Birthdays........

Our little girl and I have made the invitations to her party. If you do not have kids you will be blissfully unaware of the massive amount of pressure and junk that oh so quickly gets thrown into parties. Who to invite? How many to invite? Do I need to invite those who invited her? Where to have it? Entertainment? Type of cake? Take home goodie bags? Yep and she is six, I am not organising her flippin' wedding!! Did you know that probably just by mentioning birthdays some company will comment on this post and link me to their site offering so much stuff, some of which cute, some of which tat and all of which we can and do need to live without. I will delete 'em quick, let me tell you.

Yesterday she went to a party. I really struggled on what gift to buy. I did not want to overspend but I did not want to be buying some kind of plastic junk either. I found myself wishing that I was not thinking so much. I settled for a cute little duffle bag which, at least, is useful but I am now wondering how many children were used to make the bag who will never have a party........................... . Anyway this was a princess type party where they all got their make up done at a beauty salon. They are all five and six years old. Our wee one got her nails done as the eczema means a strict stance on make up. I was hugely relieved when I arrived to collect her and was met by a collection of little girls with sparkly glitter and little flowers, hearts around their eyes and not a group of little adults.

Our party is next on the social circuit. We made our invitations today and they are cute. The photographs do not do them justice. So with a theme of dots and stripes I really want these kids to have an absolute ball while I do not spend money we do not have and also keep eco at the front of my mind. We are going to plant sunflowers, name them and decorate their containers (dots and stripes), we are going to decorate fairy cakes with candy (dots and stripes), play all the usual games with the pass the parcel prize (dots and stripes paper, with a good deal of our brown recycled paper and newspaper!) being a ceramic frog plant pot with ceramic paints to paint it. I am so open for any ideas from anyone out there. Six little girls may just be grateful for your creativity!!

One of my blog readers just happened to have a spare nintendo ds which may just do the trick. Thanks Beth! We just need to see if we fry the thing with a voltage incompatibility. No-one appears to have a spare cannon so we have headed down the knights and castles line for the littler boy and picked up a set with a large catapult and two other firing instruments from ebay today for 99p. Kind of felt like I owed the guy some more but that is ebay for you and I was the only bidder.

And the good news is that our camera is fixed. It would have been hard to head into this season without one. We had a Cannon that we loved but Mike discovered it did not bounce well off a stone floor and the lcd screen broke so we bought another one the same. For some reason it took a real huff on me a couple of weeks back and got stuck on review mode. So we could take pictures with the dropped one and then view them on the other. Workable but a major pest. Mike decided today to see if he could swap parts from one to another. A company wanted £75 for this. Hey! We can buy a third one for not a lot more. Well who'da thunk? Add camera fixer to the Mike's CV!! Or was it the power of prayer?

Our holidays are over

Tomorrow school starts again for our little girl and I. We have had too much fun over the last two weeks to be very excited about it. Different for the littler boy. Nursery is all about fun and he just cannot wait.
We have had a small but significant break thru with buddy boy's diet. He ate a small piece of apple, and I do mean small, about the size of a piece of corn, every day for nearly two weeks. Saturday we switched to a small piece of grape. Might not seem like much of an achievement to you but there has been much rejoicing here. It is all about small steps, moving this wee ones mind from a place of fear and stubbornness, which makes him gag on fruit, to a place of enjoyment. It has taken bucket loads of patience, the funky monkey dance from his Dad, and a lot of folks who have been willing to join the game with us. Heck, his Uncle Doug agreed to bet him a £1 that he would not eat it and was happy to lose, I can tell you.

Growing and Harvesting

Cabbage!

Broccoli!

Kale!

Coriander!

Most of these are destined for our allotment but we decided to get them as big and strong as we can so they can do battle with the rain, wind and slugs.

And lobelia, geranium and good ol' busy lizzie to keep our place a riot of colour.

