A new space

While chatting with a new friend one morning last week as we volunteered together in our sons' classroom, we discovered a mutual interest in thrift store shopping. She picked me up on Friday morning and took me out to introduce me to a couple of new ones I hadn't yet discovered. I spotted an old child sized desk for $10 but resisted. For the rest of the day I couldn't stop thinking about how perfect it would be for Brendan. So the next morning I went back to find that all furniture was on sale and got the desk for 5 bucks. Our plan is to sand it down and paint it in the spring but for now it's sitting in the back hallway, under a window that lets in the afternoon sun, perfect for after school quiet time.

One recent story snippet complete with patriotic, war based illustration... "In (the) past two of my brothers died in a war. Now we built a secret weapon that can destroy the bad government. It is called the 'super star destroyer'."

gearing up for christmas

I think it has gone like this so far...
-boys started talking about christmas (waaayyyy to early- school's fault)
-brought up the basket of winter/christmas books
-first snowfall  (no control over but it certainly had a power over us! "It's winter!")
-posted letters (and presents!) to santa
-found a couple of christmas boxes
-put up lights outside
-bought some more lights
-made an advent calendar (finished very late on Dec 1st)
-moved furniture to make way for tree
-set up the christmas village
-found another christmas box
-chose, chopped down and decorated our tree
-found yet another christmas box
-made some more decorations
 
And that brings us to today.

 First snowfall and a spot of tree climbing.

 Brendan has been very prolific in the drawing department of late. We went through almost a whole roll of paper in a week. Good time for a lesson in thriftiness but he's not keen on using the other side. Can't blame him. More paper is on the christmas list.

 The tree expedition.

 Found a beautifully shaped tree which was spared the axe when we found a bird nest in it's branches.

 Taken by Tadhg.

 Also by Tadhg

 And taken by Brendan

 Time to warm up with hot chocolate, a fire and melty marshmallows.

12.12.12

12 photos taken on the 12/12/12. Just for fun.
A photo of whatever I'm doing or seeing on the hour, every hour from 7am to 7pm (extended an hour as I was having a cozy nap and missed 3pm)

7am

8am

9am

10am

11am

noon

1pm

2pm

4pm

5pm

6pm

7pm

feels like spring...

...inside at least!

Had some fun with the camera this morning- the house was looking lovely and bright and springlike in the sunshine.

Could he get that armchair any closer to the tv? (I hadn't noticed- too busy playing with camera settings and angles)

A corner of our kitchen- just some of the distant friends we miss. And my weekly planning whiteboard. (Looks more organised than I really am)

Le soleil brille. A new verb learned in my french class last week :)

Tadhg helping himself to Brendan's post art camp lunch. A second lunch is never a problem a Tadhg.

warming up and refueling

 

It has stayed below freezing pretty much all week, so when we come in from the cold it's often to the tune of "hot chocolate, hot chocolate!"

And below are a couple of pictures I took when we had one of our favourite dinners... an indoor picnic complete with crackers and cheese, our own chutney, pita bread, boiled eggs from our own hens, lots of fruit and avocado... yummy. And this particular one we had in front of an old James Bond film that was on the telly. The boys loved the long ski and car chases (and the fighting) but consequently Brendan then became James Bond for a couple of days which was a little difficult to deal with :) The skiing was cool though. Steve and I were getting excited about our upcoming ski trip to Norway!

Notice Brendan is working on something arty in both of these two pictures, as is often the case these days. 

First (only?) snowfall

Thumbs up for the first snowfall. Yayyy!

 

And given the low temperatures I was feeling bad for the chickens so I kept cooking up warm treats for them. Porridge or scrambled eggs with veggie scraps mixed in. I love mixing up meals for chickens- a bit of 3 year old fun.

Our heating also decided to break on Friday when the temperature outside was a lovely -16C during the day. Coincidence only- it was an internal part on the boiler and wasn't due to the low temperatures- unlike two sets of friends whose pipes froze and started spitting the toilet contents back out the way they had gone in. Poor things.

So we played outside in the snow and then wrapped up warmly, shut doors and curtains to keep the warmth in and then swapped beds to sleep one big person with one little person. The landlord tried and failed to fix the heating so we got up in the morning to a freezing house. One's of life's simple little adventures :)

Brendan "writing messages" on the radiator as we wait to pay before leaving. 

Pain au chocolate as big as my head? No problem.

We headed to our favourite breakfast place, arriving as it opened to find that it hadn't heated up yet, so we kept our warm clothes on while eating eggs, toast and croissants and drinking hot chocolate, coffee and hot ginger apple juice. Brendan pinched a pile of little notelets from the waiter and spent time writing messages and drawing wee pictures, when he wasn't running around the cafe with his brother, that is.

The day was then bright and sunny and photos from a walkabout deserve a blog post of their own:) Oh, and the heating was fixed that afternoon so we didn't lose any fingers or toes, which pleased Brendan given his fear of frostbite. I'd like to say it is an irrational fear but unfortunately I'm to blame... Last week we found ourselves looking at gruesome photos online of frost bitten fingers and toes. This is just one example of my increased use of scare tactics to encourage obedience, in this case keeping gloves on when it's -10C outside! Not proud of this but occasionally these things just come out of my mouth before I can stop them :)  When Brendan started the car last week I said some scary things about car crashes. We won't be looking for pictures or you tube clips of those, that's for sure.

Having trouble with the new blogger update and can't work out how to get the photos where I want them- so this will do for now. Lovely snowy photos coming next.

Birthdays

Tadhg had asked for a "green monster cake with one eye" and had reminded me every day for about a week- so this was the resulting effort. We had a wee party with three friends over for a couple of games and food.

Tadhg was leaning over the cake so that I couldn't get a good photo of the whole thing. I said, "let me see the tongue" so he leaned back and stuck his tongue out.

A few days later, with Paddy, Caitlin and Billy in the house, we lit the candle fire and tidied up while waiting for Steve to come home from work on his birthday. I was really excited because I had caved in and bought a bigger telly for him. It was a genuine surprise because I have been so anti-TV, let alone BIG TV, pretty much since we met, so he never thought we'd get one! It's not HUGE, so I'll still be able to sort out a cabinet or curtain or something to hide it :) For the moment, it was necessary to butcher the current cabinet in order to fit the telly on it...

The surprise ski mountain cake was made by my lovely Polish friend Monika. It was very well made with special little touches and was absolutely delicious. There were better photos on Caitlin's camera- I will try to remember to add them.

Thumbs up at being 40? Or just cake approval?