Nestled Under Rainbows

love pockets

2012-02-14T02:15:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentines Day to you all :-)

Yesterday during our afternoon quiet time I made these love pockets for the kids and I left them on the table for them to find this morning... They are about the size of your hand and filled with sheep's wool and lavender. On the front is a little pocket, just the right size to hold about a thousand kisses.

I made these to become part of our bedtime ritual. After dinner we have a bath and then a warm drink and a story. As I tuck the children into their beds I stroke their foreheads and whisper their prayer: 'May you be filled with loving kindness, May you be well. May you be peaceful and at ease. May you be happy.'
Then I kiss lots of times into my hand and slip the kisses into the children's hands. Benny needs 'loves' in each hand, in Lambie's pockets and under his pillow: enough to last the whole night.

A few days ago the kids were cuddled up together in bed reading a book and I over heard Rebe tell Benny that once she let the 'loves' fall out of her hand by mistake and she cried. So I thought I'd make them love pockets to keep their loves in.

I cut out a couple of love hearts in scrap fabric and another little 1.5 inch square in a contrasting fabric.

I chose something that each child would be drawn to.

I folded over and hemmed the little pocket then pinned it to the centre of one of the hearts.

I machined that on, and sewed around the edges leaving a gap for stuffing.

I used sheep's wool, thinking of it holding the children's own scent and warmth and I added a few drops of lavender. I would have put some dried lavender in it if I'd had it.

I finish sewing it up and filled the pockets with loves.

They are really pleased with them and I look forward to adding them to our little bedtime ritual.

I am going to leave you with my very favourite love poem in honor of Valentine's Day. It's by Adrian Henri and is so real. Enjoy :-)

Without You.

Without you every morning would feel like going back to work after a holiday,

Without you I couldn't stand the smell of the East Lancs Road,
Without you ghost ferries would cross the Mersey manned by skeleton crews,
Without you I'd probably feel happy and have more money and time and nothing to do with it, Without you I'd have to leave my stillborn poems on other people's doorsteps, wrapped in brown paper,
Without you there'sd never be sauce to put on sausage butties,
Without you plastic flowers in shop windows would just be plastic flowers in shop windows , Without you I'd spend my summers picking morosley over the remains of train crashes,
Without you white birds would wrench themselves free from my paintings and fly off dripping blood into the night,
Without you green apples wouldn't taste greener,
Without you Mothers wouldn't let their children play out after tea,
Without you every musician in the world would forget how to play the blues,
Without you Public Houses would be public again,
Without you the Sunday Times colour supplement would come out in black-and-white,
Without you indifferent colonels would shrug their shoulders and press the button,
Without you they'd stop changing the flowers in Piccadilly Gardens,
Without you Clark Kent would forget how to become Superman,
Without you Sunshine Breakfast would only consist of Cornflakes,
Without you there'd be no colour in Magic colouring books,
Without you Mahler's 8th would only be performed by street musicians in derelict houses, Without you they'd forget to put the salt in every packet of crisps,
Without you it would be an offence punishable by a fine of up to £200 or two months' imprisonment to be found in possession of curry powder,
Without you riot police are massing in quiet side streets,
Without you all streets would be one-way the other way,
Without you there'd be no one to kiss goodnight when we quarrel,
Without you the first martian to land would turn round and go away again,
Without you they'd forget to change the weather,
Without you blind men would sell unlucky heather,
Without you there would be
no landscapes/no stations/no houses no chip shops/no quiet villages/no seagull son beaches/no hopscotch on pavements/no night/no morning/there'd be no city no country
Without you

hugs x x

birds, books and baking

2012-02-10T01:11:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine's son noticed on my blog that our robin's are different from theirs. He asked me to keep a look out for a crow so he can see how different the Irish and the American crows are. great tits on the bird feeder

So, finally Mr Winter I am posting some pictures for you. These are some of the birds that we see commonly in our garden that I thought might be of interest to you...

blackbird
I'm so happy that the black birds are back again, their songs are so cheery and really make me feel that spring is on it's way :-)

Robin

jackdaw

and finally a crow.

So there you have it, I'll be interested to hear which you also have and which, if any, are different :-)

I also thought that I would share with you some images from some of our favourite books. I am always looking for lovely book recommendations so I thought I'd pass some on to you...

The Brave Cowboy: Santa brought this book for Benny and it is just perfect; about a little boy being a cowboy. The illustrations are beautiful and it is a wonderful observation of imaginative play.

Pirate Girl: We love this one! Molly is captured by pirates but is tough and strong and won't give into their demands and she is eventually rescued by the most fearsome pirate on the seas...her mama! So nice to read a girl orientated pirate story!

Where the Wild Things Are: This was one of my favourites as a child and I found it for Benny last week in a charity shop and he loves it too. Reading it this time I noticed that the wild rumpus is totally silent, in that for the three pages of the rumpus there are no words or sounds. The imagination can make so much noise than the printed word!

A Busy Day at the Building Site: This is lovely (my wee brother's favourite), there is so much to see and spot and talk about...and of course concrete lorries and diggers...boy heaven!

In the Town All Year Round: The most beautiful picture book ever. There is so much to look at, talk discuss, it follows the same characters in the same settings throughout the seasons of the year. If we could have only one book I would choose this one!

Enjoy:-)

The weather has been fairly mild and I have been trying to get the kids out into the garden as much as possible. I think that outdoors and 'work' in the garden may just be the key to Joa. He is free there to do what he likes, to explore and run and fall and do stuff and I don't have to keep saying 'no'. So Benny and I decided to make a sand kitchen. We took the wagon down to the beach and filled it with sand and transported it back up to the garden where we filled the old guinea pig cage with it. We took out old pots and pans and set the kitchen up on a table (for ease of access for the kids and also to stop Joa from just sitting in it).

and they love it! Plenty of water is of course needed, but I limit them to transporting one old milk bottle full at a time.

the most amazing cakes are being baked

and much fun (and peace and fresh air) had!

Wishing you all a very lovely weekend :-)

Buddies~ valentines and love

2012-02-09T01:13:00.000-08:00

Amanda lead us through some funky salsa moves for music and movement. It was fun and little E was a brilliant wee dancer.

Benny and J blew whistles at each other.

After we were (very) warm from the dancing we sang Hop Little Bunnies...

This is a great song if you don't know it, the kids start off being sleeping Bunnies on the floor while the mama's sing:
See the little bunnies sleeping till it’s nearly noon Come and let us gently wake them with a merry tune Oh how still, are they ill, wake up soon...

Then the kids jump up and hop around the room singing:

Hop little bunnies, hop, hop, hop Hop little bunnies, hop, hop, hop Hop little bunnies, hop, hop, hop Hop little bunnies, hop, hop, hop.

After singing was over we moved on to our craft. This was prepared for us by Susan who sadly couldn't make it, but she very kindly dropped everything off for us and it was a great success:

Aren't they so sweet?

Very simple to make: each child had an oval paper plate,

lots of cut out red heart shapes,

glue, bows, buttons, dried pasta and stickers.
The older girls really enjoyed it and took a long time making gorgeous wee creations, working peacefully and sweetly side by side.

The wee boys were a little more...slap dash...they slapped it on and dashed off to play:

After snack, free play was also calm and quiet. We found the three girls sitting together on the hammock with L telling the other 2 a wee story about 3 little girls :-)

We ended with this story.
It was given to me by my sister in law and I can't read it without crying. It is the most insightful book about mother's love that I have ever read.

None of the mummies managed not to cry (and the kids all thought us a bit weird) but it lead to a really lovely conversation about motherhood and mother's love afterwards.

I'm so lucky to be amongst this group of very special mothers :-)

A whole lot of love this week :-)

making patterns

2012-02-07T11:00:00.000-08:00

Hello there, it feels like it's been a while since I checked in with you. Thank you for all the wonderful comments on my last post, it's really great to have so much support!

Anyway, I have been missing because of Joa who has been ultra destructive of late and broke yet another computer keyboard. Finally we got a new one today and I thought I'd share with you my latest crafting.

One of my aims of this year was to develop a new pattern for a Waldorf baby doll. I made four dolls like this last year using the tutorial here. I paid the lovely creator of the pattern to allow me to sell the dolls I made using her pattern. However, although the dolls I made were nice, I was still not 100% happy with the pattern.

Last weekend I took the time and sat down and developed my own baby doll pattern: This involved making and remaking separate parts of the doll until I was completely happy with the look and feel of each part, and now I have a pattern that I am completely happy with and that is mine. I think now the dolls will truly look like Under Rainbows dolls.

This is the first doll I made with my new pattern. I am so pleased with how she came out. She is weighted in her body and in her head with organic millet. The grain is sewn inside a little cotton bag and this is wrapped tightly in sheep's wool (so that you can't feel the grain at all).

I don't know exactly how much she weighs (my scales are broken...I feel at the moment like every piece of technology in our home is broken or breaking, it's driving me batty!)

Her fingers are detailed and her eyes are open.
I also tried a new hair style. She has a knitted cap of mohair boucle yarn. This is stitched onto her head and then I brushed the bejesus out of it, which turned it all soft and fluffy and very baby like I think, I could even catch a few wisps into wee bunches :-)

Her little toes are detailed also. She is a jointed doll which means that her arms and legs can move. She sits up by herself and looks really sweet lying down, like a newborn. She also wears newborn sized clothing, I found this sweet little newborn outfit in a bag of hand-me-downs. I do like all my dolls to be warm and snugly so they all get something hand knitted to wear.

Having a new sized doll also means that I need to write new knitting patterns too.

I finished her little bonnet and she also has wee matching yellow booties:

I hope to finished her cardie in the next few days and then she will be ready for sale.

I have really enjoyed making this pattern and doll, it has been one of those wonderfully satisfying crafting experiences (don't you just love those!)

I'm linking in with one of my favourite bloggers this week, but I don't think that I'm managing the 'keeping calm' bit very well, but I'm definitely crafting on :-)

saying thank you, letting go and moving on

2012-02-02T12:04:00.000-08:00

Today was Andy's last day at work. For the last three years he has been working as a grounds keeper for a small rugby club. This was a part time position on a really great government scheme called Community Employment. The government basically facilitates community based organisation to employ people on a part time basis by supplementing their pay for a maximum of three years. The scheme is designed to help both the community projects but also people who are long term unemployed. Before Andy had this job he had been signed off work for years by his doctor.

We made a celebration for him

I wrote him a card expressing my thanks and pride in his work

Rebe made him a banner saying 'Happy last day of work'

and we had a really special dinner.

We took the time to say thank you. Thank you to Andy for going to work to support us, something I do not want to take for granted. We took the time to be thankful for the scheme and the job and the opportunities that it gave Andy.

You see Andy has suffered with chronic depression. (I won't go into the why or what treatments he has ~ these are obviously very personal, but I have his blessing to write about our experience of depression) When we first got together I really didn't know how to handle this and it took a long time to come to terms with it and know how to deal with it, with him. His blackest point was after Rebe was born, he would literally be in bed for months. He just couldn't cope with life. Being around us was difficult for him, getting out of bed was difficult for him, going to work was an impossibility.

I had no idea how to manage this. I felt so awful. It is so hard, to love someone so much who is just so unhappy in their lives, with themselves and there is absolutely nothing you can do to make them happy.

At the time I remember being feeling completely overwhelmed by his depression, at a loss how to handle him, it and myself. I had no one to turn to who was in this same position. I felt very alone. I remember the turning point for me was finding a really great support forum called Depression Fallout. Based on the idea of the book of the same name written by Anne Shepherd. I finally found a resource: a way to hear other people's stories, a place to vent my frustrations and fears and concerns and above all I got an incredible amount of really useful information and tools.

Firstly, I learnt that it was OK for me to be happy. I learned to allow myself to have a happy life, to feel and express happiness and to stop feeling guilty about having a life and not being depressed myself.

Secondly, I learnt that I needed to set clear boundaries for Andy within our relationship as to what is and what isn't acceptable behaviour regardless of the fact that he was depressed.

I also learnt that much of my behaviour was enabling him to repeat his depression cycles and patterns. By always stopping everything from toppling and smashing to the ground, by taking all responsibility from him that I was not allowing him to take the consequences for negative behaviours.

For me the very biggest impetus for change was being a mother. I realised that more than anything I could ever say to Rebe I have to live what I want to see her live. I thought, 'Would this be good enough for Rebe?' and I knew that if the answer is No, then it CAN'T be good enough for me either.
And that was it, I reached the point where I knew I had to be the strongest ever in my life and I told Andy that if he didn't get help I would have to leave him.

I remember that weekend so clearly, it was the turning point in all of our lives and on the Monday Andy went to the doctors and started his treatment.

He very slowly started to regain normality. We took baby steps and he had a lot of set backs and bouts of real darkness, but every week, every month he got stronger and healthier and ready to take on more. So I was delighted when he felt stable enough to start working again, when he felt he no longer need to class himself as 'disabled' by his depression. This was 3 years ago when he started his job.

