Wonder Years

Knitting bug

2012-01-03T06:25:00.000-08:00

I wanted to make something special for my baby Nephew (who's due any day now!) and my sister said she would love it if I could knit her a blanket, so I set about learning how to. Luckily my mum knows how to knit, Im more of a visual learner so having someone show me how to, rather than trying to work it out from a book was really helpful for me and so once I had chosen the wool, and bought the needles, mum cast on for me and taught me how to knit and purl. After knitting for a few weeks, I had to put the knitting away so I could focus on Christmas crafts, but once Christmas bits were finished, I picked the knitting back up and a couple of nights ago, the blanket was finished! I had no idea how to cast off, and it was at a time where I couldnt go to mums to have her show me how, so with the help of Youtube, I managed to work it out and it was so much easier than I though it would be!

Im more proud of this than I am of anything I have created so far, I was practically dancing around the room when it was finished :-)

Its not perfect, its a little gappy in a few places, and I knitted when I purled, or purled when I should have knitted a coule of times meaning the pattern went off a little, but I think it adds to the charm...doesnt it?

The same night I finished the blanket, I saw on facebook a link for a Leap year blanket project, where you knit a square everyday, resulting in a lovely hand knitted blanket at the end of the year! I decided to join thinking that this could be a great way for my confidence to grow and hopefully learn a few techniques along the way! When I started the blanket, my mum cast on for me, so to start my first square, I had to go back to Youtube and learn how to do this, and again, I picked it up fairly easily and I thought it would be a lovely way to use up the last bit of wool I had leftover from the baby blanket

Im going to give pattern reading a go soon, I have allsorts of things Id love to make but I dont want to get too ahead of myself

If you would like to know more about the Leap year blanket or fancy joining in, here is the link :-)
The Leap Year Blanket

Happy New Year

2012-01-01T09:14:00.000-08:00

Im feeling excited about the new year, no resolutions as such, but lots Id like to achieve and I love the feeling of a fresh start that comes with a new year, plus Im about to become an Auntie for the first time :-) We spent the first day of 2012 at a very soggy park and farm, it was nice to have a walk and blow off some cobwebs despite the rain

We stopped to say hello to the Highland cows

Spot of tractor driving

said hello to the turkeys

and then a bit of construction

Even wet sand gets everywhere!

After all that, the rain was really getting too much, so we headed home for a big roast dinner :-)

Wishing you all the best for 2012

Handmade Christmas

2011-12-29T10:02:00.000-08:00

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas! We are still very much in holiday mode with Chris still being home, he doesnt go back to work until next Tuesday so its been a nice break for him and lovely to have him at home with us.

Christmas day itself was a little stressful for me, as this is the first year I have cooked Christmas dinner, we usually go to my mums but she had asked me if they could come here instead so I had dinner to cook for 7! Since then we have enjoyed calmer days playing with our new things.

I made a few gifts this year, which I think went down ok, the main thing was gift hampers filled with handmade bits, I made another batch of fudge for them, peppermint bark and popped in a jar of the Chutney I made at the end of Summer. Also added was a bag of Walnuts foraged in the Autumn and lastly a Mulled wine and cinnamon soap from my evening of learning to make soap

I also made several fabric Elf dolls

Not a gift but is being mostly given away due to there only being me that will eat Christmas cake, we made and decorated our own this year

I may not get a chance to post again until after the New Year so hope you all enjoy the rest of the holidays, Im off to find a tin of chocolates with my name on them ;-)

Hmmm

2011-12-21T14:05:00.000-08:00

Our mudpie kitchen which had been forgotten since the weather turned cold was revamped into a mudpie bath this afternoon!

Making and baking

2011-12-20T14:04:00.000-08:00

Lots of this going on at the moment while we plan and fill our Hampers we are giving as gifts this Christmas

Bashing up candy canes to make peppermint bark

We made rustic (totally gone wrong but tastes amazing) fudge

and of course where there are bowls with melted sweet stuff, there are little ones armed with spoons ready to scrape them clean, and in PJ's no less :-)

This little miss just had her 4th visit from the tooth fairy!

My Hamper baskets are slowly getting filled up, cards are made and written, parcels and cards posted, I just have some sewing to finish and a few more last minute treats to make before I can start wrapping everything up and then I think Christmas 2011 will be in the bag

Hows everyones plans coming along?

Overwhelmed

2011-12-15T06:35:00.000-08:00

Is how Im feeling at the moment, so much to do, time is running out and all I want to do is sit back and enjoy the run up to Christmas with my family. I dont want to ignore this space in the process, but with very little time for Blogging, Im going to do little snapshots from our days, rather than lengthy posts

So for today, look what was waiting for us this morning, Snow!

Today

2011-12-06T13:04:00.000-08:00

After the busyness of the weekend we have enjoyed a cosy day at home

We found out the Christmas music

which we played and sang along to while we made trail mix bars for a healthy snack

cut stars out of beeswax sheets ready for making decorations

After lunch we made a huge panful of popcorn

and settled down together to watch a dvd

Sometimes simple days really are the best ones

Weekending

2011-12-06T07:38:00.000-08:00

Chris had taken a couple of days off work so we had a long weekend together. Friday we got everything out of the loft, found all the Christmas bits out and set about putting up the tree, only to realise we didnt have any lights so Saturday morning we went to buy some, had a trip to the cinema for their movies for juniors, we saw Cars 2 which Emy enjoyed and then we went into town as Emy had a dance exam. They had changed the time of the exam which I didnt know about so this ment hanging around in town for quiet a while! that evening we got the christmas lights out of the box to find they were tiny and not anywhere near enough to cover our tree, so we boxed them back up and put the decorating on hold again.

Sunday we had planned to go to a Christmas market, but the weather was very wet and with the market being outdoors we decided to give it a miss, but we did go and exchange the tree lights and then at tea time we went to a birthday party, complete with fireworks!

Monday Emy and Henry spent the day with my mum so me and Chris could spend a day together which was lovely, we went into town, decided on a few Christmas presents, had a look at the Christmas market which is really disapointing this year, we had pizza for lunch and then before setting off home had coffee and cake in Starbucks, I can really recommend their Gingerbread loaf cake! Once we were all home again, we finally decoated the Christmas tree :-)

Hope you all had a lovely weekend, do you have your tree up yet?

December

2011-12-01T06:05:00.000-08:00

I think I say this every year, but this year really has gone by so fast, it feels a little odd thinking about decorating the house for Christmas, but with today being the 1st of December, thats just what we have started to do.

I gave a little sneak peak in my last post of the Advent calendar I have been making, here it is all finished :-)

I admit I cheated a bit, with so much crafting to do I didnt think Id have time this year to make an Advent calendar, but on a trip to Hobby Craft I saw some make your own kits, all the material is there, you just need to snip out the bits, sew on the pockets, back it and add something to hang it up with, and despite slightly cheating we really love it and its the biggest project I have done on my sewing machine to date!

We decided on fudge to go inside the pockets, something that I was confident would last the 24 days without melting or going stale, so yesterday we set about making chocolate fudge. The recipe was really easy, melting together chocolate, condensed milk and butter then beating in some icing sugar, pouring into a non stick tray and leave in the fridge to set for an hour, unfortunatly our fudge has turned out more like a loose set toffee, delicious, but a bit gooey, so rather than my plan of wrapping all the chunks up and filling all the pockets up, Im having to keep the chunks in the fridge and each night Il fill the pocket up ready for each morning, doing it this way also means little hands wont be tempted to empty all the pockets in one go when Im not looking ;-)

This morning Emy and H were both so excited to get their treat out of the pocket and we lit our advent candle too while we waited for the sun to come up

Wishing you all a wonderful start to Advent x

Slowing down

2011-11-29T08:57:00.000-08:00

Things have been a little fraught lately, lots of anger, frustrations, shouting and screaming which being honest, is leaving me exhausted most days! Henry at 3 years old is having a hard time at the moment, which isnt helped when Emy doesnt understand how hard of a time he is having which results in winding him up....a lot! but then, why should she understand, she's only 5 years old herself, and I have to remind myself that all this negative energy is effecting her too.

When Emy was tiny and having a hard time, we did what I now look back on as a mistake, we introduced time outs, when she was all worked up, screaming and shouting, we made her sit by herself until she had calmed down. It didnt take long for us to realise that it wasnt helping things. These days when things get difficult, rather than a time out, we have a TIME IN and thats just what we have been doing this past week or so.

We have slowed down, we have swapped days where we have to rush out of the door in a morning to get somewhere for days where we can take our time, quiet cosy mornings to read stories, time to play games, to bake and to start on our Christmas crafts and generally trying to restore some balance to our days and being more in the moment

Hope your all having a lovely week

We are excited for the start of Advent :-)

Vanilla essence

2011-11-24T04:48:00.000-08:00

With the festive season approaching we have been thinking about what yummy treats we would like to bake and also what we could give as gifts. Vanilla plays a part in a lot of recipes be it cakes, biscuits, ice cream, fudge or even drinks! but what I didnt know is that its really easy and probably cheaper to make your own Vanilla essence

All you need is

Vanilla beans
Vodka
jar with a tight fitting lid

Searching on the internet I have have come accross lots of different suggestions on the amounts to use, but the method is always the same, simply score your vanilla bean length ways, add them to your jar, then add Vodka. I went with 3 beans per cup measure of Vodka, then leave it for around 3 months, giving your jar a shake once in a while. I didnt make ours early enough to be able to use it in our Christmas baking so will have to buy some in, but in future I shall make my own

Our week

2011-11-11T15:19:00.000-08:00

With only 6 weeks to go until Christmas and 2 new babies due soon after, Im crafting away any chance I get, card designs are being cross stitched, recipes planned for Christmas hampers, materials choosen and bought ready for some handmade gifts and a baby blanket is being knitted.....I think I need more than 6 weeks!

