Winter Months - without blogging!

Well, despite my best intentions last autumn, when I hoped I wouldn't neglect this blog for so long, I've now gone nearly a few months without an update. I guess we've had a quiet couple of months at home doing nothing out of the ordinary. However, even when doing "nothing much", I still manage to take quite a few photos of daily life, ;-) and then when I think of my blog and where I left off with last time, I'm not sure where to start. So here's a random bunch of photos from the past couple of months - as usual for me! :-) I've also squeezed in a bit of time for sewing and crochet here and there recently, so I guess I've been doing that at times when I might have thought about blogging - another excuse for my silence.

But today I'm not doing much this afternoon - just cuddling little ones, as the children (minus Abigail so far) have a really nasty cold with barking cough - sounds painful and with 4 of them barking, it's awful noisy at times! Anyway, we still managed lessons this morning (at least it gave them something to do!) but a fairly quiet afternoon (kids having turns on the computer), so I thought I'd use the time to sit down and upate this blog.

Peter and the biggest 4, on New Year's day. It was very cold, but beautiful & sunny, so we took a walk nearby.

Me and smallest 2 boys, also on New Year's Day (more photos further down this post from our walk that day).

This was too cute not to capture - Elijah looked like he was trying to tidy himself away with the toys! :-D

How I often find the smallest two when the house suddenly goes quiet! Yes, there ARE occasions when I find Elijah splashing in the toilet or creating a work of art on one of the walls! :-p But thankfully I think it's safe to say that about 80% of the time when it goes quiet and I think "Oh no, what are they doing?!" I find that Deborah has invited Elijah to "read" books with her.

Elijah & Benjamin at the park last week, after one of our homeschool meet-ups. They're wearing hats that I crocheted recently. ;-)

My lovely 3 year old Deborah who was asking for a job to do - she unloaded the whole dishwasher by herself and was *very* pleased with herself. :-D

Elijah giving a dolly a ride on his bike.

Elijah with another hat I made - he decided to call it a "turtle hat" - good thinking, as it looks rather turtle like! lol

Elijah and his brick tower. I was quite impressed with his thinking, and how he built it on the stairs so he could go up a level to make it taller than he'd be able to reach if it was on the floor.

Norman ships they made to go along with their history lesson about the Normans.

Waffle bricks are something else Elijah *loves*. They were a great buy when I found them in a charity shop for £5 last year! But I didn't realise JUST how much the kids would actually use them - all the time!

The sunny weather we had on New Year's Day.

Walking in the sunshine

Deborah, Clement, and Abigail

Elijah

It IS beautiful up here! :-)

Clement throwing stones

Everyone joining in.

Elijah had the best place on the walk - snuggled next to mama! He DID ask to get down and walk quite a few times, but we walked a LONG way (and even the 3yo and 4.5yo were complaining of how long it was) and towards the end, Elijah had a lovely sleep.

At the end of December I took the kids out for a walk to town and to the park. Again, on a day when we could enjoy the sunshine, even if it was rather low in the sky and a bit hidden at times.

Deborah, Abigail & Benjamin

My biggest 3 - growing up so fast! :-)

My "baby" who is very much not a baby! Abigail tells me that once he turns 2 (in June) then I really can't call him baby anymore! :-P He's very cuddly, but also very grown up - he talks ALL day long and there's nothing he *can't* say. He's even mastered more complicated words like elephant and is always talking in sentences, and about everything around him.

All five of them

Watching the ducks

Not much point in trying to take a photo of them with the sun in their face! Oops!

One happy Benjamin to have the sun behind him now! ;-)

I give up - a photo of them all looking nicely at me is rarely possible!

So, one blog update complete and now there's dinner to cook! Though I think the memory card in my camera is full of photos not included here, but I've posted enough already for one post! :-P I'll make no promises of when I'll blog again, but as always, I'll *try* to not take too long!

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.