advent

Hello :-) I feel I haven't been in this space for a while. We have just had a wonderful visit with my mum for the week.

It was lovely and we spent some real quality time together. Life has been moving at it's usual break neck speed here. Rebe has been working really hard at school. In fact she came home with the 'pupil of the week' trophy last week. She was so proud and I was delighted that she was so proud of herself. It seems we have so many trophies in our house we need a bulldozer to deal with them all lol:

 We have been enjoying advent so far. My mum made this wonderful advent calendar when Rebe was tiny and makes such an effort each year to send us 24 amazing things to fill the pockets. It was especially nice that she was here in time to fill the bags herself this year. The kids take it in turns to open the bag, they have a special order and this year there is a little playmobil toy inside for the child who opened the bag and a little chocolate for each child.

 She also brought them little card sized paper advent calendars to open and Joa in particular loves his and opens each little door with glee.

In the evening before bed we read a special advent story that was given to us by a very lovely friend. The story was specially adapted and features Rebe, Benny, Joa, their friend Tom and Andy's dog Ellie on an adventure to the land of Father Christmas. There is a large calendar  picture depicting the story and behind each door is an essential part of that day's story. It is a truly wonderful gift and the kids are enraptured by it.

 We have also been enjoying our advent candles that we made at Buddies last week and have had the 1st candle lit each night at the dinner table.

I have to admit that I feel somewhat behind with all of my Christmas preparations this year (or maybe I always feel like this). I still have to make the kids presents and finish some gifts for other friends. I have a few dolls to make, cards to make and write not to mention decorations, Christmas parties, get togethers, food and so on to think about. Luckily Rebe and Joa have just developed chicken pox, so I am thanking the chicken pox gods for giving us a few much needed rest days at home when I hope to fit in some crafting and knitting and probably a great deal of baking (and eating).

One thing we have managed to get done on time though is to send on our wonderful Mermaids Tale in time for the winter solstice.

Last year we received one of the sweetest and loveliest gifts ever from someone I have never even met in real life. It was a hand written story about a mermaid who gave her hair to a poor toy-less child to play with. This child kept, loved and played with the hair for a whole year until the next winter solstice when it was passed to another family to play with and look after. Unfortunately I couldn't find the original story, so we did our best to re-write it and sent on the story with the little treasure box and the hair (a white silk in Benny's hand) to another family that we knew would appreciate both the story and the sentiment.

 I welcome the coming few days, some peace and quiet (and probably a fair bit of moaning and scratching) and I will leave you with this letter I found that Rebe wrote to Rudolph to be left with her stocking on Christmas Eve:

Dear Rudolph do you like leading the sleigh at night. If I was a reindeer I would be delighted love from Rebecca (she signed that because her stocking has Rebecca rather than Rebe on it and she didn't want to confuse him)

today...

we all woke up with horrible colds.
Rebe was coughing and complaining so we decided to keep her at home to rest (she seems a bit better now so I'm glad we did).
We kept today warm and calm and filled with chicken soup and stories.
We made lego in the morning (and afternoon and evening).
As I mentioned in my last post Bubs filled our sweet advent calendar ~ as she does every year ~ Everyday there is a little chocolate for each child and some lego to build including instructions. I think my older brother helped my mum put all of this together and it is spot on! They love it. This year we are also very lucky as Andy's sister-in-law has also passed on a playmobil advent calendar used by the kids' cousins in years past and it is so fab :-)

Again, everyday there is a new little piece to go in the scene. Benny in particular loves this and spends a lot of time playing with it :-)

As Rebe was starting to feel a bit better she thought it was time to open a sweet shop,

She was open all afternoon and had quite a lot of visitors,

I hope they all remember to brush their teeth tonight!

While Joa napped and the older two were busy buying and selling sweets, I had a creative flash and managed to make all of our Christmas cards.

I don't know why but I can never bring myself to buy cards, but these were very simple and very quick and I think they came out very sweet :-)

We have also been thinking of and talking about St Nicholas who will come to visit tonight.

