Second Week of Advent

December 6th, second Sunday of Advent. We're supposed to be making angels but have skipped it due to not finishing the trees yet. But St Nicolas came today and brought a Wii Fit Plus (just the CD-rom, as we already have the basic Wii Fit), which everyone was very pleased about. We particularly like the game where you flap your arms to fly like a bird. I found a whole new set of muscles in my arms!

December 7th. Today Froglet's nursery is being visited by the saint too. He usually brings such items as satsumas, peanuts and cookies (I think I've mentioned this before)

December 8th. The Ten commandments are today's Jesse Tree reading. Time to learn a new memory verse (the last one was Genesis 1:1) - obey your mother and father!

December 9th The Engineer is ill this week so not much is happening. We will have to catch up on making the Jesse Tree ornaments this weekend, but are still having the readings every day. Froglet is very much enjoying them although I think he often doesn't understand.

December 12th. We have chickenpox! But that is not stopping us in the slightest as Froglet only has it mildly. The Engineer helped me paint the kids' hands and feet to make hand-foot angels which we were supposed to do ages ago and didn't get round to. I still have to cut them out and stick them together.

On Isaac

As I said yesterday, the story of Isaac is not a pleasant one. I've always known that, but I think having a small boy yourself must bring it home to you in a new way. It's easy to imagine how terrified Isaac must have been when his father started tying him up on the altar.

And from there, very easy to think that God must be pretty sadistic to be willing to put a small child through that sort of terror just to check whether his dad loves God more than anything.

Yet we are told that Jesus is the image of the invisible God. And it's very hard to imagine Jesus doing such a thing. Didn't he encourage children to come to him? Didn't he show kindness and mercy to anyone fragile or hurting? Didn't he make love the centre of his teaching?

This made me feel quite miserable for a while as I thought about it and considered that even if other local cultures practiced child sacrifice at the time, and this was to show that Jehovah is different to those gods, something doesn't add up.

And then it occurred to me that the something is my assumptions. I'm assuming that God is happy with the way this has happened. That he's fine with putting Isaac through something so horrible. (Just like we sometimes assume that he was fairly happy for Jesus to go ahead and be tortured). But the Bible doesn't specify either way. I just assume that God doesn't do things unless he's happy with them - that nothing can compel God to do something he doesn't want, and yet the Bible is full of examples that show otherwise. God didn't want to kick Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden, yet their sin forced his hand, because he loved them too much to let them stay and live forever in sin. God didn't want to exile the Israelites - after all he put them there in the first place - but their steadfast rejection of him made it necessary for their own good. Just like I don't really want my son to spend his evening doing his homework instead of playing, but it has to be done and because I love him he has to be the one who does it.

So why assume that God was happy to tell Abraham to kill Isaac? We don't know the context because we weren't there. Perhaps this really was the only way to convince Abraham (and his descendants after him) that child sacrifice was not going to be accepted by this God. If we believe in a loving God, the God whose visible image is Jesus, then we have to believe that this was the only way possible and that God was not pleased to have to do it. No other explanation works.

Advent week 1

Please forgive the lack of photos. Our old computer died and the new one is a Mac... needless to say, I have not yet worked out how to move the photos onto it from the camera, or how to find them once they have been moved, let alone put them on the blog! A task to add to this weekend's list.

November 29th, first Sunday of Advent, we put up our tree. Nice and high so Nutmeg can't get at it! Although the baubles are mostly child-safe (papier-maché). Froglet helped decorate the lower branches, while Nutmeg tried to eat everything within reach.

November 30th, first Monday of Advent, we started the Jesse Tree. There are some nice family devotions over at rca.org. We have brought the potted kumquat tree in off the balcony to use as the Tree. It's a bit big for the table but otherwise perfect. Kumquats do badly on their own stock so they tend to be grafted onto some other citrus fruit tree - meaning that there is a clear stump with the kumquat branch growing from it. Almost ideal for a Jesse Tree... of course Christ was not grafted onto Jesse's stock, but we gentiles are grafted into His family!

