more mache-ing

p for porcupine was our fun yesterday.....
and we read up on them and did you know they can actually shoot their quills at predators!!!!
that is so cool!
anywho....
this neat little book (slow and steady get me ready) talks about making alphabet puppets....
we make our own each day with the letter we are learning....but i cut these out of a book for more fun....
while watching a new english netflix...bleak house....ahhhhh.....

home made lathe!!!!

this is ingenious!
i was just searching for "how to make a yoyo"
thinking about a project for the letter y
and i found this site on how to do it! by making your own lathe!
this is wonderful!!!!
o the possibilities!

my 30's

i remember my mum telling me quite a few times that she enjoyed her 20's well but in her 30's was when she really felt like she was truly contented in herself....that was a very fulfilled and happy time for her.  and maybe that has a lot to do with having children in her 30's after she and my dad longed for them for so many years... and settling in the states shortly afterwards...my dad settling into engineering and my mum into being a mum.
but when she talked about it, there was i think something more....that she felt she fit and filled her own skin...and was proud of herself. 
i only ever knew my mum as utterly self aware and self assured with a quiet and sincere manner...she never tooted her own horn as far as i know, but sort of exuded a contentment that was very stilling for any troubled watered souls around...like mine! ha! 
anyway, i think of all this bc only recently i wondered if some of my mum's musings back then were wrapped in the clothes i often find myself even now talking with jack.  giving him words to remember when he crosses bridges of his own in the future.  bc my own thoughts of living through my 30's have SO much to do with my mum's words.  i am happy and encouraged about getting older...of course not without moments of noticing new wrinkles or gray hairs =) but i mean, her words are burned into me....that i have these years to enjoy and blossom even more....my 20's weren't "the best years of my life"....just as my 30's won't be either...
and so on...
bc i suppose they all are my best....at least i hope they will be =)
i have told myself many times that today is the youngest i will ever be =)

josh took jack to school with esme earlier this week and i worked in a cob a bit (thinking about a spiral staircase) and i played tapes of my mum chatting that she made for me while i was in india YEARS ago... i was lulled with working away by her voice into imagining her there...chatting to me about her day, all the little tidbits about this and that she could chat about so interestingly.... i thought i might sort of forget she was gone for a minute but that fact is so deeply engrained in me, that i never was fooled.  but i did get to imagine her there  and hear her....it was wonderful.
and as i listened to her, i heard her speaking to me...cautioning me to be careful (i had malaria at the time or something they thought was malaria)  and take care of myself and i recognized my voice talking to jack...a round about way where he would think it was his own decision to be careful or make a wise choice....it made me laugh....how my mum did the same to me...

i think being a parent is a teacher....like so many people say it is....
but in ways i didn't quite think...
bc for me, it makes me see and hear what my mum and dad have tried to speak into me all my life....in so many ways....
and really it was only ever one thing...as it is with my kids
i love you. i love you. i love you with a love so great it hurts me. i love you. i love you....i love you...i love you....i loveyouiloveyouiloveyouiloveyou.....
it is my breath and my heartbeat....every "lesson" or conversation is truly only this....

laying in the grass

the kids and i just went out in the sun this afternoon and laid in the grass...
and it is so neat bc all the animals migrate around us....the turkey, lurkey, plopped down beside us, the sheep grazed around our heads, the chickens pecked in the grass around us....and harry kept nuzzling our faces...
i think more and more animals and so very aware of their "family"....and all that is going on around them...in some way anyway...

her name is crocodile....

no wait, grassy
no wait, maybe....fancy...wait, that's the sheep
ummmmm....how about ....mamma, i don't know any more names

well, how about blackberry?

yeah! blackberry blackberry blackberry!

and so jack named esme new favorite chicken
who went for a long walk with us and kept esme very happy along the way

boots!!!!!

so, as many of you might have noticed my shoe-ly attire for a long time has been josh's old keens....
they are hilariously dirty and HUGE on my feet and i wear them with just about everything....
pants, skirts, shorts...i don't mind...they are easy to slip on and worth all the funny looks i get

but i have long yearned for a pair of real boots...
that i could slip on and feel o so wonderfully cool in...
and arrived in the mail just the other day as a gift from my dear, hot hubbie were these beauties!!!!!
he has such good taste...

jack was so taken with them himself, we decided to try our luck at the thrift shop this morning to find him a pair and wouldn't you know, there were these little black darlings...he LOVES them about as much as i love mine =)
they are way too big for him but amazingly, it doesn't seem to matter at all...
we took a long walk this evening and he fared very well

my little man

i have seen jack in my minds eye so many times over the past few days in silouette....
laying in bed about to fall asleep, walking in the woods, working at his desk....
and i can't help but project him to 10, 15 20 years from now....
as a man doing all the man things he'll do....
and knowing i'll see him then and remember him now
as a little boy...so full of wonder and kindness and tenderness and eagerness to please...and desire to snuggle and be close to those he loves...
i feel like those things wont' change...at least i pray they won't
he is my little man even now...

making turtles

we cut one of our paper mache balls this morning and made 2 turtles!
it was such fun....
jack ended up with 7 legs on his, 2 antennae, a hairy neck and a hat
=)
our own personal version of the turtle you might say
esme had fun getting paint everywhere but then contented herself mostly by brushing her teeth and washing her hair in the sink =)

when we were young.....realllllly young

the first and last is josh and the middle 2 are me....
i was wondering through old photos and came across these.....
i love looking into our own faces as children and trying to see the kids in them....

woo hoo!

clay and katie, staughty and eula...and mark and joi came and spent the night with us.....and it was so much fun!!!!!!
we miss them so much and having concentrated time is just good for us...
mark is the friend who gave us the camera....a spectacularly talented guywho is so easy to be around...before they had to take off back to atl he gave me a crash photography course...and like so many things, the more i learn about something, the more i want to learn, i suppose it is being opened up to all the possibilties than makes the brain start to tick =)

any who...
it was just such a nice time, sitting by the fire, eating lots of food, walking in the woods and catching up...