Hunter-gatherer

Isn't it amazing, and fab.....? One minute you have a poorly baba who is floppy and listless, needs to be carried everywhere, and has a temperature of 39.1. Then he finally falls asleep on the sofa at 4.30, wakes up an hour later, and is BETTER!
And come bedtime is absolutely full of beans, not even close to tired....
So these photos were taken at about 8.30 as he munched his way around the veggie patch. There's not much in it this year as we are leaving for Nepal at the end of July, but he had a chomp of the purple sprouting broccoli and the chives....and finally went to bed about 10.30.




And check this out - at the grand old age of 15 months, I think he is finally growing some hair!

This is my first little flower child, made from a pattern sent to me by very, very kind Shell. Eve was delighted to come down and find her one morning - and I was very pleased that I managed to make her before all the blossom has gone from our apple tree. I reckon she can stay for at least another couple of weeks as the trees around here are still covered in beautiful frilliness and bloom.

Songs for my babies

Pregnancy songs. These are the ones that remind me of growing my little ones.

Here's Eve's.
We went to see 'Closer' either just before or whilst I was pregnant. Romantic tragedies have unsurpringly seemed a lot less poignant ever since I became a mother - this is the last time I remember feeling empathy..... Might it come back at some point in the future? Anyhow - this song was on the radio a LOT when I was expecting the little chops.

This is Noah's.

And here's Thom's.
We went to see Radiohead at the Oval when I was 6 weeks pregnant with him. And listened to In Rainbows kind of exhaustively for an embarrassingly long time afterwards.....

Happy Days

Kathmandu preparations are ongoing but a bit tedious - vaccinations which are hideously expensive, hard to get hold of, but very necessary, have been preying on my mind quite a bit over the last week or so - so it's nice to look back over the past week and see that we've managed to do lots of lovely things as well as get sore arms / bottoms!

We went over to Ellesmere sculpture trail last week which was a lovely adventure - with just the right amount of hills and things to explore for littler legs.









And we found our first (real) bluebells of the year.

On Wednesday morning Noah Boots and I spent a happy couple of hours at the table while Eve was at school and Thom was asleep. Noah did a fair bit of cutting and sticking, trying out the lefty scissors for the first time - and I sorted out my sewing / crafty drawer. And found the lovely Peter Rabbit sampler I started 7 years ago - the shame........! What are my chances - I hope I'll finish it while we're in Nepal as I think I should have more time... Hmmm...... Maybe it's a kick up the butt that I actually need......



Loved this - evidence that Harv had a little helper for the pizza making on Friday night.

We had a great weekend at Carl and Helen's - on the Sunday we walked 'somewhere' beautiful in the Peak District. I am ashamed to say I don't know where.....
We all loved it though - chilly, ridiculously so at first - but it was just what we needed.



Eve and Noah had lots of fun running around and jumping over mossy humps with their cousin James, and Thom watched. I think he was maybe a bit jealous of all the running around - but he does love being snuggled up on my back.







We played hide and seek and even found a ruined castle.

Happy Birthday Noah

Noah, I have grown so much through being your mama.

Noah was born on a beautiful, sunny day three years ago, and we were all absolutely "chuffed to pieces" in Harv's words, to welcome him to our family. He has come a long, long way since that day. He was born with a bilateral cleft lip and palate, which we were expecting from his antenatal scan, and a tummy problem which needed surgery, which rather blind-sided us. I wrote about that here.
So, he taught me a lot about strength, resiliance, and looking for the goodness and happiness in every moment. (Okay I don't always remember to, but I learned to.)
Check out his jouney from then to today. It's been hard occasionally, the first year in particular, but we have had SO much fun too.

















Happy birthday my sweet boy.

Instead of taking a shower

I am pretty stubborn about lots of things and one of these is that I get to have a shower every morning. But - today I decided we had more important things to do. I had driven past a family of geese and goslings at a nearby lake on the way to work during the week, and decided then that I really wanted the littles to see them as they all love animals so much. So I left Harv in bed and piled them into the car nice and early and we went off to see them.

And met some rather more scary geese while we were there. Noah was VERY eager to shoo them away; Eve was much shyer, hiding behind my legs. And Thom just laughed at them because he was safe up on my back.....

We were the only family around - there were a few dog walkers but it was blissfully peaceful, and the only sunny hour or so in an otherwise grey and rainy day.

Definitely better than a shower.