alive and ranting

I'm so fed up with all of the shop closures on Monday for the funeral...

...yes I appreciate that people do want to watch the state funeral as it is something historic.

But what about the people who don't want to watch it? What are they supposed to do, there will be very little opened until after 5pm and by then it will be hardly worth going out at all (especially with school in the morning).

There is also all of the health appointments that have been cancelled/postponed luckily im not one of those, but plenty of people are.

back to school

James went back to work yesterday and Evie goes back to school today now that the Christmas break is over...

...Christmas was good and Evie had loads of presents so a great time was had :)

I feel like I have lost my blogging mojo so hopefully it will come back soon :)

All is ok :)

a call form school

Yesterday morning an hour and a half after I had dropped Evie off at school, my phone started ringing and it was Evies school...

...my heart sank (I didnt want her missing her Christmas lunch with Christmas cracker), the lady told me that it was L from the school office "and not to worry it was nothing bad" :).

It was making sure that I was still happy helping on the history off the page day, and that that morning I will go to the staff room to go through the risk assessment.

So that was all good :)

Mr J is here to stay

Since the beginning of September Mrs B has been off sick...

...the school havent been very good at giving us updates - we had to collectively bully them into giving us the last update after the half term break.

Yesterday we actually got a parentmail saying that there were staffing changes.

When I read it it said that Mrs B isnt coming back now (due to family issues) and Mr J is staying on until the end of the school year to give the kids continuity and even mentioned the dreaded SATS!

And they will be looking to recruit a new teacher for next year, I think that they will keep Mr J.

a day off sick

Over Evies birthday weekend she had a horrible croup sounding cough...

...it didnt stop us doing birthday stuff on the Saturday though :)

As Evies cough still sounded horrible yesterday morning I kept her off school (after asking in the school facebook group if the school would be ok for her to go in with the cough).

I booked her an appointment at the doctors (just to rule out her being contagious) and it wasnt until yesterday afternoon (by then her cough was sounding chesty) her chest is clear and she is ok to go to school :).

We dont have Gym trail today either (as her last session before the holidays was on Friday) and I am going to pop into Aldi this morning to get our Christmas Dinner (main thing) :)

happy birthday Evie

It is my darling little girls 7th Birthday :)

She wanted to do build a bear workshop

thanks for the birthday card Eileen :)

last session before Christmas

Yesterday was my last helping out session before Christmas (next Wednesday is the last day of term).

I did more gluing into books and stuck the class awards up on the wall of fame :) best table, star of the week and mind growthset :)

I was also asked to come in on the first Monday that they are back at school to help in their history off the page day they are doing the great fire of London.

I have already bought a black dress that I can wear :)

nada nada

Yesterday I finally got around to placing an order with Sainsburys for some Christmassy food :)

I wanted 3 things...

a reindeer cake

stuffing parcels

and a chocolate caramel star

the only thing left in stock was the chocolate caramel star

I saw in the Aldi that they do a Robin cake so I will try and get one next weekend (as that was what Evie wanted) :)

what a great idea

I just saw this article and that its a great idea :)

I have always thought that bus and train ticket prices need to be reduced so that more people would use them, but Luxembourg is going one better than that :)

It would be nice if they did something similar here in the UK :)

knot sew good

I was asked to go on yesterday rather than my normal Wednesday morning to help the kids sew christmas stockings.

I arrived for 1pm and the teacher was showing the kids on the white board how they were to sew their stockings, she said that the threads had to be split into strands so tat they could be threaded through the eye of the needles (my heart sank - I knew that I was going to be no use).

The threads were getting knotted up too as we were trying to split them.

Thankfully F's Mum and H's Mum were helping too so they managed to thread the needles (I did manage to thread one so I was happy with that :)).

I did tell the teacher that I wasnt any good at threading needles and she said that she wasnt either (although she was just being kind).

I think the kids have cushions to sew later in the year too (I will make see I tell her teacher how useless I am :)).

