Will Dig Life

We simply took over the church building; the church runs a toddler group in the week so the toys came out, and I blagged as many boxes from local shops as I could get... thinking they would be great for the smaller kids to play pretend cars and such. Turns out they were a big hit for the older kids, and mostly ignored by the younger ones!

We're so blessed to have not one, but two estates right on our doorstep: two stately homes with beautiful grounds, woods, lots of things to explore. One of them, Blaise, is overrun at all times because it has two playgrounds and a cafe and is on the main road; the other, Kingsweston, is only minutes from Blaise but seems to be something of a best-kept secret! It does have a cafe, but no playgrounds which suits me much better... I can't stand playgrounds, and the dog isn't allowed in them! We'd much rather be out exploring the woods and what's in them. We had a lovely September afternoon at Kingsweston...

Because it's been a very eventful week - between my two teeth pulled & implants set, N(4)'s croup scare, and Mr's cold... still in between those highlights, the kids had fun. Here are some photos. Had a family photoshoot!

It's taken me several days to steady myself and put in writing what happened last Friday. My daughter N (will be 4 on Friday) went to bed on Friday night with a bit of a cough, nothing to worry about; an hour or so later we heard a strange noise and found her in bed, writhing in a blind panic as she'd woken up almost completely unable to breathe. She fought hard, we called an ambulance and were taken to hospital. While waiting for the ambulance with a wheezing, sweaty N in my arms I had the opportunity to write a message on Facebook, just asking friends all over the world to pray NOW... and they started praying. It wasn't long before a paramedic arrived, administered an initial dose of medicine (he knew straight away it was a severe case of croup), and then we went to hospital. Literally from the moment I posted that message I saw N improve - it was incredible to watch. By the time the paramedic handed us over to a nurse at A&E, N was pretty much herself a...

This afternoon with Sally Clarkson , who came to speak to local home educating mums, has been affirming as much as it's been challenging. I have known about Sally for a while, but I must admit I struggled with her writing style so never really got into the two books of hers that I bought. Everything I heard about what she was saying seemed so good and I really wanted to read those books, but somehow the style was just too much of a barrier.  So I figured hearing her speak in person should be better, and oh my goodness. I connected with her immediately. This woman has so much wisdom of experience in the grace based approach to parenting that I aspire to - and as her kids are now adults it's incredibly encouraging to see the fruit of that approach.  Affirming : because she's walked the road I hope to walk, has built up strong children who love God and are out to change the world; challenging , because I feel God has used her to tell me it's time to change gea...

N went to nursery this morning and challenged both her fine and gross motor skills. Meanwhile I took the boy into the woods. Lots of exploring to do there. Snail! In the afternoon I met with a local friend who has two kids of a similar age as mine. That conversation brought home to me (again) just how easygoing and reasonable my children actually are! But this goes with some reflecting I've done recently. I find myself delighting in those years. I'm on my second 2-year-old now, and both of them have been absolutely delightful. Their curiosity, pure loving nature, random laugh out loud moments... I love it! Yes, their endless energy is exhausting but I just cannot see how this age has been called terrible  - my children have both completely failed to be terrible in any way, shape or form! They do have emotions, of course, but I haven't seen the out-of-control screaming, "tantrums" , unreasonable demands that I was led to fear. I feared so muc...

Our garden at the moment isn't safe for the kids to play unsupervised (because of the deep trenches that have been dug for the extension foundations) so we all spent a bit of time in the garden together. Distinctly reminded of The Matrix somehow... Concentrating. Daddy fixing the bicycle... And daddy had an idea: let's bring out the big girl bike! And guess what - the big girl went and did it, just like that. Because she really is big now.

I don't know quite how we packed so much into this one day! As every Saturday, N had her swimming class first thing. With a new teacher, who is an absolute natural at teaching - engaging, fun, he got her to do things like submerge her entire head! She had an absolute blast. After that, Mr needed some space to prepare the lesson for Sunday School so I took the kids to Aerospace. They know it quite well by now but there's always something to see... After lunch, Mr joined us for a trip into the town centre where we had learned about a flock of woolly seagulls to find. They were hiding in the MShed (there are more in other locations but we didn't have time before closing)... lots and lots of them! Oh Bristol, so lovely and wacky and random. Can you spot the seagull in each of the pics below? ...and a real seagull too! Having found enough seagulls we headed into town for a coffee at Dom's, our favourite cafe. Why favourite? Well, to s...

Charlotte Mason would approve of my day today (and that's not something I can say often!)... we spent it mostly outside. One major reason for that is that I'm conscious of doing as much as possible free (or at least super cheap) because our budget is so tight with my teeth and the house extension - and today it's worked really well actually.  We went to Kingsweston with the dog to meet a friend for a walk and catch up time. Everyone loved exploring hidden places we hadn't found before. Probably squirrels down there! More swamp than pond Swamp exploration A beautiful view! In the afternoon I was cooking for our friend after her new baby arrived, so we were delivering the food with a quick detour to the local sandy playground. Notice the need for jackets, boo!