December 1st. No activity because Froglet goes to nursery all day on Tuesdays, which wears him out. We just did the reading, having coloured in the bauble the previous day. And I hung up his advent calendar. Photos may follow...

December 2nd. The story of Noah. Froglet is mildly obsessed with floods. Every time it rains he asks if there will be one (the last one we saw was the summer before his birth!) so he's fascinated by Noah. I make sure to stress God's promise that no flood will ever wipe out humanity again! We also tried to make Christmas cards by painting paper and then using a cardboard comb to make designs in it. Not hugely successful so we settled for painting on the table, drawing in it with our fingers and making prints from that instead.

December 3rd. Today's activity is one from my to-do list (over there in the sidebar): paper plate Christmas trees. What with waiting for the paint to dry and Froglet not feeling like doing crafts, we haven't managed to finish these yet!

December 4th - finish trees *cough* or not.

December 5th. Story of Isaac. Not a very pleasant story! I have another post on this coming.

Planning Advent

...is one of the many reasons I have been so very absent this month.

I love Advent. As a child it was a really special time. We had a list of special things that would be done together, one for each day in Advent, pinned up on the fridge where we could all see it. We got to suggest meals we wanted to eat during that time (I guess we could have done this at other times too, perhaps it didn't occur to us!)
Very simple things, like having hot chocolate with candy canes - candy canes are more special if you don't live in the States I think. Or decorating the Christmas tree. Or going to a Christmas market - often the one in the centre of Brussels, where we lived, but sometimes a trip to nearby Germany.
During Advent the classical music that was a staple of our background noise - at least when my dad was in - was replaced with lovely Christmas carols. Not that I don't love classical too, but Christmas carols are wonderful! I have no idea how many CDs of them we must have had. I now have four of my own.

So of course I want Advent to be special for our little ones too. Last year I looked all over the blogosphere for someone who might have laid out a plan of Bible verses and so on to go through in Advent. Couldn't find anything at all. This year, quite by accident, I came upon Hubbards Cupboard, where they have exactly that. Unfortunately it doesn't quite match the order I had in mind, and some days rely on various books we don't have and have no access to, but I was thinking it was pretty good anyway, until I came across something even better:

The Jesse Tree
Jesse tree family devotions

The tree is such a lovely idea, one new decoration each day, each one reminding you of that day's scripture as it leads you gradually through the Old Testament showing God's faithfulness and anticipating the promised Messiah. I'm surprised I haven't come across the concept before, being interested in traditions and also having lived mostly in parts of Europe where Catholicism is the predominant branch of the Church, but thrilled to make a new discovery. Check out the links if you've not come across it before either.

I still want to do the other special things for Advent too though. Here's what we did last year, when Froglet was three:

Day 1: Light Advent candle 1, Put up tree
Day 2: Make red postbox (to keep cards in), make cards
Day 3: "We 3 kings" song, wise men story from Bible stories book
Day 4: Make a star for the door
Day 5: learn "O Christmas Tree"
Days 6-9: No activity (in UK for weekend)
Day 10: Light Advent candle 2, Christmas story with donkey
Day 11: Bake scones, have cream tea
Day 12: Put up nativity scene minus shepherds
Day 13: "Deck the halls" song
Day 14: Open red postbox and hang up cards
Day 15: Light Advent candle 3, Christmas party with Froglet's godparents
Day 16: Shepherds' story, "While shepherds watched"
Day 17: Add shepherds to scene
Day 18: Wrap gifts, "we wish you a merry Christmas"
Day 19: Make gingerbread for house
Day 20: Decorate gingerbread house
Day 21: Froglet to nursery for special Christmas crafts morning, "Silent Night"
Day 22: Light advent candle 4, add Jesus to scene
Day 23: "Away in a manger"
Day 24: To Brussels for Christmas with grandparents

Each of these activities was written down on a slip of paper which I read out to him in the morning when he opened his advent bag containing the paper and a chocolate coin or small gift. We bought a small box of Lego bits and divided them up between some of the bags, which was a big hit, but we're not doing it this year. He has so much Lego already!

