Precious Moments this Week

Sometimes life sends you along a week which makes you realise how blessed you are just to be alive to experience such a week.  The last few days have been like that for us.  We have been in a half holiday, half back at school week, the sun has been shining, the children have been delightful and I am completely in love with my husband.  I’m not sure life gets much better than this.

The older children had a sleep over with the girls having K11 over and T13 going over to B13’s.  They decided to have some spa fun and did face masks, nails and moisturising:

On Sunday we had Lorna and co. round for lunch followed by an egg hunt.  We had our customary baked potatoes and toppings:

The egg hunt followed (as pudding!):

Of course, there’s always one (and it’s usually Gary).  We did a ‘ready, steady, go’ and as the children dispersed as quickly as they could to find all the eggs, Gary attempted to stop any progress from T13:

Ha!  He should know that no one gets between T and his food!  So imagine our surprise when we noticed a basket nonchalantly leaning against the house.  Empty.  When questioned T admitted to preferring to share B’s more manly striped bag than embarrass himself carrying around the decorated, feminine basket of his youth. He really should know better than to actually admit embarrassment because I then just felt compelled to warn him that he would be getting no eggs at all unless he carried his own basket around.  So at the threat of losing food (for the second time in as many minutes) he begrudgingly picked up his basket.  I got a photo (which was really all I wanted) and told him I was only joking….

There’s an enormous amount of fun to be had at a teen’s expense!  And just before you think I am a terribly mean mum, I did get his permission to post said photos which he (reluctantly) gave…..

The rest of the hunt went as planned:

Monday brought about our day working in the garden which prompted me to write a post questioning how heavy handed we should be in dealing with our teens.  We all had a brilliant time, working together.

T and Gary created a gate to fence in Oscar:

The girls tidied up a bit and dug their soon to be flower bed:

B4 did a sterling job sweeping our walkway with a brush about 50 times to big for her:

A6 decided to make a nest to encourage some birds into our garden:

There was lots of nature to be seen such as beetles with gleaming backs:

And wiggly worms:

Oscar was also out enjoying the company of his family and Nugget and Nutmeg our two hens, who were digging around in our compost heap for most of the time:

And Gary had to have his bit of fun (although rather cheekily told the the children it was my idea – can you imagine me being mischievous?)  He had found this enormous spider.  He called the girls over on the pretense of needing their help.  As they did he pretended to throw it at them.  He is not keen on spiders so he hadn’t actually touched it, just pretended to.  We all laughed and L12 giggled whilst attempting to strangle her father at the same time!

It was a really good day and I think probably set us all up for the lovely week which followed.

B4 has finally started formal school.  She is the last child I will be teaching to read and we are having a lot of fun.  She is very independent and completely thinks she knows it all and it is she who needs to teach me and not the other way around.  She doesn’t know her alphabet though and I do, so for the time being I have the edge!

The children have been busy planning a charity garden fair with coconut shires, trampolining competitions, singing and entertaining:

I had to laugh as I overheard C12 telling L to make some loom band bracelets which they would give to the guests once they had paid their entrance fee.  She exclaimed it would be their very own version of pay and display!  My children crack me up 🙂

The good weather brought out the dressing up which the older ones reminisced over whilst the littles ooohed and ahhhed over it all and had much fun trying everything on:

Happy, happy days in deed.