Monday was our second session at Forrest school, the kids had to gather sticks to make into a picture frame, then tie knots with string to tie the sticks together, as the morning went on it was getting very cold and starting to rain so we moved into the energy centre, turns were took trying to power a radio with a pedal bike, then they started working on a log book of the things they have done so far at Forrest school.

Tuesday we had an adorable 2 year old friend over for the afternoon, H gets on so well with her, it was really cute watching them playing hiding games togeher, then in the evening when Chris had finished work we used some free cinema tickets to see the Lion King, I spent the whole film wanting to sing out loud to the songs!

Wednesday was Emy's dance lesson. Last week she did an audition for a part in their summer production and there was a list of names who had been given a part, Emy wasnt on the list and she took it really well, she gets to perform in a group dance so I think she's just happy she still gets to take part.

Thursday was our regular Home ed group, Emy and H had their photo taken a couple of weeks ago and they were ready to collect, I just love it, and hopefully family will too as they are getting one for Christmas! In the evening we had a special treat and went to see Disney on Ice at the arena which was so so good! I was going to take the camera and share some photos here but in the end I didnt bother, usually I just end up fiddling about with the camera trying to get it to focus properly and getting a decent picture rather than watching the thing Im trying to photograph, I wanted to just enjoy being in the moment

Also this week, we posted off my little suprise I was giving away here a few weeks ago, a little sock monkey :-) I hope he's made his way to his new home and Im not spoiling the suprise

Wishing you all a lovely weekend

Roasted Pumpkin and an idea what to do with it

2011-11-09T08:40:00.000-08:00

In our quest to grow our own pumpkin for Halloween this year, our efforts rewarded us with 2 pumpkins, one we carved and made a lantern with, making puree with the insides to add to recipes, the other larger one needed a little more time to ripen up and I needed more time to decide what to do with it!

Yesterday I decided to roast it so I could again make puree to add to recipes, pumpkin freezes really well so we can use it up when we fancy. Rather than cutting the pumpkin up to roast (have you ever cut a large pumpkin into chunks? not an easy job and I value my fingers ;-) I gave it a wash, stabbed it a few times and put it into the oven whole. A little over an hour later tah daaah! one squishy roasted pumpkin, ready to pop into the blender, not forgetting to scoop out the seeds to roast for a healthy snack

Back in early summer when we planted our pumpkin seeds, I had dreams of our garden producing lots of pumpkins, so I started searching for things to do with them, a few times I found ideas teaming pumpkin and chocolate and an idea for adding swirls of chocolate spread to a cake batter, so today I have a recipe to share with you, incase your wondering what to do with all your lovely pumpkin

Pumpkin muffins with chocolate swirls

1 3/4 cups plain flour
1tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp mixed spice
1 1/2 cups caster sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup water
1 cup pumpkin puree
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
good amount of chocolate spread

In a large bowl mix together the sugar, oil, water, pumpkin, eggs and vanilla until smooth

Seive in the flour, baking powder, salt and mixed spice

Mix together to make the cakey batter and scoop into muffin cases

Warm the chocolate spread to loosen a little then spoon some into each muffin case swirling it around with the spoon.

Bake in a preheated oven at 180 for around 20 minutes

Watch them vanish in less time than it took to make them :-)

Ginger cake and Bonfires

2011-11-07T06:09:00.000-08:00

This weekend we said goodbye to Halloween, the decorations put away, the pumpkin into the compost bin and say hello to very chilly days, warming food and bonfires. We had a fire in our garden while eating sausages in bread rolls, followed by a few fireworks and Ginger cake. I always like to bake a parkin or ginger cake for November the 5th, we bake it a few days before so it has time to get nice and sticky! I tried a different recipe this year and its one Im likely to use again, it turned out delicious and the addition of stem ginger mixed into the cake batter was really nice

You can find the recipe here here

I thought Id enter my cake into the teatime treats blogging and baking event that Kate is hosting over on her blog Lavender and Lovage and Kate from What Kate baked

Check out their lovely blogs, Im looking forward to seeing the other entries

Hope you all had a lovely weekend

Halloween of firsts

2011-11-01T12:59:00.000-07:00

We love Halloween around here, in previous years we have celebrated in a small quiet way at home, carving pumpkins, making decorations and enjoying seeing all the trick or treaters. This year Emy was very keen to go trick or treating too, so I agreed we could visit a couple of the neighbours houses and then drive down to suprise nanny in their costumes.

At the weekend we tried something new, we made a Gingerbread house! The baking, building and decorating took us 3 days, we baked it on day 1 (Saturday) built it on day 2 and for fear of it collapsing, we saved the decorating until Halloween itself. For a first attempt, Im pretty pleased with it, although the perfectionist in me had a hard time allowing the kids anywhere near it once the roof was on. Emy is keen to give it another go next year :-)

Another first is that we have carved our very own home grown pumpkin lantern. I have wanted to grow our own for a few years and we finally managed it, even if it was a green one with an orange bottom!

We made our usual decorations, built paper skeletons and lit lots of candles

Then it was time for the kiddo's first trick or treating :-)

Spooky spiderweb treats

2011-10-31T07:42:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween and Samhain blessings :-)

For the past few years I have enjoyed making treats for any trick or treaters that might visit us on this night rather than buying the usual treats on offer in the supermarkets

This year I have tried something different and made chocolate spiderwebs aka white chocolate coated pretzel stars, with some hundreds and thousands sprinkled over for good measure

I turned the white chocolate green by adding a splash of green food colouring to the melted white chocolate

I think they turned out great, I love the savoury and sweet combination, hopefully any visitors we have tonight will enjoy them too

Egg shell mosaic

2011-10-27T07:50:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago Emy was asking to do an experiment and we didnt have any vinegar or bicarb, so I came up with this

Egg shells in jars of food colouring

We left them in the jars for just over a week, giving them a shake each day, then a few days ago we drained out the colouring and left the shells to dry

Good way to use up egg shells, great for making pictures, this one was Emy's pumpkin picture

Sunny day

2011-10-26T12:50:00.000-07:00

Today was one of those perfect Autumn days, dry, sunny and very chilly, infact when I came downstairs this morning and let the cats in, the ground outside was covered in frost! I had a quiet hour sipping hot coffee before the kiddo's came down and the first thing Emy wanted to do was math, so after warm drinks were made, we got out her math book and did a few pages, she seems to be really enjoying numbers at the moment. After some breakfast we decided to go to the nature reserve, we took along a couple of our nature detective print out sheets to spot different leaves and seeds as we walked. The last time we went, we discovered a stream and spent lots of time there throwing rocks and stones in to make splashes so Emy and H were keen to go there again

SPLASH!

Once little hands got too cold we took a walk around the lake, spent some time soptting the things on our print out sheet and then headed for home

On our way home we saw some houses being demolished so we stopped for a while to watch the big machine at work, it was quiet sad to see what was once someones home being ripped apart piece by piece

We wondered what they would build when the houses were gone, Emy thinks it could be a castle and Henry decided they should build a dragon :-)

Cake!

2011-10-15T09:37:00.000-07:00

This week Hannah over at Home Baked invited us to bake and eat cake to celebrate her birthday, also this week its National cake AND National chocolate week, and since I need no real excuse to eat cake I baked one in her honor yesterday. I wanted to include Walnuts into the recipe as we have a whole bag of fresh ones after picking them earlier in the week, and I also wanted it to be chocolatly with it being chocolate week n all, so this is what I came up with

It aint pretty, not one bit! All those holes in the top are inserted rolo's which I hoped would give lovely chunks of melted toffee, but although not pretty the cake is delicious! more torte like than sponge, very dense and moist

So Happy birthday Hannah, we enjoyed eating this cake on your behalf :-)

Giveaway winner

2011-10-15T02:35:00.000-07:00

Thankyou everyone for entering my first giveaway :-) We popped all the names into a bowl this morning and Emy picked out a name

Congrautlations nocton4

Email me over your address details and I shall get your suprise in the post for you :-)

Busy but lovely week

2011-10-14T03:11:00.000-07:00

We have been busy bee's so far this week! I had lots of lovely photo's to share but Im having trouble connecting my mobile phone to the software to download them so will have to be a photoless post

On Monday we had our first session at Forrest School, it was a taster session to chat about the kind of things the children would be doing in the coming weeks, things such as shelter building, using natural tools, campfire building and cooking, all very Ray Mears type things which all sound so fun! We all got stuck in and made a shelter using logs, sticks and branches we found around us.

