Here We Are Together

There’s a guest post I wrote about England up at the Crafty Crow today, hop on over, and check out all the other amazing & interesting crafts and countries, too!
I love Curly Bird’s giant cardboard teacup and Joscha’s rain boot painting!

♥

A thing the British are very well known for is drinking a lot of tea,
so this beautiful teatime candle seemed a great craft to share.
We make these as hostess presents and thank-you presents, as they are quick and easy to make & always look great.

You will need:

An old teacup & saucer
a metal tin
small pieces of wax. (This is a great way to use up all those tea-lights and old candles you have, all you need to do is cut them up into bits. Save the wick, too!)
a wick ( we got ours out of one of the candles we reused)

How to:

Put your pieces of wax into the old tin , fill a pot with about 8 cm of water and put your tin into the middle. Now start melting the wax in your tin. Don’t place your wax directly in a pot over a heat source, always use this double boiler method.
You can add a crayon or colourful wax if you want your candle to be a certain colour.

When all the wax has melted carefully pour it into the cup and add your wick to the middle.
You might need to hold on to the wick for a couple of minutes till it stays in the right position.

Carefully place your teacup in the fridge and leave it to cool down for one to two hours.

After that , all you need to do is trim the wick and enjoy your new candle.
It makes even pretend tea parties feel very special.

Have a lovely day!
♥

A friend recently suggested this recipe to me as something to cook with Ezi, but it is lots of fun for little ones of all ages,
and as Fish & Chips is a very traditional English meal , especially here on the coast, I thought I’d share it with you.

You will need:

1 fish filet
3 potatoes
2 slices of toasted bread
ketchup (for a healthier version take a look at our homemade ketchup recipe!)

How to:

Start by turning your bread into breadcrumbs, just pull off tiny pieces till you used it all up:

Put your fish onto a baking tray and spread ketchup all over it.

Now it’s time to put the breadcrumbs on top, make sure you cover all of the fish.

Put this into the oven at a high temperature for about 40 minutes.
Your chips will not take as long, so you can prepare them now.
To make the chips you peel the potatoes , cut them into strips, cover them with oil, salt them
and put them into the oven for about 30 minutes.

When everything is cooked you can sit down and taste your traditional English meal!

Enjoy!

This morning absolutely everything went wrong,
there was a girl that woke up far too early, a boy that did not want to get up at all,
we were very late for playgroup and everyone was still in their pajamas.
But then the doorbell rang, and a lovely surprise from Germany arrived.
Thank you , Oma , for our lovely new books, for the ballerina outfits , the toys and everything else.

And thank you for the Duplo blocks, too.
They might be plastic, but they are already very loved.

While my little ones play I will be busy preparing a guest post for the Crafty Crow this week, so you can look forward to some very British crafts & recipes!
Have a lovely day!
&hearts:

Yesterday , as a very special treat, we got Emi a magazine.
She chose the Charlie & Lola magazine, and as we already have many Charlie & Lola books and other books illustrated by Lauren Child I was really quite happy with that choice.

There were lots of pages to colour, stick sticky stickers and cut wriggly lines (the magazine came with wriggly plastic scissors and some crayons),

but our favourite were the fish & mermaid pictures to cut out.
We decided to make an ocean diorama from a cardboard box,
we started to cut out the shapes and stick them to the background :

We even made a little bed out of tissue paper with a sandpaper headboard:

The pink & sandpaper table complete with a plate of fish & wriggly chips:

We enjoyed making this so much that we will start making these as part of our country studies for geography, just imagine all the possibilities!

What did you do today?
Have a lovely weekend!
♥
`

Finally, finally, we made it through February.
It was probably the hardest month for our family so far, and we are very glad that it’s over.
We hope that with a new month, and with what looks like spring outside, there will be a change for us,too.

As we are hoping for change, we felt it was time for a fresh new nature table, we were getting tired of winter:

(I love our milk bottles, delivered to our doorstep fresh from the farm!)

And because sometimes a new nature table is not quite enough to change the mood,
we also moved some toys around for some fresh corners.

Dress-up box and reading corner by the big window:

The tiny play kitchen that has been used a lot more recently has moved to a more accessible corner,

and while both these corners aren’t the prettiest places in our home they are already helping to change how we all feel, and that, well, it’s a good thing.

Have a lovely day
♥

We had a busy day today, it’s Purim! (Finally..)

In the morning we opened our Purim presents,
the little ones were very happy to receive a Mama made doll each
and a set of books to share.

Later we went to the Purim Party at the Synagogue ,
where we met many friends and made great king & queen masks.
(No picture of Ezi, he slept through that part..)

I hope you all had a lovely weekend!
♥

Has it really already been a week?
I’m sorry that I haven’t been here in such a long time.
Things have been busy, but we got some good news, we won ‘t have to move for at least another three months, so we are a lot happier now.
I am grateful for that, I truly am. I love this tiny little house of ours,and even though it will undoubtedly get a bit crowded in a couple of months it is still our home.

I am grateful for …
a tradition of baking Hamantashen with my sweet Emi:

Purim favours for our friends and neighbours:

This lovely postcard my baby cousin sent:
(See, that’s the trouble when you’re the youngest, you’ll always be the baby, even though he really is very much a grown-up!)

my sweet little Ezi & our morning snuggles.
(Do you see that “big boy bed” next to ours? We’ve got till may to convince him that sleeping in there is lots of fun. He still much prefers our bed though.

& this picture that Daddy & Emi just sent from their adventure.
(Adventure really just means taking the train to do get to the post office, but still..)

What are you grateful for?
Wishing you a lovely weekend!
♥

As some of you know, things have not been easy around here recently, but, in the spirit of staying positive,
I introduce Tooteem!

About Tooteem Dolls
When we first began our journey into Waldorf education we were immediately drawn to the beautiful natural toys, especially the dolls.
I could never find just the right doll for our little ones, so I decided to make them myself.
When we saw the delight on children’s faces as they received their beautiful new best friend, we knew we wanted to share that joy, so we started Tooteem, a place for natural, unique, affordable handmade dolls.

Hop on over to Tooteem and take a look at our new site.
That is also where you can customize and order your new doll.

You can choose between lots of different options to make your doll just exactly how you want it to be.

There are also some doll slings for you to choose from:

I hope you like it, and if you do, feel free to grab a button for your sidebar.

Thank you!

I am not a fan of plastic toys. You know that, I’m sure, as I don’t exactly keep it a secret.
The truth is, I hate them, with their noisiness, their toxic glue , their horrible bright & tacky colours & their way of trying to make children play only in a certain way. But , as we have been going to many many playgroups recently I have come to realize something: They are not all evil. (gasp!)
So we have done a little thinking, & we decided to allow plastic animals. Emi used to love these , way back when she was tiny, and now they are back.

I think as long as these don’t start to take over the house, & as long as they are high quality ,(We like Schleich) I am just fine with that.

Since we got the animals back they have been played with a lot, so I really don’t regret that decision,
as long as they stay the only kind of plastic toy in our home. (Lego? We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. )

Do you have many plastic toys in your home?

ps// We figured out why Ezzie calls himself Ezzie. It simply means “busy” , & if you have ever met him you know why. Everyone who sees him says “You are so busy!” & “Aren’t you busy!” to him, so that’s what he decided his name should be. We’re loving it!

Have a lovely day!
♥