So school's out...

and S holds his 'graduation' rose that is customarily given out to the students leaving the school.



and it's time to be outside a bit more, although the lure of computer is still there, but DH is making this pretty restricted.

and this is my usual view, of little ones running off, hopefully not to a busy road.

M saw a clip on the Swedish equivalent of Cbeebies on the computer several weeks ago, but somehow managed to construct everything himself from memory, mashaAllah. It involved making a pattern first.
and the finished article, which I must get round to uploading to the TV channel's website. H made the patio, well it was going to be another castle but didn't get to construction stage.

We went on a boat trip organised as a marketing ploy by one of the Electricity providers. Actually we already buy our electricity from them. The kids enjoyed the marketing sweets and windmills provided. I was v scared when the boat went right under the windmill blade. Of course it was completely safe (Sweden takes health and safety v seriously) but I buried my face in Biryani's shoulder while she clung on to me. As Hz and Biryani don't watch much British tv, the chance to exclaim 'teletubby windmill' wa not there. S would've loved it as a little one. Now he was thinking more of whether there'd be any more sweets remaining back at the dock.

and eventually the sun peeked out for a bit.

Hoping for some more activities for the kids, they are really finding it hard to get along this holidays for some reason.

We like purple we do

2 posts in two days, can this be true? Well the little ones are sleeping and I have a few minutes to write a bit. As I said yesterday it's the end of term soon, and things are changing a bit.
S is leaving the current school and is he will not be missing it (maybe the sausage casserole). We've had problems with bullying up to the present and hoping it won't continue in the next school. We've requested that S is in a different class to the boy who's been giving him a lot of trouble who's also supposed to start the same school, and the new school have been sympathetic and granted us the request.
M's 2 main friends in his class won't be around as one is going to another school and the other is staying abroad for 5 months, inshaAllah.
Sometimes we wonder about the choice of school, but recently there was an incident in our local park. M and a friend (neighbour's child) were approached by some young teenage boys and after boasting to them about their girlfriends and their antics, asked them to do something, how can I put it, entirely inappropriate. The friend's mother has addressed this with the teens' school which is our local school and these kids are barely older than S, subhanAllah. We've had to talk about having the courage to say 'no' with the boys and now having to keep an extra eye out when they're in the park, even though this is supposed tobe a safe area.
Hz has started at the childminder's, and I know it's early. In fact he's almost exactly the same age as H was when he started nursery. I would be unlikely to get the place with this particular childminder if I left it until later (she was my Quran teacher) and Biryani will start with her too as her current childminder is stopping at the end of the holidays. He's not happy being left but inshaAllah he'll come to like it. He does enjoy other kids' company, if the boys have friends home he's always happier. It's funny as in some ways he's v independant, running off to explore the world, but on the other hand can be v clingy.

Memories of inside

We're coming to the end of the school year, and the beginning of the summer holidays. The sun has come out these past couple of days, but up until then it's mostly been grey/ rainy.
So here is a selection of how things have generally been recently inside the house.

I haven't been baking so much recently but made a chocolate pie which was a first which also had marzipan in. Sprinkles on top always add to the delight.
Hama beads are always a hit on a rainy day, and I made a number sign for our allotment!
Latest craze is Bakugan, with its terrible cartoon series, but at least they are playing together, sometimes harmoniously and doing lots of mental maths to see who has the most points, or is it ability score? If I hear the words 'Ability card activate, Bakugan brawl' again I shall go mad! Even Hz has his own now (although currently lost somewhere in the abyss of kids' mess) and says 'Gaan, Gaan'
Biryani gets the playdough out now and again, and I tried making it pink with Beetroot juice (trying to find alchohol free colouring) and it did work OK mashaAllah.

We had been thinking to change the rooms around to somehow give more space/ privacy to the older ones. In the end concluded that the sofa is too large to fit anywhere else and really not much can be changed. So I thought the only other option is to get rid of stuff. However Hz thought better and then proceeded to play with the barely usable toy buggy for a good half an hour or so (which is a loong time for him) which he'd extracted from the rubbish box. It's like that when you want to get rid of stuff the kids suddenly see the toy (junk) with renewed interest