On Tuesday we went over to a friends house, where we went Walnut picking, we have never been nut picking so was really excited! I was so suprised at how many there were, we all went home after a full day of picking chatting and playing with full tummies as my friend cooked for us all and a bag full of Walnuts :-)

Wednesday we went for a behind the scene tour of Cineworld cinema with home ed group which was really interesting. We love going to the cinema, it was something Chris and I did lots before we had children and now Emy and H are a little older, its something we enjoy all together as a family. The image of a little projector room was shattered though as its all now digital and operated by computers, but it was still nice to see how everything worked

Today is the last day to enter my little giveaway, open to everyone. I know a few people have had issues commenting on blogger blogs recently, myself included so If you would like to enter, pop a comment onto the giveaway post Here ,send me an email which can be found on the contact me page at the top, or pop a comment on the Wonder Years facebook page to say you would like to enter :-)

Saturday Kitchen

2011-10-08T08:34:00.000-07:00

Early morning experiments

Crispy griddled pancakes for lunch

Batch of banana muffins for the freezer to make for a quick snack next week

and homemade Gingerbread syrup to flavour coffee, icecream, or anything else you fancy, very hard to photograph on this very gloomy afternoon. Much better photo and recipe here

Hope your all having a lovely weekend

Autumn days

2011-10-06T06:30:00.000-07:00

Autumn for me means soup! When their is a chill in the air there's nothing better than a hot bowl of soup to warm the hands and nourish the soul. Im someone who usually likes to stick to a recipe but with soup I love how you can turn pretty much anything hiding in your cupboards, fridge or even freezer into something delicious. My favourite soup for Autumn is Curry squash soup, I thought Id share my recipe here. Measurements are a rough guide

1 onion chopped
1 Squash chopped (if using butternut I usually use just half for soup and use the other half for a risotto)
couple of carrots,peeled and chopped
half a tsp cumin
1 tsp curry powder
enough hot stock to cover the veg

Simmer until all the veg is soft then blitz

a swirl of coconut milk to finish is a lovely addition

Autumn days

2011-10-05T04:54:00.000-07:00

Chilly woodland walks to blow the cobwebs away

Colours

Learning something new, and taking it with you to keep warm as you create

In the car this morning I reminded Emy that it would be Halloween soon, I love this time of year she replied, and we chatted through our journey about all the things we love about it and things to look forward to as it turns into the festive season, things she remembers from previous years which are becoming our own family traditions

Yep, we love this time of year :-)

Recent scenes

2011-10-04T08:09:00.000-07:00

We have been laying low for the past week due to lurgry bugs, dates were canceled and most of the past weeks unusual hot weather has been missed in favour of staying inside and resting where it was cooler

We did a couple of Autumn crafts

and updated our season table

Washing out on the line

Mudpie kitchen was created and enjoyed for breif moments

Even though we missed most of the sunshine, our pumpkins relished it and showed their thanks by finally starting to turn orange :-)

Thankyou, and a little giveaway

2011-09-30T05:13:00.000-07:00

Wonder Years is 2 years old! Im a little late with this post as my bloggaversary was in August but I wanted to take the opportunity to thank everyone for reading and for the lovely comments, I really appreciate every one. I started this blog back in 2009 to be a little record of what we get up to and to have somewhere for me to note down my thoughts as we began on our home educating journey but its become something more meaningful than that, I have met some wonderful people through blogging, people I like to think of as friends now and I have received lovely support. As a thankyou, Id like to offer a little giveaway, so if you would like to receive a little handmade suprise in the post from me, leave a comment on this post and in a couple of weeks me and my 2 helpers will pick a name at random :-)

***If you dont have a google account to enable you to comment, drop me an email which you can find by clicking on the contact me page or comment on the Wonder Years facebook page (see sidebar for the link)***

Not back to school

2011-09-29T03:11:00.000-07:00

Still playing catchup a little here. September marks our second "official" year of home educating but whereas last year I was in a bit of a panic as to wether we were doing the right thing, Im now much more confident about our decision. Emily would be moving into year one if she went to school, which I have been told by friends who have children in this year, is when the work starts, more emphasis on learning, less on playing, but as we will remain child led I sharnt be planning out any lessons anytime soon! What we have done is discussed together how we would like things to progress, if there is anything Emy would like to learn about, look at in more detail and she said she would like to learn to read better and learn more about nature :-) Emy is doing really well with her reading, she often likes to have downtime laying down with a book, she usually chooses books that are too advanced for her when she does this, long chapter books with no pictures which I have picked up to save for when she's older, but she likes to study the words and pretends to read them. We have the Oxford reading tree library which I bought during last years panic and she can read the first level with very little help. For Nature, we took another look at Nature detectives website which we enjoyed a couple of years ago and decided together to take out another subscription and our pack arrived last week. So thats us, nothing is really changing and were all pretty happy about that :-)

30 Day Vegan workshop

2011-09-26T01:37:00.000-07:00

The workshop came to an end a few weeks ago now, but the start of September came with a lot of busyness so the blog has been a little quiet.

I really enjoyed the workshop, and take with me lots of lovely recipes, knowledge about eating a better diet and thoughts on how to make time for myself and for more self care. I didnt stick to being 100% vegan thoughout the workshop, I found it difficult to balance the needs of my family and during the workshop I found myself in a rather stressful situation so I didnt fully embrace the self care elements like I wanted to but I have lots I can explore when the time is right. I can highly recomend the workshop and I think Heather will be running another one in the new year so one to look out for if you fancy having a go

Happy birthday Henry

2011-09-06T05:40:00.000-07:00

Henry turned 3 years old last week, doesnt time just fly by!

I made him a felt birthday crown for him to wear on his special day

Although, once he had opened his much wanted spiderman outfit, the crown was quickly replaced by the mask :-) We had a family birthday tea party for him and he spent most of the time testing out his new wheels and playing with my parents growing number of dachshunds

A lovely special day for my gorgeous boy

Vegan thoughts

2011-08-18T05:50:00.000-07:00

So far so yum!

So far all the recipes I have tried have been delicious! I feel like Im eating well and between meals Im not feeling hungry or like Im missing out on eating anything, I could have happily reached for some chocolate yesterday but that quickly passed. One thing I am starting to realise is that eating this way takes more time, thought and planning as well as preperation, this week its been no problem as our usual home ed meets and activities are now off until September so we have been enjoying spending time at home, but I think when our usual routine starts up again I would have to do a lot of forward planning and prep in advance, but thats not something that would put me off eating this way after the 30 days has finished. Yesterday we got next weeks recipes, so come Monday Im looking forward to planning, shopping and adding some of these into our week. Health wise Im not feeling any different, but its early days yet

Making a start on Christmas

2011-08-17T06:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I officially started crafting for christmas, I made Apricot and apple chutney with a whole bunch of those lovely apples we picked at the weekend. The recipe is one Hannah shared on her blog Home Baked and like all the other recipes I have tried that Hannah has shared on her blog, it turned out delicious!

7 jars of yummy chutney all waiting to be made pretty with a lable and a fabric top

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Hopefully in the next few weeks I can start on my christmas cards!

Have you started crafting for christmas yet? Id love to hear what your making

30 day Vegan

2011-08-16T07:39:00.000-07:00

Im currently taking part in an online workshop 30 day Vegan I saw this workshop on a few blogs I read a few months ago and liked the sound of it so when I read that it was starting again I decided to take part, why? Im really trying to get my diet into order, I dont feel well, not felt well for what seems like a long time, just drained of energy, tired despite sleeping all night, sluggish and in need of a change. A couple of weeks ago I joined a local gym which offers personal training as part of the membership fee so I have been going 3 evenings a week and Im enjoying it, so this workshop felt like it was at a good time for me. We are 2 days in so far and I have been enjoying coconut granola for breakfast, veg wraps with tahini sauce and had a very yummy stirfry for dinner yesterday. The workshop is more than just about the food, its about self healing and care which at the moment I really feel I need. Il update here with how Im getting on

Is anyone else taking part?

Garden scenes

2011-08-14T07:47:00.000-07:00

Other than donating some things to the charity shop, buying a few pre loved items while there and a trip to the park our weekend has been spent at home, mainly down to me having some sort of tummy bug ick! So time has been spent in the garden, we pulled up all the onions which are now drying out in the shed and this morning we started picking the apples from our tree ready for some chutney making, hopefully tomorrow if Im feeling better

Here are some snaps I took while walking through the garden today

Pumpkins! Im super excited about these

Hope your having a great weekend x

Cherry plum cordial

2011-08-13T01:01:00.000-07:00

While catching up on some blog reading, I came accross this post on how to make Cherry plum cordial and I realised that we have these cherry plums growing on trees around our local library so we had a morning of collecting the plums, then an afternoon of making cordial, the smell of the plums cooking down was soooo good!

It made nearly enough cordial to fill a large jar

A couple of spoonfuls in the bottom of a glass, topped up with water, perfect for a summery day, or a bright blustery one, as we seem to be having at the moment

Potatoes

2011-08-10T05:27:00.001-07:00

We have had a go at growing more things this year than previous, some have done well, some not so well (carrots!) Its been our second year at growing potatoes and last week they were finally ready to be dug up

We have several pumpkin plants doing really well so hopefully my dream of growing our own pumpkin for Halloween will come true

Lammas

2011-08-02T13:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Lammas, the first harvest festival of the year, I must admit I knew little about Lammas until recently reading about it but we decided to mark the day by harvesting blackberries for the first time this year in a field near to our home, and we had a suprise of a few rasberries too which is the first time finding them in that spot. The field has been cut back a lot since we first went berry picking there and there isnt a lot left, but enough for a snack

Then we looked through our books for a traditional harvest loaf recipe, I had to alter it slightly as we didnt have the fresh yeast the recipe called for but it turned out delicious, if not a little funny looking, it did look like a plait before it went into the oven!

Yum!

Riding and painting

2011-07-30T11:31:00.000-07:00

Guess who learnt to ride her bike this week!

