Busy little bees...

What an exhausting few days (for me! lol). We mostly stayed around home, but the kids were so hyped and moving from one thing to another I hardly got a chance to sit down and just relax. Usually I manage to carve out a bit of time to myself mid-afternoon to sit down with a book and a cup of tea to recharge (usually when they watched a DVD). But they have been full on and busy and requiring a little help here and there that just as I'd pick up a book I'd be called away to help out with something (or I'd want to get a photo of something :)). But in saying that, I've loved every (well, almost) moment and it's been neat to see the way they shift and move between activities. Seemingly all unrelated and random, but then I notice links
all over the show that I just couldn't recreate that if I tried.

Went to the library in the morning - oops, the librarian had to override their system which cuts out at 30 books (we'd forgotten to take the kids library cards with us which usually gets us around the problem).

Unpacked our fruit/vege box that was then utilised elsewhere.

A bit of painting. I heard Danielle exclaim "hey, I made orange!". I'm sure she has many times before, but was cool for her to realise that *she* did that.

The box and the toys continued on their adventures from the night before. NO idea what they were doing here, but made me smile.


Tea parties.

Replied to an email to his nannie.

Nathan spotted a news item on my homepage of an Egyptian Mummy. So we spent a while looking at online pictures of mummies and talking about them (the night before we'd been reading about them The Story of the World so it grabbed his interest again).

This morning was super frosty.

As I was buzzing around getting ready for the day and doing some chores Nathan was in his room drawing and calling out asking how to spell certain words. He made a special little picture of a town for Danielle with labels of places to visit.

Nathan then headed outside and was right into digging and smashing up all the ice he could find around the place.

I sat and watched the chickens basking in the sun (as soon as I let them out they raced for their sunny patch).

Magic Faraway Tree meets My Side of the Moutain
As I was hanging up washing Nathan found an old Evening Primrose plant that was sitting alongside the fence and asked if he could do something with it. Just as I was thinking it could make a cool hut he exclaimed it would make a good teepee if flipped upside down. So he set about digging a hole in the ground to pop it into. As he was wrapping the excess branches around the top he decided it made a good Magic Faraway Tree and that this would be Moon-Face's house. He then decided to make a mat from leaves that he recalled from My Side of the Mountain.

Danielle then came outside and joined us and they went off to the many lands on adventures.


After lunch we read some of our library books. One of them was about a Vietnamese family and the treasures held in a special family cabinet. After the story the kids raced off down to Nathan's room to consult the map of the world and find out where Vietnam is. We also started a new chapter book from the Time Spies series.

We then had to go out and get some supplies for looking after the chickens (mites, urgh, poor girls). I also needed to pick up a book from the library I'd ordered in so while there we photocopied some pages from a book with Mandalas in it that I'd picked up the day before. Nathan wanted to colour in some of pages. So they made a start on those as I de-mited the girls.

After dinner was on, Nathan wanted to be rolled up like a mummy. He'd made a mask to go on the outside that I was to place on when done.

It's funny, we've been meaning to make some playdough for 2 days now. But somehow, all the spontaneous stuff just keeps tiding us over. I know that sometime soon there'll be a lull in this "buzziness" and boredome arrives for a few days. But it seems not long after, another busy spurt occurs and they're off again.

We've not played with any kids this week and probably won't for the rest of winter. I know, sounds awful! While Nathan's immune system is still compromised and *really* not in a position to deal with any flu at the moment (with the risk of it turning into pneumonia) and with the swine flu now running rampant around the country, we'll be laying low. We will still be going to the library and popping out to run errands - but unfortunately with kids as they are, they are in each others faces and it would do my head in wondering about the transfer that could be going on. So we can carry on as we are and minimise our exposure for the next few months and then just take our chances like everyone else in a few months time.