasional visits to the cinema, friends' houses and cadburys world! Nothing more to add here!
Derry and Pie on our recent holiday:


Loxstar has spent all of the holiday in plaster from his severe fractures of the ulna and radius that he did at a cell outreach BBQ at the end of June. He is now in a below elbow light cast thankfully (after 6 long weeks in a full plaster of paris heavy thing from shoulder to knuckles) and we are hopefull that in two weeks time he will be able to just wear a splint (just in time for school!) Here he is on our recent visit to Snowdonia


Of course the major change to our family since I last posted was the arrival of Barnaby our newest baby Bear


He is an absolute delight and I'm so not over having babies yet!