Busy Doing Nowt!

We had a lovely day today, spending time with our friends L,G and I at their house catching up on Christmas new, drinking tea and chatting while the children played, mostly uneventfully until Sophie and I, fueled by lots of chocolate and lollies decided to mount a comedy raid on G's bedroom and "Steal your stuff" which ended in lots of giggling and shouts of "MUUUUMMMM Tellll theeeeemmmm!" as they pursued their booty 'the red chair' ( why this was the prize was never fathomed!)
Connor spent most of the afternoon on his own, quite happily absorbed in the girls new Wii, it made me realise what a good tool it might be for helping him practice his motor skills as its challenging, fun and non threatening.He can get on with it without judgements from other people which limits his willingness to join in with things like team games or try to ride his bike for fear of failure and ridicule from other children. I'd better start saving(again) I think!
When we got home Darren wasn't at work as expected and had made tea and spent the evening setting up the kids new computer which I am now posting on... its a joy, completely silent, starts up first time and is lightening fast compared with what felt like days watching little blocks rise one by one on the toolbar as each page took an eternity to load!

Merry Christmas!

Its all gone a bit fast really! When we returned from Disney things needed picking up where we'd left them undone and get them done, then clearing space etc and all of a sudden Christmas was here so apologies to those who sent us cards and didn't get one back,whoosh the last posting date had passed along with all the good intentions to get the things written and sent! My Car decided to die on us just as everything shut for Christmas so anything not done had to stay that way! Fortunately mum lent me her car on Xmas eve so we at least have some transport!

Christmas Day was spent present opening in the morning before going to Darren's parents for lunch which I cooked while Darren and his mum went to visit his Dad in hospital.

The kids wound up having waaay too many presents despite us saying we weren't spending a lot ( and didn't!) Darren's Mum went as mad as usual, she bought them all a much needed computer which they were thrilled with( as were we- such a relief not to have to worry about funding a replacement!) along with loads of toys etc.

Fortunately many of the gifts they received will be very useful for home ed, mainly some brilliant science/creative kits so we will dig into those in the new year. Connors interest in stars and electronics meant he was in his element having received a planetarium and a robotic dog in addition to the robosapien we bought him! Who is regularly burping, groaning, marching round the living room and scaring the poor rabbits!

No pics of Connor, he was off limits! :(

By mid afternoon Connor was in a state of total worn out meltdown and behaving appallingly. BIL doesn't realise shouting at him just makes it all worse (and then I shouted at him to stop shouting at Connor!!) I was near tears, Connor was bawling and I decided to take them all back home for a while, the adults were off out as was visiting time at the hospital again. we tried going back down for tea in the evening but Connor just exploded again within the hour. I think Xmas will have to happen here in future as they all just seem so much happier!

Sophie and Connor have spent alot of time fighting recently and generally being really horrible to each other, Chloe arrived him and Connor started fighting with her too whenever he could and Soph joined in! Xmas seems to just bring out the worst in Connor especially and he spends most of his time kicking off daily.Often several times a day :( I was really glad to just get out of there and home having dragged Connor out alone kicking and screaming and left the girls with Darren to bring home !

Its exhausting dealing with his constant explosions at the moment! Its definitely not 'normal' naughtiness, he just seems to absolutely explode often with with no warning or reason. He doesn't enjoy it and everyone suffers- especially him as it makes him completely worn out!( any advice gratefully received on this one!)

We spent Boxing day with my brother and his 'new' family. He's just acquired himself 3 teenaged stepchildren and his partner has recently discovered they will be having a baby of their own in July next year:) We all had a lovely day, exchanging presents, walking on the beach and playing with their new Nintendo Wii (which of course is now being talked about non stop!) and the kids all got on together! PHEW!

Yesterday Sophie, Connor and I went to the annual skating session at Cardiff's 'Winter Wonderland ' outdoor rink organised by Cardiff Blues for staff and season ticket holders where Darren works as a photographer( and was very busy!).

The kids had a wonderful time meeting the players and having their photos taken before taking to the ice for the hours skating. Sophie is already quite proficient on the ice and scooted about quite happily alone while I stayed with Connor who managed to go from clinging to the edge rail with his feet flying to skating round on his own!

