Treats

Yesterday was definitely a day of unexpected treats. I took the girls in to town for a surprise fun activity, making their own bath bombs and bubbles at Lush. The queue was long, and Talia was tired and grumpy, but the girls were so excited (and stood playing hand clapping games in the queue for nearly half an hour while I paced, nursed, paced, nursed, soothed the tired one).




When they got their turn, the baby had cheered up enough to try to get in on the action!




Then, being in town, of course we had to stop by The Cake Hole again. We took a small selection of children's books to leave for her customers, and the children begged for olives from her lovely vegan mezze lunch menu.


Talia is such a poser.


Bye! See you again soon!


Pea and mint risotto for tea, and podding fresh peas...


Then the little ones went to bed, and Martin and Jenna walked to the cinema to see Sea of Monsters (Jenna was predictably annoyed that it was nothing like the book). Which left me blissfully silently alone for the longest I can remember being totally alone in, well, maybe five years or more? It was strange, and incredibly peaceful, and just a little lonely. I feel so... peaceful. Like the solitude has been carried over into today. What a blessing for a tired frazzled mama.

Yesterday in Pictures (and words)

Reading: Unseen Academicals

Knitting: Low Tide cardigan

Watching: Blue Planet and Stargate Atlantis

Eating: Jenna's home made fish pie

Wearing: new hippy trousers

Planning: a birthday party

Loving: fat fuzzy bumblebees, apples, felt bowls, sibling shared secrets and laughter, veg box deliveries, four year old jingling as she skips along with bells on her ankles, cool breezes and the hint of Autumn in the air.

Seven Days - Things to Be

1. Yarn addict
2. Ballet dancers
3. Wizards
4. Artist
5. Scientists
6. Gymnasts
7. Octonaut

Another Walk in to Town

Yesterday we took an accidental walk in to town. Accidental as in, we didn't want to walk in to town, but the bus cost more change than I had in my pocket, so we had to walk a few stops on, and even then found ourselves ten pence short of the fare and surrendered to the necessity of walking the entire way.


This is the first time all four children have walked the whole way. Talia likes to walk, but she just does not *ever* walk in the same direction as everyone else for more than a few steps. It's exhausting getting anywhere with her, determined not to be carried, determined not to walk the way we want her to go.


In my head, I'm saying, "hurry up, slow down, hurry up, stop TOUCHING EVERYTHING, can't we just WALK??!" Outwardly I rely on playing the stop and go game, and trying not to let the whine creep into my voice because I so badly just want to BE somewhere, and they are so happy being right where they are. I don't know if I will ever learn this hard lesson.


"Mumma, where did the bee go? I want it to come back!"

These small children, they fully live in this gorgeous world of insects and flowers and sycamore spinners and interesting smells - a brick wall is a magical floating roadway to walk along, the concrete area in front of the flooring warehouse is a playground, a giant chain link fence is a swinging skipping rope. The world, through their eyes, is such an incredible place to play. I really am so very lucky to get to see it through their eyes.





The camera slows me down a bit, lets me capture the beautiful things, and helps me to halt the hurry in my head. I try, I really do try, because they need me to be HERE with them, to stop and smell the flowers with them and not rush them through their too-brief childhoods.



We had a wonderful walk. The jobs we needed to do in town turned out not to be that important after all. And we found more bees to watch.

YARN WINNERS! :) Giveaway luxury yarn love!

So! Friday morning has come so quickly! And I came to draw a name for the luxury yarn giveaway, with all four children helping, so of course we ended up drawing one main winner and three surprise bonus winners because they had to pull out a name each. ;)






Without further ado, the winner of those two entire skeins of beautiful alpaca/silk/cashmere sock yarn:

Lacey Batty! Congratulations to you! :)

Second prize, 100g Mermaid merino singles sock:

Catherine Matsko Palumbos!

Third prize, 100g purple soft-spun merino sock:

Brittney Lohn Hammon!

And last but not least, four 10g naturally dyed merino sock mini skeins (excuse the baby's dirty little fingernails!):

Jessica Dobbs!

So if you four lucky people would like to get in touch and let me have your address details, special freebie parcels of goodness will be winging their way to you shortly. Here's a peek at all of the prizes together...


Thank you all for taking part, I truly wish I could give something to each one of you.

Oh wait, I can, I sneakily left up my 10% off summer sale code: SUMMER2013 for a discount on any Etsy or Facebook purchase. ;) xxx

Snippets from busy days and play dates

With friends sleeping over, lots of games to play; the six and seven year olds made mud and sand pies. They all made their own popcorn together, squealing with laughter as it popped. Extra children inevitably means less work for me, because they are so busy playing. I crocheted about another foot on my blanket, and made granny squares for a customer!



Morgan came in on her own at one point, and announced a quick fairy snap tournament, which she won.

Jenna gave a lecture on Greek mythology under the swing set in the garden, and invented a game of "guess the god" which everyone else joined in with. They spent at least half of a day running around in an extended role play in which I overheard "Aphrodite" pleading with "Demeter" not to confront Hades lest it start a war amongst the gods.

Someone pulled out one of the inspiration folders and Rowan coloured in a skeleton, while everyone else built a life size laminated model. They argued about which way up the arm bones should go.


Rowan and Morgan made fruit crumble to follow our tea later. Rowan wanted to try the raw crumble mixture, and decided it wasn't nice. Morgan casually told her where rhubarb grows and why we don't eat the leaves as she snipped the stems into the dish.

