Rachel, Owen and Kathryn

Katy has always had an impressive memory for details, and a great vocabulary. Once (when she was just 5) Owen asked her how she could remember so many words, and she explained her own model of how her memory worked: all the words were stored on shelves in her brain, and a little eye went along the shelves seeking the word it needed at any one time. My memory, by contrast, is rather less than impressive, and the rest of the family often sigh in exasperation "Your memory is like a sieve". This evening she was trying to make sure I would remember her instruction about something, and suggested "Make the thought so wide that it can't get through the holes in the sieve."

Second ever attempt at roller skating. Katy was very determined indeed and kept getting up every time she fell down - which was quite often!

Day after boxing day 2014

OK so camels might belong more properly to epiphany than Christmas, but Katy was given a lovely cuddly reminder this Christmas of our summer holiday visit to the camel oasis in East Anglia. She quickly labelled the furry creature with a sign declaring "I amle a camle" - which may not be the conventional spelling, but neither is the thinking behind it.

Poor Katy has been troubled by a really chesty cough since the last week of term. Tonight I was worried enough to want to keep an eye/ear on her through the night so I suggested she sleep in the big bed and we send Daddy to her bed (when he gets back from work about midnight). This really cheered her up and she delightedly wrote this triumphant note:

The snowman in the snow globe has got all confused and is singing 'Summer Holiday' instead of wintery songs. Can the children remind him of 'Jingle Bells' maybe? Yes! But has anyone got a song sheet? Katy's hand shoots up. "I have but I left it in my cello case! " Ooh, what a middle class giveaway!