Dogger

Benny's very favourite book at the moment is Dogger by Shirley Hughes. It was given to him by his uncle whose favorite it had also been as a child. Benny asks me to read him this story constantly,we average 4 times a day at the moment ( I don't mind - I love it too).

It is about a little boy, Dave, who has a special called Dogger. he goes everywhere with Dave until one terrible day he gets lost. Happily he is found and rescued by Dave's big sister Bella and all ends well. In this page Mum said that Dogger was getting much too dirty, just like Lambie I thought!

Mum showed Dave how to wash Dogger in a bowl of soapy water.

Then they hung him up by his tail (well his ear) on the washing-line to dry.

Oh we do love Dogger!

Sunday

This is a bit what our Sunday was like...

Brown Soda Bread, so simple, so quick, so good :-) Here's how you make it:
1lb wholewheat flour
1 tsp bread soda
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp honey
1 egg
2 tbsp olive oil
14 floz buttermilk
seeds (optional)
Preheat oven to 180 C, sift the dry ingredients, make a well in the middle add in the wet. Mix, plonk in a greased loaf tin, sprinkle with seeds and bake for 45 mins.


sprucing up the balance bike

an escapee from yet another bug box

A repair job Rebe did on a cup Benny broke. She glued it with pritt stick, didn't she do a smashing job, you can hardly see it ;-)

stuff

stuff, stuff, stuff. Oh i feel we are just drowning in it sometimes.

Yesterday afternoon we had a blow up about the amount of stuff and therefore mess we were living in. Andy said that I spend about 75% of my time tidying up, and right he is. Time I could spend with the kids playing or crafting, or baking or knitting or resting (god forbid) has been spent going around picking things up and moving them from one place to another. Things that people don't really use, or play with or appreciate. So, in true Andy style (he doesn't do things by halves) he cleared the playroom...

This is all that is left. He threw the rest into the shed where I went to (somewhat sheepishly as it was me who hordes all our stuff) to sort it out. I made 3 piles: recycling/bin, charity shop, keep. We filled the recycle bin and we have filled the car ready to take to the charity shop. While I was doing that the kids helped sort through the things they really want to keep and the things they were happy to pass on. Andy built some shelves in the shed and the things the kids decided to keep are now kept like this...

They can ask for what the want to play with and we'll bring it into the playroom and at the end of the day/ time playing with it we will put it back on the shelf.

I feel good that things are much simpler now. I was surprised by how little the kids actually wanted to keep, but not surprised with what they wanted to keep: lego, some books, the dolls, dolls clothes, a few dressing up costumes and a few vehicles.

I am still having pangs of guilt when I look at the charity shop pile, remembering who gave us what and feeling bad that we are not keeping it. But then my little brother reminded me that people probably don't expect us to keep everything forever, and that when something has finished it's life with us then we really should be passing things on.

So now the house is clear and clean. It is a blank canvas, we can teach the kids much better this way how to keep things tidy. With fewer things there is less to make mess with and more room to give each item it's own place.

That's not the end of it though. After the bulk of the work we had a family meeting about how not to get into such a mess again. I have pledged to stop accepting things passed on from other people and also to stop buying bits and pieces from charity shops. Rebe pledges to stop bringing passed on things home from friends and to only borrow things.

We have all agreed to spend half an hour tidying up together after dinner.

We have also decided to that once this year's birthdays are out of the way we are going to ask friends and family to stop gifting us 'stuff'.

One of the best presents we received recently was from my little brother who for Christmas gifted us 'an experience'. Giving us the gift of a swim, a trip the cinema or the zoo would give us wonderful memories and bring us so much happiness (and much less tidying up). Rebe and I have even been discussing opening a little bank account and calling it 'The Angel Adventure Fund'. We could save up lots of birthdays and Christmas's' and in a few years have a real adventure like ice fishing or go to a real jungle or to the great wall of China!

Phew a lot of writing there (you still with me?) But this weekend hasn't all been about clearing the clutter...

Beautiful Friday morning sunrise (don't ask what I was doing up at that time)


Rebe made Joa this great book...

'Johuais booc' - Joshua's Book (look at the little curls on his head *love*)

'Wot doo U It ? (I love her back to front question mark) boob' - What do you eat? Boob

How sweet is that?

We made these mini no bake gingerbread houses today. Rebe saw them in her favourite craft book (it's in German, but it's the best craft book we have!)

Even though the wind is still howling down the estuary we got down to the beach to do a bit of digging...

And this little man is doing lots of walking practice, enjoying the feeling of sand between his toes...

He's already taken a few steps on his own. Oh my wee baby is becoming a wee boy :-)

Hope you are having a lovely weekend x

smiles

I said to myself this afternoon, when I see my next rainbow I'll start posting here again... at dinner time this rainbow appeared :-)

I am feeling much better but know I need to be kind to myself and take it easy for a while yet.

Here are a few things that have been making me smile in the past wee while:

Jars. Everywhere in our house are Rebe's jars. This one has winkles in it.

This is full of worms.

A dream I had of red geraniums in a red pot.

A needle felted unicorn hairband

doin' it by 'imself

The planting game. We have so many pots of transplanted daisies, buttercups and plantain. The kids will happily play together digging up and replanting for ages.

