Lazy wild and wintry day

As there was one less child today, I was able to better focus on activities for the littler ones. Mr 6 is still young enough to get carried away in the preschooler games if presented with enough enthusiasm, and old enough to take himself off and pursue more 'age appropriate' activities if he gets bored.

I was feeling a little unfocused this morning as Miss 2 has been very vocal in regards to her opinions lately (where were our brains when we decided to raise free-thinking children?) and not at all into waiting patiently whilst the older children finish their 'schoolwork' activities in the mornings.

Added to that, it's been like pulling teeth to get Mr 6 to do book work this week (and with Miss 9 not home to work alongside of, I've got next to no chance) so I've been 'tricking' him with getting out the Choose Your Own Adventure books, cooking, watching how beans grow, activities whilst shopping, word-searches and puzzles.

Mr 6 wasn't much help in the "What do you want to do today?" department, so I decided on the good old standby of having a baking day. Mr 6 chose a recipe, then we were off to the shops to get the few bits and pieces that weren't to hand (and to drop hubby to work).

Previously I had been meaning to set up some Montessori-type activities for Miss 2 to keep her occupied while the older children and I where cooking, but I didn't seem to get organised, so on returning to the homestead, I cleaned off the outside 'little' table and put it in the kitchen and set her up with some dried beans, lentils and rice and a few containers and some patty cases. It worked beautifully! She was still "cooking dinner" long after we had finished.

Mr 6 was happy as he had my (almost) undivided attention and got to make chocolate cake with sprinkles, plus I had time to make them special sandwiches (just sandwiches cut into shapes with a cookie cutter, but special none the less!).

We then did some dancing, out door play (till it got too windy and it started to rain), read a while and put Miss 2 down for a nap.

Then we made some 'chunky crayons' - put pieces of broken crayon into silicone baking dishes (I just use the round cupcake ones, but you can make all sorts of shapes) and bake until melted, then cool.

The rest of the afternoon was devoted to boring housework stuff and trying to think of something easy to cook for dinner. I think the poor family will probably be subjected to lentils and pasta again!