As a child in Germany this was another celebration that I remember so well. Another celebration that I bring with joy to my children; a little step closer to Christmas and a lovely story about remembering those who have nothing and how lovely it is to give when we have so much ourselves. Perhaps this is something I will make more of in years to come, but for now we have cleaned up our rooms and put our shoes outside our doors in the hope that he may pass and leave us gifts in the night.

Rebe, in her usual giving and creative way has left him a pile of gifts to say thank you :-)

I wonder will he leave anything in your shoe tonight?

winter weekend

We had a really nice weekend. Before sharing some of it with you I just want to say a little something about letting go.
The last few weeks I have been super busy and I find that my head is filled with plans and lists and thoughts. The hours in the day are too short and there is just not enough time to comfortably fit it all in. I had a great plan in my head for an advent wreath I wanted to make last week...it didn't happen. I was going to do it this week, trying to shift time and factor the gathering of the materials, the walk out to get the greenery, the time to make the various parts and then I though 'hang on, what am I doing?!?' I just need to let it go, I can't do it, the kids won't know the difference. We are following advent with our daily calendars and I'm sure my time and energy can be better spent...so I let it go :-)

Instead the kids and I headed to one of our favourite beaches for a picnic

We got soaked pretty much on arrival, but no matter, we had our picnic anyway.

For some of us it was pretty relaxing...

For me it wasn't that relaxing as I had to keep chasing Joa away from the path up to the road, he was determined to keep climbing it. So not long after we bundled back into the car and headed for home.

Today was also lovely, I woke in a great mood, full of energy and joy. The children were very excited also because Santa was coming by lifeboat to the village.

We set about baking a little bag of biscuits for him,

We decided on gingerbread robins. We made gingerbread using the best recipe in the world. If you don't have a great recipe for crunchy gingerbread I am very happy to share it here.

We cut out the dough into egg shapes and made white and red and yellow icing.

Benny was in charge of red tummies,

Rebe did yellow beaks and legs and I did white eyes and wings.

Joa begged for licks :-)

When we had made those the kids also wanted to make some cards for Santa.

Benny's picture of Santa.

Rebe's picture of Santa. Rebe's picture of a lifeboat person for the crew. She wrote a really sweet letter on the back of this to say how she sees the boat from the window and how she is going to be a lifeboat person when she's older :-)

After lunch it was finally time for all of us (including Andy) to go down to the pier. From our house we saw the lifeboat going out to collect Santa as we set off to make our way down.

And there he is the beardy man himself:

The kids were beside themselves, look at Benny's wee face :-)

we waited for a very long and cold time for our turn to go on the lifeboat, but to Benny and Rebe's utter joy Stormforce Stan (the character from the RNLI children's club that Rebe is a member of) was there to jolly us along. Rebe gave him the bag of robin biscuits that she had brought for the crew to share, and got her picture taken with him.

Finally we went to see Santa on the lifeboat. He popped Rebe on his knee, but Benny wanted to stay by me after handing over his little bag of biscuits to Santa. Rebe leant over to me and hissed, with complete awe, out of the side of her mouth: 'I'm sitting on Santa's knee!!!!!'

We had an offical photo taken (that we can collect later in the week) and then we got to walk all around the lifeboat back to shore,

It was completely lovely and one of those special memories for the kids. Also it is always a good thing to support your local RNLI when you have a husband who has a boat like Andy's ;-)

and as if the weekend wasn't gorgeous enough, a final beautiful moment as the light faded :-)

Hope your weekend was lovely too :-)

advent

I feel it starting. A little niggle, a wee tiny feeling that Christmas is coming :-)

I have been really busy of late and so have neglected this space somewhat. Advent has started and we are begining to focus ourselves on winter and celebrations.

We have changed our nature table. We spread blue cloths and our tree is now bare. Rebe collected some quartz rocks from the beach that she feels look like ice. Our nativity stable is there with an ox and a donkey awaiting the arrival of the festive season.

The advent calendar so kindly filled by Bubs (my mum) is hanging by the window heavy and exciting.

Rebe went to a Christmas show with school today. They went on an actual real bus. It was very exciting. The show was 'Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer' and of course Rebe wanted to act it out as soon as she got home. She made herself a costume:

Brown clothes, a bead nose with very inconspicuous elastic and twigs shoved down her bunches.