To finish with, here are some more links. Use Advent Celebrations to teach Patience by Maren Schmidt, whose Montessori blog/column I enjoy very much.
And What are we waiting for this Advent, which is the start of a series hosted by Christine Sine over at Godspace. Enjoy!

MTM - Bonfire Night

Remember, remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder treason and plot
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.

We had our muffin tin on Friday to celebrate Bonfire Night. Which was actually on Thursday, but never mind. Bonfire Night is when the English, and presumably the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish as well, remember the attempted blowing up of Parliament in 1605. (Story below) Here is our tin:

We have fire-coloured tins containing mung bean sprouts (no reason for these), Yorkshire parkin and custard, marmite on toast "guys" with a chocolate penny, sparklers and cinnamon stars for fireworks. The meaning of these becomes clearer once you know what bonfire night is about!

The brief story is that James the first and his government were very repressive towards Catholics. (And I do mean very). And so some Catholics got rather tired of this and decided that a new government was needed, and they filled a cellar under the Houses of Parliament with gunpowder in barrels, and coal and wood. And they intended to blow it all up at a time when Parliament would be in session on November the 5th. But someone tipped off one of the MPs and they were discovered. Guy Fawkes was the person there at the time and so he was tortured for the names of his friends, which he refused to give. Eventually the conspirators, or at least some of them, were caught and sentenced to an unpleasant death, and King James ordered bonfires to be lit in the streets to celebrate that Parliament (and himself) had been saved. Incidentally, this is the same King James as he of the KJV. Not a very nice person, although he was slightly gentler towards the Catholics in later life.

You might wonder why anyone nowadays would celebrate such an unpleasant happening - an attempted act of terrorism foiled by an equally unpleasant government - and the answer is because it's traditional. Nowadays everyone has fireworks (for the gunpowder) and a bonfire on Bonfire Night, and pretty much everyone, at least of my age, knows the rhyme above. Children used to make a "Guy" out of old clothes and trundle him round the streets calling out "a penny for the guy" so people would give them some money to buy fireworks. I imagine they may still do this in some places but probably not most. That's where your word guy meaning a man in general comes from, by the way. :-) And parkin is traditionally eaten on bonfire night too, at least in the North.

But I told Froglet the story so we could talk about how when people are cruel to others, sooner or later the others will turn around and do something unpleasant back (in this case I mean James being almost Inquisitional towards the Catholics and them responding by trying to blow him up).

Froglet school week 2: A

Literacy:
This week we revised letter X with some writing, and learnt letter A using the Starfall sheets and website. Although the writing exercise lets you do capital and lower-case letters, we're mostly focusing on lower-case.

Maths:
Froglet got two new pages of raisin maths adding up to 8 and 9. I like to mix the results because otherwise I think he would quickly work out that the answer is always 8 (or whatever it is). When he's putting the raisins in the boxes, he always arranges them neatly: the first four in the four corners, then number 5 in the middle, number 6 at the top, number seven at the bottom and eight and nine on the left and right. Not sure what he'll do when we get to ten!

Telling the time:
We worked on recognising that it's "something o'clock". I discovered that although he can count up to 15 quite nicely, he actually doesn't recognise numbers beyond 9 at all, and is rather hazy on 6, 8 and 9. (7 is fine). So that's something else to work on.

Froglet school week 1 - letter X

Like the blog title says, I'm not really homeschooling... but I do want Froglet to learn to read in English before he starts school in German next year. I've been teaching him sort of vaguely for about a year now, and he knows all the letters but just doesn't do much in the way of stringing them together. So now we are starting to work at it properly, every day.