Within one day of her stabilizers being removed she had the balance nailed and away she went :-)

Also this week we have been doing lots of painting, mostly in the garden where there is lots of inspiration from whats growing right now

Wishing you all a lovely weekend :-)

Luminarium

2011-07-27T08:17:00.000-07:00

Our city centre is hosting an Architects of Air Luminarium at the moment, it was set up Last Friday and is here till Thursday and we got the chance to go yesterday which was amazing, but as it was a warm day is was very hot inside!

Architects of Air is an internationally renowned inflatable walk in art installation, manufactured from translucent pvc, the Luminarium, Amococo. The structure transforms natural light into a kaleidoscope of liquid light and colour spilling across labyrinthine pathways, cavernous domes and curved walls. The initial reaction is often one of wonder and delight at the unexpected beauty created ,often described as walking through a stained glass window

So beautiful! I really recomend a visit if it comes near to you

Sculpture park

2011-07-15T00:39:00.000-07:00

Last week we visited the Yorkshire sculpture park, its a really lovely place to visit and the sculptures are amazing! Its such a huge place, we didnt see everything as there is lots of walking to do and little legs got tired about half way around, we shall visit again over the summer and see the rest

Wordless Wednesday

2011-07-13T00:56:00.000-07:00

Police visit

2011-06-09T13:29:00.000-07:00

Today we went along with home ed group to an organised police visit. They did some fantastic things with the kids including introducing them to the police dogs and gave us a couple of demonstrations of them in action

We met the mounted police

and got to play in the riot van

After lunch the kids got to dress up and have a go at forensics at a crime scene

Then we had a tour around Barnsley football club

In the player changing room

and the tunnel

Peace in the park

2011-06-04T13:01:00.000-07:00

Today we went to a Peace in the park event in our city, lots of music, food, craft stalls and lots of things for kids to play with. There was also a new world record made for the most adults reading children the same story at the same time which we missed taking part in because Emy was in the process of becoming a cat
:-D

On our out of the event we walked through the museum gardens where an Air ambulance had landed and was giving little tours inside, then we got to watch it take off which was awesome....and rather windy!

Video of the take off :-)

We then walked into town and had a treat of coffee and cakes

a lovely day :-)

Bake and decorating

2011-05-31T06:25:00.000-07:00

On Saturday I attended a cupcake decorating workshop with my sister, we got to decorate 6 cupcakes and 2 cake pops using different frostings, sprinkles, sugar paste and other yummy things. It was 2 hours of creative fun and was also nice to spend some time with my sister :-)

Here are the results

Almost to good to eat!

We have spent a lot of our weekend baking at home too, after a few busy weeks it was nice to spend a long weekend relaxing at home

And of course lots of baking means lots of bowls and spoons to lick

Hope you all had a lovely bank holiday weekend x

Upcycled crayons

2011-05-17T11:45:00.000-07:00

Crayons tend to not survive intact very long in our house, Emy & H got some in party bags a couple of weeks ago which were in several bits after one use so today we made them into new crayons

Chopped them into small bits and popped the bits into silicone moulds,then in a warm oven for a few minutes. Once melted, leave to cool

We like to use these for leaf or bark rubbings

Daily bread

2011-05-16T12:15:00.000-07:00

In 2009 I blogged about my disasters in breadmaking and since then I have had the odd go at it in the hope to one day make all our bread from scratch and stop having to buy it. Well, nearly 2 years later I think I may have finally cracked it!

For the past month all of our bread has been made from scratch and its been lovely and light in the middle and not at all like a house brick. Id love to say that I finally discovered how to do it but it was actually watching Chris make bread and using the recipe he uses which has turned it around (yes if your reading this you were right!) I have found that if I bake 2 loaves twice a week, putting one loaf into the freezer till the first is used up, this is plenty for our weekly needs

So this morning me and Emy got busy making the dough

While it was proving we did our food shop for the week, when we came home it had doubled up so we gave it another knead, cut it into 2 and left to rise again while we went exploring in the woods

Emy found a tree cave to put her new lego Dr Who weeping angels in

Came home and popped the risen dough in the oven and tah dahhh! 2 wholemeal poppy seed loaves :-)

Growth

2011-05-14T07:29:00.000-07:00

In the garden

Purple sprouting broccoli, garlic, various herbs, lettice,echinacea, a blackberry bush and some flowers

Potatoes, onions and carrots

Beans

Also growth in our family :-)

Volunteering

2011-05-14T07:04:00.000-07:00

We met up with some friends on Wednesday to do some gardening at Unstone Grange organic gardens, when we pulled into the car park we saw these wood carvings, we didnt find out who did them but they were amazing

we did a bit of weeding but mostly just enjoyed spending time there and shared a lunch with the other volunteers of soup made with vegetables from the gardens and the kids got to explore the grounds with their friends

Trousers

2011-05-14T01:20:00.000-07:00

I made my first ever pair of trousers last week! A friend offered to have a look at my sewing machine for me as I was having some issues with it and she was showing me the clothes she has made for her boys, then asked if Id like to make a pair of trousers so she showed me how. Im so proud of them and they pretty easy to make. Im excited to get more material and have a go at another pair

Roche Abby

2011-05-06T04:56:00.000-07:00

We visited Roche Abby last Sunday and was blown away with how beautiful it was. On arriving we set off down a woody path and realised after a half hour of walking that we must have gone the wrong way, but Im so glad we did as we would have missed all this beauty

A couple of weeks ago I was wondering where I could find wild garlic, we struck gold here!

We turned around and realised the Abby was just at the other side of where we came in

Magna Science adventure

2011-05-03T00:14:00.000-07:00

We visited Magna last week with some other home ed family's and had a really great time. I have been here before with my sister about 10 years ago (ish) when it first opened, but at the time it was so busy we didnt really get to see much. Its split into different sections, Earth, Water, Fire and Air and outside there is a HUGE adventure playground and a water park too! We arrived at 10.30 and didnt leave till 4 in the afternoon so well worth the enterance fee, especailly as we got it discounted

The pictures arnt great as it was pretty dark inside

Earth

H operating a digger

Water

Fire

Fire tornado

Air

Easter

2011-05-02T00:23:00.000-07:00

Hope you all had a lovely Easter

Babysteps catch up

2011-04-12T11:29:00.000-07:00

Day 3 was an easy one, to do what we have already done, so that ment shining my sink and getting dressed first thing. Day 4 had me writting out the babysteps so far on post it notes (shine sink, get dressed) and sticking them next to the kitchen sink and bathroom mirror as reminders, plus going onto the Flylady site and reading the messages and day 5 was about writting out the negative thoughts I have and then writting something positive in response with a veiw to FLY - Finally love myself

So here I am on day 6, todays babystep is to tackle a hotspot, an area that needs some attention and to tackle it using a 2 minute timer. Problem is I have a lot of hotspots, and they will take way more than 2 minutes to clear, plus I had already spent a fair amount of time this morning cleaning and de-glooping the washing machine so I chose a smaller spot that I knew I could do something about within the time. I had a look on my mobile phone and found that it has a timer on there which will come in handy

Cards from celebrations a couple of weeks ago! Some print out sheets of Emy's, some of my craft materials and DVD's left out

Much better :-)

Our weekend

2011-04-10T11:01:00.000-07:00

The weather has been so lovely this weekend so we have spent most of it outside

Friday evening me and Emy drove out to a friends house where we went to the woods near their house for a lantern walk. We didnt make it to the lantern carnival I posted about a while ago as it had been raining pretty much all day and with the lanterns being covered in a tissue paper skin, ours wouldnt have lasted at all if it got wet so it was lovely that we got the chance to light up our lantern for an evening

Saturday, Emy has been asking to go to the cinemas so we went along to their movies for Juniors for £1 each we can see one of a selection of kids movies. It was our first cinema visit as a family as we took H along, usually one of us takes Emy as H has always been a little too young, but he really enjoyed his first trip to the cinema, only getting a little restless towards the end and we all enjoyed Dispicaple me. The afternoon was spent in the garden :-)

Today, we used our English heritage cards and went to Brodsworth Hall and gardens which is a huge victorian manor house and beautiful gardens. They dont allow photos to be taken inside the house which is a shame as its really interesting and loads to see but I made up for it by taking lots in the gardens

Bit of hillrolling

Hope you all had a lovely sunny weekend x

Babysteps day 2

2011-04-08T04:38:00.000-07:00

Get dressed to lace up shoes,

This one is going to be a tricky one for me, I have 2 young children who like to wake up at 6 and are very demanding first thing in a morning. I usually throw on some pj bottoms, a tshirt and stay like that right until we need to go out, then Il get dressed, this also stops my clothes for the day getting smeared in various things by sticky hands (or noses!) but this morning after a bit of a lay in due to both kiddos being awake during the night meaning they slept till 8, I dressed in a simple outfit of leggings and a tshirt, fixed my hair and face and was ready for the day at 8.30!

The shoes part is where I draw the line though, we dont wear shoes in the house and I wouldnt be comfortable doing so, I do however have a pair of crocs next to the front door so can quickly have shoes on should I need to go outside

Learning to Fly

2011-04-07T07:36:00.000-07:00

For a while now I have been wishing I could be more organised at home, its not that its messy in particular, its just not in a place that im happy with, Im a dis-organised person who likes to feel organised! So I started to search for some homemaker inspiration and I came accross something called Flylady, I have heard of this before but never really looked into it, something about having a shiny sink was as far as I read but this time I had a good read through and have decided to give it a go. It starts off simple enough, babysteps, one each day for 31 days with the aim to build good habbits and establish little routines

So day one - Go shine your sink

ahh the shiny sink thing I had read about last time, well, Our sink is a black granet type thing so does not clean to an actual shine, but once we got home from our morning home ed group and had lunch, dishes got cleaned and so did the sink

Before

and after, you will have to take my word for it that it is cleaner, my sink just doesnt shine

Are you a Flylady? Id love to hear if anyone else uses the Flylady system or has tried it x

Weekend of celebrations

2011-04-06T01:02:00.000-07:00

On Saturday it was our 6th wedding anniversary, Sunday was Mothers day and Monday was Chris's birthday! Lots of cake and cards!