Now the maximum of three years is over and so now we face a new chapter and I am facing a new challenge: that of letting go. I have been having some anxiety about this job finishing for Andy. I have been worried that he will get down, that he will stop doing and being and living, that I will loose him all over again. So I have been planning for him, in true Laura style, having each minute of each day from now until a he gets a new job planned out.
Actually this caused quite a row a couple of weeks ago until I saw what I was doing, and I realised why.
So I need to let go. I need to allow Andy to not be depressed. He isn't depressed anymore, he deals really well with life, he is keen and enthusiastic and happy. He starts projects and finishes them. He has an ever increasingly active role in the children's lives. He is my best friend and is supportive and loving and kind. He worked for 3 years straight and was a great employee. He is a wonderful neighbour who gets called on all the time for things. He has friends! I need to let him be who he is now and I need to let go of the man I had to care for for so many years. He isn't that person anymore.

So I am doing my very best to let go and we are moving on together, to the future and I think the future is looking pretty bright.

Buddies~ St Brigids Day

2012-02-01T06:54:00.000-08:00

We acted out Brigid spreading her cloak by unfolding a large sheet,

the land look so good!

so we decided to build Brigid a house on it.

The traditional activity on this day is to make a St Brigid's Cross. This is to be hung by the door of the house to protect it throughout the year.

Roisin had brought lots of pipe cleaners and showed us how to make one. Traditionally they are made of reeds, pulled, not cut, from the land and soaked to make them pliable.
You need 14 pipe cleaners.

Lay 2 in a cross and wrap one around the other to make the cross strong.

Take another pipe cleaner and bend it in half. Hook this over one of the legs.

Now turn your cross so that when you hook the next folded in half pipe cleaner you are trapping the 'legs' of the one you have just hooked on.

Keep turning and hooking on the pipe cleaners over the legs of the previous one.

To finished wrap the ends of the pipe cleaners together or secure them with another pipe cleaner.

As you can see this is actually not that simple to understand, it took me a good few times to see what we had to do. In fact it was just too difficult for our wee ones who needed too much help and they all wandered off having lost interest.

So we scrapped that idea, pushed the pipe cleaners aside and luckily Roisin had come prepared with paints and glass jars. We called the children back and they really enjoyed painting beautiful tea light holders.

Aren't they lovely, I can't wait to see what they look like with a little tea light flickering inside.

After snack time the kids got their coats on and spent their free play time running and chasing and digging in the garden.
While us mummies had a cup of tea and finished off the crosses. It's so great how flexible we can be, changing each session and activity to suit the mood and ability of the children (and mummies).

To end the session Amanda read one of my very favourite stories.

It was enjoyed by all :-)

nestled under rainbows

2012-01-29T14:12:00.000-08:00

Then boys and I went for a walk in the woods today

they held hands and ran through puddles.

I lifted Joa up to see the sea over the fence post, he let out a huge *sigh*,

and Benny, at our side, said: 'This is fresh air and peace'.

It was :-)

Happy Day :-)

SOS Day

2012-01-27T23:20:00.001-08:00

As many of you already know the little village that we live in very proudly houses one of Ireland's RNLI lifeboats. We take great pride and pleasure watching it go out on a Saturday morning for it's practice from our kitchen window. Both Rebe and Benny are going to be lifeboat people when they are older. In fact, one day Rebe popped into the lifeboat station to ask them how old she had to be. Turns out she will have to wait another 11 years, but in the mean time we found a great way to be a part of and support the RNLI: Stormforce!

Stormforce is the junior RNLI supporters group and I just can't speak highly enough of it. When you join (for a mere 10 euro) you get a pack full of goodies. Above is Benny's pack that arrived yesterday. Every quarter the posties brings the Stormforce magazine full of stories and puzzles and competitions and news (I have it on good authority that Rebe and Benny will be appearing in the next issue!). Rebe's card to Stormy Stan

In the winter edition of the magazine we spotted that the 27th of January is SOS Day.
We decided to join in and do a bit of fundraising. I have enjoyed fundraising for various charities since I was a little girl and I don't think you can be too young to put yourself out to help a good cause. We did what we do best here Under Rainbows, and baked... about 60 life ring biscuits to sell for a donation on the 27th.

This is how to make them...

The best gingerbread recipe in the whole world from that I've had since I was a wee girl.

Ingredients:
8oz plain flour
1 level tsp baking powder
1 level tsp cinnamon
2 level tsp ground ginger
2 oz marg or butter
2 oz soft brown sugar
2 heaped tbsp golder syrup or honey

(this makes a normal amount of biscuits, double this for a gingerbread house and x4 to make 60 biscuits)

First melt sugar, butter and syrup in a bowl. Mix in spices.
Take off the heat and add flour and baking powder together then knead on a floured surface for a wee while until it's come together. Roll out the dough to about 5mm thick.Using a small tumbler or a circle shaped cookie cutter cut out lots of circles.

We then used a small bottle top to cut out holes in the middle of the circles to make life ring shapes.
These were baked in a preheated oven 180 C for about 10 min's, until golden brown. Leave to cool on a wire tray.

To ice, mix icing sugar with enough cold water to make it runny (but not too runny)

Ice the rings first with white icing
then add a 4 stripes of red icing to make them look like life rings
Rebe made a special biscuit for Stormy Stan,

and a couple of lifeboats for the local lifeboat crew.
So after our baking marathon we decorated a biscuit box to hold them in and also fashioned a little money box and decorated them with stickers from Benny's Stormforce pack.

Yesterday afternoon, after school we wrapped up warm and went door to door locally selling the biscuits in return for a wee donation for the RNLI. The kids did so well, they were very polite and sweet and were so funny explaining to people what they were doing..well Rebe did that Benny just ate biscuits and told people he WAS Stormy Stan ;-)
We came home when it started to get dark and we counted up the money they had raised...a grand total of 33.44 euro! which we will take down to the lifeboat station today along with the specially made lifeboat biscuits.

If you would like to make a donation to the RNLI please go here.

Wishing you all a happy weekend x

some random stuff and giveaway winner

2012-01-27T07:43:00.000-08:00

Our last few days have been lovely and busy: Buddies, playgroup and some very full afternoons of baking that I will tell you more about tomorrow. Our nights have been quite disturbed with one thing (or person) and another waking us, but I know it will pass and to be as patient as I can be.
But to cheer me up is some more wonderful enamelware that I ordered from Kool Kids Kitchenware and arrived a few days ago:
little milk pan
This little bowl was a MUST for Benny! And look what my dear, kind sister in law got for me, for no reason other than she's completely lovely:
eek, I love it :-)

Benny has been busy, painting (as you've seen) and he made himself this wonderful tree costume:

He's certainly the most beautiful tree I have ever seen :-)

I have also been making dolls. Yay for that! I actually have quite a lot of orders at the moment. I thought that things would slow down and that the rush was just for Christmas, but I have some really special projects on the go at the moment, including lots of sibling dolls which makes me smile and smile to think about.

I just finished this wee snuggle buddy last night. S/he is a custom order and special in that it is vegan. The person it is for has an allergy to sheep's wool so we needed to find an alternative and I decided to try Egyptian cotton. Do you know what? Although it wasn't as easy to use it gives the head and hands a great firmness and the doll has a gorgeous weight. I'm not sure how it would work making limbs of a full sized dressable doll, but I'm sure at some point I'll give it a go.

And now to the giveaway. I used the random number generator and the winner is.....

NUMBER 18.... That's you Julie. If you email me (laura.whalen@yahoo.ie) we can get it sent out to you. Congratulations :-)

On a wee side note Julie has a really lovely blog and hosts a really fab giveaway almost weekly so I am delighted that she is getting something back herself.

I actually wrote this post in a few grabbed moments yesterday and I'm sorry about the delay in posting it, but we had a busy afternoon and then a very early night.

I will come back later and tell you about our baking and busy afternoon.

Well done Julie and thanks to everyone that entered the giveaway :-)

Buddies ~ chinese new year

2012-01-25T06:31:00.000-08:00

***In September 2011 6 families got together and started Buddies Home School. Each week we meet in each other's home and follow a simple rhythm: movement and music, craft/ baking, snack time, free play and story time. Each part of the session is led by a different family. We are sharing this week's session with you here...***

This week at Buddies we celebrated the Chinese New Year. It is the year of the dragon. Zoe told us a little of what she knew about the story of the Chinese New Year and Roisine told us what she knew of the year of the dragon.

For our movement and music we did dragon dances. Flo had brought a dragon costume to take it in turns to dress up in.
We didn't have any Chinese music to dance to so we improvised with a bit of Reggae instead (there's nothing like a bit of Reggae to get you moving in my opinion!)

We danced all over the kitchen and ended our music and movement by calling the dragon to us. This involved choosing an instrument and banging/shaking it as hard as we could whilst roaring. I'm pretty sure every dragon that ever was heard us!

Zoe led our craft activity, we made these fantastic Chinese dragon puppets.
Each child got a card head and tail pre-cut out by Zoe.

They coloured these with wax crayons,
and decorated them with fiery strips of red and yellow crepe paper sprinkled with liberal amounts of glitter.

Then we made concertinas out of strips of red card and attached these between the head and the tail for the body. To finish we taped a straw to the head and one to the tail. They dance beautifully and the kids are very proud of them.

Our story this week was just gorgeous:

The story is of a little girl Lin who has a pet dragon. The illustrations are simple and beautiful but what is most special about it is that the author has incorporated Chinese characters into the story.
It was so much fun to look at these and notice how clever the shapes are and how beautiful.
The boys and I listening to the story

It was fun and we have lots more ideas for next year.

But for me the celebrations aren't over yet. It's Burns Night tonight...that's dinner sorted :-)
Happy Chinese New Year and Hoots Man tae aw ma wee Scottish pals :-)

my friends farm

2012-01-24T07:50:00.000-08:00

Just look at this view:

I am so, so fortunate to live here and have this to look at out of my kitchen window! It makes me feel so happy!

The boys are still under the weather unfortunately (and if Rebe's grumpiness is anything to go by then she's not feeling 100% either). In fact both boys are on yet another anti-biotic for ear infections poor old things.

We have been at home a lot over the last few days. Joa is at a very trying age at the moment. He just wants to be big, and is so very frustrated when I don't let him. I read this great article last week and it reminded me about not putting myself in the constant position of saying 'no' and 'don't' and 'stop it' to him. I find being so negative constantly quite exhausting. Instead I am trying to re-direct Joa; to find him things that he can do. Mostly this means washing-up:

both boys would quite happily stay like this for hours, but it does usually mean ending up like this...
I think someone else is in need of a pinny ;-)

I am also trying to slow down. Instead of rushing through my 'to-do' list I stop and think what parts of it can Joa do? I breathe and calm myself. Instead of thinking of the 101 things that I would like to rush off and do if I can only get this washing on, or dishes done, I stop and I live in the moment. OK (breathe) now we are doing the dishes (breathe). I am doing it with my family, it is good(breathe), it is fun (breathe) , I can watch this little boy learn (breathe). He feels useful and important (breathe), he is happy (breathe)...we are happy (exhale).
But this really only works if I take the time to stop rushing through these jobs. If I take the time to remember that everything is a game to Joa, and can be to me.

So, after spending 30 minutes loading (and reloading) the dish washer this morning, we went to visit my dear, lovely friend and her kids.

She has just recently moved into her husband's family home. It is a very old house on a farm, it is just so beautiful and we had a wonderful morning being shown around :-)

the door bell

the front garden, Benny spotted the sheep

oh snowdrops :-)
Bramble and Joa loved each other
the orchard...where I am going to live

bees!
where Benny is going to live :-)

It was so much fun and they are such a special family to spend time with. I'm so lucky to have friends such as these.

Don't forget to enter the giveaway if you haven't done so yet, only a few days left to go :-)

our weekend...

2012-01-22T06:19:00.000-08:00

...has been like this...

Picnicking in the garden.Lots of Lego. This is my farm that Rebe made for me.
My wee sheep in case I need some more wool.

Here I am with my knitting, do you see the ball of blue wool waiting to be used?
Rebe, Benny and Andy spent about 3 hours building this rocket yesterday. Isn't it magnificent? It even has a post box :-)
There's been water play
Experiments.Lots of gardening in the green house...
he he I bet you were fooled and thought that was the real Andy didn't you!
but there are seeds going into the earth and dreams of good summer eating straight from the garden.
The boat is also getting a fresh coat of paint and is looking smart, ready to catch us lots more fish this year.
and of course I've been making. I have lots of new and exciting custom orders and I am really enjoying working on them :-)
Hope you've been having a wonderful, restful, playful weekend too :-)

kids enamelware and a great giveaway :-)

2012-01-20T12:04:00.000-08:00

When it comes to tableware I feel I have been looking for the perfect thing since the kids came along, and now I have finally found it! Joa trying his new cup and bowl

We try to avoid plastic as much as possible. This is for a number of reasons. Firstly, there is the concern of the chemicals within the plastic leaching into the children's food and drink. Secondly, plastic is environmentally a bugger to make and a bugger to dispose of. Thirdly, my kids tend to bite and chew on plastic and Rebe has complained in the past of having bitten off and swallowed small pieces! Lastly plastic things tend to be pretty ugly and garish and I really don't see why I should spend so much time and effort to make good nutritious food and then serve it to the kids in ugly cups and bowls. close up of Joa's cup

So Andy and I have looked for alternatives. The boys have Kleen Kanteens for their sippy cups, but for the rest of the tableware I have been relying on our local charity shops. Little espresso mugs and shot glasses were pretty good to drink out of, but we have managed to smash and chip our way through everything our local charity shops had to offer. This week I have found the perfect tableware for our family:

Joa's, Benny's, Rebe's cups

gorgeous, brightly coloured enamelware. It is made by a European firm called Spatum and is stocked by a wonderful little company here in Ireland! They are called Kool Kids Kitchenware and you can find them here. They have a truly beautiful range of enamelware. All brightly coloured and all with simply darling animal motifs. They are really well priced, the 6cm mugs are only 6 euro and the pitcher 25 euros.

