Little Baby Feet!

Just look at these adorable little shoes - made with love by my wonderful sister in law. She even found some Welsh Rugby Union transfers to put on them as a nod to my husband's Welsh heritage (AKA fierce support of the Welsh National Team!). We were so touched to receive them - most baby shoes fall off straight away so aren't worth the bother but these stay put as long as you need them for. Not to mention the fact that Lorri is a busy mum of my gorgeous six month old nephew so how she finds time to sew gifts is beyond me! Thanks Lorri! XXXXX

......... And Breathe....... Slow Down!

I got all wound up and anxious last week, about everything and nothing, how much I wasn't doing, what I was doing, and ended up circling round unhappily doing nothing and enjoying nothing. Then realised what a fool I was being, took a deep breath, sat down with the children and...... suddenly found myself relaxing and laughing.... amazing what perspective threading a few beads on a wire with one's daughters can give you!

So I have resolved to stop winding myself up - Idris is just five weeks old, the house is clean (ish), there are meals on the table (mainly of the home cooked nutritious variety) and I have time for every one's needs (including my own) when I'm not wasting time worrying so I will keep reminding myself to sit down and play every time I feel anxious and I think I'll be much better!

In which I resign myself to not being able to make jam!

This is Dewi and the girls harvesting the remainder of our plum crop for this year. Sadly two large branches snapped under the weight of the fruit leaving the tree not nearly as handsome as it used to look. I had already tried to make jam two weeks ago and despite following to the letter the instructions in the book, I ended up with a large quantity of plum syrup.... like the blackberry syrup I ended up with last year and the strawberry syrup the year before..... you get the picture! So last week Dewi decided to make the jam using the damsons from the little tree in our trellis hedge. Cue twelve jars of rich, densely purple damson jam two hours later!! It's like Yorkshire puddings all over again - mine flat and eggy, Dewi's light, crisp and mountainous!! I can live with that - one less thing for me to do!!! I'm taking the first jar to my friend's house tomorrow, we will make scones with the children and then test the jam together!! So if we made jam with the damsons, what of the plums you ask? Well they are fermenting away in my under stairs cupboard as part of Dewi's plum cider experiment!!!!

A Homemade Barefoot Walk!

Eve and Faith are so enamoured with barefoot walks that I wondered whether we could make our own....... it was really good fun and took about twenty minutes! We swept the path alongside the vegetable patches first then gathered various materials that we had on hand. The blue colour are seed trays lined with rubble sacks to hold the contents so they can be returned to their rightful places after use! We used beach pebbles, bark strips, a towel, sunflower leaves, twigs, sand, rubber chippings, gravel, rice, hay and of course..... mud and water...... no self-respecting barefoot walk is ever without mud and water! I set ground rules - one way only so we can return the chippings etc without them being full of mud and no potion making with the mud as I can't face the clear up job at the moment!!

Barefoot Fun at Trentham Gardens

The girls managed to squirt each other with the jets on the fountain!

This is Faith's eye peering through a huge sculpture inspired by the molecular make-up of carbon!

This is the girls in the thick of the barefoot walk - I did this as well and found it a uniquely unpleasant experience! Yes my feet did tingle but that could easily have been the five minutes in very cold water washing off the mud afterwards! I did not enjoy the sensation of squelchy mud followed by various painful variations of hard and spiny things to walk over!! The girls announced that the one at Conkers is better because it has more mud and water than this one!!

Dewi sent them off by themselves to go round again. I hate them being out of sight but they relish the freedom and as there was a set route and it looped back to us, I swallowed my doubts and let them go! Here they are running back triumphantly! 

We went round the monkey forest as well and here is one of their new babies!

We had a thoroughly lovely day and Idris enjoyed snuggling in the sling and gazing up at the forest canopy above!

Home Ed on the Hop!

I have been panicking a little in recent weeks wondering how on earth I will fit in all of the things that the girls need as well as tending to our new baby boy. Then things happen to remind me that there is plenty of time to fit everything in, especially if I jump at chances that present themselves. Above is Faith this afternoon. She asked Dewi to make her a rainbow book with lots of coloured paper, then asked me to write her a story about a pig. So I wrote it a sentence at a time and she read them then drew a picture to illustrate. She has just begun to read but read some CCVC and CVCC words easily, and with help worked out some CCVCC ones and some digraph sounds like 'cake' as well. I made it a very silly story so she was keen to read each installment! Two hours and sixteen pages later she declared it was 'the end'!!!! 

There is a lot of word play in our house at the moment and I used Eve's experimentation with long and short vowel sounds to do a quick spelling lesson on an envelope bound for the recycling box! The 'pressure off' approach suits Eve anyway so this was pretty effective!

Watching a Farrier at Work.

These are photos from before Idris was born. A family that also home educate invited all who wanted to go, to watch the farrier showing their horses. It was a glorious day with plenty of seats in the shade for heavily pregnant mummies to relax in and a huge green field with dens and trees to climb for the children!

Eve took these photos of the farrier at work. Both girls were really interested in it and I can remember enough from my youth spent at the local stables to be able to explain it all!

After the shoeing was finished, Karen tacked up two of the ponies and the girls had a ride (well - they managed to beg three goes each actually!!)

Karen was so kind and generous all day, we even helped shampoo and condition the little grey pony after all the riding was finished! Faith in particular is absolutely horse mad so she really loved her day.... She was naturally balanced on the pony as well and very relaxed riding him. I so wish we could afford riding lessons for them but at the current prices it is impossible...... perhaps a bit of digging around and bargaining might unearth a more affordable option if they are still mad keen next Spring! But shh don't tell them, I'd never hear the end of it!!