Krafty Easter!

My beautiful girls getting busy!

 

 

 

My Easter Chick

Jaime's creation!

Krafty Katie!

Katie's Sparkly Egg!

Easter & Family

Jaime, Tony and Charlie came to stay for Easter weekend and it was lovely!
We ate lots and lots of lovely food and delicious Easter Eggs.
The weather was good too, so we went to the park. Charlie's little legs walked all the way there, and back again! Jaime walked all the way too, carrying her 20week baby bump, who we are calling "Tommy" for the time being, until Jaime and Tony can agree on a name they both like!

Mad as hatters!

Higher!

Climbing!

 

Cuddle time.

Katie.x

Monkey man!

Charlie Kisses

 

Time for home.

Home ed advice to myself

I was looking on one of my home ed groups tonight and there was a lady just starting out on the HE journey. She asked a very good question. She asked those of us who have been HE for a while, if there was anything we would have done differently.
This was my reply:

I wish I had known I didn't have to turn our home into a miniature school. I tried to create "school at home" even though my daughter had never been to school! It was for me; I was "schooled" :-(

 I didn't know that children can learn everything they need to know without being "taught" or having a lesson or sitting at the table with a workbook.  This was 5/6 yrs ago, and nobody knew about "de-schooling" then, but boy did I need it!  

 It's taken me a while to get my head around it all, to get the school way out of my system and allow my child to find her own way of learning. It was scary to ditch the workbooks, scrap my lovely lesson plans and just allow her to play and read and discover what is important to her.

 It would have been so much easier for me if my daughter had taken to structure and lesson plans, because I love plans! I saw myself as her "teacher". I needed to see "progress". I like to see results, and files of work and to tick the boxes off. But that was me.

My daughter doesn't learn in that way, so now we follow her lead. She directs her own learning , and it's amazing, because it is such an efficient way of learning! But it requires trust and it took me a long time to trust that my child would learn just by playing and doing the things she loves!  Six years on and it's been the most amazing journey.

So, if I could go back 5 years and give the old me advice, it would be to forget everything I knew about school, to just chill, slow down and listen to my child. She will tell me what she needs, all I need to do is hear her.

Oasby Music and Mothers Day Treats

Practising!

Katie played  the piano on Mothering Sunday at the Oasby Music Concert. She played beautifully, and note perfect! The concert was held, as usual, at Christ Church in Grantham. The music sounded just lovely echoing around the magnificent church.
Afterwards we went to dinner in Grantham. It was a mother's day treat!



Mother's Day Treats

My lush new bag from Jaime!

Mother's Day

I am a daughter, a mother and a grandmother.

 I am blessed with 2 beautiful daughters and the cutest, cheekiest little grandson and I am so excited to have another grandchild in September!

I am so proud of my two girls. They have such good hearts and sweet souls and I hope I raised them well. I had a good mentor; my own mum, the best mum I could have wished for, sadly taken from us far too soon.

So, today, I say thank you to my daughters for just being, well....just fabulous! And I will raise a glass to the most amazing woman I ever met...my mam x

To my Mam

How can it be 11 years since I last saw your face mam?

Grief is rotten. Grief is consuming. Grief takes my breath away.

I miss you mam.
I miss you with all my heart.
Time does heal, it's true. But if I let myself think too hard about you; if I let myself remember the details; if I think about the pain you went through;  if I think about the damned injustice that somebody so beautiful and kind could be taken away from us when you had so much living left in you....well.... the pain is as sharp and deep and cutting as it was in those first weeks after you left us. So I don't go to that place in my mind very often mam. And then I feel guilty. I feel like I have let you down.

But know this mam; I love you.
I love you and I long for you so much it wells up inside of me and I feel I will burst and cry and cry and never stop.

Eleven years.

Lincoln University Science Week

This week was the National Science and Engineering Week and The University of Lincoln had loads of interesting stuff going on for kids and adults alike.
On Wednesday we went along and met up with a few HE families there.

Katie was thrilled that there was a class about dog training! She enjoyed the class so much, she sat through it twice! Of course she got to train the dog herself and feed it treats. She was in heaven.

She also had a go at extracting DNA from frui  but she declined the invite to ride the bicycle to generate electricity; her friends had a go though!