I just love everything about them, the size is perfect child size. They actually have three sizes of cups. We choose 6cm and 7cm for our children. This gives them plenty to drink and it looks like they have a full cup. They are easy to hold and are just beyond beautiful and jolly :-) and they will last and last and last. I know by the look and feel of them that in years to come my little grandchildren will be eating and drinking from them. They are truly heirloom stuff!our new bowls

To go with the cups we got a bowl for each child too. close up of one of the cats on Joa's bowl

Of course as soon as the box arrived it was ripped open and the kids had to try the cups and bowls out straight away!

Rebe says that everything definitely tastes much better out of these bowls and to prove it the kids had 3 bowls of soup each at lunch time and 2 bowls of pasta at supper time and countless cups of milk and water and squash.
We have been in need of a jug (having smashed 2 glass ones this year) and I just had to have this one:

To be honest I would love to have every single one of the products they stock, especially one of the coffee pots, I think I will be treating myself soon! Alison the proprietor of Kool Kids Kitchenware is an absolute gem, she has been so lovely to deal with and so helpful.

And what is more she has very kindly given me this darling little mint green enamel mug to giveaway to one of you!!!

It is a 6 cm size mug and has 2 little cats on it, perfect for any wee boy or girl!

ETA 28/01/2012: The giveaway is now closed and the winner been chosen.
And here is how you can win it:

Like Kool Kids Kitchenware on face book
Share Kool Kids Kitchenware on face book
Blog about Kool Kids Kitchenware and link to their face book page
Blog about this giveaway and link back here
Check out Kool Kids Kitchenware and tell me which of their products you like best
Tweet about Kool Kids Kitchenware or this giveaway
Sing about Kool Kids Kitchenware from the mountaintops

Remember to leave a comment here to tell me what you have done to big-up Kool Kids Kitchenware and leave a comment for each action as each comment counts as one entry.

The giveaway will end next Friday (the 27th of Jan) when I will randomly choose a winner.
I am happy to send this prize anywhere in the world. Koo Kids Kitchenware will also ship worldwide by the way.

ETA: to contact Kool Kids Kitchenware please leave a message on their fb page of you can email Alison alisonmccullagh@eircom.net for more information. She has just told me that she is currently taking more pictures of her fabby stock and look out for some Valentines Day offers :-)

Good luck :-)

tiny

2012-01-19T02:16:00.000-08:00

Buddies ~ bubbles

2012-01-19T01:47:00.000-08:00

***In September 2011 6 families got together and started Buddies Home School. Each week we meet in each other's home and follow a simple rhythm: movement and music, craft/ baking, snack time, free play and story time. Each part of the session is led by a different family. We are sharing this week's session with you here...***

We were so glad to be back at Buddies this week having missed the last session due to us all being sick.

We started the session with some songs and a baking role play in which we pretended our bodies were baking ingredients and equipment. We made pretend biscuits: rolling along the floor to roll out dough, stamping our feet on the ground to cut out the shapes etc... Having worked up an appetite we started our real baking.

We made very simple scones:

300g self-raising flour
70g margarine
a pinch of salt
160g (or so) of butter milk (if you can't get butter milk you can water down plain yogurt or beat and egg and make it up to 160g with milk)
(you can add a little sugar, but we had raisins in ours so didn't bother)
Rub marg into the flour and salt, then mix in butter milk.

The children helped to mix all the ingredients in a big bowl, then everyone got a clump of dough and a little pile of raisins to decorate their own scone with.

I just had to show you Zoe's raisin supply... I know impressive isn't it!
It is probably best if someone tests the raisins first to make sure they are good.

The scones went into the oven to bake while we washed our hands and got ready for snack time.

I think snack time was the highlight of the session today because Zoe gave everyone a straw to drink their milk with....

...and H showed us all how to blow bubbles into your milk.
So much fun

After free play Susan took us all on a bear hunt...
We were going to catch a big one. It was such a beautiful day and no-one was scared!
We swished through grass,
splashed through a river,
squelched through mud,
stumbled through a forest,
shivered through a snow storm and there, behind the sofa in a cave...
A BEAR!!! quick run.....back home, under the covers :-)

It was great to be back and we're looking forward to next week already.

mud and worms

2012-01-17T07:06:00.000-08:00

After Rebe went to school today the boys (well they were dogs at the time) and I headed to the woods for a walk.We visited the dragon treeWe watched the waves roll in against the shore
and we played shops,

there is even a new shop keeper and he doesn't even mind tasting all the produce for you.

It has been rather wet here the last few days and as a result a bit muddy. Benny was walking along in front of Joa and I and as he squelched delightedly through the mud he said 'Me love squelching in the mud!'

Why? I thought, Why Benny is it so great? So I thought it was time to remind myself...

Mud is one of those things that grown ups seem to spend too much of their lives trying to avoid. Our minds scream: What about the washing? What is I slip and fall and look daft? What if I have a hole in my boot and my foot gets all wet? So most of our mud experience is about avoiding it.
But a child lives in his body. His brain does not think about the consequences of mud instead mud is a bodily experience. It looks slimy and oozy and slippy. It is brown and has squished leaves in it and maybe a worm? It sounds hilarious and one can't help but giggle at the bubbly, slurpy squelches. And it feels truly divine: not solid under foot, it is spongey and slidey and splashy. It was really lovely to re-experience mud. Don't our kids have so much to teach us if only we stop and listen to their lessons?On our way home through our neighbours garden, who did we spot...

Mr Robin :-) and he had a big juicy worm with him that we watched him eat half of before he flew off I suppose in case we tried to take it away and eat it...so what better way to end the morning but making worm biscuits:

They tasted so good especially when eating singing: 'Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I think I'll go and eat worms. Big fat juicey ones, wee skinny scooshy ones, see how they wiggle and squirm. for you bite off their heads and sook out the juice and throw the skins away. You will see how I survive on worms three times a day' (from the Singing Kettle :-))

a decision and a wee tip

2012-01-16T10:18:00.000-08:00

First my wee tip: Do you know that time of day when you're trying to cook dinner, have a million pots on at the same time, the kids are cross and hungry, you are cross and hungry, everyone is driving everyone mad? Well here is a wee tip passed down to me from my dear mother...
Frozen peas, yup, it's as simple as that. Give them a wee handful, or an egg cup full of frozen peas and the peace will be restored...plus it's another one of their 5 a day. Have you never tried frozen peas? Well you must and your kids will thank you for it.
All we are saying...is give peas a chance (sorry but it had to be done)

And now my decision... I have decided to get a pinny/overall/apron. Does that make me old...or just sensible? Because I am sick of looking like this....

I had this top on for less than an hour and Joa covered me with porridge and yoghurt, I am so tired of looking like a well used table cloth, so I am going to get an apron! Anyone any suggestions...anyone want to make one for me?

So we're all feeling better now, thank goodness, life is getting back to normal and I hope we will be out and about lots this week. I have been feeling slightly starved of adult company.

Look at this lovely yarn, I am still on the search for the ultimate rainbow yarn. The variation on the colour is actually going to make very wide stripes, so I can't use it, as intended for my dolls. It will make a sweet sweater though fo Joa maybe?

I also found a gorgeous, new scarf in a charity shop yesterday. Och I just can't leave hand knit things in charity shops, it breaks my heart.
It is a silk blend and just so soft and gorgeous (you're missing out person whom it was knitted for and just chucked it into the charity bag, I'm telling you!)

So I thought I'd unravel it and use it for something else, like this dolls hat.
hugs x

Little Play People Tutorial

2012-01-15T07:11:00.001-08:00

This tutorial was first published in JUNO summer edition 2011, I thought that I would share it with you here.

Materials:
Fabric scraps
T-shirt material in a skin colour
Needle and thread
Wool roving/ stuffing
2 pipe cleaners
Grain (millet/ salt/ sand/ lentils/ rice)
Fine black marker pen
Red wax crayon

Head

To make the head, cut a piece of t-shirt fabric approximately 10cm x 10cm.
Roll a piece of wool roving or stuffing up into a tight ball about the size of a walnut. Wrap this in your skin fabric. Secure the skin by wrapping a length of strong thread around the bottom of the ball and tying several knots.

Arms
Cut 2 more squares of t-shirt fabric approximately 4cm x 4cm.
Take a pipe cleaner, about 1 cm down fold the pipe cleaner over. Wrap this in a little wool roving/ stuffing and then wrap the t-shirt material around it. Tie this on tightly with strong thread. It should look like a little lolly pop.

Sleeves (make 2)
Cut a piece of fabric that measures 6cm x 10 cm. Fold this in half (right side in) and sew along the edge. Turn your tube right side out. Insert the pipe cleaner. Fold the edge of the sleeve over and stitch to the hand

Body
Cut a circle approximately 6cm in diameter in the same/ matching fabric. Also cut a rectangle of the same fabric 14cm x 10cm. With the right sides in sew the edge of the circle to the edge of the rectangle. Then sew up the side of the rectangle to make a tube. Leave a gap of about 3 cm from the top and cut a slit of 3cm on the opposite side of your tube. This is where the arms will stick out. Turn the tube right side out and half fill with your grainStuff the tube tightly with wool roving/ stuffing up to the bottom of the arm slits.

Wrap the pipe cleaners around the neck of the head then insert this into the top of the body. Folding the top of the material over, stitch the material into the neck. Next, sew the two side of the tube closed over the tops of the arms to make shoulders and stitch around the arm holes into the sleeves

The basic body shape is finished, now for the fun part; decorating and finishing your little person. Use a fine nib, permanent marker to draw on a simple face, or of course you could emboider the face using cotton thread. Rub a little red wax crayon onto the cheeks to give them a bit of colour.

Hair
For long hair, wrap some wool yarn around a book or CD case then cut at one side so you have lots of long strands. Carefully, so as not to bunch them up, sew a seam down the middle of the yarn, turn and repeat a few times. Firmly stitch this to your dolls head and then enjoy making her hairstyles. You may want to add the odd stitch here and there to secure the hair further down the head.
The gnomes beard and fringe is made by stitching yarn directly into his head leaving long loops. You may want to mark in pencil where you want his beard to be before you start to make it look even.

Clothing
The gnomes coat and the princess’ robe are made by lying the body onto a piece of fabric 11cm x 6cm (the princess’ robe is much longer, you can play around with this). Mark where the tops and bottoms of the arms are. Cut along these slits, I used pinking shears so I didn’t have to hem them, otherwise you may want to hem the edges to stop them unravelling. Then fold the top of the fabric down to just above the arm holes, and sew along. If you like you can add a button or snap fastens or a simple tie so the coat will open and close.
To make a gnome hat fold a triangle of fabric that will fit onto the head. With right sides together sew up the back. Turn the hat right side out, folding the edges under, firmly stitch to the head.
The Princess crown is a piece of yellow felt cut with a zig zag, joined at one end and firmly stitched onto her head.

These are lovely toys, my kids really enjoy them. There are no limits to the dolls you can create; a family for the dolls house, characters from fairy tales. I’m sure you will enjoy creating these little play people as much as your little people will enjoy playing with them.

from the camera

2012-01-11T03:49:00.000-08:00

While we're all recovering from various ailments, I thought I'd share with you some randoms that didn't make it out of the camera yet... The sweetest picture by Rebe 'I love you daddy, I love you too Rebe'

It seems that Benny is by-passing drawing and going straight to writing. I showed him the day before how to draw a 'big B', the next day he sat down and made this 'thank you' card for his Uncle...

the gap

the charm brought by the tooth fairy

some of the wonderful books we got for Christmas that we're happily working our way through

a 'just because' cake, you know...just because

sledging down the hill in the back garden

pah who needs snow!

Joa being a dog. He loves this game. Look at the amusement in Rebe's face, now she has a 'real' dog!

dog food (in real life it's breakfast cereal) to our utter delight when he lifted his head one of the pieces of cereal had stuck to his upper lip with snotter. It was so funny we couldn't take a non- wobbly picture for laughing...but maybe you had to be there ;-)

this is how we've been feeling around here...

2012-01-10T06:08:00.000-08:00

'...but I do feel so ill," said Timmy Willie'

from Beatrix Potters The Tale of Johnny Town-Mouse
I hope we all feel better soon!

a knitted Mr Robin

2012-01-07T08:09:00.000-08:00

Yesterday the kids were playing in the garden when Rebe called me out. I thought they were going to show me how fast they could grass sledge down the hill (hence I had a my camera). Instead the kids showed me a little dead robin, I suppose one of the cats got it. Poor Benny was so upset. He has a particular relationship with 'Mr Robin'. They have been friends for years and Benny always looks out for him in the garden. So we came in and hugged and talked about Mr Robin and we did a few tribute crafts. I find making things a kind of therapy with the kids. It is a good way to physically process things that happen to them.
Anyway, we started off with little paper robins to hang at the window.

