Shortly. Possibly. Life has got rather complicated. Not only do we have children doing what is fast becoming an almost impossible combination of activities but business is heading into its busy time and 2 of our staff are moving. Gulp. Luckily we will manage, but the well oiled machine will be, erm, using different oil. Still, all good fun. I'm confident it will all be fine 🙂 fran and Amelie are now doing panto rehearsals and a gym club winter show, Maddy has the main part in that (Belle in beauty and the Beast) and they are variously involved in other stuff too. We barely see fran, who does gym on Monday and Wednesday, rehearses and does dance on Friday pm, dances all day Saturday and does panto rehearsals all day Sunday. Lucky for her she has lots of study periods for homework and history but her cello playing has gone by the by and I'm cross that I'm having to nag her to make 10 minutes for it. So I'm not doing, but I will probably be selling her cello because frankly, it's money I can spend elsewhere. I do get that she's busy but I also wanted her to get to grade 5 before she stopped and I'm a little annoyed the balance has swung too far to dance just now.
Every weekend in September was busy, culminating in a trip to London for a rather weird PR day but those of us who went got to peek inside RADA.
The train there was fun, the number of closed tube stations less so, the event not quite what was expected but the taxi ride to the last train of the day great fun.
Bene was a hit and even got a call back but we decided against it in the end.
Bene was perfectly delighted by a car ride on my knee (freaks me out :/ ) until he spotted this.
We made it to a weekend with friends at The Portico and had a lovely time. Unfortunately something upset Amelie's asthma and she wheezed wildly, having forgotten her inhalers. Ended up having a trip to a walk in centre, rather reluctantly, I thought she would be okay, where she had a nebuliser and strong steroids to put her right.
Oops. I did not even have my phone for a blog snap of the neb. Told her she looked like an ood; she wasn't impressed 😉
By next morning Bene was down with the cold that went to his chest that turned into a penicillin allergy, and Alison kindly drove us to meet with Max rather than risking a train trip home and all losing our minds.
We did have a really nice time too though!
Then of course there were the mads and since then we've been flying round like loons. Fran has had a cleft clinic appt and she has decided to have more palate surgery to improve her speech. Very proud of her, though it is odd to have her making her own decisions these days. While she was there Max went off for an appointment to see about having his eyes layered, of which more later.
And Bene got sick, but is largely on the mend now, I hope, leaving aside infected ear lobe and odd red rash on cheek. But looking, recently, like some of these pictures.
I know. Impossibly cute. But making much blogging very difficult. I'm hopelessly behind on his special blog too 🙁
We've been really lucky and won some days out thank to the holiday video we did and are going to be Centerparcs family Bloggers for a year too. More on both those later 🙂
So that's the family round up and actually there is a home ed one to come too, hopefully tomorrow or Saturday if I get a minute. But what we have also been doing is lots of craft. Maddy has worked so hard on things for Simple Crafts and it is coming along very well. We'd love you to join its email subscription feed or Facebook page.
I'm not sure, but I think I'm gradually pulling this blog back to being a family record and home ed place. But I love my crafts and it feels right for them to be on their own blog, especially making it something I work on with Moo. So do visit it; things we make will still be here in some form, but less detail. I suspect ill be moving some of my more private thoughts over to my MerrilyMe blog too; much as grief and sad are part of family, th girls read this sometimes now and I'd like to have a place that is me, not family. So do join me, I will try not to only do sad 🙂
Another cute picture? Oh go on then.
A bowl I made and did a tutorial for on Fimo Ideas. Yes, this blog is a real mishmash!
And this, my friends, is crafter storage p*rn. Hello organisation 🙂
You know, I sometimes think we might have a few things in common Merry LOL!
I have kids and activities to juggle, but fortunately, it’s only the younger two, though son 2 does ask to go places at awkward times – roll on April when he can get his driving licence sorted! Then he can do some of the activity transport too, since he loves driving just for the sake of driving LOL! One consequence of busy younger kids is that Jerome (13 now) is taking time out from his violin – I am similarly disappointed to how you must feel – he (and his dad) have put so much time (and many many tears on his part) into it, he reached a good level, but he wasn’t enjoying it so much, we were tired of nagging him and he decided to take a second judo class a week and with a school day that has him out of the house from 7.15am – 5.30pm, to evenings of judo plus the school-free Weds afternoon being tied up at riding school didn’t leave much scope for violin. Not selling though – it’s a special instrument and I’d like him to come back to it one day – I treasure my flute even though I rarely play it!
Will (son 2) is now home-ed on UK A level courses – he’s about finishing with his orthodontics and while his teeth might be better places, the doc has said that the only route for the lower jaw position now is surgery … or not, and as he too is the one to make the decision (he’s 17 now), I don’t think he will – it doesn’t bother him enough to want to do anything about, and after having 4 lots of eye surgery over the years, I don’t think he’s keen for any more!
We too have a lovely B&W vintage motor racing framed print LOL! – ours is Sterling Moss (who my FIL knew) in a 1956 Maserati!
And finally in my ramble – that photo of Bene in the red bib – he’s the spitting image of you Merry!! So, you can carry on saying just how gorgeous he is – cos he is, and so are you!
Glad Amelie is better and Bene is on the mend.
Its odd isnt it when children become so busy in their own bubble of activity and hard for us parents too.
Really liking your crafts (and more than a little envious that you have time to do them.) I keep telling myself one day I will get back to what I started before Lucas was born.
Afraid I empathise with fran and the cello. Cello was chosen for me at primary school and despite never really enjoying it was nagged into continuing, even playing with the county orchestras. Finally at the end of secondary school parents agreed I could give up but set the arbitrary goal of grade 5 and grade 5 theory which I duly did, passed with high marks, promptly gave up and have not touched it for the last 23 years and have absolutely no regrets. Not sure I can even reliably recognise all the notes now.
She chose it, asked for the expensive full size and does still like it. But for the money, it’s now so far down her list. I don’t care if she had never played it, I don’t value music incredibly highly but if she wants the cello, she needs to make use of it! And to be fair, the last couple of days, she has.
My head spins just reading all this. I think I want to keep D being 5 and only wanting to do one activity for a long while.
And if your store was based on this side of the pond, I would so want that job. Hope you find the perfect person soon!
Glad to hear you are all on the mend at last ~ winter is rough!
Bene is gorgeous. Your girls are gorgeous (and Oh so busy!!) and your bowl ~ well that’s pretty gorgeous too!!
So that’s a whole lot of lovely in one post! 😀