Last week we concentrated on X, which is Froglet's initial. He played the x game on Starfall, as well as quite a few of the other letters for fun, and we read two phonics books that include x: The Red Hen and It (Floppy phonics). Then we printed out the x exercise sheet from Starfall and he learnt to write X. Last time I tried doing one of these sheets (a) he wasn't very interested but i think now he's four he must be just the right age because he did it quickly and happily and then we played noughts and crosses together. He even helped me draw the noughts-and-crosses board!
We also watched the "when two vowels go walking" song from Starfall and the longer version from Between The Lions, as we're reviewing EE this week too, and did the ee game on the starfall website.

We read the story of how Jesus washed the disciples' feet, and learnt the verse that says "I have set an example for you, so that you will do just what I have done for you." I'm trying to do a verse and story for each letter. Here the relevant word is example. Then we talked about how we can/do serve others. (After this Froglet went down to the basement all by himself and got the washing out of the machine for me!)

We also did some raisin/smartie/peanut maths. We have these in a transparent folder so he can put the smarties straight on the page and I can just wipe it clean afterwards. So far I've only done pages that add up to 7 - next week we'll add up to 8.

And finally, something I've never done with him before either, patterns. He wasn't so excited about this but he enjoyed playing with his peg board for a while after he had copied a couple of the patterns and then tipped everything out again.

Halloween

I have been seeing so much about pumpkins, dressing up, crafts and other items relating to Halloween recently. Some really cool ideas, others that gross me out - eeew spiders! And although I am a big fan of Harry Potter, I'm not actually so keen on Halloween, especially trick-or-treating. Fortunately we don't have to do anything much because this holiday isn't a big deal in Switzerland. We have our main dressing-up-as-monsters event at the start of Lent instead. It's basically Halloween for a whole week, minus the pumpkins.

But I wanted to join in the fun anyway by linking to this great post by Christine Sine at Godspace, called Getting Ready for Halloween. Whether you believe in celebrating Halloween or really don't like it at all, she has some interesting thoughts. Here's a quote to spark your interest:

Today there seems to be more talk about not celebrating Halloween because it has been so taken over by witches, covens and non Christian groups. But is that the right attitude? How could we redeem the celebration of Halloween and return it to the Christian celebration it once was? How can we enter into the joy and celebration of God’s rhythm of feasting and add to the fun rather than trying to kill it?

I may have more thoughts on this later but I have a German lesson to go to and homeschooling to plan. Where do all you homeschooling mothers find time to blog?!

Things I want to do/make by myself!

Pinwheel bobby pins - I think these would be a cool gift for my little niece.
Danish* heart baskets for Christmas decorations. We used to make these with paper as kids, now I'd like to try with felt.
Finish my knitted blanket for the kids when in the car. It's only taken me a year so far...

That's all for now but I shall add to this list as time goes on, and put a link up in the sidebar like the joint crafts one.

*Random facts about me: I lived in Denmark as a baby, when we would divide our time between Germany and Copenhagen with my dad's job. I then studied Danish at university and lived in Copenhagen on my own for a year. Would love to go back. And the bulk of my translation work is now from Danish to English.

MTM - Childrens Lit

If you're looking for the Save One Mammy post, it's here.

Like I said last week, I'm really excited about this theme. I love books, especially childrens books. Click here to see what everyone else came up with.

Froglet and I picked Star Seeker as our book. It's actually on loan from a friend but we love it so much we're definitely going to buy a copy. We love the poetry, the illustrations and the explanations about the Solar System in the back. It's a great book for any kid interested in outer space.

Click on the photo to get a closer look... I think... Anyway clockwise from right we have:

Cookies on Venus = a gingerbread rocket
Mars, the red planet = bread roll covered in tomato paste
Fireworks on Pluto = yoghurt and raspberries with sprinkles
Moons and asteroids = cheese and pickled onions
Saturn = Pineapple rings and gold-wrapped chocolate
The Milky Way = frothy whipped cream with a gingerbread Bear and a pinwheel, representing the page you can see open (my favourite).