We made them out of baking paper and they fly sweetly when there is a breeze on them. Rebe then asked if we could knit a robin for Benny so he would have one to hold. This is what we came up with (complete with a couple of worms):

And this is how to make one:

Knitted Robin

You need: scrap of brown yarn, scraps of red yarn or red felt, tiny beads and a tiny piece of yellow felt.

Body
Cast On 18 stitches.
Knit one row
Decrease one stitch at the beginning of every row until you have one stitch left on your needles. Bind off

Head
Cast on 5 stitches
Knit 12 rows
Bind off

Now you need to fold the body as follows and stitch up using some brown yarn.

Fold A1 to B1.

Stitch for about 1 inch or half way along the triangle (A2 and B2).

Fold A3 to A4 and stitch about half way along (the two flaps left at the sides are your wings).

Stuff with wool roving and close the hole all the way across.

To make the red breast we made lots of red stitches on the tummy with some red yarn. The kids did this bit. They always like to join in with these making projects, and I always encourage them. You could stitch on an oval of red felt here instead if you liked.

Now take the head piece and fold in half, stitch along the edges and stuff with a little roving.

Now sew the head onto the top of the body above the red breast and between the wings.

Sew on little beads (or perhaps use little scraps of black felt) and little felt beak.

Don't forget to give them a couple of worms to eat.

The kids cheered up some with these robins and spent a good deal of time making them nests out of any little cup like things they could find. I think these would look sweet as a wee mobile or hanging some from branches as part of our nature table!

And guess what, this morning while we were having breakfast a little robin hopped off the wall into the garden to eat some nuts we had scattered. Benny is happy again :-)

doll exchange

2012-01-06T01:50:00.000-08:00

As many of you know the run up to Christmas was pretty busy for me this year. I spent many wonderful hours making custom order dolls for people around the world. However all this doll making meant that I didn't have time to make any gifts for my own children for Christmas. I had really wanted to make Joa some play food to go with the play kitchen and accessories that the boys got for their birthdays last year. But I knew that I would be really pushing to get it made, so I thought that I would look in Etsy to find him some...at least that way it would still be homemade right? I found this wonderful shop and straight away Tori's work appealed to me. (The pictures are courtesy of Tori as I can't get a still photo of them at all, they are so played with :-) I 'liked' her work and went off to think about how we could afford to get a load of her play food. A few days later I had a message from Tori through Etsy thanking me for my interest and saying that she liked my dolls and was hoping to get one for her daughter in the new year. So I proposed a swap, like value for like...and she agreed. I was so delighted. She set to work straight away after helping me to choose the right food for our family. A few weeks later a wee box arrived in the mail with all this wonderful play food. I can't tell you how beautifully it is made, obviously with much love and care. I bought a little wicker shopping basket from the local market to keep it in and Joa was delighted to open it on Christmas Day.

If you are looking for felt play food here is where to go! Oh by the way, Tori is hosting a completely brilliant giveaway on her blog right now, do pop over and enter!

Anyway, back to the exchange, in return for all these (almost) edible goodies I made her daughter this doll:She is one of my favourites and I love her little outfits. Actually Tori sent me the fabrics. They were off cuts from special things and it was so cool be able to make them into doll clothes.This little dress is made of fabric that Tori used to make her daughter her first Birthday dress. It gave me a good idea about offering customers a lovely way to reuse special items of clothing. You know the ones: things your kids have grown out of but you just can't bear to part with them? How lovely would it be to have them up cycled into dolls clothes...I just need to figure out a way to offer this to my customers...any suggestions welcome.

I really loved doing this exchange. It gave me a way to 'afford' something that would normally be completely beyond our very tight budget. It also felt to right and good to be cutting out all middle men, the banks, pay pal, tax etc and just exchange one person's talents for another. This is certainly becoming more popular, there are local exchange groups setting up everywhere and my friend even pointed me in the direction of a craft exchange site (which I can't find the link for right now, but if I do I'll post it).

Exchange is something that I really am keen to do again. One reason for this is that I truly, from the bottom of my heart, believe that all children should be entitled to beautiful, quality play things. However, coming from a low income family, I know how difficult this is to do on a budget. Sometimes the gorgeous, handmade things just are not an option. This is why I try and keep my prices as low as possible, to make my dolls accessible to as many people as possible.

So, if you would like to own an Under Rainbows doll but the budget won't allow it please know that I am open to barter and exchange. In particular, I would love someone to knit me this, and we love wooden/ felt toys. Try me, the worst I can say is no (in a nice way).

Have you been part of an exchange like this before? I'd love to hear about it!

my best christmas ever!

2012-01-02T04:55:00.000-08:00

It truly was. We had a wonderful time. I really lived in the moment which meant I took very few pictures, but what I did take I'll share with you now.

After my doll making marathon I started making a big long 'to-do' list. I could feel the pressure rising, I wanted everything to be perfect and started to over-imagine and over-plan. Andy gently brought me back to earth asking why I was making more work for myself when I had worked so hard making sure I finished all of my dolls in plenty of time so I could relax and enjoy the holiday. So true! What was I thinking? So I took a big black marker to my list and crossed pretty much all of it off. Immediately I could feel myself relaxing.
I also started the Christmas holiday with a really great yoga session and then I gave myself the gift of an Ayurveda consultation. My wonderful yoga instructor is also an Ayurveda consultant and I had a nearly 2 hour consult with her. It was wonderful and I have felt so grounded ever since.

My only real wish for Christmas was to have an open fire and sit before it reading with the kids. And I got to do it :-) They really enjoyed the experience too. It was very special and I felt that as I got my wish I could relax even more.

The only crafting we did on Christmas eve was making a Guinea Pig garland. We cut out lots of Christmas tree shapes from cabbage leaves and threaded them onto strong twine along with carrot discs to hang up in their run.

It worked surprisingly well and Rebe was so thrilled to have a gift for her 'Guineas', they of course loved it too.

This is the only picture I have of Christmas day. It was simply lovely...simple and lovely. We opened gifts and read stories and called relatives and watched movies.

The boys helped with the washing up, we had a lovely roast chicken dinner, made swanky with wee willie winkies (cocktail sausages).
The day ended with even more magic. Rebe was brushing her teeth and she called to me 'Mummy my tooth came out'. After nearly 3 months the wobbler came out. I wonder if the tooth fairy and Santa passed each other? The tooth fairy, who has been prepared for weeks, brought Rebe a little silver charm bracelet with a little charm on it (my camera is refusing to load any pictures right now so I will share this at a later date). I have to say the tooth fairy had her work cut out for her! Rebe woke twice when I went in to her room and she had her little tooth bag very tightly gripped in her fist. But the fairy managed the exchange in the end and Rebe was delighted when she woke up!

A few days after Christmas Andy's younger brother arrived with his family for a few day's visit. It was so great!

Lots of eating, playing, drinking, singing, playing snap, drawing, walking, getting wet, having coffee and ice cream, talking, hugging, playing daft games. It was such a celebration of our family, and we all had a wonderful time. It was also very relaxing as all the work and especially the 'Joa control' was shared which meant I had lots of time to join in and sit back and chill out.

Since they have left we have been out walking, playing with our new toys, reading our new books. We still have a full week left of holidays which is great. We are planning some visiting and swimming is also on the cards.

Happy New Year to you all! I hope 2012 brings much joy, happiness and health to us all.

For myself my three wishes for the year are:

to get in touch with my female cycle, to understand it and myself better

to carry on on my path to health, I have a deep desire to get running again and I am also very interested in barefoot running, so I may look into that.

I also feel like I am definitely on the right path for myself. Things are happening to and for me that feel so right and so I want to continue on this life path and allow the flow of that to take me to where I need to go.

What are your wishes for this year?

reindeer food and a giveaway winner

2011-12-23T05:59:00.000-08:00

It is so warm and balmy here for the time of year. In fact it is hard to believe Christmas is so soon! Rebe is on holiday now and it is so wonderful to have her to ourselves and to have all of our jobs done and just free time ahead of us. To fill a few hours we thought we would go to the woods to find special reindeer food to leave for Santa tomorrow evening. We checked the fairy cave on the way, and what do you know there were 3 coins there. We left them in case they were someones wishes though.

We had a look at the waves from the cliff top, and stopped off at the beach,

playing a game of islands.

After that we got down to work gathering reindeer food. I didn't know anything about this, but luckily the kids did.

We needed to find a good moss tree

then find the thickest clumps of moss.

Reindeer like bracken too.

Then (quickly before mummy finds you) mix in some oats, honey and breakfast cereal.

Garnish with a carrot and leave where Santa is sure to find it and pass it on to the relevant reindeer.

We are going carol singing at our friends house later so we are going to have a quiet afternoon reading this and this and this and perhaps even watching a movie.

And now to our giveaway, thank you for all the comments it was lovely to get so many responses :-) We wrote out the numbers of the comments on pieces of paper and a little lady with a baby who came to visit kindly drew a number out of my Christmas stocking...

It is number 14....

that's you meli-mello. Please email me your address (laura.whalen@yahoo.ie) and I will post your copy of the Winter edition of JUNO to you :-)

Wishing you all a very Happy Christmas, I hope it is full of joy and wonder, magic and happiness
x x

Winter Solstice

2011-12-21T07:44:00.000-08:00

We don't usually celebrate the solstice. I find that there is so much going on in the ways of celebrations at this time of year that trying to squeeze in another would just be too much.
However, today we were given a truly beautiful gift for the solstice and I want to share it with you.
On our return from collecting Rebe from school we met our postie who handed a silver parcel through the car window to us. The parcel was from a very sweet friend of mine that I met online. She is an incredible story writer and has written some really special stories for Rebe. I really hope that one day she will sit down and write a book of them all! Inside the parcel was this beautiful little treasure chest and inside the chest a long, soft white silk and a wonderful, hand written story.

Of course we had to read it straight away! The story is of a little boy who, on the night of the winter solstice, had to leave his home and all of his toys for a whole year. It is the story of how upset he was and how his cries were heard by a mermaid, a mermaid with the most beautiful long hair.

look at the concern on Rebe's face as I was telling her how upset the little boy was to have to leave his two favourite dolls

The mermaid cut off her hair and gave it to the little boy to play with. He was so happy and he played with the mermaids hair for a whole year until the winter solstice came around again. He returned home to his beloved toys again and although he still loved playing with the mermaid's hair 'he understood that the greatest gifts are the ones you can share.' So he found a little girl who didn't have any toys to play with and he gave her the mermaids gift. He explained that it was hers to play with for one whole year, but when the next winter solstice came, she should pass it on to someone else'

The story ends: 'Now it is in your hands. It is your privilege to keep it until the winter solstice comes again. It is your duty to then pass it on to someone else, along with this story, so they too can enjoy the mermaids gift.'

This is truly one of the most magical gifts we have ever received! I love the imagination, the thought, the simplicity, the sentiment and above all the adventure. Now winter solstice has a meaning for us, it has a legend: that of the mermaids gift and we are now part of this story too. Next year, we have a new celebration, a new tradition, a new duty, that of passing on the mermaid's hair to the next child...I wonder who it will be?

Are we not so lucky to have a friend like this?! Of course Rebe has been playing with the mermaid's hair all afternoon and we have read the story over and over.

After all the excitement I did managed to settle her down to some cake decorating this afternoon.

We have made a little Christmas tree cake for each child in her school class.
The children all give each other little cards here. Every child in the class gives each child in their class a card. Personally I just can't go in for this. I'm sure that for some people they do sit down with their kids and help them to think about and celebrate and remember each child in their class, write a little message of love and cheer, but I'm sure for other's it is just something you do. Everyone else does it so there is an obligation to give cards back, who after all would want their child to be left out?

Well I just can't do it, it just feels like a big waste of time, money and paper to me. After all Rebe has no idea who gave her which card or even why they have done it. So (as usual) we are doing our own thing. We do want Rebe to give to her class mates, to show them love and good cheer, but not in an empty (expensive gesture) so instead we bake. Last year we made a gingerbread house and this year we have made a little forest of Christmas trees.

She will take them in with her tomorrow on the last day of term. And then it's the Christmas holidays whoop whoop :-) I'm sure when we have all 3 kids at school the Christmas baking tradition will be crazy, but you never know perhaps it will be manageable and fun?

So I wish you a very happy solstice and I hope it was as full of love and giving and thoughtfulness as ours turned out to be.

Oh if you haven't done so remember to leave a comment here for a chance to win the winter edition of JUNO ~ with 2 pieces written by me in it :-)

how to clean a waldorf doll

2011-12-21T02:57:00.000-08:00

I would like to share with you how we here Under Rainbows clean our Waldorf dolls.

Waldorf dolls are stuffed with sheep's wool. It is a gorgeous material to work with and I love the qualities it brings to the doll. It brings weight: it is heavier than cotton and also synthetic stuffing which lends the doll itself a good weight. Wool holds warmth: imagine all of the body heat from the little person holding it being absorbed into the doll. Imagine how lovely it is to wake up in the night looking for your special and they are warm to the touch, as if they were living themselves. I also love that the wool holds smell. Eventually, after lots of love, the natural smell of your child will be absorbed into the dolls wool and the doll will smell very familiar and comforting. I know that smell for me was so important as a child and I needed my special to smell just right for it to be of true comfort. So, that's some of the why behind using wool in making a Waldorf doll, the only thing is, they take a little more caring for than a wipe-clean plastic dolly does.
I really recommend that Waldorf dolls are spot cleaned for as long as possible. Spot cleaning means cleaning only those little bits that really need it rather than immersing the whole doll in water. This is because the wool stuffing can felt making the doll bumpy and hard.

