Swap parcels :)

I posted two quick pics with my phone but wanted to write a little more.
My secret Pal lives in Canada! Include in the lovely parcel was a birthay card with a cute little sheep, a set of 2mm bamboo dpn's, a cute little cow finger puppet (sorry the kids all agreed it was a cow not a goat or a sheep lol!) a ball of light blue fibernatura cottonwood (100%cotton) (no ideas what to do with this yet) and a skein (hank?) of alpaca with twist mojito in the best variegated colours I've ever seen. SP you have no idea how much I love that skein/hank! it is absolutely perfect (I am planning to knit these) I wish there was more of it!

My sock swap parcel also arrived with two cute socks loads of tiny sock yarn skeins chocolate buttons for the kids (they where gone in about 2 minutes!) a lovely smelling piece of soap which has dissapeared allready (I will hide hubbies conditioner until the soap gets returned...) a card a two knitted strawberries. I will add the socks to my collection shortly.

Euans ear got worse yesterday but strangly seems to be much better today. he got another sore on it and it was so red and swollen but still it didn't hurt him. the redness is gone as is the swelling just a couple of scabs left. hopefully this is it!
The rain doesn't seem to stop at al. The chickens have become excellent swimmers.
My little sister is coming over on Tuesday with her girlfriend yay! Euan is counting the days until tuesday keeping his fingers crossed for lots of presents :)
More family will be arriving the monday after so we'll be busy

Wow its so busy here. with me getting a tooth pulled and feeling aweful for 4 days before it starts to feel better 4 birthdays coming up lots of visitors from abroad over the next few weeks. Euan's ear-thing (The Dokter didn't have a clue what it was) and constant rain (which means i have to work extra hard to come up with stuff for the kids to do so they don't start bugging each other) I feel like there is no time to stop at all!
I shal be glad when august has gone and things will slow down again.
Euan's dr appoinment yesterday was fun, we walked in Thomas recognised the Dr and stuffed his hand under his jumper whilst at the same time trying to hide behind me. this was the same Dr who removed the bandages of his thumb several times. She looked at Euans ear and said it looked like a scold (sp?) and asked if it was possibe he'd toughed the iron or something. I looked around the room that was slowely being torn apart by three tornado's looked back at her and said yeah I don't do ironing.
Basically she has no idea what it is so you can guess what she gave us (antibiotic cream) we'll see what will happen.
The chickens pecked a hole in the netting yesterday which took me awhile to find....

I also got an email from my secret pal telling me that a parcel is in the mail for me and it should be arriving on monday. I got the message tuesday. That should mean she's not from the UK right? how exciting!!

turning back the time

I mean to post this last night but never got round to writing it down.
The twins had gone to bed early because they didn't have a nap yestday, so Euan and I watched a film together. when that had finished and he'd had his horlicks I said to him that he looked tired and that it was probably time for bed.
He looked at the little clock on top of the bookcase and said "just turn it back on there mum" Totally confused as to what he was talking about I must have given him a stupid look as he sighed dramatically an said with great emphasis "the time just turn it back on the clock than I don't have to go to bed yet"

I mean how do you argue with that? James got his hopes up now that Euan will be the one to invent a timemachine.....

eewww

Euan woke up this morning with a slightly red and swollen earlobe, allright we'll keep an eye on it but I wasn't to worried. It didn't hurt he wasn't bothered and he's not touching it or anything.
Fast forward to the end of the day and its even more swollen a vicious red and seeping. needless to say we are seeing a doctor tomorrow afternoon. He's still not bothered by it and it doesn't hurt or anything which is whats so weird. I *looks* painful!

I guess we'll know more tomorrow....

Peter pan

Peter pan knife my own pattern made for
Originally uploaded by mum21andtwins

My own pattrn :) made for Euan

things we've done over the last week

We found two snails in the tadpole tank, they must have been on the plants we put in they have been seperated and have their very own tanks now (a mayonaise jar)

We took out every encyclopedia yesterday to read about crocdiles and Euan mentioned that their webby bits are just like our webby bits. He is since obsessed with webby bits and checks every animal for them

we turned some of their artwork into little mosters.

rescued a blackbird out of the jaws of Rodney

found slowworms and read up on them








played dinosaurs as loud as we could

bought Euans birthday present and managed to sneak it inside without him noticing (you can see it here)

did a test to see what foods in the kitchen would pop like popcorn (only popcorn)

found out Thomas can open the big heavy drawer in the kitchen

and he likes cocoapowder

hung up a photoframe that I got as a gift last xmas


brought the spinningwheel back down in the hopes the twins will treat it gently (they have so far!!)