Mothers day was spent using our English Heritage cards to visit Conisbrough Castle, I remember going here with school when I was younger but for some reason we didnt get to go inside, just sat outside it and had to draw a picture of it I think. It has a nice open area inside its walls which is great for running around and there is a large keep to explore

Hope you all had a lovely weekend x

Mud glorious mud

2011-03-29T13:30:00.000-07:00

Take some sunshine, earth, a full water butt and 2 young children...

Mix well

The result? Lots of mess! extra washing and a whole heap of smiles and laughter :-D

Sunny days

2011-03-25T14:26:00.000-07:00

We are really enjoying the weather this week, lots of time outdoors, washing on the line

Trips to the park

Ice cold lollies

and getting friendly with some Highland cows

Wishing everone a happy weekend :-)

29 things

2011-03-22T01:59:00.000-07:00

Last week was my birthday, I turned 29 years old. Im not a fan of getting older, infact next year I think I might have a little cry at turning 30! but as there is diddley squat I can do about it, Im trying to embrace being another year older. I have seen on a few blogs lists of goals that people want to work towards in the year, the numer of goals being their age so I thought Id give it a go, a list of 29 things for me to work towards, enjoy, and hopefully grow with during the year

so, in no particular order

1~ Say "yes" more
2~ Be more spontanious
3~ Stick with the slimming world plan (have been following this for a few months and have lost 14lbs so far)
4~ Craft for myself and for our home, rather than just for others
5~ Laugh more
6~ Be more silly
7~ Learn a new craft
8~ Study something that interests me
9~ Experiment baking with different flours
10~ Swim
11~ Donate blood
12~ Live in the moment
13~ Love myself more
14~ Grab hold of oppertunities that come my way
15~ Start letting go of some fear
16~ Grow more of our own food
17~ Cut down on internet time
18~ Visit more heratige sites
19~ Go to the beach
20~ Start a collection of something
21~ Let go of things that dont matter
22~ Spend more time with my husband
23~ Drink more water
24~ Blog regularly
25~ Reduce, reuse, recycle
26~ Clean our home naturally
27~ Organise our family photos
28~ Make family home movies
29~ Be love

Here goes something :-)

Craft show

2011-03-20T11:31:00.001-07:00

I took a little me time yesterday and went into London to the Stitch and craft show at the Olympia with 2 friends. We went last year and really enjoyed it and came home with more fabric than I know what to do with (other than take out of the bag to admire, then put away again) This year it was spread out over 3 floors, a floor each for knitting, paper, and general crafts and I came away with some lovely goodies that will be put to good use in various projects

Beautiful yarn

knitted art

GIANT knitting!

Hand made chocolate (rum balls)

stitched art

Ribbons

Beads

and buttons!

Lovely day :-)

Trip to York

2011-03-17T06:46:00.001-07:00

We have just returned home from a couple of days in York, never been before so was lovely to go and explore a new place. We went by train which makes a nice change from me having to drive and our first stop was the National railway museum. This was free to get in so I thought that it wouldnt be very big but I was wrong, its huge! we could have easily spent the whole day there

The Hogwarts Express!

We finished our first day by finding our hotel, having a walk into the city centre and having some tea.

After breakfast the next day we had another walk around the centre and we came accross the Yorkshire Museum so spent some time in there and then the chapel ruins outside, then we headed towards the York castle museum and on the way saw Cliffords tower so went in to explore, this has some fantastic veiws of York if you dont mind heights! York castle museum was really good, such a huge place!

Yorkshire Museum

Emy dressing up

St Mary's Abby

Cliffords tower

No photos of the York castle museum, I tried to take some but they all came out so dark, we didnt take the big camera so I was relying on my mobile phone one

We really enjoyed York, Id love to go back one day and visit places we didnt get around to this time

Lantern festival

2011-03-10T11:25:00.000-08:00

Each year there is a lantern festival held where people parade their hand made lanterns, we didnt get involved last year as Henry was a little too young and the making was held in a school on a saturday while Chris was at work but for this year we have been able to make them at our home ed group on a Thursday. We started making them last week by bending and shaping long bamboo sticks and then sticking them together to make a shape

This is how it looked last week

and here it is today

Must admit, this is not my craft, its kind of taken on this odd twisted shape and I struggled to get the bamboo to stay put and it needed a LOT of tape but its been fun to make so far, I think Next week Il add a bit more bamboo to make it more secure and then we can start covering with paper. The theme of the festival is elements, were not sure which one to go for as yet, maybe next week we will come up with something

Mama Panya's pancakes

2011-03-08T11:42:00.000-08:00

I have always loved pancake day, we dont often eat pancakes so it always feels like a treat and for our pancakes this year we tried something a little different. I was reminded by the lovely Cornish mummy diaries of a book we have

Its a storey of a boy named Adika who on the way to market with his mama ends up inviting most of the village home for pancakes. It has lovely illustrations, information about Kenya and a recipe for mama Panya's pancakes at the back.

We used the recipe to make pancakes for our lunch which had a bit of spice to them by adding nutmeg and a pinch of chilli flakes, very yummy with a drizzle of honey

After lunch Emy spent some time looking in her atlas book, she wanted to know where Kenya was and we also looked up their flag

Hope you all had a flippin good day :-)

King of the castle

2011-03-06T12:06:00.000-08:00

Today we had a drive out to the beautiful village of Castleton, there is so much to see and do there including the Blue john caves but we headed to Peveril castle which we could visit for free using our English heritage membership. The castle was built very high up on a cliff so getting to it involved a very steep walk uphill and what was Im sure a fantastic part of their defense now gives visitors a very good workout! Once we made it up the veiws were amazing but the only part of the castle left to explore was the keep so after 40 mins and lots of hill rolling by Emy we headed back down, via the gift shop for some Kendal mint cake :-)

English Heritage

2011-02-27T09:50:00.000-08:00

We recently took out a membership for English heritage to give us lots of historical places to visit for free and on searching I discovered there is a castle a half hour drive away (how did I not know this before??) so we planned to go today, only when we woke up this morning, we were greeted by this

A very dull dark rainy day!

I decided to have a relaxed morning at home, made us all a cooked breakfast and hope that the weather would brighten itself up. It got to one oclock and the rain had stopped, so we got things together, donned waterproofs and headed to the car, as soon as we set off the rain started again! but despite the dull soggy weather, we had a good time, a lot of the castle was out of bounds as they are doing some repairs so I think we will visit again in the summer

A couple of the beautiful ceilings inside

Feels a lot like spring

2011-02-25T01:02:00.000-08:00

We had such a lovely day yesterday, which I wanted to blog last night but as soon as little ones were asleep I was so tired so ended the day with a soak in the bath and an early night

It was the first day I have felt like spring is actually on its way (last weekend we had snow!)although it looked like rain early on, Emy had asked to go to the playground on her scooter so we headed out with H being pushed along on his bike and Emy scootering. After a while in the playground we had a walk around the pond to see the ducks, there was some elderly folk feeding the ducks bread scraps and they held their bags out so Emy and H could throw some too
:-)

half way around the pond Emy decided she wanted to follow a different path to see where it went, so we went to find out, it took us close to where our local library is so we popped into the library and spent a bit of time in there reading books, then when it was time to go Emy choose a different way to go home, on the way we passed a couple of people out walking there dogs and they stopped and took the time to chat to Emy and H who were interested in saying hello to the dogs :-)

We made it home for lunchtime, after everyone was fed and watered we headed out into the garden, the bike and scooter had gotten pretty muddy on our walk and Emy said it would be a good idea to clean them and asked for some water so armed with a brush and a bucket of warm soapy water off she went and cleaned the scooter, the bike, she shed door and then moved into the floor hehe

was lovely to spend time in the garden with the sun shining for a change, it wasnt even cold

Back to blogging

2011-02-22T08:41:00.000-08:00

Wow this place has been neglected for a while huh? I guess I could start back in with a long post on everything we have done since I last blogged but instead Il just do a little summery

Christmas was a lovely relaxed time

There was a 5th birthday celebrated and 2 lost teeth and new ones growing!

lots of time spent out in nature

lots of baking

and lots of painting, drawing and crafting

a drastic haircut that had me in tears and this boy giggling

we have another little visitor with us, Tuesday Grace from North Carolina

and we have just all recovered from rather nasty virus's and the flu which has wiped us out for a month

enough updating I think and time to enjoy using this space again
:-)

Christingle, Nativity, christmas tree...oh my!