To spot clean you need some warm water, an old, soft tooth brush and some mild soap. I like using baby soap or shampoo or a castel soap.

Wet the tooth brush and rub a tiny bit of soap onto it.

Very gently, in small circles, brush the soapy toothbrush over the spots (dirty bits).

Rinse the brush in clean warm (but not hot) water.

Brush over the skin in one direction. Try to follow the knit of the fabric. Repeat this until all of the soap has been rinsed off. Leave your doll to dry flat and naturally.

If the dolly is very dirty or has been saturated with...something ;-) then this is what we do to give them a full wash.

**If you are washing a doll with hair I recommend that you keep the hair dry if at all possible, tie it up in a pony tail or invent a dolly shower cap, tie a small plastic bag over her hair perhaps.**

Fill a basin with warm, not hot, water. Add a little soap; a very mild detergent or a pure soap or again baby shampoo or soap.

Immerse the doll in the water and very gently wash. You can slowly allow the water to seep through the wool, but try not to agitate it too much. For the worst bits you can use the old toothbrush trick mentioned above.
When the doll is clean refill the sink with warm clean water and repeat the process to rinse.

While the doll is still wet make sure that her skin is still in the right place. Smooth the little face out, position the arms and legs to their natural place.

Allow to dry naturally and flat until they are completely dry.

To re-blush the cheeks (when the doll is completely dry) I warm my fingers up by rubbing them together.

When they are good and warm I rub a red wax crayon over them. A little of the wax comes off onto my finger.

I rub my finger in a gentle circular motion over the apple of the cheek. I repeat this until the cheek is as red as I desire it. It is a good way of doing it as it builds up layers of red and is very forgiving.
And there they; are ready to be loved and played with again :-)

Oh one last little tip: If smell/ warmth is very important to your child stuff the clean doll up your top next to your skin and wear it for as long as you can manage. This way some of your special smell and warmth will be absorbed into the doll taking some of the strangeness of the clean and newly washed smell away. I remember my poor mum walking around for hours with one or other of our specials up her vest. She'd be like an oven baking cakes, we'd take it out, have a cuddle...nope not ready yet and shove it back up there for a while longer.

I hope this is of help, if you have any questions please do ask and I will do my best to answer them.

Buddies~ Christmas Party

2011-12-19T07:54:00.000-08:00

Today was the Buddies Home School Christmas Party, it was a great success, 'C' even informed me that it was his favourite Christmas Party :-)

We started off with the Christmas songs that we have been practising over the last few weeks. Then we played some party games: musical statues, musical bumps and hunt the thimble (well troll). After that we sent the kids to play for a bit while we prepared our feast for them. Everyone had brought something, we focused on savoury and healthy snacks with delicious home made soda breads, tortillas (Greg I know they weren't really tortillas but I can't remember what you called them ;-)) We had veggies to dip into cream cheese, lovely cheese biscuits and wee willie winkies (cocktail sausages for those of you not Scottish). It was gorgeous, and the kids truly feasted.

When everyone had finished we cleared the table and sang 'We Wish you a Merry Christmas' as we brought the gingerbread house to the table,

and then the kids feasted again!

The kids went off for some free play time in the playroom and we cleared the table for the parents to have a cup of tea and some gorgeous pies baked by Yvonne (thank you x)

We sang the clean up song and tidied up making a space for us to sit down in a circle to read our story. I read Stick Man for the children. Then we wondered if we sing loud enough would Santa hear us and come to visit? We tried and shouted out Jingle Bells at the tops of our voices, and what do you know he did hear us! We opened the door and he had left bags of presents. The gifts Santa brought have actually been a few weeks in the making. We wanted to give each family something special, but also practical and something that will give all the children a lot of play. So we decided to make a rainbow of play cloths for each family.Last evening Roisin and I bundled them up and popped them into their bags. It's a shame the colours didn't come out better in the picture, but they really looked very sweet. One evening last week we had got together after the kids were in bed and had a dye party.

We brought a bucket each and we dyed 6 muslin squares for each family: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. Of course while we were waiting for the dye to take we had a wee bite to eat...
It was a really fun evening and it was so lovely today to see the children getting so much pleasure from such a simple gift :-)
A truly merry time was had by all!

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas from all the Buddies x

school nativity

2011-12-18T09:50:00.000-08:00

This afternoon was the school nativity show. It had everything a school nativity should have:
A rock and roll theme, little boys with such broad Cork accents I couldn't understand them, forgotten lines and forgotten moves. A crown held up by ears, samurai warriors, people dressed in rugs and throws, lots of wonderful singing, Mary having to go back off stage to collect a forgotten Jesus, bum-achingly long speeches at the end and an angel who wobbled her tooth throughout the whole thing :-)and a little brother who also wanted to be an angel :-)

a delicate matter

2011-12-16T04:04:00.000-08:00

Last night, with shaking hands I performed my most nerve wracking crafting. Lambie, Benny's special, was in severe need of facial surgery.
The patient

My surgical instruments

The result! I pulled it off :-)
I gave him some new skin over the top of his old skin and replaced his eyes and stitched on a new nose and mouth. I have managed to keep him looking about the same as he was before.
I hope his new face improves his behaviour somewhat! Benny tells me that at night when all the other specials go to the curls shop to get curls to knot into the children's hair Lambie stays at home in bed eating snotters. He also spends a good deal of the day time throwing himself violently around the house. Yesterday he threw himself at our poor old Christmas tree 5 times and knocked so many needles and decorations off that I had to send him out of the room to sit on the stairs until bedtime (where he probably sat and ate snotters).

Benny is delighted and Lambie's new face has been having lots of cuddles...and tea and banana cake.

I also wanted to show you the wreath that I finished today after the boys and I came back from our morning walk.

I'm pleased with how it came out. I'll certainly be making more of them in the future :-)

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend, and don't forget to enter my giveaway to win a copy of JUNO magazine here.

JUNO winter issue 26 ~ giveaway

2011-12-15T06:36:00.000-08:00

I am so excited!!! The postie has just been and brought me 2 copies of the winter edition of JUNO. I love this magazine, it is just filled to the brim with everything I like: recipes, craft ideas and tutorials, really interesting articles and debates. It is all about the natural family, it discusses so many issues that I face as a mother and that we face as a family. It is a truly great resource and one of those wonderful magazines that I dip in and out of again and again, going back for a recipe I remember or to look at a book review.

I was so delighted to contribute to the Summer Issue, I did a tutorial for little play people, a tutorial I will post here at some point too. I was so delighted when the editorial team asked me to contribute again for the winter issue.

And you will find me here:

and here...

I'm particularly proud of this piece about slings and evolution. (I also want to point out to my dear Dad that I used some of the paleoanthropology that I studied at Uni...see it wasn't a complete waste lol)

As I mentioned I received 2 copies. I have a subscription to JUNO (this is such good value for money and I urge you to treat yourself) and I also got a complimentary copy as a contributor, so I am going to give away a copy here.
All you need to do is leave a comment.
For extra chances you can follow my blog, like JUNO on facebook or twitter, buy a subscription to JUNO or blog about this giveaway (remember to leave a comment for each action so that you get all your chances, each comment counts as only one entry).
I am very happy to post overseas :-)
The draw will be made on Friday the 22nd of December, please check back in then to see if you won, or make sure that I have a way to contact you.
And what is even more exciting is that I've been asked to contribute again so keep a look out for me in the Spring edition :-)

Now I'm off to sit with my mug of barley cup and read the afternoon away :-)

Buddies ~ beeswax candles

2011-12-14T10:26:00.000-08:00

In September 2011, 6 families got together and started Buddies Home School. We meet together every week and follow a simple rhythm; music and movement, craft/ baking, snack time, free play and story time. Each part of the session is led by a different family. We are sharing this week's activities with you here: The children were in very high spirits this morning. Perhaps it is the wind blowing strongly outside, but they were full of shouts and leaps and springs and giggles. It was very hard to get any pictures of music and movement. Looking back through them they are just blurs of colour ;-) We practiced our Christmas songs again today, Jingle Bells was shouted out with much glee and the bells rang loudly. In the end there was so much energy swirling around the room that we had to find a funky music CD and vigorously dance the sillies out. This is another great advantage to the way Buddies is set up; we can read the mood and needs of the children and adjust our session accordingly.

After a pretty good work out we were ready to settle down to some work. We painted the salt dough decorations and candle holders that we had made last week at the main table:While this was going on I took a few children at a time over to another little table and we rolled some beeswax candles.

This was a lovely activity to do. It is so quick and so simple and yet the kids love it. The tactility of it, the smell and the fact that they have made something so beautiful all by themselves.

We made a lovely stack of candles, each child made at least one.

During snack time we lit the most squinty, squashed-by-Joa candle.

During free play the mummies sat and planned our Christmas party for next week and we also managed to plan our sessions into mid February. Oh we have such lovely things planned :-)

After we cleaned up Roisine read us the Nativity. The children helped her tell the story with a lovely little finger puppet set that she had brought with her.

It worked so well that we repeated it a second time. This time a quiet reverence (finally) settled over the children and as the story finished we very gently sang Away in a Manger.

We ended our last proper session of the year with our goodbye song, leaving just the final goodbyes, tidy up, and the littlest boys to do the washing up :-)

hm hm hmmm ,hm hm hmmm, hm hm hm hm hmmmmm

2011-12-12T11:14:00.000-08:00

(...that's me humming Jingle Bells).
I'm on holiday! I have completed all of my doll orders and only the local ones are still sitting in my room upstairs waiting to be collected and hidden away by mama's. So now I can relax and enjoy the coming festive season. a tissue paper angel I made this afternoon.

Last night the kids deocrated the tree. It is a bit wonky and some branches are more favoured than others but it has...erm..charm. Actually it is very sweet and Joa is so taken with it.

I have been trying my hand at weaving a wreath. We have lots of willow out the back in the field next door to us. It is lovely to work with and I am suprised that it is working. I'm following instructions given in the winter edition of JUNO.

Next I need to gather some greenery and berries to decorate it with.

I have been trying to catch up on some of my house work which has been woefully neglected over the past couple of months. The boys were very happy to join in doing their own bit of work,

washing up the playdough cutters.

This is 'Joe'. When Benny has this hat on he is a worker called Joe. He's been very helpful today, very handy to have around :-)

To reward all of our work we did a bit of baking. We have been reading lots of Beatrix Potter at the moment, especially The Tale of Samuel Whiskers. This has replaced Dogger as Benny's favourite and we read it at least 3 times a day. While I was tidying my cook books I found my own Beatrix Potter cook book that was mine as a little girl. So we had to make these oat biscuits (we will try the roly-poly pudding soon no doubt).

They were yummy and Rebe was delighted when she got in from school to find some warm, tastey goodies made for her (with love).

I have a feeling that it is going to be a very merry Christmas this year :-)

Every stitch made with love

2011-12-10T07:35:00.000-08:00

That is what the signature on my etsy shop says. And it is true I make every stitch of everything I make with love. A dear friend of mine asked me years ago why my coffee tastes so good, and my answer quite flippantly was, 'because it is made with love'. And do you know what? Food that is made with care and love does taste better and I bet it is more nourishing and has better benefit and value for our bodies.

In the same way I am certain that emotion is trasfered into the crafts and art we make. You can see when an artist is angry, the anger comes right through the paintbrush and through the paint and into the canvas. You can hear sadness in the voice of a singer and I think that you can see love in my dolls.

I love each and every one of the dolls that I make. Not in a 'oh I'm so clever look what I can make' big-headed sort of way, but as I make them love flows through me into them. I love working with natural materials, gorgeous fabrics and beautiful yarn. And I really love the waldorf philosophy behind these dolls. As I form their little heads and feel the weight of them in my hands. As the warmth of my fingers heats the wool I use to stuff them, my energy flows directly into the doll and I think remains there, woven into it's very fabric. For this reason I only make dolls when I am feeling good, happy and positive. My dolls are designed to be played with, to be loved, to be confided in and searched out by their special little people for play, adventures and comfort. Because a doll is so special and because they are in such close contact with their special little person (physically, emotionally and spiritually) I feel that it is vital that they are made with love and care and fun and affection.

Imagine a cold, hard plastic doll, made by someone in a factory, perhaps not in great conditions, perhaps poorly paid, perhaps having a really bad day. Surely very little 'good' and 'love' is being poured into this doll? I don't like to imagine my children playing with something that is infused with sadness or anger. I also don't like to think of my children playing with something that's production has harmed someone (like child labour) or harms the environment.

This is why I LOVE handmade items. Food, clothing, toys,, household items etc can all be made by hand by you, by someone else.

