Jessie's 11th Birthday!

Jessie's birthday started early as Daddy had to leave for work at 6:30 am so it was necessary for a 6am wake up! It was NOT necessary for a 3am wake up (Thank You Jessie!) so she went back to bed a while longer! ( Apparently she had just got up for a drink.....!)

Jessie had been saving her money from a Doggy Daycare job and various other sources and we added the rest so she could get an IPOD Touch 4G for her birthday. ( I didn't know what it was either.....!!) I have to say I think I'm going to NEED one now! It's fantastic!!!! :D

Anyway..... Here are some shots from the big day ......



Looking remarkably chipper for 6am.... An IPOD has an App for that....!



The beautiful bunting was made by my Mum... I LOVE it !!


The glitter~fetti that is strewn throughout the house. We start in the birthday girl / boy's room and made a trail to the gifts!!! It's VERY pretty... though a tad messy !! ;D


Jessie, you ARE amazing......



This card reminded me of Jessie when her hair was longer....!



Indeed....


The fabulous dessert!! It's more of a frozen custard than anything else but tastes DELICIOUS!! (Looks like a terrine, tastes like heaven! )I'll put the recipe up in the sidebar... but not tonight!! ;D


And finally, here is a picture of what I imagine Jessie will look like when she is twenty! She took this pic of herself on her IPOD and I was SHOCKED!! She looks so very grown up !!



I think I might have to go and have a lie down.........!!!

Jack (and Jessie) the Builder(s)!

What's more fun than building with Legos or wooden blocks??? Why building with real bricks, of course!

Sometimes Jack needs some physical and mental activity that can not be satisfied by toys and make believe. The guy needs to do something REAL. We had a huge pile of bricks behind our garage from when we first moved into our house umpteen years ago. I thought it would be good for Jack to carry them to the front of the house and build himself a wall. It was! He did! I took pics...!!!

The Web of Wonder.....!!!

Today Jessie, Jack, Jessie's friend ( aptly named Charlotte! ) and I made this fantastic thing!!!




I'd seen it on a craft blog, Crafts and Sutch, and it looked easy, effective and fun! ( just like me!! )

We knew we'd have fun making it so I decided to make a little time~lapse video of it! I do not have an editing program so there is one point where the camera falls over and you get a glimpse of the ceiling and another where it gets jostled and all you see for a while is a candle!!! Stick with it and you will get to see the end result!! ;D

Do you smell ....burning cat hair????????

Ahhh.... one of Yankee Candle's lesser known fragrances...!! Pumpkin Spice and Singed Cat Hair....!! ;D Stupid CAT !!!!! LOL!!! I could NOT dissuade him from messing with the flame so figured he'd work it out for himself one way or the other! ;D

We had a lovely day today.... the fall temps were in the 80's but the humidity was so low as to be unnoticeable. We went for a lovely walk through the crisp leaves and admired the colors around us. I made dinner in the slow cooker ( love that thing!) and cooked rice in the rice cooker... I also prepared Jessie's birthday dessert and put that in the freezer to firm up! She chose Chocolate Hazelnut Semi-Freddo this time!!! ;D It SOUNDS delicious!! Looks pretty good too and I'm betting it's RICH !!!!!! Can't wait to try it !!! I was pretty proud of myself with all my gadgets helping make dinner a smoother affair!

I've been reading some more Waldorf blogs lately since getting the Fall issue of Rhythm of the Home. I LOVE that thing! It's so nice to sit with a cup of tea and work my way through all the lovely posts and blogs! I'm always inspired to try again ( again again ) with a more Waldorf ~ esque approach to homeschooling and life in general. This post really resonated with me today so after our walk we came home and cleaned the house for an hour! We got so much done, the bathrooms were cleaned, the basement vacuumed, all the laundry was finally put away, the kitchen was all cleaned up and the dishes and pans from all the dinner and dessert preparation were washed and put away, cushions got straightened, toys returned to their proper place and a peace fell upon the house. The children went outside to play with the dog and I finished up preparing dinner. We washed up and the children set the table, I even remembered to light one of our homemade candles. After dinner Jack and Jessie sat and read some books together on the couch. It felt so nice to be calm around dinner time and made getting to bed so very much easier!!

