Operation Phoebe's Room Commences.

We made a decision a little while ago that we would put moving out of town on the back burner as we can't afford it right now. So that means I am able to indulge Phoebe and Clara in personalised rooms.

Phoebe is first up as her room is long overdue for a titivate. Now her window no longer leaks she has been allowed to pick a colour. Rather predictably she has chosen Blue so I bought a lovely pale blue colour. She has also been allowed to choose a theme, she chose Harry Potter and Hello Kitty. Right, so not too complicated then! We have agreed that the Hello Kitty side of it will be restricted to the light switch cover, bedding and night light already in residence and I will Harry Potter the rest.

So with that in mind and the cool stuff in this book that my lovely friend gave me for my birthday! :

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Harry-Potter-Film-Wizardry-Warner/dp/0593066480/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1316883635&sr=8-2

at my disposal I made Phoebe a Potions chest!

I started with this:

http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/40216357/

from Ikea that I have had lying around the house forever. I painted it cream with some acrylic paints and then applied a load of the potion stickers from the book! This is the net result, I am tempted to varnish it to finish it off before we put the room back together though! :

Phoebe is THRILLED. And quite agrees that it is better to store things like pens, pencils and the like that real potion ingredients. Mostly as we think letting Clara have access to Polyjuice Potion would be disastrous!

First Week of School done!

Oh dear LORD! Thank heavens that is over. Clara has settled really well but it would seem that all her capacity to be a nice charming child we know and love has been used up at school! At home she has been, well I have wondered if she is possessed on more than one occasion! I handed her over to her swimming teacher on Wednesday with the words "Satan is in residence!" and was proved right when at the very end of the lesson she proceeded to have a tantrum that her goggles weren't tight enough. If they had been any tighter the pressure would have sucked her eyeballs out (or pushed them right to the back of her skull... I am not sure how that whole physic pressure thing works!). And then another one getting dressed, I was somewhat relieved to pile her into bed that night.

The problems come because she is tired. However to Clara admitting this would be like, well, Gaddafi admitting he really thought the Libyan protests were a good idea! So instead until she settles and gets used to the new regime I need to put up and shut up with the stroppy one! At least she is enjoying school and, apparently, learning too! Hopefully it won't be too long until she is more settled and less exhausted!

In other news Phoebe got 10/10 on her spelling test today. I am very proud of her, she is doing great guns on everything at school! Her reading confidence has increased so much and she is actually having a go at reading things other than her school books. She is a smart cookie and I couldn't be prouder!

We are taking over the school!

After I was elected as chair of the PA last week. Phoebe came home on Monday telling me she was "The Chosen One"... after a little digging I ascertained this had nothing to do with slaying Vampires (phew!). In fact she and a boy from her class have been voted to be Counsellors representing their class on the school council! This means that they will be passing on issues that their class are worried about to the school council along with the rest of the school counsellors!

I am SO proud of her!

Long time... no blog!

Hello... I have not fallen off the face of the planet obviously! However I have been madly busy since coming back from Greece at the end of August. My time was filled with car shopping (ball ache) and then also getting Phoebe back to school and settled in her new class and Clara started off in school oh and taking over the chair of the Parents Association! I feel like I haven't stopped, however today was Clara's first full day of school so things should return to some semblance of normal I hope!

First things first, car shopping. Oh my lords is there anything worse? However after much time and effort we are now the proud owners of a not too old, not too many miles Ford Focus. It is a bit zoomier than our last car but after a week and a half on the busses it was good to be back with wheels again! The busses were great, it is the people I take issue with. Especially those that expect perfect manners from children but don't actually show the children manners! Would it kill people to say excuse me before barging past a 5 yr old?!

As for school, Phoebe went back a week and a half ago and is now, very proudly, in Year One. She has a lovely new teacher whom she adores. She is in the Red reading band and doing well, this weekend was a bit of a culture shock with the homework she got! She had to write the numbers 1-30 and also had a page of spellings to learn (just simple ones like "the","on","in" etc) ready for a spelling test next Friday and 2 reading books to read over the weekend. I was very surprised by her attitude to doing the homework and it wasn't that bad doing it really.

Clara is now in Reception. Today was her first full day at school and she wasn't too keen on going in this morning. Apparently she had her period like Mummy, a cough and a sore foot (except she then limped across the room on the wrong foot...). Mostly she isn't keen on having to wear Grey and Purple. She is a pink and sparkly kind of girl so I do see the problem but it is rather tough luck that not many schools embrace pink and sparkly uniforms! Once she is there she loves it, she loves her teachers (same ones as Phoebe had last year so she knows them and they know her) and she has made a few friends I think. Getting specific information out of her about what she is doing at school is like pulling teeth though, but I suppose that will come in time!

Oh yes and the chair of the PA... I must be crackers but I have a cunning plan and just need to put it into action now. It was a little bit of take over the chair or no PA so it was an easy decision to stand. I need to contact the school and see what they want from the association and what we want from them. Should be entertaining once we get cracking though!

I shall finish with a pic of my gorgeous school girls that I took this morning!

Sob sob... so grown up!