2010-12-23T01:29:00.000-08:00

Some old

Some new

and some home made

After the disaster with our first real christmas tree last year, Chris has refused to spend the money on another real one to risk the same happening, I can see his point, who wants to have to take the tree down before it gets to christmas day! So this year we have an artificial one, however, it is a really nice one and cost just £10 from a charity shop, I suspect it was very expensive to buy new as all the branches are put together individually and it does look real pretty so Im happy with our tree this year, and no nasty bleach smell :-)

Last Sunday we all went to a childrens service at church, they had a nativity play and also a christingle service, it ws such a lovely atmosphere, mulled wine and mince pies were shared and Emily decided she would like to take part in the nativity play, so she got dressed up as an angel and joined the other angels on stage and I had an incredable and tearful proud moment

After the play, we sang christmas carols, listened to some short stories and jokes and then the lights were dimmed and the christingles were brought out, this was the bit that Emy was really looking forward to

Afterwards the children got to choose 2 chocolates, one for themselves and one to give to someone they love, Emy chose to give her second one to Henry

I think this will be my last post until after christmas so would like to wish everyone a very happy, beautiful christmas time

Love

Becky, Chris, Emy & H :-)

Winter solstice blessings

2010-12-21T08:46:00.000-08:00

This morning was spent reading stories and watching Spirited away while we waited for our food shopping to be delivered which came at lunch time, then once we had eaten our lunch we wrapped up and headed out to the nature reserve to discover the beautiful frosty kingdom

What is it with boys and big sticks

The thick frost didnt stop Emy hill rolling hehe

Making and Baking

2010-12-06T12:22:00.000-08:00

The snow has given us a good chance to enjoy some advent crafts together and I have been able to crack on with some things Im making as christmas gifts and of course some baking :-)

This morning was spent preparing vegetables to make soup for our lunch, Emy insisted she did everything herself

She did a great job and made a delicious soup! Then after lunch we made chocolate chip cookies

and the making?

I finished off this vampire sock monkey for my sisters christmas gift

Yesterday a snow plough came down and cleared our road of snow, now I just need to dig out the few feet of snow around the car and we can get out and about again as its still too deep for us to reach public transport

Winter Wonderland

2010-12-05T00:52:00.000-08:00

King winter has certainly awoken in Yorkshire, we have had the worst snow I have ever known over the past week which in some places has been waist high! We have been well and truley snowed in and despite it not snowing now since Thursday we are still pretty much stuck! Also on the first day is started to snow, our central heating broke, we managed to get an engineer out to us before the worst snow hit and the news is we probably need a new boiler so thats going to see us well into the new year without heating. Luckily we have been able to heat one room with the fire in the living room, and we still have hot water so things could be a lot worse but its been rather uncomfortable going about the house, we have all been sleeping together fully clothed and meals have been ones that are quick to prepare so I dont have to stand in the kitchen for too long

First we had a little snow

then we got a little more

Then we got a whole LOT of snow

Past my knees!

we opened our back door to be met with a wall of snow! or garden level is actually 3 steps down from the door here

Emy & H couldnt walk in it

There are lots if icicles around, Emy has enjoyed eating them hehe

Our trip to Northumberland

2010-10-27T04:56:00.000-07:00

We spent last week in a beautiful part of the country. I have wanted to visit Northumberland for a while and it really didnt dissapoint. We stayed in a cottage on a huge woodland estate and to mine and Emy's delight we had 3 conker trees right outside our door! On the first night Henry became ill, had a really high temp and was feeling really low so our plans for the week had to be relaxed but we still visited some beautiful places

Alnwick Castle, where some of the scenes from Harry potter was filmed

The lovely woodburner we had in the cottage

The road to Holy island, this road is under the sea twice a day, the first day we went to the island we were told the tide was coming in 15 minutes and everything on the island closes while its in so we left and went back the following day

Lindisfarne Priory

Beadnall Beach

Bamburgh Castle

Aviation museum

Picture took by Emy

Growing up

2010-10-26T06:38:00.000-07:00

I had a huge reminder yesterday of just how quickly my little Emy is growing. Yesterday morning while eating an apple she complained her teeth hurt, then she said her teeth were moving so I took a peek and sure enough, she has not one but TWO! wobbley teeth! Her two bottom middle ones. She was so excited when I explained what was happening whereas I was feeling a bit overwhelmed, I didnt expect it to happen so young, I thought she would be at least 6, not 4 and a half

Official

2010-10-24T11:28:00.000-07:00

As of September Emy is now officially home educated, I thought Id share a little on how we have found our way to this path as I dont think its something I have blogged about before. Emy had just turned 2 years old and a Health visitor told me it was time to put her name down for nursery, so I did just that and felt so sad that my little daughter who had been with me every moment, all of a sudden I was expected to send her somewhere, to me it didnt feel natural but I thought it was something I had to do, I didnt know there was another option. About a week after putting her name down for nursery I was reading a local forum for our city and found a post on there by someone asking for information on home education, there was a reply from a lady who was home educated her children from the beginning, her son had gone on to university and was doing very well for himself, she went on to explain how it had worked for her family and about the regular groups and meet ups in our city. I was amazed, I had never heard of home education and suddenly I was thinking of how it could work for us. I spoke to Chris that night and he was as interested in the idea as I was so we began to look into it, I looked at the law surrounding it and found blogs of other familys who were home educating and when Emily turned 3 years old I turned down her nursery place and instead I found a preschool home education group a 20 min drive away so I could meet other familys who were considering it or already doing it. It took just over a year for us to come to the decision that we would home educate and that it was right for us, to me, it just feels so natural, I love being with my children and they are happy and thriving at their own pace, follwing their interests whatever they may be with me supporting them the whole way. Over the summer holidays and as we got closer to that "becoming official" I started to feel a little shakey, was I doing the right thing? should I be doing more structured "work" and as a result I made a huge order of books and staitionary and started thinking of curriculums, but after a couple of weeks I realised that thats not the way we had planned to go and infact wouldnt be the way that would work best for Emy so we are sticking with our child led plan for now and it feels wonderful that we can be on this journey together

2 years old

2010-09-01T01:15:00.000-07:00

We celebrated Henry's second birthday yesterday! How can it be that he has only been with us for 2 years, when it feels like he has always been with us yet it seems like yesterday that we welcomed him into the world. My sunny little boy has a smile that just lights up a whole room, he really loves cars and loves to lay on the floor lining them up and pushing them around, he loves stories and playing in the bath with his big sister and when we are out he stays close to my side never running too far ahead, he loves to climb, run, shout and scream and gives the best cuddles and sloppy kisses

Happy 2nd birthday my sweet boy

Hedgerow treasure

2010-08-25T05:01:00.000-07:00

We have spent the morning berry picking! Emy rode on her scooter to the field near our home with little Henry happy to walk by my side and we came home with a yoghurt bucket of lovely black berries

I tried to persuade Emy to save a few berries to make some buns and she gave me 3 then she and Henry ate the rest so we made a purple berry cream to go with plain buns instead which were lovely

Home grown

2010-08-24T00:22:00.000-07:00

We have been patiently waiting for our veggies to be ready to dig up and at the weekend we decided to see if the potatoes were ready and we were really suprised by the size and how many we had

We just dug one of the plants

then some carrots

more carrots and the grand total of 3 apples our tree has produced which is better than last years 1!

We has such a sense of pride bringing these muddy veg into our kitchen. Next weekend we will dig up the rest of the potatoes and the onions, the carrots can stay a little longer though, maybe another week or 2. This is the first year we have grown anything and we have bigger plans next year to grow even more

This and that

2010-08-23T05:08:00.000-07:00

A little catch up post of some of the things we have been up to :-)

Lots of painting

and trips to the park

and balloon spotting! we were very suprised to look out of our window to see this hot air balloon so low and close to our house, by the time I ran out with the camera it had gained a bit more height though

and digging! We dug our first veggies from the garden, more in another post but this photo shows the very first things, some garlic which was looking a bit sad so we dug it up and an onion to see if they were nearly ready

chocolate chip cookies

2010-08-20T01:49:00.001-07:00

This was the first recipe I tried from the Good to the grain recipe book. These are made with wholewheat flour and were pretty good, although I think next time Il make them a bit smaller, they were just a bit too big and thick but the Emy enjoyed them just as they were :-)

Good to the grain

2010-07-31T12:23:00.000-07:00

When it comes to baking, I tend to stick to what I know works and whats familiar but have always fancied doing some experimenting so when I saw Hannah having a giveaway on her lovely blog Home baked for a book on baking with different flours I thought Id enter and was thrilled to win! After a day in the city centre we arrived home this afternoon to find our very kind postman had left the parcel containing the book around the back for us so once settled with a brew I had a read through and have found many things Im looking forward to trying, particularly some of the recipies using spelt. Hopefully I will have some yummy blog posts to share with you soon

Making and baking

2010-07-30T00:27:00.000-07:00

Emy has had her eye on making a little fishing game from one of her craft books this week so Chris brought some paper clips home from work for us to use. We colored cardboard fish shapes then added the paperclips, tied some yarn onto a wooden spoon and tied a magnet on the end

This led onto a discussion about how things are magnetic and Emy went around the house trying to find more magnetic things, kept her busy for ages!

Walkie talky

Then Emy wanted to make some teddy biscuits from her book and hurrah, we have a working oven again!

Im pretty sure the main reason we bake is to lick the bowl

The deep dark woods

2010-07-28T10:22:00.000-07:00

is where Emy asked to go yesterday morning

how inviting does this look

Lots of these to be seen, not that Im looking forward to autumn or anything..much :-D

Car boot Sunday

2010-07-25T09:33:00.000-07:00

After a lovely lay in this morning I drove into the countryside to the car boot sale, I love this boot sale although they have now introduced a £1 charge to park your car! if only it was in walking distance! I spent a good couple of hours having a slow walk round, got a great bundle of clothes for H in the next size up for him and spotted an old ladybird book, The little red hen and a puddle lane book that we dont have so got those for 20 pence each. I keep looking out for vintage ladybird books, we have a few now but I remember them from my childhood and the illustrations are beautiful, much nicer than the fullon bright colour cartoony ones that are in a lot of books I think. My favourite one was Rumplestiltskin which I bought off ebay after never spotting one on a car boot.

