Summer

My darling little boy at 8.5 weeks old - full of smiles & giggles! :-)

Big blue eyes! :)

Finally getting round to updating this blog. We've had a nice break from schoolwork over the summer (even if it's not been a particularly warm/sunny summer). Sometimes I think the school holidays are more for me than the kids ;-) though they've enjoyed going out on their bikes and being able to spend the whole mornings outside when the weather is dry. But all good things must come to an end, and this time next week we'll be back to lessons again. I'm kind of excited about a new school year. I'm mostly organised now - with ordering some new books, pencils, exercise books, etc. It will be a bit more of a challenge now that Benjamin is school age. It's not always very easy to get him to do specific tasks (esp if he's not in the mood for it) and when it's not a good day, I'll often only focus on Abigail's school work, and leave him to read books on the couch. So trying to do regular lessons with him might be difficult, but hopefully it will go better than I think it will. I think the hardest part is trying to keep 4 occupied at once, not to mention a 2 month old baby too! :-P But I've bought some large colouring/activity books for Deborah and Clement - and a workbook for Clement too. So hopefully if I've got something to keep them busy with at the table, they'll be less likely to draw on their older siblings schoolwork.   

Giggles

 

 

 

 

 

Here's a photo of our self-catering holiday house in Edderton. We had just about finished decorating/furnishing it in the weeks before Elijah was born, but we didn't advertise it until he was a couple of week's old. We had our first guests (a family of 5) staying in it last month. They said they really enjoyed it, so that was good to hear! We were probably rather late in the year to get many bookings for this summer, but hopefully as time goes on more people will find out about it. Should anyone be interested in finding out more, our website is:http://www.highlandbreak.co.uk

This is the sitting room area of the holiday house. The photo above this one was the master bedroom with double bed, and the 2nd bedroom has a set of bunk beds & double futon. So it will sleep 6 + baby.

Tandem baby wearing! ;-) Last week I was trying to get the dinner cooked, but both Deborah & Elijah kept crying. So I decided to try 2 slings at once, and it was great! they were both happy. And most amazingly, it was really comfortable too!

Last month we took the kids to a small museum in Invergordon. I found it quite interesting, and the displays were good for being such a small place. Benjamin had seen a sign for it a couple of months ago and *really* wanted to go there, so we finally got round to going. :)

An Iron Lung - I have to admit, I'd never heard of one of these. Can't imagine people having to spend *years* of their life in here - just to be able to breathe. :( This was on display in the museum, along with lots of other stuff from the old County Hospital in Invergordon.

Not sure if this is readable about the iron lung, but here's an interesting article about a man who *still* finds it necessary today to use one of these devices - amazing! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3182096.stm

A model oil rig! The boys always love to see these out in the Cromarty Firth and thought it was great to see a model of one.

Not sure what Deborah is pointing to here

Invergordon has lots of lovely painting on the walls of building around the town

A massive cruise liner that was in the harbour that day - which means the streets were full of foreigners! lol

Benjamin's favourite spot - on the couch right next to loads of books!

I've done a bit of reorganising of the children's rooms this summer. I bought this storage unit for Benjamin's room. It has nice tall spaces, which are just perfect for all the over-sized books that don't fit on normal shelves.

And this one for Clement's room, which holds a lot of books too.

Found the kids like this one Saturday morning - a pizza party!

Some lovely flowers in the hanging baskets on the front of the kids' playhouse. Only problem is they require *full* & intense sunshine to open, which means the ones below the lower windows have been a bit wasted, as they don't get much sunshine most of the time. But they *are* lovely when they open!

Abigail & Benjamin decided to recreate a scene of demolishing a North Sea gas rig, after watching a programme about it on the BBC iPlayer. They're quite creative kids! lol

Me and my littlest boy - though he's a lot bigger than this now, as this photo is a few weeks old.

Enjoying an ice cream when the sun shone! :)

Deborah

Sleeping beauty - at around 6 weeks old.