Our lastest pics from January 07

I had a lot of photos to upload today and there were so many that I could put on the blog! Here are the best of the bunch...


Firstly, here is the photos of the fig and almond raw vegan tolls which I made. They were so simple. Basically whizz up a bunch of almonds and dried figs, add a tiny bit of water if needed and then roll them into some dessicated co-conut and chill in the fridge. They took seconds to make, the kids loved them, and they were so healthy I could let them eat as many as they wanted. Voila!



Last week I finally finished sorting through all the letters I have received from E in the last 2 years. They were kept in a paper bag, but it got ripped, and then Luke kindly opened every letter and separated them from their envelopes. There were 78 letters in total, 4 polaroid photos, loads of gift cards, a little angel and E's gold cross pendant which he gave me. He has had it since he was a child. Steve bought me a nice box to keep them all organised in, and I've numbered the back of them in case Luke ever gets hold of them again. So now they are in date order. It was amazing looking through them to see how much I had read and completely forgotten about. I received another letter from E this morning saying "there were only 78 letters? I thought I'd written nearer 2000!" He he.

Here is a photo of Jude making another one of her papier mache cats. This was taken yesterday.












As well as this one of Luke who was so proud of his playdoh tractor creation that he asked me to take a photo. This was simple to create as well. Take one 3 year old, 6 tubs of play-dough, one tractor trailer and a thomas the tank engine carriage. Bind all the ingredients together (not the 3 year old - he does the binding) and then you have a simple but effective master piece, worthy of a photo.





Before the Christmas holidays Jude did this little project as part of her home education. She has been reading a lot of history books lately so she decided to create this fold open history project. She basically created fold open flaps containing information about her favourite stories from history. The one in the photo is about The Battle of Hastings, and you can see king Harold made from pipe cleaners, tissue paper and a fluffy pink pom pom, at the side of the story. The other pages are about Hieroglyphics, The Two Margaret's, Anansi the Spider, and Leizu & the silkworm.


This afternoon Luke played with Sam's old collection of animals and dinosaurs, which he loves. I had wanted to sit and do something crafty with him, possibly a bit of painting or something. So we decided to make a little jungle scene for his animals to play in. I cut out a big box and stuck tissue paper for sky and grass onto it. Then Jude, Luke and myself set about turning it into a jungle. Luke stuck a few flowers on, a few fish in the pond, and made his own huge fluffy cloud before losing interest and asking us "is it ready yet? is it ready yet?" every 30 seconds. We may add bits and pieces to the finished scene at times. But it looks pretty good,

don't you think?

The Red Plate

In this edition of Above Rubies there was an article about encouraging our children. People wrote in with different ideas that they use to encourage their kids. One of the suggestions was the New Zealand tradition of the Red Dinner Plate. They have a special red dinner plate which only comes out once or twice a week to mark a point of achievement with one of the children. When the family comes to the dinner table they see the red plate in someones setting and get excited as to why that person has the red plate. Then at dinner time the parents say why that child has been given the red plate, and everyone talks about their achievement and encourages them. It can be given for anything that has involved some level of achievement and effort. Perhaps for overcoming a fear, winning an award, showing kindness to another etc. Well, after reading that article I liked the idea. Of course the plate does not have to be red, it just has to be special. But then I accidentally ended up in the Marks and Spencer Christmas sale (I was supposed to be in the cinema but Luke got bored so we wandered round the shops for a bit). There in the sale section was a huge pile of plain red plates, reduced to £1 each! Well, I had to buy one. I felt a bit daft buying just one dinner plate, LOL.

This week the plate has been set at the table twice. All three children like the idea and they always discuss whether anyone will get the red plate tonight. Firstly Sam was given the red plate. This week his school report was sent home (I will talk about that in a minute), and over the holidays he has been offering (!!!) to help me with housework. Yes, I'm gobsmacked too! But every day he has been asking "Mummy, is there anything I can do to help?" That is something that definitely needs public recognition! Then last night Luke got the red plate, for overcoming his fear of hair washing. He was so scared of bath times that he became hysterical. It was horrible. I suggested showers to him and over a period of two weeks he has gone from being hysterical and shaking with fear in the shower, to asking for a shower every morning. (Santa put a bottle of cherry smelling Chicken Little shampoo in his stocking which has been a real motivator!) So we gave him the red plate to recognise his braveness and mark his overcoming.