On the drive home I spotted some huge kites being flown on a field near to our house so we all had a walk up so we could watch them and took our kite too but the big ones had gone by the time we got there, we still had fun flying our little one though!

Plans for our Sunday lunch had to be changed as our oven is in the blink, it will turn on but wont heat up, blew all the electric in the house when it went too! so we had sausages with mash and peas followed by a microwave steam pudding, first time making one and it was really nice. Chris is ordering a part for the oven so Im hoping it will be fixed soon!

Lovely day

2010-07-21T13:19:00.001-07:00

We arrived at the woods at 9am this morning and from there it turned into a lovely relaxed day. We have Chris's son James staying with us this week, he's just finished his GCSE exams so has now left school and its been lovely having him stay, even managed to talk him into coming with us this morning, and he wasnt grumpy! We stayed till a little after lunchtime then called into the charity shop on our way home as I had some clothes and books to donate and picked up some preloved books, a t-shirt for H and a hooded jumper for Emy which should be a good fit come winter.

This was the sky that greeted us this morning, I thought it was going to rain but it stayed dry, such a beautiful sky

Excited to see these conkers forming on the tree's

Little H with his hands full of pebbles on our way to the farm

We stopped off to say good morning to the ducks

some very serious tractor driving

Museum trip

2010-07-18T03:26:00.000-07:00

Emy and I had an afternoon to ourselves yesterday, we caught the tram into town and did a little shopping while there, then caught another tram up to the museum. It was raining on and off and its a fair walk from the tram stop to the museum so we were a litle soggy when we arrived, Id promised Emy an ice cream from the cafe so we went there first, I had a coffee and a slice of coconut cake and Emy had a chocolate cone then we made our way slowly round the exhibits. It was nice to have a slow walk around as Im usually running after H! They have a glorious food exhibit at the moment which is so good, I could have spent hours in there! I took lots of photos so this will be pretty photo heavy :-)

On the tram up to the museum

Yum

the glorious food exhibit

hope these photos arnt too small to see everything

A cooking pot and a Mrs Beeton cookbook from the 1900's

House from olden times

Here you could smell coal tar soap, I quiet like the smell but dont think I fancy washing myself in it!

looking at flies under microscope

The bees are back! they have beehives that you can look inside at but for the past couple of years its been empty, was nice to see them back again

We had just about made it all the way round when it was closing time so we headed out and spent some time in the gardens

Quiet week

2010-07-16T11:23:00.000-07:00

A very quiet week for us, H not quiet been himself then the past couple of days has had a temp and not wanted to leave my side so has been in his sling most of the time.

The tree blocks have been played with lots this week

Emy wanted to learn to sew

and we did some baking

Earlier in the week we did some crafts, we made a start on creating a season table, its not really a table but part of the sideboard in the hallway and I had a few things delivered today to add to it, a little felt strawberry girl, a yellow onion house and the bee is to be part of our birthday ring as its Henry's 2nd birthday coming up soon! We spent an afternoon making the flowers, leaves and butterflies for the tree

the shells we collected a few weeks ago when we went to the beach

Emy has been great this week, bringing toys for Henry and most of the time has been so patient while I have been soothing her brother

She knows just how to cheer him up

Camping

2010-07-12T05:42:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago we bought our first tent. We really love the idea of being able to throw a few things in the back of the car and head out for a little holiday whenever we fancy and we saw a great deal which included air beds and sleeping bags. We still have a few things to get but we wanted to set everything up to make sure everything was in the bag and see how it all fitted together so Saturday night me and Emy had a test camp in the back garden. We had a great time, I packed a bag with some books to read and colour and Emy asked if she could have her nails painted so she had them painted for the first time. We had mugs of hot chocolate and ate toast with honey then settled into our sleeping bags and Emy was fast asleep within minutes. I have never camped before and once it was dark I admit I felt a bit jumpy with all the sounds around us, it was a bit windy too so the tent was shaking a little, I think I have seen far too many horror films as my imagination was running away with thoughts of crazed monsters outside the tent lol We both really enjoyed it and cant wait to do it for real

Emy wanted a photo showing her pale pink painted finger and toe nails, she was giggling trying to hold both her feet up

My veiw when I woke up, the double air bed is really roomy but I woke up pinned to the side of the tent as Emy had shuffled right up to me, I spent an hour not moving incase I woke her lol

Little visitors

2010-07-09T04:04:00.000-07:00

Throughout this year I have been taking part in organised craft swaps on Craftster its been great to try new crafts, chat to people from different countries and I have received some beautiful things in return for packages I sent to my assigned partners. My favourite one of all is still ongoing and its a little visitor swap where you exchange a little stuffie/teddy or figure with a partner in a different country, then you have to give your little visitor a fun time while they stay with you, take photo's of adventures they have, then in August we send them home complete with a scrapbook for photos and memories and some souvenirs from places they have been. I made a little sock monkey who we named Miles and he's currently in America having allsorts of fun including having been to disneyland! Visiting us we have 2 twin cats called Fred & George who we were told are the twins from Harry potter in their transfugured form
:-D We have loved having these guys with us and have taken them wherever we have been

Here they are meeting Emy when they first arrived

at the beach

Visiting our City's winter gardens

Doing some voulenteer work with us on organic gardens

And on Sunday I took them with me to the cinema to see Eclipse

I will be sad when these guys leave us and return to the states but Im super excited to see what Miles the sock monkey has been getting up to

Sally snail

2010-07-07T12:19:00.000-07:00

This evening I was having a tidy around in the kitchen after tea and stopped to think that things were rather quiet...too quiet so I went outside to see what Emy and H were up to

I found 2 little siblings totally mesmorised watching 2 snails

Emy kept bringing them leaves to munch on and asked about how they see and why they have slime, she named one of them Sally and the other boy Sally

She laid for ages just watching them

Giving her brother a flower she found

and here is our little veg patch, I think its doing quiet well and since I dont know much about gardening, I will just keep telling myself that big bright green leaves are a good sign! We have potatoes, onions, garlic and carrots growing

Earlier today H had his long delayed MMR jab, he was due to have it late last year but it was at a time when we were trying to find what was causing his digestion troubles which turned out to be a dairy intollerance, since that time we have had around 20 letters telling me to take him for it, but I was happy to delay it especially while he wasnt 100%. He did great, was such a little soldier and hopefully he will have no side effects like Emy did. I was asked 4 times while at the surgery if Emy's not going to school today? I guess I will have to start getting used to that now as she would have been due to start this September

A little break

2010-07-06T07:15:00.000-07:00

turned into a pretty big one!

I do really enjoy blogging, I find it a lovely way to keep a record of what we have been up to and it will be such a lovely thing to look back on in years to come to see how we have all grown but it doesnt take much for me to get out of blogging. Id love to say we have been doing really exciting things, but really we have just been busy living, sometimes busy, sometimes taking things slow. We have so much to share on the blog and exciting things to come so I thought Id sneak back in, dust things off and spruce things up with a new header photo and a new background before postings resume :-)

Lets go fly a kite

2010-04-21T01:03:00.001-07:00

Yesterday it was a beautiful sunny, but windy day, perfect for a spot of kite flying. We bought Emy a kite for her birthday back in january and as the weather was so bad we put it away and forgot about it, until saturday when I was driving home, there is a huge field 10 mins walk away from home and there were some people flying huge kites on there, which reminded me about ours so we had a walk up to the field yesterday and wow was it windy up there! our little kite was a little too flimsy for such strong winds and we spent most of the time un-twisting the line, but we managed to get it into the air a few times which Emy loved

This little guy is 19 months old now and is a little chatterbox, he can say mama, daddy, car, baby, cat, pig and hiya

Sleepover

2010-03-18T23:59:00.000-07:00

Before Christmas some of us mums from Home ed group got together one night for a giggle and a few drinks (tea for me) and during the conversations it was said how lovely it would be for us all to get together and have a big sleepover with all the kids and a venue was suggested at a place called Unstone Grange which is a large organic fruit and veg growing farm where you can volunteer every Wednesday in the gardens which were hoping to do this summer now H is a little older. A date was set for early december only when it came to it we were snowed in with no chance of getting into the country side so a date was rearranged and thats where we went last Thursday. The grange is such a beautiful place with wide open spaces for little legs to run arround and a huge house that felt very homey. As Chris was working Thursday I took H up to to the house with us and while Emy enjoyed running about with her friends, climbing trees, exploring the house, I stayed by my boys side who's going through a somewhat frustrated phase, he is feeling lots of frustrations at the moment which he is expressing in the form of screaming rather a lot, even when I cant see anything that has triggered it to happen. I admit that I was a little releived when it got to the time Chris finishes work and I was able to drive home and drop H with him and Chris had the following day off work so I could just enjoy my time with Emy and relax a little. One of the mums is a yoga teacher and she did a session with the kids which was so lovely and very calming telling a beautiful storey and adding the poses and actions as the storey was told and when it got a little past her bedtime Emy told me she was tired ad wanted to go to bed so up we went and I snuggled down with her till she was fast asleep which took no time at all. The next morning we woke to wet ground and rainy skies but that didnt stop Emy getting outside and riding a little trike around the house until the rain got a bit too heavy so we came inside. We all shared a big cooked breakfast and then around dinnertime there was a party to celebrate 2 childrens birthdays where everyone got dressed up. We had such a great time and there was talk of doing it again in the summer but making use of the camping area in the gardens

