Pondering Ponteuf

Settling in.

This is a little song that we would sing in our Waldorf parent - child group.We would do it in rounds and it was really quite enchanting.

Coming,it is.What with up north getting fourteen inches of snow last night,I would say that Old man Winter is right around the corner,I could feel him nipping my nose on our stroll today and I hear him rattling the little crooks and crevices of my ninety year old windows.Stay away I tell you Old man winter,you are not wanted here.Yet alas we are gearing up for our bunkering down days.Spending more time with our crayons as our sidewalk chalk lays discarded in the garage

 and warming our bellies with comforting foods like apple and pear crisp made from our orchard outings.

made with a good stick of butter and lashings of maple syrup,brown sugar and cinnamon,this poor crisp didn't stand a chance.It was gone in thirty minutes flat! I did share a little with my loves,honest:0)

This afternoon the boys forwent their nap and snuggled on the couch for a viewing of the red balloon .

Oliver did his best to scare off the mean boys with his current choice of defense,raspberries blown at machine gun speed,but alas the ending was the same and Ollie dragged himself over to me for a quick snuggle before the pleas of "again Mama,again" started up again.

If you haven't seen it.YOU.MUST.RENT.IT.

We have been hanging out by the fire most afternoons this week too.

Now that is one thing that I do love about winter.A loaded,cracking fire.

Don't you just love the spot that Griff chose to watch the dance of the fire fairies?

Tomorrow is Halloween.I am prepping myself for the sugar hyped four hour bell ringing marathon that is going to happen (I don't love this bit,I like my evening peace,I do.!) but I can't wait to see the babes dressed up,we have a super Griffin,Ollie dog and Bella the Belle to take trick or treating tomorrow.Now that I can't wait for:0)

I'll be back with piccies on Monday,

Stay safe and warm tomorrow

~~~~~~~HAPPY HALLOWEEN~~~~~~~~~

Too Kool for for skool..

This little man makes me laugh on a daily basis.Be it with his latest accessory,the hat,a cape and now the glasses or when he blows raspberries at anyone or anything(by anything I mean,a discarded bag blowing across our path,a hungry bird scavenging for crumbs and even a pumpkin that rolls down the steps behind him!!)

He really is a character.He's my dude:0)

Doing the dishes.

Pooped from a day of raspberry blowing and running Mummy in circles

Oh Ollie,you rockstar!

xxx

Self portrait Tuesday.

So a while back I was toying with the idea of doing 365 on Flickr.Well I realized that I would probably end up sending myself insane if I added such an enormous task to my daily to-do list.But,I do enjoy playing with my camera and giving myself a little challenge every now and again so I came up with self portrait Tuesday to add a little "me" fun to my weekly tasks and hopefully because it is just once a week,it will stay fun.

The story to this one is sweet.Papa was home for the day and after working on the basement (bloody never ending project of his!!) he took the babes to the playground behind our house.It was a beautiful Autumnal day and I had the windows open to get a final airing through the house before we batten down the hatches to keep out the winter's chill.I got supper going and then dragged five loads of laundry up the stairs to fold (yawn,double yawn!!).Here I was, standing in my room folding the laundry,basking in the sunlight that is flooding the room,smelling the fall breeze and listening to my children's squeals of laughter and joy coming  through the open window from across the way.Yes folding laundry is mundane but I smiled to myself and realized.

Life is good.It really is.I feel so blessed.

Anyhoo,I turned and saw my shadow against the wall.With the sunlight streaming through the stained glass window it gave it a really cool effect.So I captured the moment to always remind myself of that calm five minutes of zen that I had.Because in this house,it is rarely calm and never zen,so now I have something to remind myself when I am *this close* to pulling my hair out.

It came out pretty well don't you think?

another one.

There will be tears before bedtime..

Not in this house there won't!!!

I just had to share these photographs of my hubby helping me "wind down" the children before bedtime!

As you can imagine,bedtime took twice as long that evening..

I often feel like I have four children and will find myself disciplining my poor husband sometimes!

Then I remind myself,this is one of the reasons that I fell for him.Even in times such as these,where he is working 16-18 hours a day for our family,he still finds it in him to have a good old laugh and enjoy the moment.

Dearest Stinky (he doesn't smell,I just call him that....)

Thank you for being such a wonderful husband and an exceptional father.

I love you xxxxx

Please sir,can I have some more....

Out of the blue yesterday,Griffin asked me if I could make him a blueberry cake.Now considering that this boy rarely eats any fruit but strawberries and bananas,I was a bit taken back.But...seeing as I froze at least twenty punnets of Jersey grown blueberries right at the peak of their sweetness,I happily set about finding a recipe.I remembered reading on a blog that there was one in the much praised Apples for jam (hey it's on sale!) Of course I was missing one ingredient as usual.So after a quick detour to wholefoods,we set to work.Well actually I set to work as when I was getting everything out,Griff has taken it upon himself to fall soundly asleep on the couch!

It is a simple and fast recipe.

From this

To this

to this

in under an hour.Not bad for a quick weekend snack.Those blueberries tasted divine too.They held every ounce of the sweetness that they had when I put them in the freezer a couple of months ago.

The recipes says not to use frozen fruit but I just dusted them in a little flour to stop them sinking and they stayed plump and juicy.

This morning Oliver and I had a little photo shoot to relist my Austrian shorts,my gosh,he looked so dapper if I do say so myself.He insisted on keeping the outfit on,even the hat so we had a little visit to the farm in our Sunday best:0) The goats appreciated it but the llamas spat at us.AGAIN!!! Bloody things.I am not even going to offer them a cracker next time,talk about ungrateful!!

This modeling lark is SO tiring!!

Oh and you see next to the empty cake plate?? That is a sneak peek of a shirt that is going in the store at the end of the week.

Cheerio

How do you eat yours?

No not a creme egg...

My babes do have table manners,honest....

But this is what happens when I try to multitask!! Hey an bit of exploration is good for the soul,along with this great Greek yogurt that I found.Yum:0)

I am all for letting kids be......most of the time.This was nothing that a nice warm bath for him and a soapy dish rag for the table couldn't fix.It certainly made me put them to bed smiling.

Happy weekend everyone.

xx

Fallen leaves and flip flops.

Yesterday was beautiful.The wind every so slowly shook a leaf or two to the ground but the sun was warm enough to keep the shivers away.Just.

I jumped at the opportunity to drag out the bouncy castle so that the babes could burn off some of that frenetic energy that seems to appear within them at 4.30 on the dot EVERY.BLOODY.DAY!!

And as the chicken soup simmered in the kitchen (gotta love that easy dinner!) I took the chance to get some reading in.

I'll be honest here.The sundance catalog got the majority of my spare time.As always,I love everything in there.With a wistful sigh I dropped it into the recycling bin on the way in.

There were some great recipes for root veggies that I am going to try after my visit to the farmer's market on Sunday.I am sure that the velvet sweet potato custard will go down like a lead balloon but it sure sounds good to me:0)

The sun is sticking around today so outdoor play will resume once school is out.

Cheerio

Fleeting moments

like this

make the 4AM wake up calls and the 4PM meltdowns forgotten in a second.

I feel so blessed:0)