I must mention Sam's first term school report. They are given two grades, A - D for achievement (A being the highest), and 1 to 4 for effort (1 being the most effort), and there are also some exam results in percentages.

Art & Design B+, 1
Drama A, 93%, 1
English, talking & listening A, Reading B, Writing B, exam 64%, effort 1
French 87%, 1
Geography A, 98%, 1
History A, 91%, 2
Home Economics B+, 73%, 1
Information Technology B, 1
Maths B, 2
Music 70%, 1
PE C, 2
RE A, 1
Science A, 90%, 1
Technology 76%, 1

Some of those results are very good aren't they? He was quite pleased with most of it. Every subject had a full A4 paged report with comments from the teacher. The staff seem to put a lot of effort into producing it every term. I was particularly amused at the RE teachers comment that if he struggles with spelling he should do all his homework on the computer to avail of the spellcheck facilities! LOL.

Lukisms

On Wednesday we had Hannah and David over for dinner. We all sat around the fire roasting marshmallows, eating lots of cake and having a good time when Luke piped up with this fantastic little gem...

"Girls don't have willies do they Aunty Hannah?"
"No Luke, they don't"
"Do you have a willy Aunty Hannah?"

ROFL. I love them at that age.

Visit to Santa, Sprucefield.

Today we took a drive to Sprucefield in Lisburn to visit Santa in his grotto. We were the first ones there for it's opening time of 2pm. Best of all, it was free, plus there was no queue. Luke was very excited, but shy once Santa sat him on his knee. They were given a chocolate Santa lolly and I got to take a few photos. Luke asked for some trains for Christmas (phew) and also asked if he was on the naughty or the nice list. Aww. Here are the pics...

More of Steves portraits

Ok, I couldn't resist putting some more on. They are all so adorable, especially because they are my kids, so I just had to post them.

Don't forget to click on them for a better view.

Steves Portraits

This evening I looked at some of the photos Steve took in the college photography studio last week, as part of his course. I just had to come and put some of them on my blog. These aren't necessarily the ones he is entering for his course, but a few of the ones I liked (there were hundreds - it was hard to pick!) I'm sure I'll be posting more over the coming days. The session was primarily shooting pictures of Jude but he took a few group ones of the kids too...

Are we going yet?

Yesterday evening we went to friends house for dinner. Luke had been waiting all week to go and was beside himself when the day actually came. The daughter of this family has a huge conservatory full of toys and Luke just couldn't wait to get stuck into playing with them, especially the Barbie Cars. Yesterday morning he was up at about 6am exclaiming "Horray! We are going to H & D's house today!" Happy days. From that point onwards he proceeded to ask me every 30 seconds on average "are we going yet?" I told him we weren't going until it was dark. At about 1.30pm he ran into the room screaming excitedly that he had looked out of the window and it was now dark!

He did manage to entertain himself throughout the day with little distractions. He decided that it was of utmost importance that he paint a picture for C. He got all the paints out and set himself up on his little desk. He painted a beautiful portrait of C, which we later added glitter to, much to Luke' delight. He told me about 30 times that C was going to be so pleased with the picture he had painted her.

Thankfully, the time to leave finally came and we drove the 35 minute drive to their house, with questions every 3 minutes asking "are we there yet?", "are we half way there yet?" Luckily for us some of the towns had their christmas lights on, and this delighted Luke and distracted him enough to keep us relatively sane.

Here is a photo of Luke looking so proud with his painting of C.

He managed to distract himself for a while with various toys whilst I got a little work done about the house.

As per usual, we were treated to the obligatory end of evening performance from our two older children and C. This time, much to mine and Luke's delight, was a performance of the Scissor Sisters 'I don't feel like dancing'. Don't they just look the part?

Birthdays, feet and snow...

I'm making time for a little catch up post. So much has been going on but I haven't had time really to sit and write about it. Time goes past, and more stuff happens, and then I never get around to blogging about the things I was going to blog about.


On Tuesday Luke finally got the specially made orthopedic insoles. Remember he had his feet cast for them on 1st October? The children's hospital told me that they needed to be cast, made and fitted within two weeks so that he would be able to wear them before his feet grew too big. 6 weeks later, after hearing nothing about getting the insoles fitted, I phoned the hospital and was told their next free appointment was on 20th December! When I pointed out that his feet probably would not fit the insoles by then, they agreed, and arranged for me to visit the private clinic where they had been made, and were sitting in storage. So, that's what we did, and the private clinic have agreed to see Luke from now on, at no cost to us, on behalf of the Children's Hospital. The insoles are very strange looking, not at all what I was expecting. So I took a photo (of course!)





