Trick or treat!

It's Halloween today. We pottered about this morning, playing dinosaurs and playdough.

After lunch we made some flapjacks and fairy cakes.

Freddie designed and carved the pumpkin, with a very tiny bit of help cutting from me. He worked very hard on it, even when his arm got sore. I think it looks fantastic.


I'd put up a spooky window deocration a couple of days ago.


The kids got dressed up, and we went trick or treating. We've never done it before, but they were really up for it.






We put the pumpkin outside on the doorstep.


Lots of trick or treaters came calling, all dressed up and looking scary. Rob and I had pumpkin and sausages for dinner, a real Halloween feast!

Crafting, cooking, playing and walking

A relaxed but full day here today. I took about a million photos and have found it hard to get it down to 12!

Freddie and Betsy played together this morning. It doesn't happen all that often that they find a shared game that they both enjoy. Happyland and cars worked for them this morning, for a good half an hour or so. Lovely.

Betsy made a wall with the cuisinaire rods. She was delighted to make it all fit, as in she jumped up and down with joy!


We made popcorn, as the kids love it. Betsy measured it out, Freddie poured it into the pan and turned the hob on.



Here it is, in all its popped yumminess.


And here they are, enjoying the fruits of their labour.


I dug out a few halloween craft supplies I bought a while ago from Crafty Crocodiles (really lovely stuff and very well priced). Betsy loved the spooky stickers and made a few pictures with them.


They both sewed a pumpkin decoration for the window.

We also made a hanging pumpkin decoration, made from craft foam and beads. It looks fab. I cut out a couple of paper ghost chains, to hang across the ceiling. They want more decorations, so I'll do some research tonight for easy bits and bobs to make.

Later in the afternoon it poured with rain. Freddie got his rain clothes on and was out the door, heading towards some puddle fun. I stayed in with a cup of tea.



The rain didn't last too long. The sky cleared and the sun came out so we took a walk along the tow path to the supermarket. Meg waved at all of the ducks.



The other two were on scooters, whizzing through puddles.







When we got back Freddie headed next door to see Jarvis. The girls watched Peppa Pig on youtube. I find it very sweet when they do this.



I haven't posted any of my crafty stuff for a while. I finally finished my granny srtipe blanket (it can be seen in the photo above, in the background). It turned out to be huge - 2m x 1.8m and it gets used every day for playing or snuggling. I'm so glad I made it.

I'm part way through a Holden Shawlette for mum's christmas present. It's made with laceweight silk yarn (Natural Dye Studio Precious Lace, in Dragonfly). It's so light and fine it's like knitting with cobwebs! I love it, and hope they'll be enough to make me one too.

A pottering kind of day

The sunrise this morning was awesome. The light was so beautiful - utterly pink. It lasted just a few minutes and I felt so lucky to see it.


We popped to town to run some errands. As it's half term the merry-go-rounds are back. Freddie and Betsy went on the bus.


Meg had to make do with me!


Freddie spent much of the day with Jarvis, playing and playing and playing. Betsy, Meg and I pottered about at home.

The tomatoes Rob picked at the weekend were turned into dinner today. Yum.

In praise of the allotment

So, no pics unfortunately, but I wanted to quickly rave about the allotment.

Rob goes every weekend, usually for 2 or 3 hours. He does weeding, strimming, watering and harvesting.

Out plot won't win prizes for neatness but with this small investment of time we are getting so much food!

The spinach and chard keeps on coming. The onions are ready. We've had the first sack of potatoes, with many more to come. The strawberries are over but we had loads and they were delicious. The borlotti beans are coming on nicely, some might need picking. The peas are developing. Courgettes, squash and pumpkins are coming along. Rob is in the process of building net supports for the PSB and cabbages.

I have a load of carrots I'm going to turn into soup. It's time to get batch cooking, to preserve some of our crops! Yum.