Clement's 4th Birthday and other ordinary days

Can it already be May? The days, weeks, and months just fly by faster than I can imagine. I know time doesn't move faster than it did before, ;-) but it sure feels like it! I guess that's just what life is like with so many little ones to look after! But, life is good! :) Having 5 healthy & energetic children who needs lots of food to eat, and make lots of messes to clear up, and "hungry" brains to learn new things, is all a wonderful blessing. It can be too easy to think only on the work part of it (and don't get me wrong, I *do* enjoy the quiet once they've gone to bed in the evening!). But when I think of so many who have lost a dear child, or have a child with serious disability or health condition that means they don't know if that child will wake up the next morning, it helps me to have joy and a smile when one of my dear children comes through to my bedroom at 6am with a cheery "Hi Mummy" or "It's morning time, mummy!". :-D How many parents would give everything in the world to have that again! So yes, my life is full of blessings.

And one of them is right here! :-) I love to see her with this doll (which happens to be her favourite too!) because I had a doll just the same when I was her age! It was my favourite too! :-) Deborah loves to play with dolls and spends a lot of time everyday being a little mother to her "babies".

Deborah again

On the 11th of April, Clement turned 4! (which shows just how long it's taken me to get round to blogging!)

A Lego sticker book!

His rather wonky birthday cake. But all he cared about was the Lego men on top! :-P

Opening a present! :)

The *much* wanted "Chase McCain" Lego set! The boys had been playing a game or video of this on the Lego website and really wanted a minifigure known as Chase McCain, which this set has. So he was very pleased!

More Lego!

Birthday boy & cake!

Lego for Benjamin

Deborah got a sticker book too!

Me and the younger 4 children - on a nature walk up the hill from our house! :)

The lovely view from down the road!

All 5 of my children! (Btw, Benjamin only sat in the pushchair for the photo - he doesn't ride in it at other times.) ;-)

Knight Elijah! I found him with a cape and sword - I think his biggest sister was dressing him up! lol

All spread out (but still enjoying each other's company!) - the kids really love all the extra space with having the extension.

Doctor Abigail and Nurse Deborah! :-)

He must be Texan (oh, and a bit Mexican too!) - he *loves* a bowl of chili!

Looks like Super Elijah here!

In early April we went to Inverness Museum to see a fantastic exhibition about ancient Egypt, complete with a real mummy! Of course, can't take photos in the museum, but we had lunch and spent the afternoon in a nearby park afterwards! :) A few other families from our homeschool group had joined us and we had a lovely time. As you can see above, Elijah enjoyed the swing!

And Deborah too!

The boys had fun climbing inside a large hedge and coming up to the top!

On top the hedge! :-P

Abigail and her friend Rebekah with other random girls at the park.

Boys in the hedge again

Elijah in a lovely Tots Bots cloth nappy! Towards the end of April was "Real Nappy Week", which I hadn't realised was started as far back as 17 years ago! Anyway, the idea is to spread the news about cloth nappies and get more people using them! So there's always lots of great offers on that week, companies giving away nappies to get people to try them, etc. So thought it was a good time to get a photo of Elijah in one. I first discovered Tots Bots brand (made in Glasgow, Scotland!) when Benjamin was a baby 6 years ago. I've tried lots & lots & lots of brands over the years, but always go back to Tots Bots and think they really are the best!

Cloth nappies drying outside in the sun! Though today looks nothing like this (dark & wet!) so nappies are drying indoors today.

A few weeks ago Peter took Deborah & Clement along to a nearby "woodlands toddler group". They had lots of fun going on a nature trail in the forest.

Never too young to help mama! ;-) He *loves* to put things in & out of buckets/boxes/tubs and actually put 2/3 of the load into the drier for me!

All 3 boys at the computer - on the Lego website, of course!

Hardly a baby when he's riding his sister's wee bike! He's growing up so fast. Hard to believe just one more month, and he'll be a year old!

Last, but certainly not least, we got a *lovely* surprise visit from my brother Josh in mid April!! The doorbell rang and this is what I found at my door!!! I had no idea he was in the UK and he came up north just to see us - for 2 nights. It was so good to see him again! :-)

Benjamin's 6th Birthday and ordinary days too!

What every little girl loves - a little brother to be her dolly! :-) I have to admit doing that sort of thing with a couple of my brothers (sorry, guys! :-) ). Anyway, Deborah has been playing with her dolls a lot and taking them for walks around the house in the toy pram. The other day she begged to have Elijah inside, so I finally did it (of course staying right by her) and they were both *delighted*, as you can see from their faces!