The good thing is that the orthotist told us only to buy Luke cheep shoes from now on. He says that the insoles will do the job, and expensive Clarke's shoes will get in the way, so we are to go for cheepy Dunnes shoes instead. Woo hoo. I was tempted to ask him to kit the whole family out with them! LOL.

Anyway, today is was snowing! Yes! Snowing! Never has a little boy been so excited, as little Luke was when he woke up at 7am this morning and discovered the roof windows were covered in snow! Sam and his friend had a snowball fight in their school uniforms, before school this morning. And Luke donned his welly boots for a walk through the snowy lawn. Steve went out to the back garden to take some snowy shots for his photography course, and slipped, fell flat on his back, soaking through three layers of clothes and breaking his camera (its muddy, wet and might work properly when it's dried out).


Our back garden this morning...

Jude's birthday was a lovely day. In the morning she opened her presents before Sam went to school. Her main present was her own digital camera. She also got a knitting set (make your own leg warmers), a beano comic writing set, a box of chocolates, Nanny McPhee DVD, amongst other things.

Luke helped me wrap up the presents the night before. He was also emptying my handbag at the time, and unknown to us had taken a £5 note from my purse and wrapped it up with with some new clothes that I'd bought Jude! We didn't discover it until she opened them, and of course she was delighted with the money and the clothes.

Luke helped Jude unwrap all the presents, and she was very good to let him. He was more excited than her I think! We bought her a big chocolate cake, and Luke had to put the 10 candles on himself. He couldn't wait to eat it.

In the evening Jude and I went out for a girlie evening together. We drove to Lisburn and watched Click at the cinema. It was a good film, and Jude enjoyed it as much as me. It was much sadder than we had expected, and really could have done with more comedy at the start before getting sad. It's a story about a man whose life is really busy, with work and family commitments. He becomes the owner of a Universal Remote Control, which controls his universe. He can skip scenes, fast forward, pause, etc through his life.

After the film I let Jude choose from any of the restaurants in the area. She chose pizza hut. By now it was 9.30pm so we both felt really grown up having a meal so late at night (and on a school night too!) We had pizza, garlic bread, deserts, we were totally stuffed and took plenty home for Daddy's midnight feast. When we got home we discovered that Steve had started painting the hallway (Shock!)

I asked Jude how she enjoyed her birthday. She said "it was cool, but the best bit was talking to you in the restaurant". Isn't that cute? She really enjoyed some quality time without her brothers.

Home grown roast dinner, Sam on guitar, and pet spiders!

Steve came home with a huge joint of beef a few days ago and so I thought I better cook a roast for my hungry family, who LOVE roasts. Two hours into cooking the meat I thought I'd have to pop to Tesco to buy some vegetables. Then I remembered the veggie garden in the back yard. (yeah, how could I forget, eh?) We had some potatoes left from our potato harvest, which I roasted.

I popped out into the garden to get some carrots and parsnips. I didn't really have any idea whether they were ready to dig up yet. I was under the impression that I would just pull the top of the parsnip and it would pop out of the ground. I also didn't know what size the parsnips would be, as they are hidden under ground. Well, you remember the story of the giant turnip that takes a whole village to pull? That was me. Dinner was cooking, and I was out heaving and pulling trying to get a parsnip or two out of the ground. The top came right off in my hand and so I had to dig around the parsnip. I dug, and I pulled, and I dug a bit more, and I wobbled the top of it. Sam thought it was hilarious and was taking photos of me from his bedroom window (they are not suitable for blog viewing I'm afraid). Eventually I got the first parsnip out and I was pretty pleased with the size and quality of it. The whole parsnip patch smelt divine. Sam dug out the second parsnip and both Sam and Luke dug out two varieties of carrots. One is a dwarf carrot, and the other isn't. We've got plenty more parsnips and carrots to keep us going.

Next year I'll definitely plant them again. It's amazing how they grow so big and strong from such a tiny seed. This whole gardening and eating our own produce really has made me appreciate the whole of God's creation so much more. It's truly awesome to see how God has provided all this fresh tasty food for us.