I like to give handmade gifts, I love to pour my love and thought for the person I am gifting to into what I am making. I know that making for my children is my own mother's way of connecting with them. When she is in the UK and we here in Ireland, everytime she makes a stitch on a cardi for Joa, she is kissing him. Everytime she sews Rebe a dress she is hugging her, every letter for Benny is written with a thousand thoughts. It is important for her to be able to express these millions of thoughts and hugs and kisses from afar as we don't get to see her more than 3 or 4 times a year if we're lucky. And you can be sure that when the children wear or play with something my mum has made for them, they know it is extra special because they can feel the love from her for them. Thought is a very powerful thing. It is the basis of any physical thing. I have found that when I am making dolls for little people whom I know, they do end up resembling each other. I am sure that this is because I spend a great amount of the hours involved in crafting one of my dolls thinking of that person; remembering times we have spent together, imagining them playing with the doll. It is as if my thoughts are translated by my hands moulding the doll into shape. This is also the reason that I like making custom order dolls, especially when the parents have a lot of contact with me and send me pictures and stories of the person I am making the doll for. It's a very special process and I feel so lucky to have a role in it.

It is so very true that every one of my dolls is made with love.

Can you tell?

mothering...

2011-12-08T06:07:00.000-08:00

'If, when they are small, children have a consistent sense of having their mothers being there when needed, as they grow older they learn to take in ever lasting love and can "remember" the feeling. This leads to the security of knowing that Mother loves you even when she's in the other room. Or at an office. As they grow, they feel safe away from their mothers as they realize that the feeling of 'mother' is really a feeling inside. They learn to love themselves not on the basis of something from outside but from inside, from their own resevoir of security, self-acceptance, and self-love. This inner security and happiness offers the basis for a lifetime of freedom from fears and stress.'

from A Woman's Best Medicine by Lonsdorf, Butler, Brown

I love this idea of 'mother' being a feeling inside. What do you think?

Buddies ~ getting festive

2011-12-07T07:26:00.000-08:00

*** In September 2011 6 families got together and started Buddies Home School. We meet each week at each other's homes and follow a simple rhythm; music and movement, craft/baking, snack, free play and a story. Each part of the session is led by a different family. We are sharing this week's activites with you here...***

(have you ever seen a cuter Santa?)
We were a little half-a-buddies group today, the other half being sick or unavailable. We hope they all feel better soon. We still had a lovely time today and were starting to get all festive. We sang some carols during music and movement, acting out Away in a Manger

Rudolph the Red Nose Raindeer

and Jingle Bells. Little S really enjoyed the music this week, we could see her starting to copy many of the actions and her grin was just to die for!

We made salt dough christmas tree decorations and candle holders. We used this recipe: 4 cups plain flour, 1 cup salt, 1 - 1.5 cups water (kneed for 4 - 6 mins). It was the first time we tried this recipe and it was great, not sticky and was very easy to work with.

We rolled it out and used Christmasy shape cutters

For the candle holders we made a circle and depressed the middle with a bottle top.

Then we decorated them with dried lentils, peas and beans and made little holes in the tops for ribbon to hang them with.

They came out lovely.

Right now I am baking them in the oven at 100 degrees for an hour, then I'll turn the oven off and let them sit for the rest of the night. This should dry them out enough. We shall finish them next week by painting the candle holders with tempra paint and varnishing the tree decorations with pva glue.

snack time

nap time (heart)

Story time.

Amanda read the Gruffalo's Child with us, it was so much fun and Roisine even had a large and small Gruffalo teddy for us to act it out with.

Next week is our last Buddies session of the year apart from the Christmas party. Looking forward to it already :-)

today...

2011-12-05T11:14:00.000-08:00

we all woke up with horrible colds.
Rebe was coughing and complaining so we decided to keep her at home to rest (she seems a bit better now so I'm glad we did).
We kept today warm and calm and filled with chicken soup and stories.
We made lego in the morning (and afternoon and evening).
As I mentioned in my last post Bubs filled our sweet advent calendar ~ as she does every year ~ Everyday there is a little chocolate for each child and some lego to build including instructions. I think my older brother helped my mum put all of this together and it is spot on! They love it. This year we are also very lucky as Andy's sister-in-law has also passed on a playmobil advent calendar used by the kids' cousins in years past and it is so fab :-)

Again, everyday there is a new little piece to go in the scene. Benny in particular loves this and spends a lot of time playing with it :-)

As Rebe was starting to feel a bit better she thought it was time to open a sweet shop,

She was open all afternoon and had quite a lot of visitors,

I hope they all remember to brush their teeth tonight!

While Joa napped and the older two were busy buying and selling sweets, I had a creative flash and managed to make all of our Christmas cards.

I don't know why but I can never bring myself to buy cards, but these were very simple and very quick and I think they came out very sweet :-)

We have also been thinking of and talking about St Nicholas who will come to visit tonight.

As a child in Germany this was another celebration that I remember so well. Another celebration that I bring with joy to my children; a little step closer to Christmas and a lovely story about remembering those who have nothing and how lovely it is to give when we have so much ourselves. Perhaps this is something I will make more of in years to come, but for now we have cleaned up our rooms and put our shoes outside our doors in the hope that he may pass and leave us gifts in the night.

Rebe, in her usual giving and creative way has left him a pile of gifts to say thank you :-)

I wonder will he leave anything in your shoe tonight?

winter weekend

2011-12-04T11:24:00.000-08:00

We had a really nice weekend. Before sharing some of it with you I just want to say a little something about letting go.
The last few weeks I have been super busy and I find that my head is filled with plans and lists and thoughts. The hours in the day are too short and there is just not enough time to comfortably fit it all in. I had a great plan in my head for an advent wreath I wanted to make last week...it didn't happen. I was going to do it this week, trying to shift time and factor the gathering of the materials, the walk out to get the greenery, the time to make the various parts and then I though 'hang on, what am I doing?!?' I just need to let it go, I can't do it, the kids won't know the difference. We are following advent with our daily calendars and I'm sure my time and energy can be better spent...so I let it go :-)

Instead the kids and I headed to one of our favourite beaches for a picnic

We got soaked pretty much on arrival, but no matter, we had our picnic anyway.

For some of us it was pretty relaxing...

For me it wasn't that relaxing as I had to keep chasing Joa away from the path up to the road, he was determined to keep climbing it. So not long after we bundled back into the car and headed for home.

Today was also lovely, I woke in a great mood, full of energy and joy. The children were very excited also because Santa was coming by lifeboat to the village.

We set about baking a little bag of biscuits for him,

We decided on gingerbread robins. We made gingerbread using the best recipe in the world. If you don't have a great recipe for crunchy gingerbread I am very happy to share it here.

We cut out the dough into egg shapes and made white and red and yellow icing.

Benny was in charge of red tummies,

Rebe did yellow beaks and legs and I did white eyes and wings.

Joa begged for licks :-)

When we had made those the kids also wanted to make some cards for Santa.

Benny's picture of Santa.

Rebe's picture of Santa. Rebe's picture of a lifeboat person for the crew. She wrote a really sweet letter on the back of this to say how she sees the boat from the window and how she is going to be a lifeboat person when she's older :-)

After lunch it was finally time for all of us (including Andy) to go down to the pier. From our house we saw the lifeboat going out to collect Santa as we set off to make our way down.

And there he is the beardy man himself:

The kids were beside themselves, look at Benny's wee face :-)

we waited for a very long and cold time for our turn to go on the lifeboat, but to Benny and Rebe's utter joy Stormforce Stan (the character from the RNLI children's club that Rebe is a member of) was there to jolly us along. Rebe gave him the bag of robin biscuits that she had brought for the crew to share, and got her picture taken with him.

Finally we went to see Santa on the lifeboat. He popped Rebe on his knee, but Benny wanted to stay by me after handing over his little bag of biscuits to Santa. Rebe leant over to me and hissed, with complete awe, out of the side of her mouth: 'I'm sitting on Santa's knee!!!!!'

We had an offical photo taken (that we can collect later in the week) and then we got to walk all around the lifeboat back to shore,

It was completely lovely and one of those special memories for the kids. Also it is always a good thing to support your local RNLI when you have a husband who has a boat like Andy's ;-)

and as if the weekend wasn't gorgeous enough, a final beautiful moment as the light faded :-)

Hope your weekend was lovely too :-)

advent

2011-12-02T13:58:00.000-08:00

I feel it starting. A little niggle, a wee tiny feeling that Christmas is coming :-)

I have been really busy of late and so have neglected this space somewhat. Advent has started and we are begining to focus ourselves on winter and celebrations.

We have changed our nature table. We spread blue cloths and our tree is now bare. Rebe collected some quartz rocks from the beach that she feels look like ice. Our nativity stable is there with an ox and a donkey awaiting the arrival of the festive season.

The advent calendar so kindly filled by Bubs (my mum) is hanging by the window heavy and exciting.

Rebe went to a Christmas show with school today. They went on an actual real bus. It was very exciting. The show was 'Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer' and of course Rebe wanted to act it out as soon as she got home. She made herself a costume:

Brown clothes, a bead nose with very inconspicuous elastic and twigs shoved down her bunches.

Benny's effort (he does so like to copy everything) made me roar with laughter, in fact I think I will laugh everytime I see this picture for ever more :-)

Dear dear Benny :-)

Welcome advent and winter, you bring with you so much fun and loveliness :-)

Buddies ~ welcoming

2011-12-02T13:39:00.000-08:00

***In September 2011 6 families got together and started Buddies home school. Each week we meet in each other's home and follow a simple rhythm: music and movement, baking/ craft, snack, free play and a story. Each part of the session is led by a different family. We want to share what we did this week with you here...***

This week we welcomed with open arms and very joyful hearts our newest, tiny and very beautiful little buddy. She very busily slept through most of the session which we started with our usual songs. We used the finger puppets again this week. We find the children really thrive on repetition, we also added 2 new songs. We thought we had better have a wee practice of 'Jingle Bells'. Roisine has a wonderful set of hand bells and the kids had one each (we were probably a bit more clangy than jingly). Also one of our Buddies, 'H', taught us a song he had been practising the day before out in his garden about a wiggly worm.

Amanda lead our craft activity. This week we made pine cone gnomes.

First we rolled a clump of clay to make a base for our pine cones.

Then we stuck on some eyes and used wool roving for a beard.

We cleaned up the glue and then we helped the children sew a little triangle of green felt in half to make a hat.

They did this really well and were very proud to be doing real sewing :-)

This was a wonderful craft that they really enjoyed.

After snack and free play Flo told us a wonderful story. (I'm sorry I didn't get the name or author of the book Flo based it on).

It was the story of a little princess who wanted nothing more than friends to play pass the parcel with on her birthday. Her fairy godmother obliged and magic'd her a host of fairy tale friends.

Flo had found costumes and props for each character in the story and brought the book alive completely.

The fairy tale characters each opened a parcel, but all of the things they had wished for had gotten muddled.

It all came out ok in the end though when the princess who had wished for a prince, got a frog whom she kissed and then herself turned into a frog.

The children loved this story especially helping to rip open the presents! It was, as always, a gorgeous session :-)

Family legends and stories

2011-11-27T08:01:00.000-08:00

'Family' isn't just a bunch of people. Family is what is between those people: the bonds of shared language, jokes, memories and stories. The telling and re-telling of family stories are very important to us in our house. They remind us of what has happened to us and where we have been together. They allow for exploration of feelings both good and bad within the safety of home. They give us history and place and a sense of belonging. They allow us to make sense of who we are in the world and where we come from.

The children love hearing their birth stories. Rebe loves to hear how she was 'coming anyway' even though she was 6 weeks early. She giggles when I tell her how we argued with her, but no she's was 'coming anyway'. I see the tenderness in her face as I tell her of how I first felt her tiny breath on my upper lip as the midwife placed her on my chest. She gets cross at the part where she had to sleep in a plastic box and have silly eye protectors on from the bright lights.

Every year we add to our family legends. These are occasions that have really touched us; when we have discovered something about ourselves and the world. We have had some pretty great times in 2011 and some of these have turned into legends, told agian and again to each other. As the year draws to a close I have been thinking of them and remembering them.

Often in the day we say to each other,'Do you remember the time when...'
Benny won a medal running in the race. He ran so fast that the man at the finish line had to run after him to give him his medal. And remember how he was shaking with excitement and kept repeating 'me won, me won'.
Do you remember the time Rebe rescued a mouse from Tiny and gave it it's life back?
Do you remember when we found real treasure on the pirate beach?Do you remember the time we went camping and Benny's marshmallow caught fire and he cried so I had to eat it and toast him another?

Woven into our stories are characters and places.
As we walk through the woods we find ourselves rooted in our own stories.
Benny's dragon tree is a big feature of the woods for us. It is often the reason we go there, we have talked about what it eats and we know it's favourite food. It has entered our stories and the stories that feature Benny as the hero, the dragon is his faithful side kick.

Some characters have been celebrated and remembered in play and drawing and craft. Do you remember the time the robin came into the kitchen through the open door and Rebe caught it very gently and let Benny softly stroke his little red breast before setting him free in the garden? Do you remember how the only place he pooed on was Rebe's homework?

We have changed the words of songs so that they now belong to us. When Benny found a woodlouse (which he loves) being eaten by a spider (which he is scared of) in the loo at playgroup, we retold that story (and changed it round) by singing : 'My name is Tricky (Benny's name for woodlouse) he he he, and I eat spiders for my tea.'