played lots with cars and dinosaurs


knitted tiny rabbits and teddybears


recieved a swapparcel


and opened it



watched the WB carnival parade in the rain





put money in the buckets


saw a rainbow on the way home



made a tree

played scary insect

bought a dino book

chewed gum (and swallowed some!)



played in the park



craweled backwards down a hill





I haven't finished sorting trough all the photos so I've still got to add some....

lifes lessons

Its been a tough few days (and we have another tough night coming)
Tina our oldest hen of 8 (ish) came flying out of the coop tuesday night landed about 3 or so meters further and just stayed there. It was obvious straight away that she wasn't right and after having picked her up she was unable to use her left side. James had to help her out which was hard on him and i took the boys inside to bring Euan the news. his first question was Why? followed by are you going to make soup out of her?

We buried her instead she is buried next to one of our apple trees, Euan watched me with a serious look on his face the entire time. When I finished he looked at the freshly dug earth and the tree and said now we have a tina tree with tina flowers and we'll have tina apple won't we mum?
I was worried how he would deal with it. there was a fair bit of crying since he watched her flying out of the coop and he knew she was disstressed and it was an unpleasant thing to have seen but he made peace with it so quickly.

I have one poorly hen seperated from the flock who will meet the same end tonight when James gets home. After talking to many people who are more expierenced than me with chooks (and more expierienced than our vet) she has been diagnosed with Lymphoid leukosis. I have never helped a chook to the end and want to make sure its done quickly so I guess tonight I'll have to be there and learn.
She's still eating a bit and grooming when she has the energy but she is obviously not well.

On top of that I am getting no sleep between crying babies and Euan with night terrors (not to mention James's horrible snoring!) I'm lucky if I get 3 hours uninterupted.
Aah the joys of mothering :)

All the chickenstuff has led to constant talking about death and lifecycles and many many many why's as Euan is trying to understand and make sense of life and death. its lead to many conversations about difference in species I just hope that he finds a happier subject to talk about soon!

Easter hare, furoshiki and more

The pictures below are all part of grannies eastergift for the kids. I forgot to take a picture of it before I furoshikied it all up so that will have to be done some point tomorrow.











Euan and I put an easterbasket together for Drew and his dog Max who live across the road.



This is one of the eggs that we dyed with red cabbage, we also dyed eggs with beets spinach and oinionpeels



A picture of Euan holding the little gnome that I made for him. your fingers go into his legs so you can make him run :)



Knitted horse (pattern by freya jaffke) for Euan's farm



Crochet sheep I made one for all 3 boys



I joined a swap at ravelry where we swapped knitted mini socks. My package went to the states.



These are a couple of stamps I carved the little sock went to the states and the jelly shell is for Euan to stamp his own frogspawn.

Euan and his nosewarmer

On our way to the market

Some video's

I love how they wipe their mouths after the kiss :)



THis is from earier on in the year just forgotton to post it

Ugh

The boys all have croup. so it has been sleepless nights for the last 3 nights. Thankfully it is coming to an end now.

We had another fox visit this morning and somehow he managed to get our Oskar. I found poor Valen huddled up in the house this morning, obviously he is inside now. Both of them are old and oskar was going blind. Valen seems to be ok he's eating and comes for a snuggle so hopefully he'll be fine.

We got our book order yesterday, Euan got a couple of Elsa beskows books (pelle & forestchildren) We got a craftbook to share. We got a story, song & poembook for everyone.
I am really pleased wih all the books. I *love* the elsa beskow books. the drawings are fantastic very very sweet. The story is cute but not in a sickenig way. animals die, animals eat animals all in a way that its just part of the story, not scary or something that needs atention just a fact of life.
The craft book is great its all 3 previous books in one (easter, christmas, harvest). It has an enormous amount of crafts in it for all abilities. from different types of lanterns to acorn snakes bread dragons harvest wreaths, well I could go on and on. I'm sure you'll see a bunch of the crafts pop up on the blog.
We got a book on storytelling to. Yesterday was the 1 year anniversary of opa's death and the first page I opend the book on was a little witch you mae with your hand, just like opa used to do it was weird to see that picture I hadn't thought about it for a long time.

