esther wrote a story about trains. it goes like this:
chuffa chuffa, choo choo, on the track
where are you going clickety clack
off to london, then we’re coming back
chuffa chuffa, choo choo, on the track
here are esther and kezia performing it for you. Download file (500K).
it’s weird going back to work after having a week with the fambily. i miss not listening to the same tape of winnie the pooh multiple times each day. i also miss not shouting “FLAG!” out loud every time i see a flag (as is popular with the female members of our household).
so here, as a reminder of just a few days ago, are a load of flags so we can all shout flag flag flag flag together.
we can pretend we’re all one one big happy bloggy fambily.
hoorah.
kezia had her first day at pre-school yesterday and absolutely loved it. she made a whale which she painted herself.
To celebrate her growing up she was also allowed to sit at the dinner table on a grown ups chair for tea. She understands it’s a probationary period and any messing will result in her being relegated back to her old chair.
how life whizzes by.
by now we will be heading back from our week’s holiday (did you miss me ?), so a topical post
how do you keep kids amused during long car journeys ? well, we find listening to CDs and tapes works well. Esther’s favourite are joseph and the amazing technicolour dreamcoat, The Young Person’s Guide to the orchestra, various rockin’ kids church songs cds and story tapes.
on a recent trip to the north of england i agreed to sit in the back of the car with kezia whilst esther sat up the front. i borrowed jane’s CD player so i could listen to my own music. i also took two sets of headphones in case kezia didn’t want to be left out.
the first problem was kezia’s head was too small and speakers hung at her neck level. so i raise them up with her mouse toy. then she went all space age and wore them sideways.
then esther wanted to wear the other pair and they ended up jiggling away to BRMC whilst jane and i listened to winnie the pooh.
but if you really want to be amazed, watch this and see what realy happens when the funkypancake family go on long car journeys. (it’s 392KB but is worth the short download – believe me!)
esther went to her first school disco last night. as her father i was very anxious. but all went well.
here she is warming up
esther and kezia potting bulbs in the garden with their granny.
today it was jane’s dad’s turn to do the domino challenge. interestingly he chose a different construction method which proved quite stable (though not as high as other attempts due to the limited supply of dominos).
i was working from home today and took half an hour out at lunchtime to go and have my sandwiches with esther at her school. i was SO completely nervous going along but it was fine.
all the kids were in fancy dress because it’s national book week (!) so it was even more surreal than i thought it was.
anyway, here’s a picture of kezia’s picture:
And here’s a picture of kezia doing a funny face. please do your own funny face whilst looking at kezia’s funny face to add to the total web fun-factor:
it’s national poetry day today apparently. at esther’s school the kids were encouraged to learn a poem by heart to perform to their class.
so esther learnt one about a snail which you can listen to by clicking here. (137KB MP3 file)
due to late meetings i’ve not seen much of the family this week. but today i got back in time to see esther, kezia and thomas and sarah (our nephew and niece). here i am with sleeping baby sarah and a slightly worried thomas.
i took the girls to reading museum today so we could look at the dodgy biscuit tins and admire the history of reading festival exhibition.
the show piece of the exhition is a guitar that kurt cobain played and smashed up when they headlined reading. no photos were allowed unfortunately. esther asked why he smashed it up and i said i thought he was probably really angry. esther said “well that’s not a very good thing to do, even if you are angry”.
there’s a couple of things we have to do every time we go to the museum. one is use the giant microscope, and the other is look through the magnifying glasses at beatles. kezia has a badger on her shoulder which was part of the museum’s treasure hunt for kids.
esther is now in year 1 at school and now gets homework. here she is with her first set of spellings.
it’s a list of words beginning with ‘sh’ and includes shop, ship, shed, shampoo, she, and bizzarely, he and we !
her writing and spelling are alreayy better than myn.
it was anna’s birthday today and jane helped out with the face painting. here are kezia and cousin thomas looking at the face painting manual after getting back from the party. and here also is esther’s new hat.
but who was the fantastic mr balloon at anna’s party ? none other than regular blog reader, my good friend Tony.
jane and esther on the dodgems
esther on a bungee trampoline
my office family fun day had lots of stuff for kids. face painting was particularly popular with our girls:
nephew thomas is staying with us for a couple of days whilst our sister-in-law’s baby hatched (it hatched today and is a girl making me an aunt for the first time – i’m already an uncle to thomas of course).
nephew thomas is too macho to have his face painted so went for a sailor-style tattoo instead:
it was my work fun day today, but fun is such hard work. compare the going with the coming back:
