Killer ducks, horse manure and 2 red-headed ragamuffins.

I have been a parent for nearly 9 years, and the more I walk that path the less sure I feel about my naively-held theories on the subject.  Some of my long-thought out dictates on parenting still hold, some are wavering on the brink of extinction and others have bitten the dust long ago.

One thing I am learning recently is that children need to achieve something regularly.  My youngest daughter has recently had a change of teacher as her regular teacher is off long-term sick (again); the supply is amazing.  The class is now taught by 2 lady teachers and a teaching assistant and the combination is doing wonders for my child's enthusiasm for reading.  They seem to set her small targets and encourage her to reach them.  It is lovely to see her attitudes change.

My other daughter is having semi-regular horse-riding lessons and she is doing incredibly well.  She looks a natural on the horse (unlike me who has never fully recovered from the childhood trauma of a horse sneezing over me whilst eating grass!)  For some reason she seems to get the slow, lazy horses but her teacher is always impressed with how well she gets them to trot along without much help from her leader.  My heart swelled with pride when another mum commented on how well she thought my daughter was doing.

We had a Cupcake Event at church the other evening and they were able to attend.  I am not known for my great abilities in cake decoration; butter icing and a few chocolate buttons is about all you will get from me.  However, my girls were rather good.  Here are the cakes that they decorated:

Number 1 daughter's cake creations.

Number 2 daughter's cake creations.

The teddy bear and ducks are made out of fondant icing.  I think the ducks were slightly adapted by the lady  supervising them to do away with the killer duck aspect that my number 2 daughter had added to the cake!!!

And finally the great joy I had, when visiting a local library my husband has a subscription to, coming around the corner to see both my girls sat on the floor with a book in hand reading almost oblivious to the fact they were blocking the corridor!  Nobody minded though as this was a library and there were children in it reading. 

Thank you for allowing me to share a few moments of pride and joy that my girls have given me over the past few months.  It feels good.