Precious Moments

I seem to running around, trying to catch myself up, right now, so I have decided over the summer I will just be posting my weekly precious moments posts, as well as any reviews I need to do for the TOS crew.  I need to slow down a little, and one way I can do that is by turning off the computer 🙂

This week began well with the children’s old babysitter visiting for lunch.  The older children (and younger) just adore Emma and it was incredibly good to see her:

The weather has been bizarre in England with bright sunshine one minute and bucketing it down the next.  We have been hiding out in car parks to avoid getting drenched:

Apologies about the quality of some of the photos – they are taken with my phone which does not have a very good camera 🙁

Despite the weather we have been attempting to get out for a walk in the evening most days:

A7 sleeps much better, and it gives me an opportunity to jog.  I have been stuck on week two for three weeks now, managing to get out two times each week but never managing the third (you are meant to do three times before moving on to week three).  I have now done the week two jog six times but not in the same week.  It is getting far too easy, so I think regardless I will be moving on to week three next week 🙂

I even drag the teens along occasionally, with the promise of chocolate…..I’m thinking they may have missed the point some what:

I had to laugh at the beginning of the week, when the girls linked arms and began sing-songing ‘We’re going on a bear hunt….’:

‘We’re going to catch a big one.  What a beautiful day.  We’re not scared’:

‘Oh no!  Horse manure!  We can’t go through it, we can’t go around it.  We have to jump over it!’ (yes, I know, they were making up lyrics by this point):

Lillie’s off at the side retching in disgust whilst the others try and jump it 🙂

We began our five week Victorian Unit Study with a focus on writing this week, and the little ones have enjoyed their Victorian dress up clothes:

Oh my, how cute are they?  It made me a little sad as I realised just how quickly childhood goes by.  Just a couple of years ago, I would have bought dress up for the older ones as well.  Sniff.

School-wise A7 has been working independently at my desk:

B5 has been doing lots of art:

Thomas has been finishing off section one of his IGCSE Chemistry with lots of experiments.  We were a bit unprepared for the experiments but he did a great job using odds and sods we had lying about the house to create what was needed:

We were over the moon to hear from the college he had applied to.  Thomas has been accepted to do a Btec level two in Engineering.  It is a two year course, fully funded by the council, one day per week.  This will be a fabulous opportunity for Thomas to experience engineering at the same time as working towards a GCSE equivalent.  He is BEYOND excited!

All the children have been working on writing this week.  They have done Victorian farm diary entries, an essay on Queen Victoria as mother, wife and queen as well as some work on Great Expectations:

The little ones have been doing lots of Rainforest work and weather work.  Part of one of their experiments was to make a globe to show the tilt………oh and to do it in dress up clothes:

The cross trainer is getting lots of use with the children:

Our house isn’t really big enough, so I think we will be taking it down to Gary’s shed and use it in there.  It is very handy to have when the weather is bad, and has meant that I have managed to exercise daily, whether it be jogging, cross training or even walking around London….

Yes, on Wednesday, Lillie and I went for a very special day out to the National Art Gallery:

We attempted, with much hilarity, to get some selfies of us both.  Oh. My. Goodness.  We were NAFF!  Here’s my attempt (bear in mind this was the absolute best.  I got more of my fingers than I did of any faces:

We were eating in the gallery cafe at the time and I had to nab a photo of the carrot cake.  Does that not look divine?

Then it was Lillie’s turn to take selfies because she was sure she could do better.  Ahem.  There were just as many pictures of fingers and thumbs, but she did manage one fairly decent one:

Selfies are not very flattering, but I really wanted a photo of Lillie and I to remember our trip by.

She really wanted to visit the artists she had studied over the past year and I wanted to visit the artists we would be studying over the next few weeks.  Unfortunately a large number of the rooms of the 18-19th century paintings wing were being refurbished, so neither of us got to see everything we had hoped to.  I sneaked in some very bad photos (on phone camera):

Lillie improves every photo simply by being in it <3

But for us both, the most exciting part was the George Shaw display:

He introduced both of us to enamel painting, which we had never come across before.  He paints woodland scenes using the paint which is usually associated with painting air-fix models:

They were so good, with a lovely shimmery quality; and so, so realistic.

I bought Lillie the whole post card set of his paintings and she intends to do a full study of his works over the autumn term.

As I mentioned at the start of the post, I have decided to cut down on my blogging over the summer months.  Obviously I still need to fulfill my TOS crew review requirements, so I will still be posting a review a week, sometimes two.  Apart from that I will only be posting my precious memory post each Friday.  I feel I need some down time, away from the screen, and so will be stopping all other posting.

I hope you all have a wonderful summer this year!