In case you can't read it, it says:

I'll spin like a pinwheel
Through the Milky Way's froth
Take a ride on the Great Bear
And never fall off

Can you guess why cookies for Venus and fireworks for Pluto? :-)

The Law vs logic

Today I'm posting about something not relating to crafts, gardening or food! Amazing!
Actually the law has been an interest of mine for a long time - at one time I seriously considered becoming a lawyer - and the story of a friend of mine has jolted me back into that line of thinking.

Now let's imagine for a moment that you are separated from your partner, the parent of your children. And that you have custody. Is it right that your ex-partner should get to decide where your child (and you) will live?

Secondly let's suppose that you are British and your ex is Irish. Each of you wants to live in your own country. You are currently living in Britain. We have two possibilities here.

1/ The ex moves back to IE, you remain put with child, they have visiting rights at weekends. This is fine.

2/ The ex takes your child back to IE against your will (you have custody, remember). You are still in the UK. This is known as kidnap. Is it ok legally? Nope. Will your child be returned to you by the Irish courts? Um, maybe. Maybe not. Last year there were 46 new cases of this sort in court in Ireland. It is a signatory to the Hague convention, which means that Ireland should send the child back, but in several cases they did not. Some legal experts are even complaining that Ireland is becoming a safe haven for "abductor parents".

Now - humour me for a moment - let's suppose it's the other way round. You both want to live in your own countries, but you're in Ireland. You still have custody though. Because you want to move away with the child, your ex needs to give official permission.

1/ The ex gives permission. Yay! You make sure they get very frequent visits. This is all wonderful.

2/ The ex does not give permission, even though you offer him a great deal. Your child is living in Ireland against your will, and you are stuck in Ireland against your will. Held hostage. Because if you leave, you will have to relinquish custody. And if you leave with the child, you will be charged with kidnap. Meanwhile as you stay you gradually become ill with the stress, loneliness, and worry.

Is this legal? Oddly enough, yes. Is it logical that it should be legal?
I think not. Surely when the courts grant custody of a child, they must pick the parent they think is better suited to look after that child and look out for its best interests. How is kidnap illegal, but holding someone hostage not?

Then again, who says the law has to be logical, or even fair? Well technically it's the courts that are unfair:

"Where parents cannot agree the Court can make a decision which might permit one parent to move away subject to rights of access in favour of the other parent."

They can. But evidently they don't. Even when the rights of access mentioned have been promised and would even be better than the rights of access the other parent currently receives. It seems the courts think living in Ireland is the best thing for a child regardless of whether they have been kidnapped or whether it is affecting the wellbeing of their main caregiver. I'm sure Ireland is a lovely place. But probably not that lovely, eh?

This situation has been real life for several years for the star of the Save One Mammy campaign, whose story you can read more about here. We hope and pray that in her case it will be resolved happily. But she's not alone. There are many other women out there - and perhaps some men too - who are going through this, and the number will only increase as globalisation leads to more international marriages. Hopefully by blogging about this we can raise awareness so the law will be changed. It shouldn't be all that hard for lawmakers to draft a clause that would state that where rights of access for the non-custodial parent are going to improve as a result of the move abroad, permission should be granted by the courts.

This post is part of the Save One Mammy campaign. Mammy is fighting for the permission to leave Ireland together with her English-born daughter and return home to England; something her estranged husband is trying to prevent by all means and for seemingly egotistical reasons only. Parental alienation, unfair hearings and a clear and blatant violation of every EU citizen’s right to free movement are just a few of the hurdles she has to overcome. Please help us to raise awareness and visit her blog to support her in her campaign.