After friends went home the girls watched some home videos of children hooping (especially loving this one), and spent a while in the garden (and living room) trying to imitate them. I asked for help picking up toys and hoovering, and Rowan said "no" then tidied up the teddies on her own. Morgan picked up only the things I specifically asked her to. And Jenna said she didn't want to help, but then offered to clean the oven (which she did perfectly, and is one of my most hated jobs).

A friend of mine came over for tea and board games. Jenna talked her ears off, and showed her some of her favourite maths and science websites including Nova's Solar System tour and an animal cell to label. She also looked up a couple of experiments she wants to try out and made ice cubes to try the Cloud in a Jar.

Morgan did a page of maths, scanning sums to pick out quickly which added up to twenty. This child and her methodical mind and instinctive grasp of number - she's as quick as I am with basic puzzles like that one. She carries books of maths worksheets around with her much of the time, her prized possessions.

We played Carcasonne, and Jenna came second. Rowan and Talia were quite loud and tired and I started to lose patience with the cards being bumped. As soon as the game finished, Rowan went to bed bribed with Octonauts on daddy's phone, and the others picked their stories. My friend stayed for story time and soon discovered Talia's impatience with actual story reading (page turning is much more her thing). :)

After a sleep over AND a late night the girls all slept in until about 9am this morning. They had left over crumble for breakfast, and spent the whole of breakfast time discussing how milk is pasteurised and how it is turned into cheese and yoghurt. We talked about milk cows and animal welfare, and Morgan raised the question of ownership and whether living creatures can or should own each other.

The children passed through the kitchen as I was washing up, apparently playing Hogwarts again, and then a few minutes later came back in announcing that they were putting on a dog show and I needed to come and watch. They set up an obstacle course in the living room and got Talia to crawl around it and jump through hoops. Talia knows this game well, "barks" on command, and even pretends to wag her tail when they give her "dog treats" (cereal pieces, which she picks up with her mouth!).

We inspected our shell-less egg experiment, and Rowan poked a bit too hard so it popped before it pickled properly. Ah well, try try again!

Clouds in a jar were unfortunately just as unsuccessful:

Today is clearly not the day for science in my house! (Now we have to figure out why it didn't work...)

Jenna and Morgan did a country dance show next and performed a counting song in Gaelic. Sometimes these shows go on for a very long time, but after a requested change of music to the Brave sound track followed by Les Miserables (another recent passion of Jenna's), they took all the bits from their assault course back outside and left me with my bit of complicated lace knitting and a cup of tea (made by Jenna).

Barely more than 24 hours. I'm feeling a little mentally exhausted this afternoon, and feeling nostalgic about the peaceful low tide days. ;)

Belated Yarn Along - granny squares

Yes, I am still working on those two big projects, but I also started a granny square cushion. Because, you know, I can't ever just stick to a plan.


This is my current collection of random acrylics going into the huge blanket, and also now this cushion.


And this is the face of the small person who carefully unravelled two entire balls of the stuff on the living room floor last week. It's impossible to stay cross with the little munchkin! Especially since every time she gets into mischief she sits there saying, "holp - meee," in such a forlorn little voice, "holp - me - mummeeee!"

GIVEAWAY: Luxury Yarn Love

Hello again yarnie friends. :)

I got new yarn, LOTS of new yarn, SOFT SQUISHY LUXURY yarn, and I thought: "Hmm. I'm feeling exceptionally grateful for all of my lovely followers and fans, and all the support my little indie dye business is receiving, and being able to take on Christmas commissions and other special jobs. How better to say a great big thank you than offering something really special."



Want this luscious hand-dyed semi-solid soft teal green sock yarn, in gorgeously fluffy alpaca, silk, and cashmere (yes, it's actually OK for many folks with wool allergies too)... TWO skeins, a whole 200g?

Here's how you can enter the draw (I'll be getting a small kidlet to pull a name out of the basket on Friday):
- Simply comment here, and tell me what you'd like to make from this lovely yarn.

And for a bonus entry:
- Drop me a note on the giveaway post on Facebook (the pinned picture at the top of my page).

And keep an eye on my blog here to find out if you won so that I can get your shipping address. I will ship, totally free of charge, to anywhere in the world. There may even be a runner up prize or two. Best of luck!



Disclaimer: this giveaway is hosted by Carried Family and Arwen Makes, and has nothing to do with Facebook. They are not responsible, and are not administrating, or hosting, or anything. Just so's you know. ;)

Studio Box with BEADS!

We got our My Little Atelier box from Woodland Children again, so exciting to open and see what activities are inside to inspire us to create something new this month. This month's box was SO incredibly generous, lots of thoughtful options for children to create depending on age and ability, and even something for the smallest artists to join in with older siblings.





This month is based on African bead art and sculptures, and there were a selection of suggested ideas to try. Morgan started by making a flat picture with wire and teeny tiny glass beads (she was so patient putting the tiniest beads perfectly in order) and then I carefully twisted the wire ends together and made a little loop for her to wear it as a necklace.

Meanwhile Tali and Roo had their own easier-on-little-fingers option. Rowan just wanted to thread beads, so I turned her little "bracelets" into a hanging sculpture for her. Admittedly mostly to stop the bracelets getting lost as quickly... She is so proud of it, and keeps telling people to look up at the window and see "my work"!





We also got a bead mosaic activity, which they haven't had chance to get to yet. So another great surprise this month - and materials left to carry over for more creative activities through the month. :)

Seven Days - more ordinary beauty, and lots of rainbows

1. Babywearing and sibling hand holding
2. Roving and silks
3. Art for my kitchen from Daisy Cottage Designs
4. Gorgeous veg!
5. Art by Jenna, Rowan, Talia, and Morgan
7. Lammas Season Table
8. Fruitfulness