When I fetched Grace from school today Penny said very excitedly, “Did Grace show you what she did today?” and we all hurried off to the class room to see the exciting work she had been working on….the 1000 chain. After the hundreds board she started with the bead cabinet, and the 1000 chain is a set of 100 ten bars. A tens bar is a set of 10 unit beads put together on a bar. 10 units make a 10’s bar, ten 10’s make a hundred square, and ten 100’s squares make a 1000 cube.

The 1000 chain is a set of 10’s bars which they use to count from 1 through to 1000. After each 10 they write the number down and put down a tag, and after each 100 you put down a 100 square. Eventually you get to the 1000 cube at the end of the chain, with each set of ten marked with the total count. Grace got up to 700 today, and will be carrying on when she gets back to school on Monday. She has been working hard on her numbers and is really enjoying the new work and challenges.

Grace’s 1000 chain

The hadedas are entirely unconcerned about the cats…I guess that is the benefit of being the same size and having a pointy beak

Donné went to check on Grace before heading off to bed, and found a sleeping pretzel.

Eli figured out how to balance on the balance bike today! Of course, he is most pleased with himself.

Grace wanted to wash the dishes, which meant that Eli also wanted to wash some dishes. We provided soap, water and gloves and let the magic happen.

Our evening routine is bath, stories, songs, prayers, and then bed. Eli and Grace each get to choose a song, and lately Eli chooses the Barney theme song, and Grace chooses “Best day of my life” by American Authors. “Best day of my life” requires not just singing, but also dancing…..

We all had a great day today joining Tyler for his obstacle course party. Grace and Eli had fun clambering, crashing into block towers and just playing, while we chilled with close friends.

Sue-ann made a well constructed obstacle course cake

Busy being transformed into a sparkly kitty

I was sitting in the lounge on Wednesday looking out into the garden, and it was bothering me that there were three hadedas up on the edge of the pond. I have never seen them show any interest in the pond, but suddenly they were watching the fish. I went out to take a look, and came upon an unfortunate scene – one of our koi was lying dead at the bottom of the pond.

Burns, our slightly sunburnt fish, who was about 70cm long

I found it quite unsettling, as we hadn’t noticed any odd behaviour with the fish, and was worried that the other fish may be affected. I spoke to the koi guy, and he came around today, but it seems that this was an isolated incident rather than a pond or water quality issue. The rest of the fish appear to be healthy.

Between the fish dying and the koi guy giving the thumbs up I’ve been stressing about the other fish a bit, and reading up about the possible causes…..and learning about all the things which can go wrong. This may have been a case of the fish being egg bound, where the eggs are not released and not reabsorbed into the body which cause pressure on the internal organs and eventually death. Or it just died of old age.

Grace and Eli always enjoy the chance to decorate their own pizzas, and in this case they are busy with Eli’s cauliflower pizza. Yes, you read right cauliflower pizza. He won’t touch cauliflower normally, but we discovered that he would rather eat our pizza’s than his and Grace’s, so now he has been upgraded. At least he gets a serving of vegetables.

Last night was week 6 of the cake decorating course, and the final cake decorating class….and Donné produced a beautiful and delicious chocolate cake.

Moulded white and dark chocolate balls, with white chocolate walls around a chocolate ganached chocolate cake – yum!