A day at home

OK ,I confess...... I spent ALL morning at the computer processing photo's that I took in the weekend !! When I should have been unpacking from our trip to Christchurch, doing 'school', tidying our extremely messy house, or at least looking after our children !!! but instead I chose to (or rather got wrapped up in) processing photo's just because I like too. At some stage I happened to glance at the computer clock and realised that it was infact midday... so remembering that I am first a mother and only second someone who likes to take photo's I decided to find the kids...
I held my breath and readied myself for the chaos I expected to find, but instead found this...

and .....

The three older children had all decided to do some embroidery !! And were quietly and peacefully working away at it. Yes 'quietly' and 'peacefully' ,these were not staged photo's, I think I am writing this to help me believe what I saw. I totally believe we have great kids, but quietly working away at embroidery while their mother was attending to a hobby , wow that's pretty cool (and lets be honest, a rariety) ...

OK , I admit.... the living room did look like this ...

and this photo isn't truly representative of it at all, infact I'm not sure how they found room to sit for their sewing at all !


..and our youngest did look like this ...at midday. Yes she is still wearing a small part of her pjama's (she had discarded the top layer earlier, probably in the vain hope that someone might be encouraged to dress her for the day !!?) and no that is not enough clothing for a cold and wet 4 degree malborough day, and yes she is also nappyless (I'm picking this again an attempt on her part to encourage others to attend to her needs)

Remembering where my priority's really lay, I gave our children a whole heap of love and got going with the monumental task of finding some sense of order in our house...

The kids ,probably sensing Mama's desire to 'clean house', very cleverly engaged themselves in various types of play for the afternoon.

The little two with a their favourite animals box...

..at the moment they love playing out goat play fights (something they see a lot of with our motely crue of goats)

Then big sister arrived on the scene and proceeded to set up a rather complex game of her own...

This one with heavy emphasis on the predator instinct of the Lion as the King himself and all his soon to be prey were all set up....

 ..let the feasting begin....

Admittedly this is not the way her animal games usually play out, but I guess everyone needs to try a different 'hat' every now and then.



But it was not for our youngest....
yes goats are the animal of choice for our Arwen

..meanwhile in the lounge.. Kurt is heavily involved in creating all the necessary props for his chosen activity

with lots of help from his little sister of course (the goats had lost their appeal by now.).
(yes she was eyeing up that permanent marker pen, and yes there was an ensuing tantrum when she was denied it)

...after much construction work ,including making two dump trucks out of banana boxes several stop/go signs and a multitude of other traffic direction signs... not to mention the massive furniture rearrangement...
they were away....

getting in and out of the lounge to tidy up became a very time consuming exercise, while I had to wait for a 'go' to enter through the 'roadworks' (Anton is driving the dump truck, incase it's dificult to figure out , he had the right of way at all times, and I think he kinda liked the power !!) (And that's the princess at the other end of the roadworks, even she had to wait for the dump truck !!)

Arwen decided she wanted a turn at the controls of the signs..so some training up was required (there's a lot to know you know !!) So the older ones did their best at teaching her all they knew

..then she was on her own .!!!....

..There were a LOT of rules to comply with (it was Kurt's game after all ),they eventually simplified them for her , basically she was required to do what Kurt told her. It was the talking on the 'walky talky's' where she really felt at home though.

I think she was the sole worker for a time while the 'senior' workers endured many breaks and many more 'meetings' . Ahhh our boys observe those road workers well !!

After her lion had been sufficently fed and her princess outfit discarded with, Becca was in her element  creating our new 'nature table',with 'King Winter' in his prominent position and all the gnomes heading into their cave for the winter...

I love watching her escape into her world when she does this.



Tired of the workload nextdoor, it wasn't long before Becca had a very interested onlooker, observing and soon totally absorbed in the story Becca was telling as she created...

So....there was no maths or 'reading' or 'spelling or writing.... or some would say 'school', but there certainly was no shortage of learning happening in our home today.