Abigail's 8th birthday, Vikings & Indians, and a bit of snow!

I'm finally getting round to updating this! 

Earlier in November was Abigail's birthday - it feels hard to believe I have an 8 year old daughter now! :-) The years pass so quickly -  before I know it, she'll be a teenager. Abigail is such a delightful daughter and a real blessing - I look forward to having an older daughter as a friend - there's something special about that mother-daughter bond! She is very keen (and indeed a natural) when it comes to sewing and cooking - things I loved when I was a girl, so it's great fun to see her having similar interests as I had.

The night before her birthday (or more likely, the wee hours of the morning when I needed to be in bed! lol). We rather have a tradition in our house of having the birthday presents (and plenty of balloons too!) all out for first thing in the morning. I probably did it when she was 3 or 4 years old, and now they all expect it to look something like this when they wake up! ;-)

A sewing kit for making a soft cat

A necklace from her mama

Elijah got a book that makes lots of animal sounds.

I bought a box from Lidl and filled it with lots of ribbon, lace, thread, buttons, etc - she was delighted! :-)

King Benjamin! :-P He doesn't even realise I'm taking his photo - too busy with looking at his new book. I think it was Abigail's idea that they needed to dress up for her birthday. She's wearing her red Chinese dress over her clothes and Benjamin came downstairs with crown & cape!

Happy birthday girl!

Thinking ... as Elijah does ... lots of it!

Birthday lunch

Cake with friends in the afternoon

Birthday cupcakes

Blowing out 8 candles - with her best friend, Rebekah with her.

Elijah and ALL the food he removed from my kitchen cupboard! :-P I *did* stack it up, but that's just to keep it from crashing down on him. He thought he was helping me! ;-) It started when he tried to open a box of tea, so I put them up on the worktop - out of his reach. So before I realised it, he was taking everything out, and saying "thank you" etc - as if I wanted everything up there. Of course, when you're busy cooking dinner, a lot of things get allowed, as long as you know they're safe and nothing is being destroyed! ;-) At least the cupboard got cleared out and organised - once he was in bed!

I found this in my kitchen a few weeks ago! ;) Elijah had spilled some water on the couch and (without being asked) he fetched a towel from the drawer to clear up his mess. I guess when he came back in the kitchen afterwards, a drawer full of kitchen towels looked very cosy, so he snuggled down! Then he started saying "night, night"!

He's obsessed with the new vacuum cleaner - like majorly attached to it and doesn't want to leave it alone. So I'm always tripping over it, as he *must* have it in the middle of the floor all day long, and takes it from one end of the house to the other!

He does like to climb, and really wishes he was taller. I thought this was too cute not to capture - standing on a measuring jug! :-)

Or the kid's Ikea table to reach the microwave. This got moved upstairs, as it was too easy for him to carry around the house!

And sometimes he's really helpful in a useful way - like this here. The Asda weekly shop had arrived and he promptly started taking things out of the bag and putting them in their proper place! :-)

The smallest table from the nest of tables in the lounge is ideal for his purposes too!

We finally had our first snow this season - only a thin covering though.

The children were out before breakfast, just in case it didn't last very long. It was gone the next day, so at least they had a bit of fun.

Invaded by Vikings - scary! After learning about Vikings in history, we had fun making some helmet masks.

Elijah being a Viking too - in the middle of dinner, complete with messy face & hands! :-P

Homeschool group, learning about the origins of Thanksgiving Day in USA. Here they were making a thankfulness tree and writing things on the leaves that they were thankful for.

Making Indian headdresses.

Indians!

The kids had a practice go at home, making Indian headdresses.

Deborah is always full of life - and words too! She's quite an independent girl and such a character! This afternoon she told me "I like to always be right. You're not allowed to be right!" And yes, I'd already gathered that was how she felt about herself. :-P She always wants to have the last word, be in charge. If she's told to do something, that's the best reason why she *shouldn't* do it - simply because someone else thinks she should do it, etc. She is *always* thinking, always reasoning, always arguing, and her words just flow and flow - she is just SO able with words, always has an answer for everything - before you even speak, she seems to know what she's going to say in reply. Talking is a major feature of her life, and she's never silent - unless she's asleep! ;-)

Abigail looking quite the Indian!

Clement trying to look fierce

My boys, in the garden yesterday afternoon. Yes, there's very little of afternoon before it gets dark.