Sources:
http://www.international-divorce.com/ireland_child_abduction.htm
http://www.rdj.ie/_fileupload/File/Child%20Abuse%20Feb%2009.pdf

Sweet seven-months

Nutmeg turned seven months last week. She celebrated by being incredibly grouchy all week, possibly a combination of teething and a cold coming on. Now she is happy again but suffering from a blocked nose. The night before last she woke five times where normally she would sleep through. But even when grumpy she is still the loveliest baby in the world.

This week you have started crawling.

You would rather be walking.
So you push your little bottom up into the air with your legs all straight like Mowgli, and advance like a caterpillar.
Our (second) little Frog!

I am trying to baby proof the house and you are trying to follow me wherever I go.

Usually you get tired before moving more than a couple of feet.

Then you lie down and suck your thumb, or else flail your arms and cry loudly.

You also try to move objects out of your way by headbutting them.
So determined.

You adore your brother and try to follow him about when he's around.
Nothing he can say or do will stop you smiling sweetly at him.
Even when he throws a screaming fit.
No wonder he loves you so much.

Today he offered you a choice of two new rattles.
You chose the pink one.
My little girly girl.

You love solid food, and have only turned one thing down so far.
Banana.
The one thing all babies are supposed to like.

You cry when you want the potty, and then cry more if it's too late.
But if you were already naked you splash your feet in it and laugh.
And I don't even mind cleaning it up, because you're so sweet.

I could probably go on writing all night, because there are so many things I love about you.
And then Daddy could take over and write all day tomorrow.
We are so happy God gave you to us,
our lovely, wonderful daughter.

OEA - bean mosaics/collage

We're still on the mosaics, and you can check out what everyone else did here. (The button has changed and looks complicated so I'm waiting to be sure how it works before using it).

After I showed Froglet how to fill in a drawing he decided to do a flower (we sometimes make flowers with smarties so he knows about that already). He got frustrated with trying to get the petals in a nice circle - here is the conversation that ensued:

M: It's much easier if you start in the middle with flowers.
F: That is how God made them.
(...)
M: Those are borlotti beans.
F: Autumn beans, because it's turning to start to be autumn and the leaves are turning brown. This is a long long sonneblueme [sunflower].
(...)
F: Puddles and long grass and raindrops raindrops raindrops, and a long sonneblueme and some leaves that have fallen down. And lentils.

And the result:



On the left is the one his comments above refer to. The second one also has a sunflower and a rainbow (which he got me to draw for him). The small white beans are raindrops.

I should have used split peas because then I could have made pea soup. Any good recipes using dried beans? Will they germinate if I plant them?

Future projects

In no particular order, here are some of the things I've found around the blogosphere and want to try with Froglet:

Make your own CD case
Felted Christmas baubles
Curly plate Christmas trees
Cornstarch colour mixing
Ice jewels
Salt Crystal paint
Pottery
Natural Easter Egg dyes
Drinking Straw Truck
Blow painting
Bathtime paints

Also Wee Folk Art has some cute patterns for dolls and gnomes and autumn-y things, like this mini pumpkin patch

And insteadoftv.com has lots of ideas to replace TV during TV turnoff week... which is next week already!

Crawling and commenting

Froglet didn't express any interest in crawling at all until he was nine months. I think it was due to our tiled floors - not good for gripping with your sleepsuit-clad knees. As soon as we got a rug he was off like a shot. So I wasn't sure if Nutmeg would wait that long or not. And she hasn't. Today she crawled her own length (falling over once or twice and complaining vigorously all the way through). Then she looked at me and started to cry as if to say "look I've got this far, can't you just carry me the rest?" So I did. I'm so proud of my baby!

Meanwhile Froglet is developing a great sense of humour. At the weekend we went out with some friends, and as he walked along behind me with their small daughter I could hear him commenting on my clothes: "R, do you like Mummy's skirt? And her black boots? And her new socks - they come right up to here." On recounting this to The Engineer later I remarked that I felt like a fashion model, upon which Froglet immediately turned round and said matter-of-factly: "Well, you're not."