Here are some photos of our bounty...
A very stubborn parsnip that was quite happy to stay put. It's actually much bigger than it looks in the photo. Well, it was, before we eat it.








Sam with the parsnip that he dug out with ease, compared to mine.


















Luke pulled some dwarf carrots.
















My boys, looking like farmers, all proud with the treasure they had dug up.
















Parsnips, carrots and shallots, from the garden.












All washed and ready to cook.
Parsnips, carrots, courgette and red cabbage, all from our garden.




One completely home grown meal. OK, so we didn't grow the beef, but still, its pretty impressive, right?

Does anyone have any idea if the parsnip and carrot tops can be used for anything, other than compost? I think I remember reading that carrot greens can be used for juicing.

Onto other news then. Steve told me at dinner time that Sam's new guitar teacher came into his shop to speak with him about Sam's progress. We have always known that Sam is musical. He spends all day every day singing and dancing. But his guitar teacher is really impressed with the speed that he has learnt so far. He's been having lessons for about 4 weeks now and is putting chords together to make songs that he knows. He sits in his room every evening (I can hear him right now) playing away on the guitar that was his Grandads when he was a boy. Anyway, his teacher said that he has never before met anyone with such a musical talent! I'm not sure whether this is a huge compliment or whether the guy just doesn't meet many people, lol. He said that Sam has learnt in a few weeks what took him months to learn himself. So he is very impressed. And I felt so proud at dinner time when Steve told me this, and Sam was hiding his face with embarrassment. So, if Sam turns out to be the next Jimmie Hendrix just remember that you heard it here first, on his Mum's blog. That's my boy! His teacher must be pleased. He is still teaching him without accepting any payment. He says that he gets so much satisfaction from seeing someone learn, someone that wants to learn, and that is all the payment he needs. Plus, he is a friend of Steve's. I really must get him a gift or something to say thank you.

Lastly, before I go, I keep meaning to blog about Jude's pet spider. Aha. A pet spider. It lives at the top of the patio doors in our study room. Every morning Jude spends about half an hour finding a dead fly, which she throws into the spiders nest. Every morning she tells me about it, but I never gave it much thought. Then, a few mornings ago she asked me to come and help as the little dead fly would not stick in the web. I threw it up a few times and then tried to put the fly into the net with my hand. "Don't do that Mummy" Jude said, "the spider will run out and try to eat your finger". "Don't be daft" I said. So I popped my finger into the net, and like lightening this spider leapt out from it's hiding place and tried to eat my finger! Of course I leapt back, screaming like a lunatic. Jude thought it was hilarious. She has been studying the habits of this spider for weeks. The spider seems to know that she will feed it every morning and waits for the little flies which she brings!

Every week we read a chapter from 'Secrets of the Wood'. Both Sam and Jude love this book, and Sam wants to keep reading it even though he is no longer home schooling. Every chapter in it is about a different animal, from the woods. Last week we read about Meeko, the squirrel. The author talks about each animals as he sits and watches them for weeks at a time, in the forest. He gets to know all about the personalities of the various creatures. Meeko is a thief, a nest robber, and a fighter. The kids were mesmerised by the stories of his adventures. The first chapter, about the mouse, had them enthralled too. It occurred to me that Jude has treated this spider in the way which the author treated the woodland creatures. She has watched it, learnt about it, gained it's trust and developed the caring nurturing side to her nature. This evening she did the same thing with the pet gerbils. She sat and watched them, for such a long time. We had put a new box into their cage, just on old food box. She sat and watched them as they filled up their cheeks with bedding from their old, half eaten box, and transferred it all to their new box. She watched them make their new home all comfy and warm, and then came to tell me all about it in detail. Jude has such a gentle caring side to her. Sometimes I don't know what to do with her. During the summer, when Daddy killed a wasp, she lay in bed sobbing her little heart out for a full hour. I know that she is sensitive to other living things. She cares for every creature, even a tiny ant. It's strange really. As a younger child she did not care at all for nature. It was Sam that, at the age of 4, became so overwhelmed during a walk in the woods that he had to stop with me and say a prayer thanking God for his beautiful creation. Whilst Jude spent the whole time whinging "what are we walking for? Is there a park at the end?"