We also harvested some rhubarb and dandelions to make some jelly. I am pleased to say we did not pick all those dandelion heads in our front garden. The first attempt at jelly set so thick that you could have used it as bath sealant. The fourth attempt worked however. I was determined not to be throwing that stuff out, Takes a heap of work to pick all the petals from dandelion heads. Not sure there will be much goodness left with all that boiling tho!

Happy Birthday!!

Today is Mike's birthday and the kids have had a ball getting ready for it. To be truthful I think they have had lots more fun than their Father. Our little girl has clear ideas of what a birthday party should include so at seven this morning I was told that we needed party hats and those blowers that shoot out and make a lot of noise. I tend to react a little to the "need" word but was conscious that I did not want to be raining on her parade so at eight o'clock we were busy making party hats and pretty cool they looked too. A cake, a card, a curry and an exploratory attempt at naan bread and we were all ready (two hyper children and one exhausted mother) to greet Dad on his return from work and host a party with Doug, Susan and Jack.

What to buy as a present had been a dilemma. The kids are a fat lot of use. (Maybe a skateboard for Dad..... ie I would like a skate board!!That's our girl!). Mike had no real ideas except those from play.com which are yet to be released. or a hammer. His deeply loved hammer is lost and we know not where. An Estwing framing hammer, long handled 28 ounce of you happen upon it and we are not buying another yet in hope!!. Both of us very conscious of budget. I thought of rummaging around the second hand stores for treasure for Dad, an adventure for us all and thought better of it. Plants for our garden or the allotment seemed to be a the best option and seemed to be a great way to spend my mother's day vouchers.... recycling at its best. And just think if we can get the redcurrant bushes and strawberry plants, which were a stinker to wrap let me tell you..... ( I had all sorts of ideas for my brown paper and string with buttons and beads that disappeared in a veritable mess of sellotape) to fruit then jelly and jams! Yeah. I have started to save jars, more in hope at this point. I am happy to report that Mike thoroughly enjoyed all the birthday happenings and is always pleased with something new to be planting.

We have the little people's birthdays coming up. The little boy wants a cannon. And do not even think of asking where that came from because I have no idea. What to do?! The little girl wants............... yep, a Nintendo DS! Dilemma!

Too cute not to share...

My nephew who has just turned two is very articulate for his age and very hilarious with it. When he does something that he perhaps shouldn't, he falls around laughing. His Mum tells him it is not funny and he says... "It is a bit funny!!" We have been able to credit that to Peppa Pig.

His funniest to date, in my opinion, tho is when he was walking to the doors at the local garden centre which opened automatically and he said to the doors "T'ank you, that very helpful!"

This Season of Lent

I have just blown out around 40 candles, not in practise for an up and coming event but at the end of a challenging and peaceful Lent Meditation. As we lit three of the larger candles the first struggled to come to life and indeed took the whole session to burn bright, the second was a little stronger but still not dynamic initially, the third burned bright and strong. A powerful image of the stages of Lent. As we entered this season of Lent the world around was cold and dark. We were digging hard cold soil in our "allotment", there were few signs of life. A couple of weeks ago the little people and I planted up many trays of seeds in a joyful but chaotic way. I struggled to see how anything would emerge. However the world is warming, we have seen the sun now for a few days and the days are lengthening. I opened the green house today and was like a child myself as I spotted loads of little plants, cabbage, broccoli, chillies and more. All around there are signs of living again.
We were encouraged to consider what in us has lane dormant, what is ready to come to life again as the time is right. Might be a bit of a struggle to emerge, through the dark soil, thru layers of stuff but the purpose is new life. Dare we believe that something tiny can produce something strong?
I was challenged, too, by Peter, Jesus disciple, the mouthy passionate one. He had seen all his ambitions, passions, life and love die on a cross and his response? "I am going back to fishing." In his confusion, hurt and disappointement he was willing to settle for the familiar, for the mundane, in what for him was safe. He was not left there. He was sought out, restored, and sent back on his way to be all he had been made for. Amen!

Thank you my ignatian-ite friend and to my fellow journey-ers for tonight. Come back often!