I've also been enjoying a bunch of blogs. Now I have figured out i can follow these blogs with blogger I don't forget about them. I will see if I can put my bloglist in the side somehow so you can see what I read. If you're reading and you have a home ed blog let me know :)

Sweet porridge

The brothers Grimm - KHM 103

There was a poor but good little girl who lived alone with her mother, and they no longer had anything to eat. So the child went into the forest, and there an aged woman met her who was aware of her sorrow, and presented her with a little pot, which when she said, "Cook, little pot, cook," would cook good, sweet porridge, and when she said, "Stop, little pot," it ceased to cook. The girl took the pot home to her mother, and now they were freed from their poverty and hunger, and ate sweet porridge as often as they chose. Once on a time when the girl had gone out, her mother said, "Cook, little pot, cook." And it did cook and she ate till she was satisfied, and then she wanted the pot to stop cooking, but did not know the word. So it went on cooking and the porridge rose over the edge, and still it cooked on until the kitchen and whole house were full, and then the next house, and then the whole street, just as if it wanted to satisfy the hunger of the whole world, and there was the greatest distress, but no one knew how to stop it. At last when only one single house remained, the child came home and just said, "Stop, little pot," and it stopped and gave up cooking, and whosoever wished to return to the town had to eat his way back.

END

Sweet porridge is our story for this week. We read it just after snacks before the twins naptime. We finally found some tealights and now have a storytime candle. Still looking for a verse I like nothing seems to do it for me so far. We picked up some oats today as I didn't realise before that the last bag was fed to the chooks (they are more spoiled than the cats...)

It is still really cold here, I have to put fresh water out every 3 hours or its all frozen up again. I love it in a strange way it really feels like winter not just an extension of a very wet autumn.
The kids don't mind since they are dressed well and in many layers. It is rather odd how many people you briefly meet that are shivering in their half open coats, not a scarf or gloves in sight and are complaining its cold.

This did put my gardening plans of over the holidays as I was planning to more the blackberry bushes from the back of the garden to the front.
Once it warms up enough for me to be able to get to the compost squish and I will start wintersowing. I've never wintersown before so I have no idea how things will work out but its worth a go.

Duty calls :)

We've had snow!!

It started late last night so just in case I put a snowball in the freezer for Euan, but this morning we had the joy of a thin layer of snow thick enough to provided a day of fun for Euan. We quickly made a sled out of a piece of one of the old leaky waterbutts and of we went...



Euan outside before breakfast enyoing the snow in the dark:



And Euan sledding in the park:

Happy New Year!

Here are some pictures from the last week :)


















Thats us the last week. not much got done since mum came over for a visit. and I doubt much will get done since we're playing catch up with laundry and dishes at the moment.

Jack frost is still NOT finished....................

Birthday party story painting

So squish and I did a paining session this afternoon. We painted the birthday party story.

It is blues birthday today
Paint big blob of blue in the middle of your paper.
Blue has invited some friends over to celebrate. before his guests arrive blue ensures the room is ready.
paint over the paper as if blue is walking around the room.
Blue finished getting everthing ready and waited for his guest to arrive
knock loudly on surface.
someone knocked on the door its yellow. Yellow comes in and congratulates blue. yellow goes and looks around the room, he looks out of the window and walks over to the table with food on it.
paint all over the paper as if yellow is walking around.
Suddenly there is a loud knock again (knock on a surface) its red! red comes is and starts chatting with blue. after a little while red goes and says hello to yellow. she walks over to get a slice of cake and some juice.
paint all over paper as if red is walking

Can you see who red & yellow brought to the party?

Euan loved it! its was really nice to spend 10 minutes or so painting together. it was just long enough to hold his attention and not get bored

The first one is Euan's


And this is mine

Euanisms

Thursday afternoon (I've been meaning to post this but just didn't manage to get around to it) we we're sitting down in the livingroom. Euan was reading a book I was knitting jack frost. Suddenl he looked up and said "mummy there is a dead elephant in the livingroom" so there i am living with a dead elephant in my livingroom.
the other one at the moment is the sticky tape on one of the gifts keeps popping of (its cheap tape) and acording to Euan it because it want more tape, he also says it doesn't need it it just wants it. The elephant comment is close in weirdness to a comment he made when he was 2ish. James and Euan where going to the park when suddenly he annouced "daddy its margerett thatcher day" yup margerett thatcher day. Where are cerainly not fans of her in this house (antifans?) o where that came from nobody knows......