The calm will have gone in the morning though!! Jessie is turning 11 !! She is growing up so nicely! I'm so thrilled to see her blossom into such a lovely person! I imagine sooner or later she'll grow to despise me, but I'm enjoying this precious time where she still wants to be around me and I find her amusing and entertaining company! ;D

I'll let you know how the fancy dessert turns out!! ;D

A couple of things that we did today and why I am the best Mom ever...!! ;D

So, Rex got a new phone for work, a "BLACKBERRY STORM TWO" ( it has to be in caps as it's SOOOOO INCREDIBLE...) yeah.... amazing. woo. Tsk. What a pain in the keister!! ; D ( is that how you spell Keister??!) (Keester??) ANYWAY..... it's apparently AMAZING and AWESOME and OOOOO so SPECIAL but I'll be damned if I can work the thing and thus, I DESPISE it !! LOL!!! I HATE the idea that technology is so close to passing me by!!! ;D

In Other News, I went for a run with my pal Lisa tonight.... we didn't run far and happily managed to stumble into Panera in time for a large bowl of soup and a delicious ( and FREE) pastry !!! (if you get the Panera card and register it right there at the store you can pick any free pastry you like!!! WHOOT!!! I picked CHERRY!!) So any good work we did with the run was soon taken care of with the delicious calories!! ;D

Oh and also it turns out we've fixed a problem we were having with Jackster. ( I say "We" I mean me!!! ;D ) He was insistent on sleeping in our bed, which is fine, I can see what that would be preferable to sleeping alone and frankly he's warm and snuggly and I do enjoy it, but it's a relatively new development and things with Jack tend to linger longer than with most children so I was anxious to determine the cause of his distress. I assured him that if he wanted to he could still sleep in our bed but I asked him if we could go to his room and determine why it was now "Boooky." It turns out that the toys in his closet ( and there were a lot of them ) scared him witless. He was under the impression that they would suddenly come to life in the night and devour his little self. Thank YOU Toy Story 3...... **sigh** so our landing tonight is lined with box after box of toys which I will be moving to the basement sometime tomorrow!!! Poor kid !!! I took everything out that he asked me to except for the playdoh and his books!! I guess he thinks he can handle the playdoh!! LOL!! ;D Still, once the toys were out he was visibly relieved and happily climbed into his own bed and within minutes of a bedtime story, fell fast asleep.

The moral of this story..... if something scares ya, put it in the basement......!!! Or something like that!! :D

And now I'm off to bed to stretch out in MY space !! ;D well, if I can shove Rex and the dog over of course....!! ;D Goodnight, folks! ;D Don't let the bed bugs bite.... or the freaky toys in the closet...! ;D

Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder...!!

So I've had a busy summer!! :D LOL!!! To all those lovely loyal readers out there who actually mentioned they have been missing my blog.... thank you!!! **blushes!!** Sometimes I forget that people actually read my writing and I love to be reminded once in a while!

Summer was a blur of sunshine and swimming, camping, traveling, hotels, sleepovers and as a stunning finale, a fun filled and fabulous Jamboree!



We had a ton of fabulous families come and stay with us for a week of homeschooling madness! We chatted and played and drank so much tea that my kettle actually wore out! ;D A new one arrived this morning from Amazon! ;D LOL!

The temps are starting to tend towards the cool side which is FABULOUS! We sleep with the windows open and bundle ourselves under the covers like ...um.... well I can't think of any creature that bundles it's self under covers but you get the idea I'm sure! It's chilly, we're cozy, the end! I love the nights growing darker and cooler, the leaves starting to change and crispness in the air BUT here in NE it doesn't last long and then .....BOOM!! WINTER !!!!! Ah well! We'll enjoy the Autumn days as long as they last!

Who remembers singing this in Primary school????



Catch ya later folks! I'll be writing more now it's not so toasty out there!! Got to run for now... the laundry doesn't fold it's self you know! ;D