Benny's effort (he does so like to copy everything) made me roar with laughter, in fact I think I will laugh everytime I see this picture for ever more :-)

Dear dear Benny :-)

Welcome advent and winter, you bring with you so much fun and loveliness :-)

supermama

This is me... Supermama! da da daaaa! (I love this picture Rebe did of me! What a big compliment)

And the past few days I have been supermama. I've got so much done, in part due to Bubs being here and the kids being busy playing with her. The world outside our door is an ice rink and we still have no school. This has meant we are snuggled up indoors and so much has been achieved...


Trying the odd little spoon of food (bitter sweet, my wee baby is growing up)

Celebrating the coming of December and with it our advents bags from Bubs...

The kids delight in opening the little bag each morning. They have found a little chocolate each and also a wonderful finger puppet each day. So far they have gotten a gingerbread man, a troll and baa baa black sheep (clever Bubs).

We've been out for very short, very cold little walks.

we've cut hair...

This isn't a great picture of Rebe's. It's shorter than I intended but it is growing on me. Benny had a mullet up til a few hours ago, but Andy made me cut it off. He looks fairly smart now although I miss his curls.

I have also been doing a fierce amount (as they say here in Ireland) or crafting. In fact I have finished no fewer than 6 presents today. Most of which I can't show you because they are for people who look at the blog from time to time and I want them to be secret so I'll show you this wee cat I knitted for my niece...

I had to wrestle it off both the older kids. It's very soft and sweet and I hope she likes it.

So I am nearly done with all my Christmas crafting, only Joa's mobile to go really and a few little bits on a couple of dolls.

Gosh, it will feel lovely to just be able to relax and enjoy the coming weeks without a big mad list of things I still want to make :-)

I bet you're a superhero too!

A little taste of Christmas

Before running away with the new year I'd like to share a few pictures and memories of Advent and Christmas. It was a wonderful time and I really enjoyed the run up this year. We hung our fabby advents calendar (thanks Bubs) up at the window and every morning R would open it up for the both of them. B was much more interested in the chocolate coin they got each, but inside everyday was another craft activity or item for our wonderful craft box.





We also had an advent gnome which was hung next to the calendar and had (well most mornings) an activity for us to do such as gathering holly and ivy from the woods to make a wreath, or make Christmas biscuits. It worked really well and it meant we got to do something christmassy everyday and also helped me to plan my day a bit better. I do find that if I have the day planned right from the beginning that it all goes a lot smoother and is more productive.

Here are a few more snippets:


Making christmas cakes, one of which they left out for Santa along with some carrots and a glass of red wine!

Cleaning our shoes for St Nicholas to come (which he only just managed as the car was out of action). We cleaned our shoes and I tried my best to remember the story. That evening R went to bed very excited, I heard her crying at about 9.30pm, when I went up to her she said: 'That man didn't come and put a surprise in my shoes!'. I had to explain again that he only came when we were asleep and persuaded her to try that! It worked and he came and brought a little felt St Nicholas each, some chocolates and some bubbles. They were delighted and quite high by the time they had eaten the chocolates!

One of our advent activities was to create a nativity scene. Everyday we made a few more things, the stable was the trickiest but we got there in the end by sewing some sticks onto an old washing powder box. To my delight the scene was really played with and I often found funny little visitors in it, seals, super dog ...

2 pictures of these starts I'm afraid, not sure how to remove them. They worked well and we did enjoy making them!

We also had some lovely visitors during advent including my mum and we were very busy santa's elves in the evening. Poor thing, I think it was far from a relaxing break for her between my cracking the whip and having her up sewing and kniting til 1am everyand having to constantly 'be super dog or Kebin'!! (Thanks though, it was a lovely time!!)

Christmas day was wonderful, opened Santa presents in the morning, then the electricity went off for half an hour so we had breakfast by candle light. The rest of the day was taken up with playing with our presents, making christmas dinner, watching films on tv and following our usual Christmas day tradition of feeding the ducks. Sadly we picked the wettest half hour of the day to this in...oh well, the ducks did appreciate their Christmas lunch. There are more photos to add but I need to go be with the kids right now!