There is a fortnightly skating session organised by one of the local home ed mums so we will definitely be joining in as often as possible, he was so thrilled and it was lovely to see how much he improved in an hour. Weve been busy every time its run so far so were definitely going to mark it on the calendar as a regular new year activity,finances allowing!

They were also picked to have their picture taken to appear in the local paper so they were thrilled. We also took the opportunity for a rare shopping trip where they chose an outfit each in the sales. I got a coat for Chloe for School and some Jeans but when she tried them on they didnt fit so now we have to go back and get a refund when they allow refunds!! Next time Ill make sure she comes with us!She'd insisted staying with my Parents was what she wanted then whinged that "It wasn't fair" when things didn't fit!ARGH! Typical teenager. I also spent loads on LUSH goodies in their sale where they gave me a very expensive gift box for free, hopefully it will aid my de-stressing... if I can find the time to get to use them!

We spent today in Cardiff where we went to see 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' starring Lesley Joseph as a brilliant wicked queen. Darren's mum had booked a box and the kids were thrilled when they discovered where they were sitting!It also meant when it all started getting too much for Connor we could go out into the hallway behind until he had calmed down They had a ball I'm wondering how much longer they will enjoy it as they get older so am cherishing the memories now!

Clearing Out!

Not us... just all the stuff we've held into for too long!
Since we started home educating the house has just got fuller and fuller, messier and messier. Its a very small house as it is and its getting smaller and we just seem to have less and less space!
I flipped and decided enough was enough after Darren reorgansied the living room while we were away but it still didnt feel any easier space wise! Ive sent him off to IKEA to buy us another bookcase and decided a line of bookcases along one wall of the living room will make it smaller yes, but only by about 30 or so cm and Ill feel so much better when the 'stuff' is all housed somewhere so I can think! Im sick of piles of 'stuff' everywhere!
Ill tackle decorating it once Christmas is over and its long overdue the decor here is vile (not our choice) and I'm absolutely certain it adds to my feelings of being hemmed in and depressed.

Anyway today has been spent starting the great xmas chuck out of anything we dont longer use, read,want or wear. We took four bags of books and 3 black bags of clothes to the charity shop and thats not even the start of it! I spent this afternoon unloading childrens toyboxes off the shelving unit on our upstairs landing and was amazed how much stuff I managed to get them to part with completely voluntarily.. Our wheely bin is also 1/2 full already of broken toys and bits and thats before it has the xmas rubbish added into it! OOPS!

Its very cathartic suddenly realising we now have somewhere for the games to 'live', we have 4 spare toyboxes and a couple of spare shelves all of a sudden!The kdis have also impressed me, Im told kids on the autistic spectrum find it difficult to part with things (our house is testament to it!) but they did willingly hand over things once I took the lead and they saw that I didnt seem bothered by handing over my old paperbacks( they know I love my books). We talked about sustainability, reusing and raising money for charity by donating. I had to insist they didnt spend their pocket money in the charity shop while we were there!

We continued when we got back and now have two full toyboxes to go to the charity shop tomorrow :) Im really proud of them.

Disney!

This year we decided to treat the kids to a trip to Disneyland Paris as their Christmas present.Darren has run out of leave so I took his Mother instead to give her a break, FIL has alzheimers and now the disease has progressed to a stage where sadly he is completely disabled he is in hospital while a plan for his care is worked out so it seemed to be a good time to try and insist she got a break! The break started eventufully when she forgot her handbag containing her passport, money etc and Darren had to chase us down with it. Fortunately we hadnt travelled that far before I asked her for her passport and we discovered it was missing!
Fortunately she had remembered Darrens Christmas present to me which I had early( which is probably why she forgot the handbag!) He had bought me a fanastic digital camera which was just what I had been wanting for ages!( pics here are taken with it- I admit I went a bit mad and took hundreds!)

It was a week of firsts, we'd never used the Eurotunnel before as a family but it was really fast, efficient and very easy. Never again will we take the Ferry from Dover!

I found driving on the right easy and neednt have worried, the roads are generally really quiet in france anyway!

We'd bought annual passes when we visited in the summer ( cheaper than buying a three day adult ticket each) so we could come and go as we pleased. It was very cold and pounded down with rain for the first three days so it was quite miserable

As you can see it was pretty miserable in the cold to start with( connor wore this expression for much of the first few days!)