We also use story and legend to imagine answers to questions I have no idea how to answer. I ask the kids 'Where do you get those curls from?' and they tell me the story of how at night while they are asleep the specials, Lambie, Mio and Nuggle sneak quietly, quietly out of their room, down the stairs and out of the front door to the Curls Shop where they buy a bag full of curls each. They bring these home and knot them into the children's hair in time for them waking in the morning.

Stories are so much more than just tales in books, they are important, they are a gift, a celebration. They are very dear to us...

What were your family legends this year? Write about them and link back to me here, I'd love to hear some of your family's 2011 legends.

child labour

2011-11-26T04:17:00.000-08:00

Firstly let me apologise about my postings here on the blog. It seems of late all I post about is Buddies and making dolls. Well that is really because all I'm doing is thinking about buddies and making dolls. Of course there has been other loveliness going on, but I seem to be out of touch or practice with my camera and although for the last few days I have tried to have it at hand, none of the pictures I wanted to take to capture the moment came out. Oh well, so if you can bare another dolly related post read on...

I have been really busy trying to complete all of my custom order dollies with plenty of time to spare for shipping. Joa, thankfully, is getting into a good sleep rhythm now so that I am getting a predictable hour or so after lunch to work. It's actually been quite lovely, the heating on, music playing softly or just quiet and the kids working happily along side me.

Benny loves sticking pins into everything, including his own clothes. I hear him occasionally saying 'oof me brave', and I know he pricked himself.
Rebe has gotten really good at sewing. She spends much of her quiet time before bed sewing now.

Although I think I might sack her soon if the quality of her work continues to deteriorate and she keeps cutting corners:Benny has his own little making pot that he keeps on the window sill of my room. He has lots of scraps and pieces of ribbon and the odd button he likes in it, and of course some wool roving.

When Joa isn't asleep I can do the odd bit of cutting out with him on my back, but mostly he would rather get down and fiddle with everything and then we move on, back downstairs to where he is free to fiddle.

This is Rebe's latest project:
This is the pattern sheet, it also has written on it what exactly she needed to make this. She spent a couple of nights sewing and this is the finished toy:

It's great isn't it? She's only 6 and she's designing and sewing her own toys. I love it and I love the quiet time we spend together working peacefully with our hands (well apart from the oof me brave) :-)

Of course I do allow the odd snack and tea break. Benny is still on 'eating mode', after his month or so of being sick and needs lots and lots of snacks.

I also wanted to share this sweet poster with you:Our neighbours, a few doors up, lost one of their new kittens the day before yesterday. Oh my, the kids were so worried. They went out for ages looking for it, dressed in their high-vis vests. They 'almost' found it, but I think the mummy of the house was worried it was getting dark and sent them home again. This morning Rebe made this poster and was going to put it up along the road when there was a knock at the door and our neighbour was there with the kitten who had been found. We were so glad and my heart was very full of love and pride for my sweet children :-)

Buddies ~ simple advent wreaths

2011-11-23T11:56:00.001-08:00

In September 2011, 6 families got together and started Buddies Home School. We meet each week in each other's homes and follow a simple rhythm: music and movement, craft or baking, snack, free play and story time. Each part of the session is led by a different family. We are sharing this week's activities with you here...

This week's Buddies started, as usual, with movement and music. We began with singing our welcome song in which we name each child and tell them we are glad that they came. Then we sang another few songs that we have been repeating since the start. For the rest of the singing time we used these wonderful finger puppets. Each child had a chance to choose a puppet and hold it on his or her finger while the rest of the group sang the nursery rhyme with them.

a very serious incy wincey spider

a very favourite humpty dumpty
hickory, dickory dock
baa baa black sheep
and 1,2,3,4,5 once I caught I fish alive.

After this we moved on to crafting. As next Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent Roisine helped us to make our very own Advent Wreaths.
We started with a ring cut out of a paper plate.

We painted these bright green.

For the candles we painted 3 small rectangle shapes purple and one pink. Roisine told us that the three purple are to show melancholy in waiting for the birth of Christ and the pink is a celebration of his birth (I hope I got this right if not Roisine will correct me).When the little candles had dried we stuck them onto our wreaths.
Roisine then gave each child 4 little yellow cut out flames to take home and to stick on each advent Sunday. It was a really lovely activity and I am going to enjoy lighting the 'flames' each Sunday with Benny.

After our snack the kids had some free play time. Us mummies grabbed a cup of tea and chatted about ideas for a Christmas party. We've had some lovely ideas and are feeling very excited about it.

To end our session Zoe read this wonderful story.

Don't you love seeing kids engrossed in a story. There is such magic about it :-)

Being a buddy can be pretty tiring work...
and we would all like to welcome our newest, tiny and sweetest little Buddy who arrived earth side on Monday morning and whom we are all very excited to meet. Congratulations to Susan and family :-)

a rainy november day

2011-11-21T12:10:00.001-08:00

Such a dreary, rainy day today. But it was the perfect day to have the heating on, cuddle up and do homely things like draw green cat whiskers on your face,
make granola,
play Lego
read lots of stories, climb on the table until your mama is pulling her hair out with frustration, knitting, cuddling, snoozing.
I finished up my rainbow knitting of the past several weeks.
Another rainbow gnome hat. This is from the pattern in the Children's Year book project 57. This just happens to be the September project with the Children's Year Craft along so I am delighted to be able to participate in that again as my attendance has been ahem some what lacking.
It is knitted for a dear little friend of ours who will be turning 4 very soon and his mama requested this hat for him after seeing Benny's.
It is knitted in cotton, so it has come out a bit longer than Benny's one and I also decided to knit an I-cord as a tie rather than going for the collar as I thought the collar may have less give in it done in cotton.
The colours are lovely :-)
I'm working on a couple of things at the moment, well lots of dolls really. I have a good few custom orders still to complete, but I am also trying to make a few little changes to some dolls that have been in my Etsy shop for a while. They are in need of a few knitted lovelies I think and I am hoping that they may find their way under someones Christmas tree :-)

What are you working on at the moment?

the long and short of it

2011-11-19T05:54:00.000-08:00

I got my hair cut today. Before
After :-) wow I really like it. The kids think I am gorgeous and all keep stroking it :-)

Buddies ~ wee houses

2011-11-16T22:29:00.000-08:00

***In September 2011, 6 families got together and started Buddies Home School. We meet every week in each other's homes and follow a simple rhythm: music and movement, craft or baking, snack time, free play and a story. Each part of the session is led by a different family. We are sharing this week's activities with you here...***

To begin our session this week we warmed our bodies up by jumping and bouncing and shaking all over the room.

Flo lead some yoga moves, gently stretching our bodies and getting ourselves ready for our morning's work.
We also warmed up our voices and imaginations pretending to be all sorts of different animals cats, snakes and very loud lions!
Have you ever seen such a cute lion?!

When we were all warmed up we started our craft. Susan helped us to make the gorgeous little row of houses at the top of the picture.
She started by giving each child an empty cardboard pot with a little cone roof stuck on top that she had pre-prepared.
The kids glued on plain paper walls,
These were decorated with tiny paper doors (with people behind), and windows that had little small curtains hanging from them.
The kids really enjoyed this, they could do it all by themselves and were very industrious!
O's house
H hard at work.
Over the weeks we have noticed a beautiful closeness form within the group. This for me is one of the most special things about our wee home kindergarten. I feel a lot of love and affection within the room between the kids and the mums. During free play the children really played together, not just next to each other as they did in the beginning but they worked together to build towers and played music together as a group. It is a very special thing to watch how the children are getting know each other and are happy to allow themselves to relax and form friendships. This is something that may not have happened for all our little Buddies in a more formal out-of-home kindergarten.

However all this work and play made for some very hungry little people and a silence descended on the room when the snack was placed upon the table,
and we didn't hear from them again until every last scrap was gone (after the plates had been refilled several times).
We ended the session with a living story: a telling of the Three Little Pigs that I have posted about separately here.
It was a great session and I'm already looking forward to next week :-)

Buddies ~ a living story

2011-11-16T10:08:00.000-08:00

***In September 2011, 6 families got together and started Buddies Home School. We meet every week in each others houses and follow a simple rhythm: Music and movement, craft or baking, snack time, free play and a story. Each part of the rhythm is organised and led by a different family. We are sharing this week's home kindergarden with you here...***

This week's story time was inspired by Susan's great story last week. The children really responded to the props and it made me realise how wonderful it is to involve the children in the telling of the story. It allows them to fully and bodily experience it and to internalise what they see and feel during the telling...oh and it's lots of fun :-)

So here is our telling of The Three Little Pigs (we did this play twice and the pictures of both tellings are mixed, I hope it's not too confusing). I led the story narrating what was happening as we went along, helping with the costumes and props and prompting the kids with the well known lines when appropriate.

The Three Little Pigs

Once upon a time there was a mummy pig.

She lived in her little house with her three baby pigs. They were very happy there, but those pigs grew and grew and soon her little house was too small for everyone. So one day she called all her piggies to her and told them that it was time they set off into the big world and built their own houses.

The first little pig set off to build herself a home.

She came across a worker in a field cutting hay.

She asked the worker if she may have a little hay to build herself a house with. The worker merrily gave her some hay.The little piggie took the bundle of hay and built herself a fine house.She had no sooner built her house and moved in than who should come along but the big bad wolf!

'Little Pig, little pig, let me come in!'

'Not by the hair on my chinney, chin, chin!'

'Then I'll huff, and I'll puff and I'll blow your house in!'

The wolf huffed and puffed and blew the house in and gobbled up the first little pig.

The next little pig set out to build herself a house, and seeing what had befallen her sister she decided to build her house out of sticks.She found a worker chopping sticks in the forest and asked if she may have some sticks to build herself a little house with. Again, the worker was happy to help,and the little piggie built herself a fine house of sticks. But no sooner had she moved in, who should come along but... the big, bad wolf!

'Little pig, little pig, let me come in!'

'Not by the hiar on my chinney, chin, chin!'

'Then I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down!'

and he huffed and he puffed and he blew down the house of sticks and gobbled up the little pig.

Now the third little pig seeing this decided to find something very strong to build his house of.

When he set off to build his house he found a worker making bricks out of clay. He asked may he have some bricks to build a good, strong house with and the worker handed over a pile of bricks. The little pig had no sooner built his house when who should come along? The big bad wolf! 'Little pig, little pig, let me come in!'

'Not by the hair of my chiney, chin, chin!'

'Then I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house in!'

And he huffed and he puffed, and he huffed and he puffed and he huffed and he puffed, but that house of bricks was so strong that he couldn't blow it down. 'Well if I can't blow it down' said the wolf 'I shall climb up the roof and come down the chimney!'

when the little pig heard the wolf on the roof he quickly stoked up the fire and put a huge pot of water on to boil.

The wolf slid down the chimney and straight into the pot of boiling water. He got so scolded that he ran off and was never seen again!

The End

yay :-)

You should try a living story sometime, it really is good fun!

Martinmas 2011

2011-11-12T02:24:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was our Martinmas celebration with the Kindergarten. When we went to parent and child group on Monday afternoon we made lovely little paper lanters. Last evening after dinner we wrapped up warm and headed out on a stormy night to the lantern parade. I don't have a picture of the actual parade as it was dark (obviously) and I don't like using a flash. This is a picture of the Martinmas parade in one of our favourite books 'In the Town All Year Round' and it was a bit like that.

It was very blustery and our candles kept blowing out which annoyed Benny a little, but we managed to keep lighting them again and walked around the gardens of a local nursing home, where the parade was held,singing the little lantern song.

Karen, the Kindergarten leader, read us the story of St Martin, which is a lovely story about sharing. Then to remember St Martin and his kindness we shared cake together in the dark by the light of little glittering lanterns.

It was very special, and one of those moments that I am so glad that I can give to the children. I remember the Martinmas parades through the village of my childhood in Germany. The excitement and joy over nothing more than walking through the dark with a lantern and holding my mother's hand :-)

Did you celebrate Martinmas?

hugs x

a pin cushion, tea bags and getting lost

2011-11-10T22:28:00.000-08:00

I want to show you all Rebe's latest creations. She made them out of felt in her quiet time without any help what-so-ever; a pin cushion for me for when I'm making my dolls.

a couple of tea bags for the play kitchen complete with tags :-)

and a little snowman.

We had a lovely day today, we did some house work in the morning and then ate our own weight in scones and popcorn at playgroup. When we got home we rearranged the playroom and swapped around some toys.

Bringing out toys that have been hidden in the cupboard always invites such lovely play :-)

As the weather was pretty mild we decided to go out and 'get lost'. Rebe loves the thrill of this, going along untrodden paths, finding things and making discoveries.

Into the woods we went, there are barely any leaves left on the trees.

We went looking for faries, or any evidence of them. We didn't find much, only a beech nut (?!?!), but we did discover this:

A wire fence swalled up by a tree. This is so facinating and it reminds us of how non-premanent we people are in this world and that anything we make and do can be swallowed up by nature. I think it takes us down a peg or two, makes us realised that actually we are not all powerful. And also that although we are oh so destructive that mother nature will heal herself in time.

And then Benny made an amazing discovery. Look, there, do you see it in the tree?

An old abandoned tree house!

The kids tried to figure out how to get up there, but they just couldn't. So they wrote down all the evidence resolving to think about it long and hard and if need be ask daddy what to do and how to get up there.