Last week was Benjamin's 6th birthday - a day he's been waiting to come for *months*! He doesn't understand/cope with time and waiting very well, so he got a bit stressed at times, wondering how long a month/week/day was, etc. It's the "unknown" that really upsets him most. So to make things a bit easier, he knew that all the presents I was giving him were Lego, so then he felt it wasn't so scary, as he knew the brand at least! :-) Here he was coming downstairs in the morning to find his main present - a large Lego Viking ship.

The order of the photos isn't quite right, but here's a mixed lot of Lego (thanks to ebay!) with lots of rare and interesting pieces - which they've had lots of fun with over the past week.

"The Lego Book", which starts with the history of the company and information about lots of sets, and dates for things, etc - just Benjamin's sort of thing! He already had the Lego Ideas book, as well as one of Minifigures, so he was excited to get this "missing" one.

The cake - simple and not very perfect, but it made him happy. It's easy when your child just asks for some Lego on top of the cake! lol

Birthday boy with birthday cake - he wanted his big ship in the photo too!

figuring out how it works

Abigai's present was a set of books - she loves Pippi Longstocking!

Clement got a vintage (as in, issued the year I was born!) tug boat, with a variety of minifigures too! It's just the right size for him to carry around the house, as he does every day with Lego!

Deborah is mad about stickers, and Mr Tumble too - so she loved this!

A very educational minifigure - Cleopatra! And perfect timing too, as we studied her in history the week before! :-)

Elijah getting excited about a present that hadn't been opened yet...

"Come on brothers, this is going to be exciting..."

And exciting it was - a big box of mixed Lego pieces!

Then a few days after Benjamin's birthday, more presents again!!! My lovely brother Nathanael ordered presents for all of them. This is Deborah with her magnetic "sticker doll" set, which she's had a lot of fun with.

Clement was so excited about his dirt bike set that he brought it to lunch! :)

Abigail with her apron, hat and cupcake set!

Clement with his set before it was built

And Benjamin got a fantastic fishing boat, which he was really excited about - esp since he's not had a Lego shark before, nor a "little boy" minifigure! :-)

Then the next day (yes, more presents!!) Our friends the Macphersons got him a really fun Hot Wheels ramp set, which has been popular with all of them! He's reading the instructions in the photo here ;-) (can't see his head) while the others are playing with it.

This is from some weeks ago - our Billy bookcases from Ikea! We bought the tall narrow ones and fixed them with their corner brackets. I'm *really* pleased with the results - lots of storage space, and I like how it fills the corner there. Very good value too (esp when you buy the white ones, which are half the price of "oak" coloured ones!).

Elijah was helping daddy put the bookshelves together! ;-)

We made some honey spiced cakes the other week, meant to be based on an ancient Roman recipe! We've enjoyed learning so much about the Romans and aren't finished yet. I'm sure I've said a few times how much we enjoy The Mystery of History ;-) - even if we prefer to skip some of the suggested activities, or occasionally disagree with the "opinion/viewpoint" presented about some events/historical figures. But on the whole, it's a fascinating book and has developed a deep love of history in the children - esp the oldest two, but the younger ones listen keenly too (even the 2yo!). We've only got 6 lessons left in volume one and have just ordered Vol 2 last week, which the kids can't wait to start. But I know we'll be dipping back into vol 1 over the coming months to refresh our memory of certain details as we go along.

My smallest girl, who wants to be all grown up! She's begging us to teach her to read, as she's finding it *very* hard to not be able to read like the older ones. Clement (who will be 4 next month) is coming along really well with reading and read his first simple book the other day. He's pretty must mastered 3 letter words, which is exciting. So Deborah is demanding reading lessons too, and working on the sounds of letters. Lots of fun! :-)

My "baby", who isn't looking much like a baby at 9 months now! I think I'll be surprised if he's not walking *before* his birthday in June (Benjamin did at 11 months) but of course, you never know. He's certainly thinking about it and getting mroe and more confident on his feet - and *running* along the couches.

Hands :-)

Wearing his lovely Tots Bots "Spread a Little Nappiness" t-shirt. Not the right weather to have his nappy visible, but of course, there's a lovely Tots Bots cloth nappy under the trousers - best brand of nappies in the world! :-)

Abigail is *always* crafting and creating stuff! Here she's made a crown for herself and a band w/ feather for Deborah!

So, I guess that's about all for now. It's meant to be nearly "spring" here, but we've had snow this week, so its quite cold still. Hopefully this will publish properly, as I'm sure it's got a record amount of photos included! < oops >