However the weather did break by wednesday and it turned from non stop rain to cold and clear and it was so much easier to have a nice time!

as you can see the light's were gorgeous, this is the view each way down the main street with the castle lit up at night.




Sophie managed to wear her 'Belle' dress when it turned dry and clear and have her picture taken. She was thrilled as the staff make an extra effort to talk to the children when they are dressed up

Other highlights included meeting 'Goofy' Father Christmas

and the real Mcoy, santa in his grotto after a very very long wait!

Fortunately they did let me take pictures so we didnt have to shell out for the very expensive ones which they offer!

Chloe especially enjoyed the Parades, both the night and day ones and has insisted that I add some pictures here as she uses the blog to show friends at school pictures that we have( the blog is on her list of OKed sites at school) so here they are. The floats were really impressive and she watched the parades 3 or 4 times eqach, braving the crowds in order to do so which is a massive achievement for her,2 years ago during her worst times in Primary school she hated crowded places so much we feared she was becoming Agoraphobic

The night 'Fantillusion parade was really breathtaking, these are just three of the 12 or so floats used, all lit up they were thrilling to watch almost floating down the darkened street. We managed to watch from the top of the castle!
The kids enjoyed the rides and we discovered Connor shares Sophies love of Rollercoasters!
They all got to practice their French and Connor learned to count up to 5 in French just by asking what the words were for the amount of seats we needed on the rides and working out himself which order they went in to 'count'

It was really quiet ( by disney standards) during the midweek too so they hardly had to queue on the rides ! Its definitely worth going then, interestingly they bumped into three families from their old school who were all visiting together and had taken their kids out to visit!
We're home now, catching up on sleep and dirty washing. Its nice to get back to some sort of normality but now the realisation dawns that Christmas is just days away, none of the Christmas cards got posted( GRR) nor the presents and I havent finished Christmas shopping either yet! I want to go back and escape reality again now Ive had another dose of happy domesticity

Take That London!!

Seems like weeks ago now,in fact it was! I just haven't had time to get on here and blog! Our ancient desktop PC is seriously wobbling and malfunctioning so even surfing the web is a pain in the rear and the tesco shop has turned traditional as the PC cannot cope with pop up windows either!We cant afford another one right now so I hope the january sales will mean some offers and I can investigate some sort of working PC!
On the 30th November the girls and I travelled to London to see 'Take That' in concert.They had thought the tickets had sold out and we had missed out. It was tough keeping it from them for some 8 months! They were absolutely thrilled and sobbed when we gave them the tickets. The concert was incredible, full of special effects, lazers, dancing and costumes. It was really something quite incredible. The O2 dome ( as the millenium dome is now) has been transformed into several different spaces with restaurants, bars, shops, a cinema, two arenas ( the main one was enormous!)

This is a picture Chloe took of an amazing installation in the entrance hall, the globes change colour and messages are projected around the inside.

Its nice to see it being used so well, just such a shame it was built in the first place at masive expense to the taxpayer and left standing for 6 or so years before being turned into a useful space!

Here they are before we left, all ready to party!

Some pics the girls took at the concert!

The girls are both really interested in getting tickets to see the tutankhamun exhibition which is being held there

The next day we visited the Tate Modern and spent several hours exploring( pics below) If you visit its well worth picking the children up one of their interactice 'audio' guides which consist of a PDA which is loaded with software with instant facts about whatever it is you are looking at and accompanying audio narration. It was so easy, you just key in the code for the piece of art you want to explore. There were also some great play spaces where you can get hands on and learn about the artists and works while playing against other visitors!

Sadly there arent any pictures of the artwork, the crack in the turbine hall is all we were allowed to photograph!Chloe was dissapointed as she was looking forward to using her camera to record their visit as her art teacher had requested. I bought them a card game featuring many of the major works instead and so far they havent played it, just looked at the different pictures and sculptures featured on it.I hope this will inspire them to get creating some modern art of their own!

I wish we could have spent longer in there but we were absolutely shattered by mid afternoon so we took a trip on a tradional 'routemaster' bus to see the sights on the way back to Paddington. Ill definitely be taking them all back when we have more time!