Ice Skating

2010-03-10T01:24:00.000-08:00

For a while now Emy has been asking to go ice skating. I used to love ice skating as a kid and spent loads of my free time at our local ice rink. My family used to be involved in speed skating and my cousin was in for the olympics years ago but broke his leg and was unable to compete. Its been about 10 years since I last went so I thought it would be a good idea to have a practice myself before being confident supporting Emy on the ice so last week I went with my sister who is a great skater and oh deary me, it is NOT like riding a bike (the once learnt never forgotton bit) I was awful, couldnt balance and had to hold onto the side and my sisters hand for support, I suppose the answer to that lies in, its been a long time since I last went, Im a fair bit heavier than I used to be and I have had 2 babies since then and my back isnt as good as it used to be so my balance is slightly out. Im determined to get better though, I really do love it so its something Id like to keep up for myself. Anyways, there is a monthly ice skating booking for home educators which happened to be on Monday so I asked Emy if she would like to go, my sister was coming with us so I knew she would be ok supporting emy for me and my mum agreed to watch H for me for a couple of hours as she was off work. Once there and booted up I was trying to get Emy to sit down while we waited for the ice to open but up she got and started walking around in the boots which was pretty impressive they are not that easy to walk in but she found it easy and as soon as the door opened she was off walking towards the ice, my sister had to grab her quick before she stepped onto it by herself lol she was under the impression that she would just be able to do it. After one skate around she decided she'd had enough, her feet were hurting and she was upsett that she couldnt do it so she came off, de-booted and instead had run round playing with a couple of her friends. I did better than last week, managed to skate just holding onto the side and occasionally letting go and didnt fall. Hopefully if my mum is off again next month I will take her again

Craft shopping and one to one time

2010-03-06T14:34:00.000-08:00

We woke this morning to dark rainy skies so my plans for a second explore of the nature reserve this afternoon were put off. Chris took Emy shopping to buy secret birthday things, although Emy told me she was going to buy me a toffee chocolate frog (little fredo bar) so me and the little guy went shopping for some materials and embroidery floss for some upcomming craft projects. Its the second time going to this shop, the first time, the staff were really helpful and friendly, however today was different. There was 2 huge dogs who greeted us when we walked in the door who stuck their noses in Henry's face which he did not like one bit and one of the ladies seemed rather annoyed at having to take the dogs into the back room! I started to have a walk around, its a pretty big shop so lots to take in and Im pretty new at sewing things so there is lots I dont understand or Im not sure what it is I need to be buying so I asked a few questions and was given speedy stoney faced answers and then she walked off. I found some material I liked so went to find the lady to ask her if I could have some to which she asked me to leave the pushchair where it was, while I went to the back of the shop to show her what I wanted, which would have been very out of sight of Henry so I said no, I wouldnt leave him as this would upsett him and proceeded to push the pram as I walked, I dont think this went down very well and I shall not be returning to this shop in future, I found them to be very rude! so in the end I didnt get most of what I needed and Im now needing to find another shop which sells all the bits Im after, hopefully a more friendly one!

I could have let the morning spoil my day, I was pretty annoyed after leaving the shop but decided to rise above it and enjoy my afternoon with H. Its not very often I have one to one time with him so once we got home and had lunch we had lots of floor play together, lots of tickles, chasing around and reading books, he loves the "Thats not my" touchy feely books so we read them lots and the very hungry catapillar which is looking slightly battered now as I bought it when Emy was tiny. I managed to snap these pics while we were playing, my phone was at my side and I couldnt resist, its not often I catch his smiles on camera

Nature Reserve

2010-03-05T11:47:00.000-08:00

We are really blessed to have a strong and really active home education community where we live, there is something on most days of the week should you fancy them, one of which is a monthly visit to a nature reserve where a ranger does activities with the children. I was under the impression that this place was at the other side of the city to us but I discovered last night its actually a five minute drive from our home! I was pretty annoyed when I realised this, being so close to all that beautiful space and not knowing about it so this morning when we woke up to blue skies and sunshine, I knew it was time to go and explore! Although only 5 minutes drive away it would have taken us probably well over an hour to walk there and even longer to come back as it would be all up steep hills so we jumped in the car. Having never been before, I wasnt sure if we could drive inside and park so parked on a road just above the enterance. After walking for a few mins we found a sign pointing to a carpark and visitor centre, I figured it couldnt be too far and carried on walking, 10 mins and a moaning emy later we found the carpark and visitor centre which was unfortunatly closed, but wow! once we walked past the carpark it was stunning, ponds, wide open spaces, paths to explore, birds singing, it was so peaceful and beautiful! We stayed about half an hour, which was all little legs could manage, and I knew we had a fair walk back to the car. Im so pleased to have found this place, and just as the weather is turning warmer too! I can see us spending many days there and of course, going along to the home ed meet up next month, but next time Il be sure to drive in and use the carpark

18 months old!

2010-03-05T00:13:00.000-08:00

A big day for a little boy, Henry turned 18 months old! Since he came into our lives, there has been a few ups and downs, I wasnt well for a long time after he was born and I struggled more than I thought I would having 2 little ones BUT he has brought such joy into our lives. He's a boy of few words, Im happy that he's developing in his own time and I know the words will come, he can say "ta" as thankyou and knows the right times to say this, he constantly babbles away so a real chatterbox and he loves to sing! He loves to watch Wallice and Gromit with his big sister and he can sing the theme tune, he has a real love of books and often brings piles of them to me to look at together, he loves playing with his little woden cars but his stacking cups are still his favourte thing to play with, he loves to be outdoors exploring and Im so pleased the weather is starting to turn warmer so we can be outdoors a whole lot more. We marked the day by reading lots of books, standing at the open door watching the hail and rain come down, by exploring paint for the first time (he's not too keen) and we baked a Honey Cake topped with an orange cream which despite following the recipe, the cream split when I added the orange juice, not sure if thats due to using dairy free spread in the place of butter, still, it tasted very yummy

Coming out of hibernation

2010-03-03T05:00:00.000-08:00

I didnt realise it had been so long since I last blogged! I have good excuses though, I seem to have had back to back lurgy's for the past couple of months, as soon as something clears up, I come down with something else! The littes have had their fair share of lurgy too so what with us all being under the weather and the numerous snow coverings we have had, things have been on a go slow and we have spent most of our time indoors. We have a few exciting things coming up though, next week we are having a sleepover in a large house in the county which is on an organic farm with our friends from home ed group, my 28th birthday (hmm not sure thats really exciting) and Im going on a trip to London to meet with a couple of friends and were going to a big craft show. Exciting things today - the sun in shining, spring is making itself known, yipee!

Crafty days

2010-01-27T04:38:00.000-08:00

We have been getting creative recently, Emily got a few crafty bits for her birthday and has been really enjoying making some works of art. Although all the snow has gone now, its still been really cold here so we have had more days than usual just kicking about the house and the new crafty things have been really handy. My mum bought Emy a Mr Maker decorate a cup kit which has been a big hit, she chose to draw her family on the cup and has been using the finshed product to have her bedtime milk drink in

I have been spending most of my evenings making things to give as gifts and I was asked if I would make a sock monkey for a lady who wanted one for her daughters birthday so I was really honoured to that

My first attempt at making a waldorf window star! I first saw these on Hannah's blog Home Baked and she very kindly sent me one through the post and I have been wanting to have a go since then. Check out Hannah's blog to see the beautiful stars she makes

I made a felt covered note book and stitched a quote from Mary poppins for my friend Shell's birthday

Some jewelary for my sisters 19th birthday

and the sock monkey, I think this is my favourite one I have made so far and Im so glad Lisa likes it, I really hope her daughter does too!

Thankyou

2010-01-26T07:57:00.001-08:00

Just wanted to say thankyou for all Emily's birthday wishes, the blog isnt letting me add comments for some reason so am popping a thankyou post here instead :-)

Birthday money and nut milk

2010-01-26T05:51:00.000-08:00

Today has been one of those days where things just merge together nicely. Emily had some money from her great grandma for her birthday so I said we could go and spend it this morning so we went to Meadowhall. After having a good look around she decided on a Wooden pizza, with cutters and different toppings to add. I usually like to leave big places like shopping centres as soon as possible but it wasnt very busy as we got there for opening time so I had a little browse around too and bought a couple of goodies from Lush and found a really nice shirt for when the weather gets warmer which was half price. When we got home we had some lunch and I popped Henry upstairs for a sleep giving emy a chance to explore her new pizza set without being interupted

, While she played I had a go at making Almond milk, I bought almonds a few weeks ago but only remembered last night to put some into a bowl to soak. I have wanted to try making some since I read about it when researching different milks when we found out Henry was having a problem with dairy. I soaked a cup full of almonds in water, then rinsed them and added a pint of fresh water and blended together, then strained through cloth

The milk is really creamy, I didnt add anything to sweeten and it wasnt quiet sweet enough for my taste so once Henry woke from his nap I blended half the milk with some bananas, a little squeeze of honey and a good sprinkle of organic cocoa and we had a delicious afternoon treat of chocolate milkshakes and my word they were good! It made just under a pint of milkshake and apart from a small glass for myself Emy and Henry polished off the lot and even then I had to share mine with Henry! Deffinatly something I shall make again