the last few days before school

I've found that I can carry Joshua on my back in the Storchenwiege, making life so much easier. He's so much bigger than the other guys and I'm also a lot more confident with the sling this time round so I am delighted to find we can do back carries now leaving me with hands free to get on with more. The guys are coming back into themselves after being quite out of sorts after the big party month of August. We've been trying to take it easy; eat well, sleep well, no t.v. and it seems to be working.

Rebe and Benny played at being spies for a good deal of the day yesterday. Basically the game involved wearing black (or navy as we only have one black thing) and having a spy watch that Rebe made for them out of loo rolls.

We picked a pound and a half of completely perfect blackberries. Benny gobbled as many as he could before I managed to get them into the freezer. I'm planning to pick as many as we can and have stores for various goodies in the winter.

Benny has been doing a bit more gluing and sticking...on his hands.

This is what happens if you let Benny 'hold' a ball of string.


Rebe's excitement about starting school tomorrow has reached fever pitch. With a little effort we channelled all this excitement into making things today.
She's never happier that with paper, pens, glue and scissors!

Here is a fox. She painted round her own hands and feet then stuck them onto a body, I helped her with the neck and she did the rest herself. She also made a bowl with 'Sam' written on it and she even made a paper chicken to go in it.

Here is the small mountain of things she made for her teacher tomorrow, including instructions on how to grow flowers, a box for her crayons and a spy glass. While she was making these things she was asking me a million question about school and what her day would be like. Then she said 'Oh mummy I've got so many questions to ask the teacher tomorrow'... poor woman, she won't know what's hit her!

Joshua got this medal today...

for laughing! He actually laughed, four times no less. It was the loveliest sound in the world. He was laughing at Rebe who was chatting to him. It just made my heart melt. I know I'll be spending a good deal of my time now trying to make him laugh :-)

So now, kids are (finally) in bed, books are covered...

...uniform is laid out ready...

...school bag and school shoes waiting by the door for our big grown up school girl to take them up and set of on her academic adventure.