Weekend Things

The youngest trying to escape

Swinging on a beautiful sunshiny day.

Mesmerised by the garden springing back to life.

In September & October ...

We've had a bad case of the flu in our house for the past few weeks.  We are heading towards good health again slowly but aren't quite there yet.  This means we have done very little on our character lessons for this month (or any lessons at all really). So I've decided that we will do gentleness over two months.

Gentleness is so important to teach our house full of boys.  They often think they can be rough 'Just because they are boys'.  We are working on being gentle in our words, our voice, our actions, our belonging and our hearts.  There are so many areas of life we can bring this into.

Today I talked to my 3 year old about being gentle when opening the door, rather than just running at it full speed and pushing it.

Present Success

I recently made a dress-up for my nephews birthday - he loves Octonauts.  So I made a simple Captain Barnacles hat and belt for him.  He was super excited when he opened it and put it on straight away.  But the best part is the next day I received this photo.  HE WORE IT TO BED!!!!

Happy Birthday Captain Barnacles!

Birth Flags

My friends recently had a baby boy.  I thought I'd make them something to celebrate.

Can't wait to met him.

Character - Truthfulness

Here is the wall hanging we made to remind us about truthfulness.  We talked about cheating whilst playing scrabble, made up a great story to help kids understand exaggerate and talked about how we encourage others to do something without telling them what to do.  

My new 'door'

After inspiration from bbeingcool and Country Style Magazine, I turned this old door into this new 'command centre' in my kitchen.

 The top two panels became a space where the next two weeks plans are clear for all to see.

The bottom six panels are magnetic blackboards for the kids to play, create and learn on.  The middle was so pretty I didn't want to change it at all.  Since it has been in my kitchen I've discovered that this space is the prefect spot for me write anything that I need to remember - phone calls to make, shopping lists or jobs to do, and to write fun messages to my husband!!!

Spring Bonfire

This past weekend we started an annual tradition.  The SPRING BONFIRE.  We gathered with a bunch of friends to celebrate the arrival of spring.

We started off the event by throwing some old winter socks into the fire to say Good-bye winter and HELLO Spring.  The warmth of the fire was wonderful because the weather forgot that it was spring and put on a nice minus 2 degrees C for us.

Some families camped out over night and enjoyed a relaxed Father's Day breakfast and morning together.

What a wonderful weekend with family and good friends!