A few lovely spring days...

It's interesting how the kids really get into things when they aren't waiting around to "go out". It's like they can relax and just get on with it rather than biding time.

Yesterday morning started off just hanging out at home and Nathan went off to set up a train track in his room. He called me in for assistance when he wanted to intergrate some dominoes into the mix. So he came up with this design and I assisted with making it happen since it was getting a bit too frustrating for him after giving it many goes.

We then headed out to meet up with our unschooling group to hang out at the beach.

Danielle holding up a couple of "rocket ships" that her and Nathan had made.

Nathan the "bat boy".

Danielle spent ages this morning creating a picture/collage for her nannie. Then she wanted to write her name on it so I wrote it down on another sheet and she gave it a good attempt at forming the letters. That's the first time she's wanted to try letters, she's been keen for a while writing squiggles to sign her work.

This morning we read from our Hans Christian Andersen book. I love the illustrations in the book we have and have been taken with them since we got it a few years ago. So instead of dreaming that I too can draw (I have a big hang up about not being artistic) I decided what better way to go than to actually sit down with some pencils and just go for it. So, while I was inspired by this picture to just draw (and copy!), the kids got into their usual drawings with their natural untampered confidence and we spent a pleasant hour just creating. I had fun and so pleased I gave it a go. Danielle has taken an interest in words on the page and page numbers and spent a bit of time pointing to words asking me what they were. Could be because Nathan is getting into it and she's aware that he points and asks heaps of questions about reading, but it was neat to see that she's noticed there is something more to me reading stories.

This afternoon Danielle bought the skipping rope out to me and wanting to do some jumping over it. So after attaching it to a chair and me on the other end they then moved on to wanting to go under the rope. So I told them about doing the limbo and we looked up YouTube for the "limbo rock" song while they were doing it.

Then we clicked on some African limbo dancers who were playing their djembe drums, so Danielle grabbed our one and was playing it for Nathan as he did the limbo lol.

Nathan had asked to make muffins this afternoon, but upon searching for ingredients we realised we'd run out of eggs and oil which really make our gluten free recipe work. So we settled on cheese scones. Now - I'm not really a baking kind of mum and don't often bake and often "new" recipes are a real disaster for me lol. But, I forged ahead, was getting all flour all over my black cardy and was cursing the problem when I realised I could be one of those organised baking mums who actually wears an apron! AND, I actually have a handful of aprons that I gotten as hand-me-downs from my nana which I have never worn before. So in the name of appearing like a baking-mum I popped it on and Nathan took a photo lol.

(And yes, the scones were a disaster lmao! But bless my lovely kids who are used to my baking - they still ate the crumbly things that were dry and yuk lol).

About 3pm we felt the need for some fresh air and exercise, so instead of suggesting the kids go out to bounce on the tramp I suggested we go for a wander around the block. Nathan grabbed his scooter and off we went. On our travels we met the owner of a local historic building that often hosts local community events (as I was eyeing up a chained up planter box making plans to do a bit of guerilla gardening and plonking some vege plants in there next time I walked past lol) and he came out to chat.