Free Range Education : easter crafts,bugs and grumps

We are still not quite one hundred percent here.
As i sit her typing i can here Summer coughing away.

Over the past week the Jasmine and Summer have been spending a lot of time playing with friends who are off school for the Easter holidays.They have been skating, trampolining, scooting and playing football together as well as learning card tricks and making cards.

Iv spent most of the week indoors, other than a quick pop to the shop when necessary.Feeling quite poorly and spending a lot of time cleaning and sorting things around the home.

Eva has been making a lot of mess.Captured images here were all taken by Gypsie!

Iv brought her a high chair, in the hope that she will want to eat if sat with us all at the table. Here she is trying it out.She seems to quite like it .

If only she liked food as much as the felt pens.

We have been busy making an attempt to add some Easter decorations to our home.

Here's our Easter tree.

Its decorated with Styrofoam eggs, all are painted, some have extra decorations pinned to them , some are plain. Gypsie has placed some chicks in the branches too.

A few weeks ago Jasmine blew out some eggs.I attached them to an old wicker wreath and added some gold ribbon.Gypsie painted the eggs gold and here is our Easter wreath.Simple but beautiful.

On to yesterday.................

Yesterday didn't start too well. I was grumpy as Eva had been up for a couple of hours in the night.I m not good when i have disturbed sleep!

Paul had arranged to take his dads car over to the garage as it was the Easter brake ...this made me grumpier still.Why leave us all at home and go in to work on good Friday?

I spent the morning helping Charlie bake Cup cakes, helping Gypsie make hot cross buns and juggling a grump of a bubba .

We headed to the shop to bu mini eggs to decorate the cupcakes.......would you believe it , not a mini egg in the whole darn shop!!!!

This made me a bit grumpier.

We met daddy on the way home.

we ate lunch.

Daddy then decides to take charlie in to Ryde with him to shop for mouse traps and go to the bank. (even though i told him it would be shut)

I was again a little grumpy for once again being left at home with grumpy bubba and grumpy eleven year old. The other two were not at all Grumpy.

Gypsie suggested we go for a walk, and i was actually about to suggest the same. Cue grumpy eleven year old....... why do we have to go now cant we go later.....yata yata yata....

I packed carrots and bubba in to the pram and we head of out to see some local horses.

The horses are not in there usual field (should have listened to grumpy eleven year old who told me they wouldn't be) and the cliff path is cut off , meaning we cant get close enough to feed them or even see them. Also i have the pram instead of the sling (in the wash , due to very piddly bubba) meaning i cant negotiate the steps down to the beach.

Still i decide that this wont spoil our day. we take another route and down the slipway we go , along the see wall and we arrive at the cafe!

Drinks are brought, we sit and talk and enjoy the sun shine.

We are joined later by Paul and Charlie when they return from Ryde.

Paul had brought Charlie a lucosade drink, not something id usually allow him to have.He complained of tummy ache, like he normally does after drinking too much fizzy drink...i didn't worry too much though.

He then decided to have an ice cream, i did ask first if his tummy was OK.He told me he was fine.

By the time we arrived home i had a horrendous thumping head ache . I sat down on the sofa to rest.Charlie decided he needed the loo,he was just on his way when he threw up! Just lovely. . .What every vomit phobic mother with a banging headache needs.

I cleaned the floor, i bathed Charlie ,had five minutes nap with Eva while Paul and the others decided on toast and noodles for dinner. I did an on line grocery shop took some paracetamol and chilled out for the rest of the evening. For the second night in a row i was asleep before the three eldest children.

Fortunately there were no more vomiting episodes. Thank god.

Today's been a relaxed day.

Among other things Iv helped Gypsie make these very cute Easter candles. Having saved the shells from lunch, we melted some beeswax pellets and added some food dye (Gypsies idea) Gypsie carefully filled each shell with the wax .We used some wick from a kit.

They too are very simple but totally gorgeous.