Rebe also wrote a bit of a map so that we can easily find our way to this lost place again.

It's near this incredible tree, that turned out to be hollow!

We have great plans for this weekend!

(including a bit more rainbow knitting I hope).

hugs x

Buddies ~ bulbs

2011-11-09T11:19:00.000-08:00

This weeks theme at Buddies was bulbs. We started our session with our usual welcome song and the kids chose a few others of their favourites to sing. Then we did a little bulb role playing.

It was a lot of fun. One child was the winter gardener dressed up in a hat, scarf and mittens. They 'planted' another child curled up as a little bulb in the middle of the floor. The gardener covered the little bulb with earth (or a brown towel). Then we waited while the bulb slept through winter. The gardener noticed that the sun was beginning to shine and took off his winter woolies and replaced them with a sunhat.

At this point the little bulb began to sprout and grown and stretch throwing off the brown towel and emerging as a beautiful flower. The kids really enjoyed this activity and all had turns at being the gardener and the bulb.

I think that this little roleplay game helped paint a little picture in their heads for our next activity.
We put on our wellies and warm waterproofs and headed out into Zoe's fabulous garden.

Zoe showed us the large compost heap at the back of the garden and the kids helped dig some of it into the wheel barrow along with some soil from the ground.

We found some pretty juicy and amazing worms that the kids were very exctied about.

We brought the wheel barrows, little and large, to the front of the garden.
The kids mixed up the compost and soil,

and loaded it into pots.
Each pot got a bulb or two in them.

and put up high (away from Joa) until home time.

We came back inside for a snack of fruit and bread and then the kids headed off for a bit of free playtime while the mummies had a cuppa.

After clean up we gathered back in the living room (which has a pair of gorgeous curtains, really they are gorgeous, I should've got a picture of them...next time I promise) and Susan read this book....

She did it beautifully with props for the kids to act out the story as it went along. Of course it was a great success and the kids loved it.

We ended the session with our goodbye song and left with our little pots of bulbs ready to wait out the long winter until spring when the little shoots will appear.

two dolls and a load of fruit

2011-11-08T01:36:00.000-08:00

I have been working away very hard on some custom order waldorf dolls in the past few weeks. I have been blown away by the number of requests I have had had for making special Christmas presents. I have just finished 4 dolls and have another 5 to go!

(dolly 1)

I love making these dolls and I am really enjoying making these custom orders. However, being so busy making these wee people means that I have no crafting time for my own little people.

On the whole this is ok, I know over Christmas I am going to take a wee break and after the festive season there will be a lull and I will have lots of time to catch up on my 'at home' crafting then.

But this leaves the problem of what the kids will get for Christmas from us. I like to give them something handmade. I still have ambitions for making hotwater bottle covers/ pyjama cases but these will have to wait until I get all these dolls finished.
I really wanted to make some more playfood for our play kitchen. It gets much use but the kids are often cooking with nothing, just imaginary food. Of course this is fine but I would love them to have a whole load of gorgeous playfood. So, I thought etsy.

dolly 2)

I found a couple of lovely shops there selling playfood but really fell in love with this shop (http://www.etsy.com/shop/MadewithloveUK and 'liked' it immediately.
The next day I had a note from Tori, the shop's owner, thanking me for my interest and saying how much she liked my dolls too, and was thinking of getting one for her own daughter in time to come.

So I suggested a swap and she agreed! I'm so delighted; Tori is making us a whole basket full of really, really beautiful food and in return I get to make her little one her 2nd Birthday present :-) I love that I can do things like this, it seems so right and good and what exchange should be about.

So here at the moment it is all about dolls and playfood, and it's all good!
(I know the two dolls are sharing clothes, one of them will have her own outfit soon and be for sale in my shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/UnderRainbows)

Hugs x

Benny's Big Bass and Lemon Wizzle

2011-11-05T12:38:00.000-07:00

Today was pretty much a perfect day. Joa and I woke before dawn and had a quiet snuggle until everyone else awoke and we shared a lovely breakfast together followed by stories and play in the playroom. Joa had an early nap giving me time to clean the house, do three loads of washing and have a shower alone and in peace. After lunch Rebe and I went out with Joa in the sling and did 'my walk'. The sky was clear and blue and the sun brilliant and so warm we shed layers as we walked. We had a nice dinner, a calm bathtime and now the evening stretches ahead with another empty and free day stretching ahead of us tomorrow.

But today was not only perfect for me, it was for Benny too because Andy took him fishing. Rebe made him his favourite sandwiches (spam and cheese),

and packed them with a little flask of tea into his bag. Father and son set off to the harbour for a morning's busy fishing. It was one of those things that I would have loved to have witnessed but it was not my time or place to be there. This was a thing for men together ;-)

He described his experience to me in detail on return from my walk. How Andy helped him to put crab onto his little hook and lower his line down the side of the harbour. He described how his rod was dragged along the ground by the fish pulling at his bait, making daddy spill his coffee chasing after it. He told me (with full actions) how you 'tuuuuuug and reel, tuuuuuug and reel, tuuuuug and reel'. He described how hard and heavy it was to pull the fish up (out of the water infact) where Andy netted it. He told me how he didn't want to release it as they had done Andy's fish earlier, because he wanted to bring it home to show me, to cook it and eat it. He said that a group of men (also anglers) came over to admire his catch.

He told me how he and daddy did a high five and cheered themselves and their superior angling skills (well not in so many words lol). Oh this little boy is so proud, and his mama is so proud as, of course, is his daddy.

Benny's first bass weighed 3lb,

and I know it will make oh so good eating :-)

Talking of eating....

I haven't posted you a recipe for a while and I want to share this one. It is a variation of a recipe from 'Cooking for Life' by Linda Banchek, it is an Ayurvedic recipe that is supposed to be calming for Vata and Kapha but aggrivating for Pitta, although I am pretty sure that anything this tasty can't be Kapha reducing ;-) and the lemon sauce for sure isn't Kapha reducing. It is the new family favourite and we call it

Ginger and Lemon Wizzle Cake

Ingredients:

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

3/4 cups maize flour

3/4 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 cup melted ghee/ unsalted butter

1/4 cup date syrup

1/2 cup buttermilk

3 tbsp plain yoghurt

1 tsp fresh grated ginger

pinch of salt

Mix dry ingredients together. Melt together butter/ghee, buttermilk, syrup and ginger. Add this and the yoghurt to the dry ingredients. Mix until well combined. Bake in a preheated hot oven for about 30 mins until cake is coming away from tin and you can do knife test.

Allow to cool a little then pour on lemon sauce.

Lemon sauce

Melt in a sauce pan 3 tbsp icing sugar, juice of half a lemon, tbsp ghee/ unsalted butter, a pinch of salt, the rind of 1 lemon and about a tbsp of hot water. Mix until bubbling then pour over cake allowing to wizzle all over it.

Enjoy :-)

Hope you are having a wonderful weekend too :-)

from deepest, darkest peru

2011-11-03T10:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we got a wee parcel in the post from Bubs. It had in it some yummy Halloween treats for the kids and a collection of audio stories that she had very kindly collected from the Guardian newspaper.

In the evening Rebe chose to listen to Paddington. During her quiet time I was working away on a doll in my room when she came knocking on the door in search of some red fabric, some yellow fabric and a needle and thread. I found what she needed and thread the needle for her and she went off to her room. This is what she was doing:

She transformed an old, battered up Teddy given to her by a neighbour into Paddington.

With his red hat, his blue coat and his 'Please look after this bear' lable.

His coat (a little jacket made for Rebe by my mum when she was a newborn) was even upcycled with yellow dashes on it, just like in the picture on the cd cover. This morning after breakfast she made him his jar of marmalade.

Oh how I love this girl for her imagination, her creativity and her sheer wonderfulness :-)

Buddies ~ halloween party

2011-11-01T07:59:00.000-07:00

Today we had our Buddies Home School halloween party. We arrived a little late after trying to get everyone into their costumes... the piece of ham,

the witch,

and the cat.
We arrived at Susan's house to find it merrily decorated with lots of halloween things.

We added the pumpkins we had painted at our last session that I had strung up as a garlandand we placed our funny little paper mache pumpkin next to the real one.We sang the ghosts song that we practiced last week and then played some party games. For 'guess the ghost' we sent one family at a time out of the room. We then covered one or two of the children left in the room with a white sheet. When the family returned they had to guess who the ghost was.

We did bobbing for apples, the older kids put their faces in while the younger ones dropped forks hoping to spear one of the apples bobbing in the bowl of water. We also dangled some chocolate fingers from string which the kids had to eat without using their hands, that was a lot of fun.

When we had finished the games Zoe did some baking with us. We made gingerbread men. Zoe had pre weighed out all of the ingredients which was so handy. The kids added what they needed to their bowls and worked it into a dough:

When the dough was ready we rolled it out and cut out shapes.

We decorated them with raisins and popped them into the oven where they baked whilst the kids were having their snack.

They played outside until the smell of baked gingerbread lured them back inside for a nibble and a story.

Amanda read 'Room on the Broom' by Julia Donaldson which was a very fitting end to a wonderful party :-)

halloween preparations

2011-10-31T12:19:00.000-07:00

I do think that half of the fun in any celebration is the preparation before hand. As long ago as a few weeks ago we were thinking up costume ideas and gathering bits and pieces and crafting for that... Rebe, the witch on her homemade broomstick (http://nestledunderrainbows.blogspot.com/2011/10/autumn-life.html) and Benny, the piece of ham (yes you heard right a piece of ham) trying on their costumes.

I don't like the idea of going door to door 'trick or treating', for us it's pretty much begging for sweets. When I was little we always did a party piece, sang a song or told a joke, but here and now the kids just hold out their bags expecting them to be filled. That makes me sad and I refuse to go in for that. So we reverse trick or treat. We bake and then bring our goodies to our neighbours (who know and are tolerant of the fact that we are a little bit weird). We knock on the door and we call 'Trick or treat, trick or treat, we've brought you something nice to eat'. We always get a lovely reception and I feel then it is a fair exchange that they give the kids a little something for their goody bags.

We spent the morning making scary bees wax monsters.

and bats.

We also took a long and very wet walk to the village to buy some icing sugar and to use up our excited energy. Whilst at the shop we asked for a couple of brown paper bags to decorate to gather treats in.

Look at those gorgeous rain made curls :-)
In the afternoon we decorated our biscuits, very simply with green icing and yellow icing.

Once that dried we used a tiny bit of black icing to make bats, spiders and witches flying in front of the full moon or horrible monster faces.

They were fun to make, used up many hours and tasted good. We made so many that we had plenty for visiting trick or treaters too.

I didn't get a picture of the kids in their full costumes, my camera battery died before I had the chance, but we have a Buddies Home School Halloween party tomorrow to go to and I hope my camera will be working by then and I'll have some pictures for you.

Hope you had a happy halloween :-)

feel like blogging

2011-10-25T13:07:00.000-07:00

Today I feel like blogging. For the past wee while I just haven't felt in the mood. Life has been really full and really wonderful and I just had no apetite for sitting in front of the computer, so sorry to everyone to whom I owe an email, they will come eventually.

We've been enjoying lots of goodness, the kids have been playing really well together. As Benny's language has developed so has his ability to enter into Rebe's games. Rebe and Benny as Julian and Dick on Kirrin Island

Much of Rebe's play is inspired by books and pictures that she sees. She is still completely in love with Enid Blyton's Famous Five. We have been reading the first book of the series as our bedtime book. A chapter a night (or if it's a really exciting bit 2)

On Sunday morning Rebe 'built' Kirrin Island in the kitchen. Benny arrived shortly after (as Dick) in George's rowing boat. Joa was delighted to climb up the rocks (the blue step) and join them on the island as Timmy (the dog). They played this game for quite a while, although they did spend most of the time arguing, but it was interesting to see how they resolved their play and their power struggles with words instead of full on fisty cuffs :-)

Joa also has begun to 'play' instead of just bimble about. He likes dressing up a lot and even crawls around on all fours pretending to be a cat sometimes. However his favourite game is still biting people's toes when they are trying to read a story on the couch ;-)

Rebe got a really wonderful (slightly belated) birthday present from my dearest, bestest friend today. It has sparked Rebe's imagination and she is forming plans and ideas that I am sure we will share with you at some later date.

Life for me of late has been full of health. I am still following an ayurvedic approach to health and living and it is just amazing.

A hearty vegetable stew with corn bread for lunch, so warming on a chilly autumn day.
I also made ghee today rather than buying it, I didn't get to focus on it as much as I would like, but I hope it'll be fine.

Craft wise things are also great, I have had 6 custom order requests for dolls. So exciting, and I am loving every second of making these dolls. I finished this one last night...

I'm so pleased with her and I am really looking forward to making the others. It does mean though that I have very little (or make that no) time for any other crafting, so I am not sure if my kids will get anything home made by me this Christmas.

But for today, and probably tomorrow much of this busy goodness has ground to a halt as this poor wee man struggles with yet another illness.

He has had a temperature all day. He has a sore head and a sore tummy, He's not eating again and not drinking as much as he usually does. All he wants to do is cuddle and read stories, which is fine with me and is all we have been doing today (well apart from trying to curl our toes up away from a biting Joa!).

Life is good here (illness aside) and I hope it is for you too