early autumn

It's so beautiful here at the moment. There is still so much warmth in the sun whose light is soft and golden. Each morning as we drive through the village on the way to school my breath is taken away by how beautiful everything is. The colour of the trees and the way the light plays on the water. I love this time of year, it feels like a sighing out-breath after the brightness and busy-ness of the summer. It is a time to harvest the work done over the summer and it also triggers me to look inwards again; to home, and home comforts, organising and baking and knitting!

Benny and I found loads of conkers (horse chestnuts) one day last week on a trip to get him new boots. Hunting for them among the trees made us feel like we were searching for gems and precious stones and indeed we felt rich when we came home with a boot box filled with deep brown shiny treasures.

At first the conkers were people: children in a shoe box school, or prisoners. Then Garry showed them how to play conkers: stringing them onto colour cotton and seeing which conker is the strongest in battle.

The garden is slowly taking shape again, there is still so much work to be done, but we are enjoying the ripe tomatoes and abundant rocket.

 Garry built a new fence out of pallets, it looks lovely and he has plans to put some window boxes along the bottom filled with herbs or trailing flowers.

 Life has of course been full: full of the everyday, of school runs and appointments and house work, much housework!
The kids are all really enjoying school. Rebe complains about it, but she does so well and her work has become so much more interesting this year and she is bringing home wonderful homework: history, geography and even her English comprehension is interesting. Benny loves school and particularly loves Irish. When he knows the words he speaks to me in Irish too!
Joa is really enjoying pre-school and comes back each day filled with stories of what he has been doing.

 Joa drew this picture of Maggie (one of our dogs) after she had some kind of a seizure. It was pretty scary but luckily she is no worse for it and fingers crossed it was a one off event. So Joa drew her a get well soon picture. I love that he basically drew a person, but with fur! It says a lot about his relationship with dogs!

I've been drawing too:

 My art classes have started back up again (yay!). For my first lesson I took along a mackerel the kids had caught on a fishing trip with Andy. I drew it with pencil and I plan for the coming to weeks to make some photocopies of it and use all my lovely new art materials to fill in the colour.

We went to a lovely naming ceremony a few weeks ago friends of ours were having for their little son. Rebe made him this beautiful ball out of felt. It was a fairly easy little project, I helped her with the sewing machine part, but she did the rest herself. I think the pattern is from 'Making Toys for Children'.

 and I decorated this little wooden treasure box for him. Our guys still love the treasure boxes I gave them a few years ago so I thought it would make a nice naming present for him.

 Of course amid all of this (and other) goings on I have been working away on my doll waiting list.

These are a couple of dolls I finished in the last month. I have also been working pretty hard at getting my patterns ready for sale. I have had test knitters and sewers try them out for me and I am hoping that come October I will have several knitting patterns, sewing patterns for clothing and also a snuggle buddy and a 16" waldorf doll tutorial ready for sale in my etsy shop!! I'll let you know of course when they are ready :-)

birthdays, school days and other days

This is a bits and pieces post, but they are pictures of moments that I treasure...

Rebe's 9th Birthday, cards and flowers, presents and candles.

 It was a lovely morning playing with her new toys, quiet and calm.

 Just after lunch we went to the cinema and met with 2 of her friends and we all watched a movie together as her Birthday treat.

 I had baked her a cake. This was the first year that she has not asked for a specific cake, so I thought I would make her a really indulgent one and she was delighted. After the cinema I dropped all of the children off to Andy for their sleep over night and I gave them the cake to take with them so they could have a little celebration with him.

a lovely candle lit dinner, just me and him (and the dogs)

Benny's jet pack
This picture reminds me that the same morning Rebe very kindly made Joa a red indian headdress with feathers that she had found on the beach. Unfortunately she sellotaped them directly onto his head (ouch) many curls pulled out!

 My Birthday

 For the first time ever I had a birthday table. Piled high with wonderful gifts and cards and cake! Garry has bought me lots of scrumptious new art materials that I am really looking forward to using and am eager for my art classes to start up again.

 We have been crafting, as always...

 some new play food has inspired some wonderful games. Benny and Joa are finding a lovely friendship at the moment. It's so lovely to hear their games and play.

 The older 2 kids went back to school on Thursday, Benny excited and Rebe not so, although she tells me today that she is feeling much more confident and comfortable because her new teacher is so lovely which is so great to hear. And today Joa started pre-school...

 I made him the little tie yesterday so he would feel he had something special and smart and a little bit uniform-y to wear. He dashed in eager and happy and had the most wonderful time and told us that above all else he was really 'being haved'.

I just want to say a little something about this blog.
I am finding it harder and harder to find the time to sit down at the computer and write these posts. Life is so full of itself that there is little time for this space. I also think that this blog has changed for me. In the past it was a way to share myself, to share my life and I could share it with all of you. But now I have Garry and I find that I am doing my sharing with him and my need to blog is much less.
It has crossed my mind of late to just let it go and not blog for a while, which to be honest I'm not far off anyway. But I do love having this record of our days, I love being able to look back at pictures and words from a particular time in my life and I love that I can share this in time with the kids too.
So I will blog on, but I will try not to feel guilty about not sharing everything, or not sharing enough. Perhaps there will be fewer words, more pictures, I don't know. But just know that I am here living my wonderful, wild beautiful life and that I am very, very happy, whether I am here blogging about it or not xxx