LOVELY Day!
Today has been just lovely! 
We started the day by going to have a look at a 4-bed house - in case I hadn't mentioned we are thinking of moving, but staying in Nantwich. Mum gave me + three a lift to 'The Barony' (the big park on the other side of town) and Paul cycled over with Joel & Ellie, who absolutly loves going on the bike. P. & I then left four of the children at park with my Mum while we went to look at the house. To cut a long story short - it's gorgeous and we love it!! There are two or three major draw backs: 1). it's the other side of town and would mean a definate change of playgroups for the girls (need to make enquiries on that one), 2). the rent is the same as this house and we were hoping to find somewhere for less & 3). it's nowhere near Stapely, which is the coummunity that P. feels a calling to work within! Paul's ideal was to find a suitably sized and priced house on the Stapely estate, but to be honest where this house was is much nicer!! The Stapely estate is still being built in places, there are no fields and no play parks within walking distance and it is quite some distance from town too. We would be heavily relient on the newly built local Co-op (not cheap). It's really the kind of estate where everyone has a car, if not two!! There are definatly more plusses to this house than minuses and we are strongly inclined towards it - we just need to be sure it is right. So we are going to make some enquires regarding how we transfer housing benefit, places at the more local playgroup for the girls, etc... But I think we need to be quick on our decision because I'm sure it will be snapped up - it is lovely and clean and, like I said, really lovely. Good location (quiet, tidy cul-de-sac), good size rooms (all of them), enclosed grass garden, internal garage with a 'utility' space for w/machine & tumble dryer, FAB kitchen/breakfast room, etc, etc....
Anyway, after we had fallen in love with the house, we went back to the park for a short while. Then after lunch (back home now) the girls went for a nap (they really needed it today) and P. & I went out for a quiet coffee together. It was lovely to grap an hour or so to ourselves. That is definatly one advantage of having Mum about in the hol's - a little more freedom to grab some space. We chatted about the house - of course - and other things too. It felt like the calm before the storm..! It'll probably the last chance we get to be out alone for a few months now, so it was valuable.
I stayed up way too late last night printing out and organizing the 'plants' study that I am planning for this next half-term, just in case P. has to step in and do it all. I wanted it to be really self explanatory and easy to do without too much input from me. I also wanted to be able to do nothing-schooly for the rest of this week and really give myself a break. I Just need to get some good seeds for them all to study now . I was thinking of peas, runner beans, ?pumpkin (my Mum says these are nice to eat too?), and of course cress (for it's fast results) - any other suggestions anyone? I thought maybe tomatoes too, what do you think? I need to be able to grow everything in a window box and/or grow bag as we have nowhere else to 
anything. I've also planned to do this project with the girls and this morning Abbie's timely request was to plant some seeds ! So I was able to happily inform her that we will be doing so when the boys start back to school next week and that she will have lots to do with her own plants project too 
. I have been able to get materials for ages across the board; pre-schoolers, up to about Year 4/5 level, so that's great. Each child will have their own log/note book to keep and I hope to end up with a 'pre-school' lapbook (by the girls) and a 'primary' lapbook (by the boys) out of the materials too. I certainly have plenty of stuff to use and I hope they are all going to enjoy getting their hands dirty with mud & sticky with glue and 'discover' lots with this project.
Been having a few more twinges today (lots of walking helps!) and been musing that if it's born before tomorrow I will have two May-bank-holiday babies (Jacob''s is the first BH and this baby would be the second!), but what's the liklihood of that now - being that it's 10.30pm (almost) already?!