Evie said that she was happy that I was in class yesterday so tat is good.

helping me

Evie has decided that I need help with my chocolate advent calendars...

...she helps me by finding the right doors, then opening the doors and then she helps me eat the chocolates! :)

I may have to buy a secret advent calendar that Evie doesnt know about :)

Monday afternoon instead

Yesterday helping in class was more gluing and sticking :)

Then at breaktime Mr J came in and said that next week he would like me to come in on Monday afternoon instead...

...the kids will be sewing Christmas stockings and they want an adult in to help with every table, with things like threading the needles.

Im useless at sewing so I just hope that the needles have huge holes :)

I was talking with the teaching assistant and said that Monday afternoon sounded fun and she said that you need a lot of patience that afternoon :)

narrator #22

The other day when I picked Evie up from school she told me that they were practicing songs for the Christmas play :)

So I excitedly asked her what part she had and she said that she is narrator #22, so I asked her how many narrators there are and there are 22!

So I asked her what her lines are and she said "celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ"

We have since had the song sheet and the script and they are doing Christmas around the world (our version is slightly different)

therapy assessment appointment

Yesterday I got a letter giving us an appointment for Evies therapy assessment, the pediatrician thought that a referral to an occupational therapist would determine if there was anything she was having trouble with.

The appointment is for 19th December (Evies last day at school before the Christmas holidays and the day of her Christmas lunch).

So I cancelled it...

They only hold a clinic one day a month and the next clinic that isnt in term time is in August!  So we have an appointment then.

The lady I spoke to on the phone said that she had never booked an appointment that far in advance before! :)

more gluing and sticking

Yesterday I got into Evies class to find more stuff to stick into their books :)

It was their homework (both maths and spellings), the maths is prices of items and how much 2 different items cost...

...as Evie is in the bottom set, her items are single figures, the middle set has double figures and the top set has triple figures (with even 3 lots of 3 items), I think the top sets ones will be hard for them!

I saw the washing line that I pegged the odd socks onto hanging up which made me smile :)

On Tuesday we got a letter saying that Evie has been picked to take part in a competition!  As Evie had PE yesterday I asked the PE teacher why Evie was picked (as she has the same non athletic abilities as me and James) and the teacher said that its a fun competition for kids that wouldnt normally be picked for competitions :)

James did a search and its a way for kids to try different activities (one of them is archery!) Im hoping its the darts with suckers on :)

We can go and watch too so that is fun :)

Im getting my flu jab done today and Evie is having her nasal spray done tomorrow :)

will holly be as good...

Tonight is the start of 3 weeks of watching celebrities suffer :)

I dont really like Ants replacement very much but Im sure that I will hopefully like her more after the end of the series :)

There are a few budding prima donnas so it should be fun to watch :)

gluing sticking cutting and pegging

When I got into Evies classroom yesterday there was a pile of stuff waiting for me to get on with :)

I had to glue 2 lots of work into their maths books :)

staple a leaflet on hedgehogs into their English books (they had to label all the different things on there)

And cut out odd socks that the kids had coloured in and peg them onto a ribbon (washing line) :)

odd socks day

Its the start of anti-bullying week today and in honour of that its odd socks day

Evie decided on a wonder woman/my little pony combo :)

how many is too many

I was looking in Tesco on my way home from work and saw that they have some cheap advent calendars :)

I saw one that we could get for James (although Evie will eat it for him) an LOL surprise one and a pokemon one for me :)

they are only 1 pound each, so I am going to buy them tomorrow :) if the pokemon one sells out I wont mind too much!

now we have trickling

On Tuesday night James told me that he though the overflow pipe from our water tank in the loft was trickling...

...I looked yesterday after helping out in Evies class and indeed it is.

I am now waiting for the plumbing company I used last week to make an appointment to come and adjust the float valve.

Yesterday as well as reading with L I glued the homework (the maths is on 3D shape recognition)  into the homework books and did some laminating :)