Monday, 14 April 2008

My death from tiredness

Well. I've had a busy last few days, that I can tell you. I'm sorry I haven't made any posts for a while, but I've been a little busy.

So, On the 11th, early in the morning, I shipped all the kids off to their grandparents for a sleepover. I've got to say - I'm glad I did! It was a busy day with all the furniture and all our belongings being carted to the new house, and most dumped in the wrong rooms. As I predicted, I couldn't find anything, so Ben and I ended up sleeping on the floor. We'd ordered tonnes of new furniture (Our new house is significantly bigger than our old one, so our old furniture went nowhere towards filling it.) but we got a call on my mobile saying there'd been a hold up and they'd deliver it tomorrow. Great.

On the 12th the kids came back at noon. We spent our last few hours before they arrived moving the furniture to the right rooms. They were really excited, and spent the rest of the day running around like maniacs. That really helped the "sorting the house out" process.

13th: I died from tiredness.

14th: I'm still dying from tiredness, but the house is a little neater, and although I hesitate to say it, I think we're almost there. The kids rooms, the bathrooms, the kitchen and two of the reception rooms are sorted. Only our bedroom, the spare bedroom, the games room, the schoolroom, the dining room, my study, the computer room, the TV room, the music room, the library and probably more which I'm blanking out. Well. I guess we're halfway there, which is much better than Friday. *Sigh*.

Hopefully I'll be on again soon, but for now I've got to say goodnight to Ophelia. She should had lights out quarter of an hour ago!

Thursday, 10 April 2008

Moving house with two toddlers is not easy!

Yup, the title says it all. Packing up a whole house ready to move, with two toddlers running around demanding mummy and daddy's attention. Wonderful. I've just put them to bed. (They're to have an early night because I just know they'll be awake incredibly early tomorrow. They're so excited, bless them, even though I'm not sure they understand what's happening; they've caught the excitement from the others.)

I'm now getting my first couple of minutes to myself all day! Ollie & Nick have been good though, messing around with Angel & Jake a little to keep them off our hands. However, still, none of them have mastered playing with siblings without arguing. They didn't fight too much though :P. Ophelia's been a darling. She might be little, but she's been very diligent, helping to put all the books in boxes, and to sort out her toys.

I don't know if I'll be on or not tomorrow, I expect I'll be trying to find which box contains bed sheets and which has cutlery until late in the night. I expect we'll end up camping on the floor with our sleeping bags :P

I'll try and find some plans of our new house to put up soon - I think the architect has got all of our copies at the moment (I don't quite understand how that happened either!) so i'll try and steal some back. :D

The next time I post, it'll be at the new house! (Probably :P) Until then!

Sophie

Wednesday, 9 April 2008

Introduction to the wonderful world of me!

Seeing as this is my very first post, I thought that I ought to introduce myself, otherwise no one will have a clue what I'm talking about!

My name is Sophie Cassidy, and I am 32. I have been married to Ben Cassidy since I was 23, and we are very happy. We have five children (Yes, you read that right, five). Our eldest two are twins Oliver & Nicholas, Ollie & Nick normally, and they are 7 years old. Next we have four year old Ophelia, then fourteen-month-old Angelina & Jacob (Yes, our second set of twins. None of us can believe it either) - Angel & Jake.

The whole reason I decided to start this blog was because a couple of weeks ago, I finally took the plunge, and made the decision that I would pull Ollie, Nick & Ophelia out of their private school, and teach them myself at home.

I did this for a number of reasons. Firstly, school fees are exorbitant, and with all the bills for our new house (I forgot to mention that didn't I? Oh well, I'll explain later), it's getting a little much. Also, they are all very bright, and I'd love to be able to accelerate their work, and allow them to work at their own pace, rather than at the speed of the slowest in their class. Plus, not to be forgotten, there is the fact that I don't really like carting them off to school with an awful pupil-teacher ratio everyday - that can't be good for their development! Also, I miss them when they are at school! I want my babies back!

Now onto the new house a mentioned a paragraph or two ago. We were having a new house built for us, and now it's ready to move into! Our move is scheduled for 11th April - very very soon, and we are going to start homeschooling as soon as we've settled in enough. None of us can wait!

Ah yes, my job. I graduated from University as a teacher, and taught primary-school children until I found myself pregnant with Ollie & Nick. Once they were born, I didn't even think of going back for a few years - people don't exaggerate when they say twins are tiring! And then more things came along - namely Ophelia, then Angel and Jake, and I never really got round to going back to work, instead fitting nicely into the SAHM mould. However, my dream job has always been to be an writer of children's books. So, in my free time, I cram as much writing in as I can, and the kids love their stories. Ben keeps nagging me to send them to a publisher, but I'm happy as I am for the moment.

So, that's my life in a nutshell. Not a particularly large or interesting nutshell at the moment, but hopefully it'll blossom into a wonderfully happy nutshell once I start teaching my children - should be rewarding!

Sophie