Jean’s Introduction to Economics (by sarah)

Jean keeps telling me not to work 🙁 She wants me to play with her instead but I have to do some work when she's about, though I really don't like doing it and it really depends on weather she's in the sort of mood were she's happy to say just sit and paint.

Our conversation went like this:

'Mummy don't work - play with me!'

'I will play with you in 20 minutes Jean I have to finish this first.'

'No'

'Yes'

'Why?'

'So that we can get money'

'For my house?' (her money box)

'No so that we can buy food.'

Jean hits the heater in annoyance, 'DONT DO THAT IF YOU BREAK IT WE CAN"T REPLACE IT AND THEN WE WILL BE COLD!!!'

'We can just go out all day.'

'No we can't Jean you need money for that.'

'Silly mummy we go shopping!'

'No Jean you need money for that.'

Puzzeled look, 'I'll get my house and horse.' (again her two money boxes.) I had explain it wasn't enough money and thats why I was working besides it's hers and would she like to pay it into the bank? Things then got a bit abstract and I was engander of doing a Mr Brown in Padington Bear.

'Oh ok, I'll make dinner mummy, to help.'

'Good girl Jean.'

A blue toy pot appears with a plastic chicken leg and some construction blocks from something that isn't lego. 'Soup mummy to keep you warm.'

'Thankyou Jean.'

Jean and her guitar (by sarah)

I dug Jean's guitar out of storage - Barbara thought it was new but I pointed out she had it before the flood - Barbara thought this was odd and that I was 'assuming' genius as Jean wouldn't have been old enough to hold it properlly etc... but thats not the case.

Jean at the time would not leave my guitar along - I could not practice for little chubby hands trying to join in so I found a small cheap guitar and got it for her - at the moment it is annoyingly holding tune better than mine :/

Jean was excited to get her guitar back and we 'played' a few tunes - she now knows what the different bits are called anyway!

We also have a music corner in the bedroom which has Seths drum and other sundries like my recorder etc...

My 28th Birthday (by sarah)

For my 28th birthday Alaric made me a butterfly cake out of the left over swiss roll and chocolate from christmas!

I'll be posting about this over on Salaric cooking for those interested in how he did it 🙂 But there was a lot of chocolate involved and Jeany got to lick the pot out - eek!

After she was hyper from that we sent her off to a place called Magic Land in Cirencester for her friend Jame's birthday. She had a great and exhusting 2 hours jumping on soft play kits and the like. Al had forgotten the camera so I photographed my boots and things - I love having a camera again. But I was sad as I thought I had lost all the cool pictures of Jeany sledging as the camera was only showing 2 pictures but it wasn't - it was becuase Al had put my birthday presant in the camera - an SD card that has like 1600 picture capacity on it!

The camera was only showing me what was on the new card and not what was on the internal memory!

He also got me a card reader so I can extract not only these picks easily but all those that are traped on the cards of the old cameras!

I had a nice long bath with defoliating face scrub whilst they were at the party too. Then they came back and Jean had more things than she went with!

Each child had got a presant and Jeans was this book of paper dolls you construct and then dress up - we sat infront of the fire on her road map mat and made the two princesses from it! I'll do a bigger post about them on Salaric Carft along with the lovely Japanese stickers Andy gave her which she decided to stick half of in my diary as she knows I love stickers 🙂 We also made some pictures out of them that are now on the fridge - I'll put these on Salaric Craft too 🙂

Al made me a cheese fondue with crusty bread and raw cualiflower, he didn't get time to cut the other vegtables up but there turned out to be just enough for the fondue dipping anyway!

Barbara came round and we opened a bottle of fizzy wine we'd got as a christmas presant (the fondue was made with christmas presant wine too).

I got out the fluted glasses from the wedding as I now have them back in the house and no longer in storage!

Andy also sent back a birthday presant with Al for me which was four lovely slate coasters which come from the same place as our slate place mats and that we got as a wedding presant. I was so excited about this I decided I should lay the table with the slate stuff purely so I could use them! I also got out the four butterfly napkin rings my brother and his girlfriend got me last year!

Al bought the butterfly cake out - me and Jean blew the candles out and Barbara took her piece over to the Mill to eat but even though I warned her the candle holders where still on the cake she managed to chomp one of them up which she duly returned as her TV wasn't working and she needed Al to go and fix it for her.

Me and Al then put Jean to bed who had had two party loads of cake and sugar and was very very tired! We then played chinese checkers - or attempted to work out from the rules how to play, I eat some chocolate fondue that had ment to be desert to the meal and went to bed.

the end

Sledging and the end of Chistmas (by sarah)

I ment to put these up sooner but forgot - Jean was finially coxed onto the seldge. Here are the photos of her being dragged around by Barbara.

After that it was time for the decorations to come down, Jean helped me until she decided there was enough tinsel to make a nest out of and went to sleep!

I think Jean enjoyed this Christmas. This was origonally supposed to go up on the sixth so no panicking out there!

Sammy Snowman (by sarah)

We are currently snowed in so Jean didn't get to go to Pre-School today. Instead we have been building a snowman - his name is Sammy. Here are the pictures of Barbara and Jean - I'm not sure who was having the most fun!

We then all went inside for hot chocolate with special chocolate cream on top! Barbara brought the sledge round but Jean said she didn't want to go on it so they are currently off building Barbaras fire etc...

Here are some other picks of the water fall - from these you can see that down in our valley here in Gloucestershire we haven't actually thawed out for weeks now!

I'm loving my new camera - though at the mo I only have its memory which is about 10 pictures which is frustrating as is the need to use the Kodak software when uploading the photos onto the laptop :/