Thursday

Millie has the virus I had last week and has a sore throat and flu type symptoms :-(

So the morning started with duvets brought down and a tired Millie watching TV.Music channels were the pick of day.I began downloading some music she had requested.The new Lady Ga Ga album and a couple of singles ,a new Katy Perry one and Empire state of mind by Alicia Keys and Jay Z.I love to see her musical tastes changing and growing.I enjoy listening to the music she likes and find out about the artists with her.I often talk about other (oldies) she may like and her teenage friend Millii also opens new sounds up to her.She does have a leaning toward a rock style.She is not limited to one genre though and there are classical tracks she hears that she enjoys, but she is not sitting listening to classical Cd's too often ;-) At the moment her fav track is a song from the anime film Spirited away (her fav film)

She got out a couple of boxed sets of Dr Who DVDs  and playing around with the menu on one, she found the audio navigation selection.After a while she announced she was very disappointed with the commentary given.She didn't feel it conveyed the scene in a very interesting way and she would not be happy if she was blind and had need to use it!!

As she was watching TV she was drawing and also did a quiz from the Pokemon annual she got for Christmas.

We have made a scrap book up with pictures from Emily's year in to give to my Mum and Dad.It is just a very cheap scrapbook with pics glued in, with funny comments I have written about them,but it is a lovely thing and I am sure it will give them a lot of pleasure to see all the photos.Today Emily decorated the paper to wrap it in so Alan could post it tomorrow.I included a copy of the poem about a wolf that she had written last week and a copy of a picture of a map she had made some weeks ago that showed her wolf world .They had admired  it when they had visited the day she had done it.

When I was finishing the scrapbook at the weekend I remembered a site a friend had used.Foto .com .She had done a book showing her visit to Austria when she did The Sound of Music tour with her pals.

I spent a long time putting a book together which should (when it arrives) be much more professional looking and nice as a keepsake for Mum and Dad.As there was an offer on to order a second book for half price, I also ordered one for Millie to keep :-)

We do have 6 scrapbooks that I made each year when she was small.We love to look back on them but it was a bit of a hassle sticking all the cinema stubs and birthday cards,pictures etc in and I ran out of steam when she was about 7.I still have a scrapbook with a mountain of stuff stored ready for glueing!

One day,maybe:-)

More music after lunch as she listened to her MP3.

We drafted a letter to Drue in America and started to think of things to put in her package.

In the afternoon she decided to go up and lay in bed and listen to a Cd.

I took the opportunity to browse and found a link to a free game called Poptropica whilst reading on a yahoo group.

Milly happened to come down for something as I was checking it out.

She has not taken to games much, apart from a little bit of club penguin and moshi monsters which she finds relatively easy.After an initial splurge on them she rarely goes on either now.

Her DS gets sporadic use, but only easy games like Dogz, where she feels no pressure.The vet practice game made her angry when she wasn't paid for treating an animal and she couldn't work out why.I do try to help her obviously but once she has made her mind up not to do something I may as well knock my head against a brick wall.She has other games for it too but as yet they don't interest her enough to go through the learning process! ..

As we started to explore Poptropica I realised it was the kind of game that got her heated with frustration:-( I geared myself up for what has normally been a short lived exploration once she realises the complexity of mouse control.

How wrong I was,she actually seemed to enjoy challenging herself! It did lead to frustrations and there were lots of very loud screams as she fell off some swaying bridge or other having made it to the top of the task!However I sat with her (NOT giving advice or asking her to read the help page etc as this is a sure fire way to get her to quit!!) and empathised with the difficulty she was experiencing,but focusing on the things she had done well to get to that point and she kept going.She really does have to do things her own way and over the years I have had to bite my tongue and then seen her work her own way round something.I may see an easier way that I would take or do, but the look on her face when she does it her way is priceless:-)

We sat for quite some time. When she got stuck one time and couldn't get out of a pool at the bottom of a shaft,she just managed to find a way to use something in her belongings bag to get her out and then created another character to play another game.There are ways to earn credits but she didn't want to go into that.If she goes on again I have found a cheats and tips website so that may help if I leave it on her favourites.She may go on again or she may not but we had great fun for the hours we did it and she has gained a little more confidence in her ability in these things:-)

 I made tea

POINTS® Value: 4.5
Servings: 4
Preparation Time: 10 min
Cooking Time: 20 min
Level of Difficulty: Easy
Use super-lean pork fillet for this fabulous dish.

Ingredients
5 spray low-fat cooking spray
500 g Pork Fillet, Raw, lean, (1lb 2oz), sliced
1 large onion(s), thinly sliced
150 ml cider, dry
150 ml apple juice, unsweetened (1/4 pint)
1 portion stock cube, vegetable
1 teaspoon grated ginger root, fresh
5 g lemon grass stems, (1 tsp) finely chopped
200 g apricots, (7oz) fresh, halved and pitted
1 pinch salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper, freshly ground black
15 g almonds, flaked (1/2oz)

Instructions

Heat a large frying pan and spray with low fat cooking spray. Add the slices of pork fillet and cook for about 1 minute on each side, or until seared and browned. Add the onion and cook for a further 2-3 minutes.
Pour in the cider and allow it to bubble up for a few moments, then add the apple juice, stock cube, ginger and lemon grass. Heat until simmering, making sure that the stock cube has dissolved.
Add the apricots, reduce the heat and cook gently for 12-15 minutes. If the sauce liquid reduces too much, add a splash of water. Check the seasoning, adding salt and pepper to taste.
Serve the pork sprinkled with the almonds.
Notes
You could use lean pork steaks instead of fillet – they tend to be a little cheaper.

I made oven roasted new pots (Very easy but lovely.Just a drizzle of olive oil and roasted slowly) spinach,broccoli and carrots to accomany it.

Emily and Alan played and even though she is under the weather she wanted a tickle/roughhouse session.

I went up after tea,whilst Alan washed up.She wanted to tickle and fight again! She is sooo strong,we had a good giggle, although I emerged disheveled and exhausted ;-)  then back down to watch the final part in the X Men series of films we had been watching the last few nights.

They went off to bed and I watched The F word final on 4 +1 and blogged.Emily couldn't sleep, so came down and watched the end of it with me and stayed up to watch celeb big brother while I started this post.