Extracting DNA from strawberries

Ruby pedalling hard to light the bulb!

There was a CSI display with finger printing and a "crime scene" to investigate.

Crime Scene!

Katie and her fingerprint!

We got chatting to one of the uni lecturers; he had a fascinating collection of skulls, mainly mammals including wolves foxes and different breeds of dogs... Katie's favourite subject! He told us how he had spent time in Italy studying wolves and foxes and it all sounded so magical. Katie asked him how you got a job like that, and he told her he had studied for a degree in Zoology at the Uni.
Later, on the way home Katie announced she loved the university, and she thought she might go there when she's older. Well, that was unexpected! Watch this space....

Whisby Nature World

Katie and I were out and about again this Thursday. This time we spent the day at Whisby, about an hours drive north of us.

We met up with our home ed friends at The Natural World Centre.

The weather was lovely and we mums sat in the sun drinking coffee and putting the world to rights, while the children played in the sand. Hmmm..the sand; Katie and her friends had a great time digging holes and burying themselves but her clothes were in such a state afterwards as the sand was  wet below the surface. Katie had a very damp bum, but it didn't seem to bother her that much. Her leggings were so badly stained with the wet sand that they made their way into the bin as soon as we got home.
Thankfully the leggings weren't expensive!

Today we headed off to Bedford as Katie had been invited to her friend Lara's 10th birthday party.
Dave and I dropped Katie off at Lara's house and spent the afternoon shopping in Milton Keynes.
Ooooh! A whole three hours to ourselves. Lovely!

Belton House

Today Katie and I visited Belton House in Grantham with our home-ed friends. We joined up to the National Trust and got a special HE rate too!

Belton House in the background

The weather was so lovely and there was so much to see outside in the beautiful grounds and play-park, that we never got to go into the house! We will do that another day.
We did get a "free ride" on the train though!

Train Ride!

Play Time

Katie was thrilled with the deer roaming freely in the grounds.

Piano!

We had some great news.
Katie got the results of her ABRSM piano exam that she sat last week. She passed with a merit!
She was chuffed to hear she had done so well.
Well done Katie!

Then today, Katie entered Grade One piano at the Grantham Music Festival. It was held at Christchurch in Grantham and it was another early start for us.

Katie played beautifully and in spite of making one mistake, she came 2nd place out of her class of 12. The competition was stiff, so we are very proud of her. All her practice has paid off.

Better get saving up for a proper piano!

Wooohoo! Well done Katie!

Off to Shotley

Charlie's little legs can walk a long, long way!

Yesterday, Katie and I drove the 2hrs to see Jaime at her home in Shotley Gate.She's pregnant with our 2nd grandchild and it is so exciting.

Charlie was as cute as ever and surprisingly well behaved! He has been a bit of a handful lately for his mummy (terrible twos we think) but he was on his best behaviour for his nanny and aunty Katie.

We headed down to the harbour, despite the chilly wind. Charlie's little legs can walk a long way!
We had a lovely lunch in the pub overlooking the harbour then headed back home. Charlie insisted on walking part of the way, so it was slow going with the wind blowing in our faces.
Thankfully, he retreated to his pushchair so we could hurry home, and he was fast asleep by the time we'd climbed the hill to Jaime's house.

Jaime is about 3 months pregnant and she looks as beautiful as ever. We don't know the sex of the baby yet, but she has booked a 4d scan for next month, and we will find out then. Can't wait!

Lovely Lincoln

We did something really unusual this morning; we got up before 9am!

Katie had a piano recital in Colsterworth. We were really good, managed to get up and out with plenty of time to get there. We never made it in the end  (that's another story) Just as well it wasn't too important. Katie sat her Grade 1 on Wednesday gone, and I think that's enough piano excitement for one week!

So, since we were up so early, we headed off to lovely Lincoln. There was so much to see but I wish I had worn my flat boots, cobble stones and heels are not good together.

The "Olympic" post box!

Cuddles at the Cathedral

We found a gorgeous little shop that sold Lincoln Soap moulded into the most delicious looking cakes! Honestly, they looked good enough to eat.

Katie treated herself and I know where to go for those special Christmas presents!