The Envelope idea from a few posts back is working although it had one mishap. Logan had filched it from the drawer, intending to put a surreptitious little fold on a top corner of the Immunity card and Emma caught him at it. She started yelling and trying to snatch it away from him. It turned into a tug-of-war and ripped at the top. So I put the cards in a new envelope and placed it up high. So far, Emma has been saying, "Can we do the Envelope?" and seems to be enjoying everything that comes from it, even choosing to ignore immumity and do some work instead. However, she hates it if Logan selects immunity. Little sisters seem to like watching their big brothers suffer. Even he has been going along with the game and not complaining when he picks out something like handwriting.

We've played a few games of Scrabble lately because my Mum and Dad gave us their old Scrabble set, still complete with all 100 tiles. I'd forgotten what a great, all-round game it is. As well as improving vocabularly and spelling, the kids are exercising their Maths skills when they add up their scores. It's what I call a real lesson when you don't realise you're having one.

One hot afternoon when we were stuck by the fan, we played a lot of old memory stretching games. There was the one where I place ten or twelve small items on a tray, get them to study them and then try to work out which one (or two) have been removed. We also did the old game where you have to add something extra onto what the last person has said. The first person says, "I went to the shop and bought an apple" and the second person says "I went to the shop and bought an apple and a hairbrush" and so on. One thing I realised is that I'm not as good at it as I used to be. Perhaps having kids does kill off some of your grey cells after all, or perhaps I just used to try harder when I was younger.

I've been planning a new book and thinking of some great story ideas. I love it when I get ideas in my head and just want to take off with them. I've also been listening to a lot of Billy Joel music this week. I find that listening to music puts my mind in the frame to work and this week, I'm in a Billy Joel mood. I'm talking about his older stuff from the 70s to mid 80s so perhaps I'm showing my age a bit here too. It always surprises me when teenagers, like my 13 and 15 year old nephews, don't really know much about artists like Billy Joel or their music.

Blake's birthday is tomorrow. He'll be two years old. We all went to K-Mart and bought him some presents which I'll wrap up later when he goes to bed. There's a Wiggles guitar that plays music when you push buttons, a dancing car and a soccer ball. His brother and sister had just as much fun looking as he did. Tomorrow we'll have a McDonalds breakfast and let him romp on the playground there and later catch up with some extended family.

See you later.