First shoes. Andy was clearing out a drawer and I found he had left these two pairs of tiny little shoes on the window sill. Oh they make me smile. How I love the little people who wore them!

'big bits'

Trying on Andy's new work boots. Just now I found he has fallen asleep with them under his pillow! Dear old Benny.

Love to you all and thank you for your kind thoughts and well wishes x

the frustration of motherhood

Dear friends

I have left this space a little blank for the past few days and I wanted to share with you why this was.

Firstly, I have had a bit of a head cold which has made life a little fuddled and dulled. It's not really stopped me from doing things but it has made them a little more difficult.

The main reason is that I am quite simply doing too much. This, for me, is the frustration of motherhood. Having children has been such an inspiration for me. I find my imagination sparked, I have a million ideas for a million things. My 'to do' list is crazily long and involved...

I want to...
...make special outfits for myself and the kids for an event in August
...make some more dolls
...make Rebe some hair bands
...finish Joa's sweater
...make buttons out of twigs for this sweater
...help Andy make the play kitchen for the boy's birthdays
...make a load of felt play food for the kitchen
...make Joa a birthday book
...go to the fairy woods
...meet up with so many of our friends
...have another bake along
...do some writing for Juno magazine (there are 3 things I want to write for them)
...write a waldorf baby doll tutorial and host a craft along on my blog
...I want to get fit again and start running again
...quilt a special poorly blanket

and of course I want to blog about all of this...


I have all of this whirling in my head all of the time. I have to really pull myself back to ground and focus on the everyday things. Because my head gets swimming with all of these ideas I get so caught up in it all and I forget to just live in the now and I also forget to live with the people I am with (namely Andy). Poor Andy told me last week that he is feeling pretty left out and neglected. That what little time and energy I have left after day of mothering is not coming his way. This really hit home and I realise how right he is and I realised that somethings need to give a little. At least until I am getting some more sleep and I can achieve my daily tasks without having to carry a baby around while doing so.

So, I have to make cut backs. I am not going to think about the above list. There are a couple of things that I will do, like the things for the birthdays. But I am trying to 'keep it real' and not get carried away. I am also not going to make any more dolls for my etsy shop for while until I am in a better place. I am going to be better letting friends down who want to meet up. I am going to stop baking my own bread for a while. I am not going to get up and try and go running before the kids wake and I am not going to try and post here unless there is something I really want to share.
Believe me, dear friends I so want to do all of the thingsin my list above. I am so frustrated that I can't. I want to make and do and share, but I know that the time will come when I can do this and I need to be patient a little longer. I need to recoup, get well, get energised and be with the people who make this life beautiful for me.

Thank you for making this space so special for me, I'll be back again soon.
x

snippets of our afternoon

Such a beautiful afternoon, we spent most of it in the garden. Me with my knitting... Notice my ring? Isn't it lovely? It belonged to my grandmother. She always wore it and it was the thing of hers that I asked to have when she died. It was too big for me though until my friend's husband resized it for me in exchange for giving him a few tips on setting up an etsy shop. His work is lovely, and he's doing a wee custom job for me at the moment ;-) I'm delighted to ba able to wear my grandmothers ring.

Rebe made a picnic...

She made these herself... I wasn't too keen on the honey, golden syrup and branston pickle one though!

Joa ate that one! Benny was in charge of the squash

oh I just can't get enough of these baby curls!

fresh baked bread

a bit of dancing and twirling

a pencil left on the floor

veggies chopped for dinner

It was a nice afteroon (if only bedtime had been that peaceful lol).

x

Kindergarden Fun Day

We had a lovely time yesterday at the Kindergarden May fun day. drumming

watching

face paints (Mio)

Lambie

There was also crown making, cake eating, story telling, sunflower planting, play watching and singing as well of course playing.

:-)

Saturday

We were glad it was Saturday yesterday!
We had a full day; doing house work in the morning. Washing and lanolising woolies

making and eating (and eating and eating) lemon drizzle cake

discovering interesting moths in the garden and writing about them in her bug book

We then went for a walk in the woods...

we played shops, the game always goes like this...

Hello shopman, do you have a twig I can buy?

Yes

Oh thank you, how much is that?

one, two three, one, two, three

Thank you, goodbye.

We actually went to the woods in search of Benny's dragon. A few days ago Benny found a tree that has a perfectly shaped dragon's head at the bottom of its trunk. Oh, he was delighted, especially as I often tell them a story that starts like this...

'Once upon a time there was a Queen who lived in a blue castle on top of a hill. This Queen had three children called Rebe, Benny and Joa. The Queen often sent her children on adventures and quests. The children each had a special friend to help them on these quests. Rebe had a unicorn, Benny a green dragon and Joa five clever chicks...'

Here they are sitting behind the dragon's head. I took about 5 pictures of the actual dragon but for some (possibly magic) reason none of them came out...I'll try again another day.

Of course we then had to try to find Rebe's unicorn... but we only found this badger(?!?)

We found some great climbing trees though...

climbing is so much easier barefoot.

We got home just in time for a real spring rain storm

Rebe had a scream playing in it! It was just before bath time so I didn't mind her swimming in the big puddles.

We're off to a family fun day at Kindy today which we're looking forward to. And then it feels like, all too soon, the weekend is over and we're back at school.

Hope you're enjoying your weekend