Gosh I have rambled on far longer than I intended. I have to check some essays that Steve wrote for his course now (snore). Tomorrow Jude and I are going to watch Romeo and Juliet at the cinema, for FREE, as part of the national schools film week. Woo hoo.

This is me

This is Luke's first ever independent painting. It's me. But you can see that, of course.

Yesterday evening I was stressed out, before going to belly dancing class. The constant headaches I am getting, along with the pounding sounds in my ear are getting to me somewhat, and I was getting rather stressed. Luke was worried that I was 'sad'. So he told Daddy that he was going to paint me a picture to make me happy! When I came home (at midnight) this painting was waiting on the floor in the hallway for me to discover. I almost cried as Steve said that he painted it all on his own. Face shape first, then eyes, then nose, then a huge smiley mouth. Isn't it just the most gorgeous thing? It melted my heart anyway. Luke has put some blue tac on it so that we can display it in pride of place for everyone to see.

Peter Pan

In an attempt to inspire Luke to get dressed up into his new costumes I decided to read the story of Peter Pan to him. He was very excited about this and we put his new Peter Pan costume on whilst we read it, which added to the excitement. He has never heard the story before. After reading it I suggested a game. He was Peter Pan and I was Captain Hook the pirate. I put on the few bits from his pirate costume that fitted me and we had great fun! Jude took some photos so that Grandad, who bought him the costume, could see.

Autumn Nature Walk

I'll start this post with a photo of Luke. Whilst I was away on Sunday Steve, Sam, Jude and Luke all watched the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory DVD. Luke got into the idea of eating chocolate quite quickly, by the looks of it.

Steve has gone back to work this week so life is returning to normal around here. It was nice to have him at home for a while, and I think he enjoyed it too. On Sunday I went to the wedding fair in Belfast with my sisters (including Hannah, the bride-to-be) and our Mum. I will put the photos that Maddi took onto the blog when I get hold of them. It was a good event. Busy. The catwalk show was probably the best bit, although I did enjoy looking at some of the stalls, including the wedding cake stalls, and the photography stalls. Hopefully Hannah got some ideas for her wedding from it. Afterwards Jenny and I went to Harry Ramsdens for dinner, because we were absolutely starving.

Talking of food. I went down to Boots today to 'officially' weigh myself. The plan is to get weighed on the first of every month, but life doesn't always fit in with that. I was surprised and pleased to find I'd lost 7lb, or half a stone, since my September weigh in! So all that belly dancing and refusing of treats did pay off after all. Now I'll have to keep it up.

I did a bit of exercise today! Pushing Luke in his buggy up the mother of all hills. I decided that seen as the weather was nice, we'd walk to mother and toddlers group today. But not a direct down hill walk, rather a scenic ambient nature walk. We had been inspired by watching Autumn Watch on TV, to go out and gather some of the autumn seeds. Also, Luke has been asking a heap of questions about the seasons. "Where has the summer gone?" "Why are the leaves falling off the trees?" "How do we know when it's time for Christmas?" etc. So I thought it would be nice to gather some autumnal things for Luke to create a little Autumn Nature Table.

In order to get to the country lanes, and walk that way, I had to push my over sized three year old uphill in a very badly designed buggy. Well, I should have lost another 7lb doing that, let me tell you! But it was worth it. We stopped by a field of sheep, where Luke got out of the buggy to call the sheep over. Then we found a big conker tree and collected some of the conkers for our nature table. A man stopped and asked us if we'd been watching 'Autumn Watch' whilst handing us some conkers that he'd found. It was nice to get some fresh air and walk to the mother and toddler group. Luke had 'Happy Birthday' sung to him there, and was all pleased about that.

After that we went to visit Daddy in his shop. Luke stayed there and watched a DVD whilst Jude and I popped to a few shops. I bought Jude some new clothes in Peacocks, which she was pleased about. She's looking rather trendy these days!

We were able to collect the car from Daddy's shop and drive home. As soon as we got in Luke said "are we going to make a table now with these conkers?" Bless him. We made a little nature display and have put it on the coffee table in the hall way. He can't wait to show his findings to Daddy when he gets home.

Now I have to go and get into my bed with Luke. Sometimes, in late afternoon when he gets tired, he likes to get into bed with me and chat. Usually the first thing he wants to talk about is our trip to Disneyland (last January), or what my favourite toy is. (Talking of trips, it's only 2 weeks till our trip to Geneva!)