Bluebells

Hello!

Just wanted to share with you a special family time we had in the woods ....

Beautiful bluebells

They're almost magical aren't they? 

Busy bumblebee

The youngest Whitething was off making up stories about the Gruffalo, here is where he sits, here is where he sleeps, oh look, here's his special place - here's all his children! So cute!

The Gruffalo's special place!

Trying to find the perfect spot for a photo without crushing any bluebells!

Nice enough but not quite right!

Just need them to all look and smile at the same time while the sun is out!

Nearly!

Think this is my favourite! Not exactly a posed photograph but tells a story, of sisterly love, of a special time being together, sharing the story of Moses with each other, just us in the woods with the beauty of God's creation to enjoy in the sunshine - how blessed we felt.

Think it was a hug?!

See you all soon!

Jo

xxx

PS- still waiting for that dry school run!

Baking in the holidays

Well that's the Easter holidays over with and very lovely they were too. I love my term time contract which means I get to enjoy spending time in the holidays with my girlies.

We spent our days with friends, making things, cooking, tidying bedrooms (this was not so much fun but needed doing!) they played imaginary games for hours and it was so lovely to listen to them and not have to stop them to do something or go somewhere, precious times.

Here's a sample of their baking (all gluten free of course!)

I did get into trouble for breaking the chick biscuit when I re-arranged them for the photo, that's gluten free baking for you!

I am also grateful to Jooles over on her blog for this delicious recipe for Raspberry and Marzipan muffins. They really are very good and I was unable to resist! 

The fabulous combination of the tartness of the raspberries combined with the sweetness of the marzipan and the surprising hint of cardamon is genius! Needless to say there were very few left when I took them into work for a leaving do, thanks Jooles!

So bring on the summer term, my eldest Whitething's last in primary school, two Messy Church events to organise, the allotment to plant up, the dining room ceiling to pull down, a community Jubilee event to help pull together, a couple of craft fayre's and lots more! Phew! Need to focus! And at some point I really want to learn how to crochet as it's still beating me! 

Meanwhile I'd settle for a dry school run! Hope you're having a good day!

Jo

xxx

New life - Easter part 2

So, we've never really known what to do with Easter Saturday before. But then I came across these Easter Story cookies or Resurrection cookies as they are sometimes called.

I was intrigued to see how they would work. Each ingredient tells a different part of the Easter story that corresponds to the bible verses. You then put them in a pre-heated oven (tomb) switch the oven off and seal them up overnight. Sunday morning, you open the oven door and find these, little hollow meringues just like an empty tomb. The girls really enjoyed doing this and was a great way of understanding more about Easter. It also made for an interesting breakfast combined with the finds of the egg hunt!

We also had our most successful and enjoyable attempt at egg dying and decorating yet! My youngest Whitething was definitely the best egg blower! We had a family friend round and it kept us all occupied on a rainy bank holiday! Most enjoyable!

Here is the eldest's Whitethings photo of our Easter fireplace. I'm not 100% happy yet with my Easter tree but it's getting there, year by year!

Hope you've all had a lovely family time together,

Jo

xxx

It's been a while . . . . but here goes - Easter!

Hi all, remember me?

I've kind of been a little behind in my blog posts (just a bit!) and silent on all of yours but have enjoyed reading what you've all been up to. But you know how  it is, you think I'll just wait until I finished the latest WIP or when I've got a better photo or something better to share and before you know it, it's weeks then months and then it gets harder and harder to start again!

So, here goes . . . I got in my head that I wanted to make an Easter wreath. We like to celebrate Easter in this house as we do Christmas so decorating the house is all part of it.

Anyhoo! I found a few spring bits I liked the look of, got the glue gun out, found an old wreath in the. loft (yes really!) and spent a very enjoyable 10 minutes gluing away, hung it on my front door and (I've waited a long time to say this!) TA-DA!

Easter wreath

I'm really quite pleased with it! We try to make a big deal of Easter as we think it's more important than Christmas as far as our faith is concerned! So we decorate the house and do family activities to help the girls get to grips with different parts of the story and so on.

Easter Jesse Tree

This is our version of an Easter Jesse Tree that we used at Christmas with some great ornament downloads from here and now at Easter to tell the story of the life of Jesus. We've brought some life to it courtesy of some Phoenix Trading butterflies! It's made out of some packaging materials and is only a feature until we get around to pulling the ceiling down in this room and decorating!

Christmas Jesse Tree

And here is my youngest's prize winning Easter bonnet (apologies for the poor photo - another excuse not to post!) her Daddy and her made for a competition at school. She was very adamant that it had to depict the real Easter story but then rather reluctant to wear it once the sticks were stuck in! But, very happy with her chocolate prize!

So, there we go! I've done it, made my first attempt at a comeback (!) hope you've enjoyed it and I'll try not to leave it so long next time! I'm on my way over to all you lovely people now to be brave enough to leave a comment! 

Happy Easter everyone!