And Now You can Sponsor Our Noveling Madness (by sarah)

As the whole family is taken part in this and I am actually aiming for a nutty 90, 000 words in one month and have actually broken the 20 K mark today which means I've written more than 20, 000 words in a week, we thought we would put a page where people can sponsor us. The money is for the charity that organising the NaNoWriMo event every November but they do far more than keeping the servers and the likes going for insane writers like us. They put in a lot of work for classrooms and libraries and community efforts both on a local and global scale.

So it is there and waiting 🙂 No pressure.

An Inconvenient Word (by sarah)

Mary is learning to talk - she is doing a combination of English and Lojban often taking just the common sounds from both words and she is emulating Jean's singing etc....

This has led to an unfortunate word that she is happily chanting - it begins with s and ends in t and means poo though obviously that is not what she means - we think she is trying to copy some of the lyrics of Down By the River Side but it is embarrassing! And halarious.

We are ignoring it in the hope she stops doing it as if we make a fuss she'll think its a game and do it more!

Bonfire Night 2012 (by sarah)

Bonfire Night saw m and Jean cooking away - we attempted ice box cookies but it went a bit wrong - Jean ever resourcefull decided to turn them into bone sliver biscuit slivers.

We made some spooky chocolates as well with white chocolate 🙂

Not to mention a Fire Works Night cake 🙂 complete with an icing Guy Fawkes on top 🙂

Once all the cooking was done we popped out the decorations I'd gotten for Halloween which then sort of hadn't happened for us as we were at Cubs!

Jean toasting a marshmallow! A giant marshmallow! Baby scoffing a non-toasted marshmallow 🙂 And a tray of giant marshmallows - we still can not believe the size of these things!

I love my purple spider mug add in the glass eyeball stick that my friend Ulrike gave us and it is perfect for spooky drinks 🙂

Of course Jean's glowing screaming skull straw is pretty ace too 🙂

We had snacks 🙂 Little jelly ghosts, chocolate covered witch biscuits and chilli spider web pretzels.

Then we had indoor fireworks! (it was pretty miserable outside which is why we were not out at a display as planned plus there had been a good fireworks display at Legoland anyway!).

We did do one of them outside though as it was a fountain 🙂

After the in door fireworks we lit a fire lantern 🙂

After the outside stuff we had toffee and chocolate apples 🙂

The cats who should have been hiding from the fireworks - followed us out into the garden to see what all the fuss was about and seemed completely unworried about the fireworks. This being our first fireworks night in a built up area with them we were concerned but it was all fine in the end 🙂

If you want to see bigger versions of the photos just click on them 🙂

Pumpkin Soup (by sarah)

The innards of the pumpkin needed to be disposed off - I extracted the seeds, boiled it up and blended it and made bright orange soup.

And the baby pappled it making a great big orangy mess.

The seeds I roasted in a low temperature over with a little bit of sea salt grated onto the top - these were are writing snacks 🙂

NaNoWriMo – the family thing :) (by sarah)

Everyone in the household is now involved in NaNoWriMo - Jean's story is amazing - I don't think she'll beat last years word count but that is fine and I've slowed her down slightly as she is producing the most articulate story and drawing pictures to boot!

Her story is based on the picture on the front of her note book! Mary of course could not be left out and so is scribbling in a little cat note book that I originally got for Alaric!

Alaric has been to his first write-in in Bristol at the Water Shed and is chuffed about his 2000 words plus. I have my first write in tomorrow (as in actual and not me and the girls and pumpkin soup.

We normally get a vat of jelly beans to see me through October and Novembers writing challenges and then through Christmas and a fair way into the new year but instead there was a Jelly Bean mug! The sort with a silicon lid that helps me not tip it all over myself and the laptop. It is purple comes with a few jelly beans and of course a new mug for my foul hot beverages is traditional for my writing madness.

There is also a little lego mascot ready to help me write. I've only managed 4000 words so far but am hoping to drastically up this at the write in - to stick to my self imposed word target I need to be averaging 3000 words a day!