Here We Are Together

One thing I’m really grateful for are our family traditions.
Our little ones know that the colder it gets outside, the closer Chanukah & Christmas are. We’ve been hearing “is it time for decorations yet?” many many times over the past month, but now that it is (almost) december we got out the decorations & found a tree:

(we stopped halfway through decorating to take pictures & head out for a walk)

I’ll show you a picture of the finished tree tomorrow!

Are you going to have a tree?
Is it up yet?

♥

This week I am grateful for

a lot of crafting that is happening & about to happen,

the ever increasing amount of reading:

the jumping,:

the sleeping,:

& the great feeling of knowing that, no matter how bad things might look, there are always good friends & family who might be far away, but are eager to help us out, even with the seemingly littlest of things:

Thank you.

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

” When children pretend, they’re using their imaginations to move beyond the bounds of reality. A stick can be a magic wand. A sock can be a puppet. A small child can be a superhero.”

There has been such a change in the last few weeks in the way our little ones play.
Emi used to build things for George, put on shows, play music for him, but recently there has been so much more working & playing together.

They cook together, they read together, they build castles & train-tracks together, but their favourite is building houses:

Has there been much playing in your home?
Does everyone play together or do your little ones prefer to play alone?
Wishing you a lovely day!

We have recently had a bad day.
It was raining (as it usually does around here now) , I forgot to get milk & apples, and that meant a trip to the local shops which are a 45 minute walk away. (Did I mention it was raining?)
I dressed the little ones & off we went. On the way there were many puddles, & Emi obviously had to jump in them, but I really didn’t want her to. I didn’t want to take a wet child for a 90 minute walk, I didn’t want to come home having to put the little ones into the bath, I just generally wanted to get it all over & done with quickly without stopping every other step to jump into yet another big puddle.
But, as we all know, when there are puddles then three-year-olds will jump into them. Not gently, not carefully, but absolutely fully & completely, splashing everyone around them with muddy water. (Sorry, lovely lady who still managed to smile at us!)

Why was this a bad day, you ask? Because after getting splashed at least ten more times I said to her, to my sweet little girl, to my fantastic puddle jumper, ” Don’t jump into any more puddles,or we will not buy any apples for baked apples tonight!” I don’t even know where that came from, threatening a toddler? Over jumping in puddles? How absolutely ridiculous! But, the puddle jumping did not stop, & I did not buy any apples.
After the little ones went to bed that night (without baked apples) I felt awful. Really truly awful. This was not the sort of mother I wanted to be, no matter how stressed , no matter how much it was raining.

So I made a plan to make up for it.
The next day we went out to find the biggest puddles, this time with a lot of time & the right puddle jumping outfits.

After a lot of puddle testing we found a stream that was, apparently, just the right size:

It didn’t take a lot of jumping before Georgie, too, wanted to try, so Emi took his hands & helped him climb down to where it was safe.

They jumped for quite a while before they got tired & sat down, trying to catch some fish & looking for gold.
(we found neither..)

Afterwards we went home to, you guessed it, have a hot bath & baked apples with vanilla ice-cream.
I am so lucky to have children who will happily forgive their Mama when she has a bad day,
& I am even luckier to have children who will jump into any puddle, anywhere, no matter how muddy or cold,
because, really, that’s what being a child is all about, isn’t it?
Have you had any bad days recently? How did you make up for them?

♥

I am grateful for so many things this week!

I am grateful for..

..This vipwip (very important work in progress, of course!) that gives me back some of my sanity :
(never mind the corners that don’t quite match, I like to think of that as charming…)

This Chanukah Menorah, a family project:

Stocking up on new (to us) books for the rainy days:

Making Challah , watching it rise, it’s about time to put it into the oven now!

& have I recently mentioned how incredibly grateful I am for my little ones?
Those two, & the one happily growing inside me?

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

I apologize for being away for almost the whole week,
there has been a lot of cleaning & moving things around going on.
All this nesting seems to be happening earlier & earlier with each pregnancy.
Today we went for our first scan , one I was rather worried about, as, really, I have not been feeling very pregnant, I have even lost weight.
But, I am glad to say, all is well with the baby.
Other than all the nesting & worrying we have also started baking for the holidays.

(Cookies waiting to be decorated, though they will probably all be long gone before I even have a chance to start..)

We are still trying to make a menorah in time for Chanukah, ( For those of you who asked, it starts on the evening of the 11th this year.) & I am really actually quite happy with what we have got so far. I’ll show you tomorrow!

Till then I am wishing you a lovely day,
♥

Shabbat Shalom ,

have a lovely weekend.
♥

ps// don’t worry, the little one’s only drink grape-juice around here!

This week I am grateful for

preparations for a handmade Chanukah :

(we are not quite onto the Christmas preparations yet, as it is a little further away.)

Our Limber Letters arrived & are a lot of fun!
(Get your own via Likely’s Etsy shop )

Family game time (oh how I love having a child old enough for games! The game is Haba’s “Dreikaesehoch” , a game we all absolutely adore! )

Winter evenings spent sitting together eating homemade snacks:
(Toffee Popcorn, Cheese Puffs, Native American Fried Bread, Olives & Chocolate Milk!)

What are you grateful for?
♥

I consider myself an artist, I love photography, sculptures, sewing, drawing, knitting.. really, I love anything that has to do with being creative, but my favourite art of all is homemaking.
Our home is a big part of our life, Anthony works from home,
I am a “stay-at-home-mum” & we homeschool our children.
I realise it is not the same for a lot of people, but I still believe that home should be the place where family life happens.

A home should represent the people in it & their interests.
(music, of course! That triangle? Definitely the favourite!)

Some of our most important family values are , right after family always comes first, that we all know that our home is a place where we can be who we want to be & know we will get all the support we need,
where we can admit to problems & won’t be judged, & where love is the only language we speak.

While I know that my little one’s might well choose to get a full-time job and send their children to school , I try my best to teach them our values.

As we all know, children learn best through play, so in our home we have a homemaking corner. It’s where the playkitchen is, the doll’s beds, Emi’s knitting needles & wool , and everything else you need.
Both Emi & George love playing together, it’s even more popular than dressing up around here.

George has his own favourite doll who he will carry around & push in a pushchair, coming home just in time for the lovely home-cooked dinner of mushrooms & noodles that Emi prepared.

To make that pretend dinner-time even more special, Oma recently sent us some pretend tea-lights that really look wonderful. (thank you!)

Really, one of the best things that was ever said to me, (even though I am reasonably sure it was meant to be an insult) was “your home looks like a kindergarten”, because, of course it does. We have children, they live here, they are part of our family, why shouldn’t their things & interests be part of our home?

Homemaking is not about cleaning the bathroom every day, it is about creating an environment that reflects every person living in that home, their hobbies, favourite things & current projects.

What are some ways you make your house a home?
What are some blogs or websites you visit for inspiration?
One of my favourite blogs is written by the very lovely Kristin of “Reclaiming the Home“, definitely worth a visit.

Wishing you a lovely day in your home,
♥

I am grateful…

… because my little ones now both love to draw,
& do so together. A lot.

… for our new reading corner, because the more it rains the more we read, dream & tell stories.

…. for our ever growing love for even more music & dance, and the book Let’s Go Shoolie Shoo which is full of great interpretive dance ideas for little one’s!

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