Deborah's birthday, trip to Lewis & Nat's wedding photos

Another photo laden blog post, as always these days! Anyone seeing my blog now would be surprised that it used to be more words than pictures! ;-) But now the photos capture what is happening, as I seem to have little time to say it with words! :-) First off, photos from Deborah's birthday, which was earlier this month. She was very excited to finally be 3 years old - she thinks it's very grown up. In fact, she's often saying things about being nearly a teenager! :-P No idea where she got that from! lol Or that she's almost 7 (as she wishes she was bigger than Abigail). But to no longer be "only 2" was very exciting for her, that's for sure!

Opening presents!

 

Pleased with her "Baby Jake" doll

Though I think the toy shopping trolley was (and still is) the most popular of her presents! :-)

Her favourite "Big Kitty" having a ride.

Her big brothers got some new Lego

And Abigail got some felt and a sewing book, and had already made a needle case before having breakfast!

Elijah got a toy broom (tho I think he might prefer the full size one best), but he's looking cute here with it - like he's paddling in a boat!

He loves to climb in these plastic buckets, and then I'll hear him saying "help me out" when he thinks he's going to crash trying to get out! :-) He talks SO much and says anything he feels like saying - which is usually quite a lot! He likes to copy words and phrases which he thinks sound interesting.

The birthday girl and her cake! I think she was quite pleased with it.

With her best friend Miriam. :-)

I should have known Deborah wouldn't appreciate having "Happy Birthday" sung (just how Benjamin feels about it), but I wasn't thinking. [bad mum] :-( She just had to cover her ears, close her eyes and tune it out - total sensory overload. Poor wee girl! Her friend blew the candles out for her ;-) and whilst Deborah usually notices *everything* that happens, it wasn't until that evening (or the next day!) that she realised that she hadn't blown out her candles - the singing was that much *too much*.

The cat that the cake was based on - not perfect or identical, but I was happy enough! :-) But thanks to Google for being able to find a outline picture of a cat that was similar (I did spend a lot of time searching through images!) and then it was simple enough to use royal icing to make a flood fill decoration.

Then during the October school holidays we decided to pop over to Ness to see Leah! :-) Of course, it's not exactly popping over when the ferry across the minch takes nearly 3 hours! On this occasion we didn't book the ferry in time (and it was busy with schools being out) so we ended up having to go via Skye and the Uig to Tarbert ferry. The ferry crossing is only half as long, but it takes ages to get there. However, it was an amazingly beautiful day for a drive across Scotland - constant sunshine and it was lovely. The photo above is Lochcarron from across the loch.

Kyle of Lochalsh along the way

Mountains in Skye

Sunrise in Ness - I so love this place! :-)

"Hooray" says Elijah (one of his favourite phrases - always said with hands up in the air like this! :-P I love the look of Preston here - maybe he's thinking "We don't eat breakfast like that!" :-D LOL

Our first day in Lewis was amazing weather too, so we decided to make the most of it and visit the Carloway Broch and Callanish stones that morning.

Beautiful views along the way

The broch!

Looking back down as we head towards the broch

Girls walking

Soooo peaceful!

Getting closer

And here at last

Abigail in one of the passages

Peter and Benjamin up high

Cute Preston :-)

Darling Brooklyn

My biggest girl and me

I like the unusual shape of this stone at Callanish

The stones! Abigail has been wanting to go here ever since we learned about Stonehenge in history a couple of years ago! :-) Of course, nothing in size like the other, but still pretty impressive!

Yep, pretty tall! :-)

And you can see the height is still impressive, even with my 6ft tall husband next to one! ;-)

Elijah & Peter

Boys will climb - or at least mine will!

Abigail found a stone of similar size to herself

And one a bit bigger! ;-)

Boxes are great for putting cousins in! ;-)

Leah, me, Dawn and Anne :-)

All 8 children are actually here in this photo - pretty impressive! lol

Minus my smallest 2 now

They did lots of building with Lego

Everyone loves Lego

Me, Dawn and Anne

All the children except Elijah

Me & Peter

So hopefully this blog is going to publish OK with all these photos! I don't think there's anything much else to say. We've just had a lovely week with Leah and her children over with us. They're staying in our holiday house in Edderton but spending the daytime with us. The kids all have so much fun playing together and it's wonderful to be able to spend time with my sister and her lovely children. (Yes, they really are lovely kids! :-) ) They've been here since Monday and are heading back tomorrow - we're going to miss them! But at least (for now) they're only back in Lewis, so hopefully we'll get to see them again before too long.

Oh, before I forget, I meant to include a link to some photos from my brother Nathanael's wedding! He got married to his lovely bride Esther earlier this month. It was very disappointing to not be able to go over for the wedding, :-( but these photos are just amazing! It looks like it was a very special day and these photos really capture their joy & happiness! http://www.bendthelightblog.com/nathanael-esthers-wedding-portraits/