Here We Are Together

Our dear friend Imen recently died after losing her child,
& even though there are contradicting stories, there is a sad thing that we know in our hearts to be true.

Today I made lanterns with my little one’s for St Martins day, and my heart is heavy with memories of the last time we saw Imen before we moved 1,4000 miles away from each other.

(the last picture of Imen & Emi together:)

This friday , & every other day of our life, we are grateful for the moments we shared.

I am grateful that we met Imen,
I am grateful for her always being there for Emi & me,
for loving Emily just as much as Anthony & me, & for showing that love in a million different ways.
For the songs she taught us, for the walks we took together,
for late-night playground playdates with my little one wrapped up in Imen’s scarf.
For hot chocolate on rainy days , for pizza lunch dates & teatime cake.

I am grateful that we got to have this amazing person in our life,
even if it was just for a short time.
I am grateful for the plans we made for the future, holidays that would have been spent at each other’s houses, our children playing happily together,
even if it never happened, & now, never will.

Imen, I wish & I wonder all day, I ask myself what could have changed what happened,
and even though I know it is stupid, even though I know I am just stating the obvious,
we all wish you could still be here with us.

Your candle burns brightly in our home all day while we remember you.

You will be greatly missed.

♥

We recently decided that, due to the very possible (& very horrible!) changes to the homeschool laws in this country we would have to find a way to minimize the threat of our children being forced to go to school.
So we bought a curriculum.
Oh the trouble we had trying to find the right one, a curriculum that recognizes the importance of play,of nature, seasons, of handwork & crafts, of dress-up and being outside, but sadly also had to be based on the english national curriculum.
In the end we decided on the Structured Home Learning curriculum.
The curriculum itself is full of little activity books & craft books, ideas for science projects & games.

It arrived today:

Emi really likes everything in it, and even though we won’t start working with it till monday we obviously had a little first day of school celebration, including a very lovely german tradition, the
Schultuete.

Do you use a curriculum?
What were things you definitely wanted your curriculum to include?
♥

As this Mama is starting to feel much better we are starting to do more, make more & explore.
It feels good.

Today we went into the forest to find some acorn caps that have been left empty by the squirrels.

I do so love the combination of 3 years old & all the magic that autumn brings.

Really, there is nothing better.
Wishing you a magical day
♥

Playsilks & ribbon saving the day;

Life is still slow,
but in a good way.

.. our littlest!
(currently about the size of this crystal!)

We can’t wait to meet him or her late spring next year!
♥

Because of a very tired Mama and the very cold and rainy weather we have been spending a lot of time inside recently, keeping ourselves busy with a lot of reading,
& even more music. (We really like Eric Herman , click it because you will love it! all of you, i mean!)
What we have been really enjoying is taping a large sheet of brown packing paper to a small table & just drawing whatever comes to mind.
It is lovely to watch my little one’s creating their own giant adventures, under-water scenes , treasure maps & train tracks.
(& it keeps them so very busy that I have lot’s of time for my knitting, now that’s a plus, isn’t it?)

(I really like all the little details , the forests & lakes complete with ducks ,
and a castle build from the Cuboro cubes,of course..)

wishing you a lovely day,
we will continue to take each day as it comes.
♥

Oh how I love autumn ,
when it is dark outside, more than likely raining,
when there is no better place than home,
& we all know it, even the little one’s.
This season changes them , they are calmer, without the sun calling them out every morning our life slows down,
toys move into the warmest room of the house, few things are left outside.
You can smell candles, apples baking in the oven.

My favourite,though, are these autumn mornings, the one’s where you need to turn on a light to see,
with everyone all snuggled up under the same big quilt,
with children who are quite happily playing with a jar full of conkers,

feeling them,

making up stories ,
(this is Mama conker & this is Emi conker…)

& of course, tasting them.

(yes, Georgie, I saw that.)

Wishing you a very peaceful autumn morning.
♥

Emi has always loved taking pictures,
I don’t remember a time where she did not try to reach my camera, even when she just started crawling places she would always find the camera.
For her third birthday we got her a digital camera,
& she has been taking lots of photos with it every day.

Of course we don’t just want to store these pictures, but want to keep looking at them,sharing them
& adding to them,
so now Emi (together with her best friend WhiteDog ) has her own website where she will be sharing her photographs and adventures.

It is called WhiteDog Photography,
& I would really appreciate it if you would take the time to take a look at it once in a while, as Emi will be adding to it often.

Thank you
♥

Autumn days spent

touching

balancing

drawing,

& exploring.

This truly is my favourite season.
♥

We will have two harvest festivals this year,
one was yesterday, the other one will be next sunday when Nanny & Grandpa are back home.

“Harvest 2009”

I hope you,too,had a lovely time.
♥