His father creased himself laughing.

OEA - paper mosaics/collage

Last weeks Open ended Art topic was paper. You can see what everyone else did by clicking on the button (which I forgot to include in last weeks post, oops):

We started off by playing a bit with a tangram.

Froglet wasn't quite sure what to do with it but we had fun making a goose together and then putting its head in different positions. Next I gave him some tangram shapes and some circles (in case he wanted to do a vehicle of some sort) and let him loose with the sticky backed plastic.

The top one is actually upside down. He told me he was doing a road (while he was doing it - the bit that actually looks like a mosaic), but afterwards he said it was all nothing.

As you can probably see, we covered it with cling-film afterwards. This turned out to be fun too as owing to Mummy's lack of skill, there were lots of air bubbles which were great to pop, like bubble wrap.

This weeks theme is going to be beans.

MTM - Apples

This week's theme is apples. Michelle at Her Cup Overfloweth did a really imaginative tin - with a super-cute apple tree - and I'm sure the other ladies did great ones too although I haven't had chance to check them out yet. But you can find them all at the link above.

Ours was not so imaginative.

Green tins for apples. Cheese 'A's, PB apple volcano, apple cupcake, apple-and-cranberry pancakes.

To make the pancakes, I subsituted 1/4 cup of apple sauce per egg. And the volcano is a hot baked apple with peanut butter lava and bits of dried apricot for rocks. (Should have been raisins but we didn't have any). We baked the PB in the apple but it would probably be better to just bake the apple on its own, then hollow out some space in the middle and put the PB in so it can melt and overflow without trying to burn.

Apple and PB is a great combination - surprisingly - but Froglet wasn't very keen so I'll just do those for me in future. :-)

Next week's tin is a Childrens Lit one and I am very excited about it - we are doing Star Seeker.

Muffin Tin Swap Package

I meant to post this nearly two weeks ago - the 28th - but didn't get round to uploading the photos and then forgot about it! Oops!

We were very excited to receive our Swap Package from Heather on Tuesday. Heather and her two lovely girls put a lot of thought into it and Froglet was thrilled with all the little individual parcels - I wish I had thought of doing that with ours! Thank you so much Heather!

Everything was wrapped in red or blue tissue paper - Froglets favourite colours. He insisted on taking everything out of its box or packaging so he "could feel" the paper cases, pinwheels (from our wishlist, yay!) and picks. Seemed like a strange request to me, but maybe he's more tactile than I'd thought. He enjoyed arranging the picks in a little wooden pot my sister got us from Romania, and stacking all the different shapes of muffin tin. We now have enough muffin tins to last a lifetime! His favourite bit was the muffin-puzzle-cake set, which he wanted to use immediately but I managed to convince him to just have a Muffin Tin lunch instead (see below). I love the puzzle cake idea too and am looking forward to trying it out. Other than that, my favourite item is the pack of cute swirly-shaped picks that can hold a label:

The size of the package made me realise just how much more expensive things are over here (or cheaper in the States if you prefer). Just the one star-shaped silicon tin would have used up our whole budget, I've only seen that type in the specialist shop in Luzern. Switzerland doesn't do budget shops, or at least our bit of it doesn't. I think the French-speaking part is perhaps more that way inclined. Next time we're involved in a swap I shall definitely arrange a special trip to the UK to visit all the pound shops over there instead!

Check out all the other cool swap packages here.

Open Ended Art - pebble mosaics

I've fallen behind on posting these even though we have been doing them diligently.

First off, this months theme over at Teaching My Little Bookworm is mosaics. And this weeks material was pebbles.

For some reason pebbles seem to be in short supply over here. Maybe I just don't know where to look - beaches are sandy and river beds are inaccessible. So Froglet and I made our own pebbles. We used white clay, various small items to print with, sand, dried herbs and marker pens to colour them in. This was our first time using real clay and we had a great time! Froglet's pebbles ended up relatively flat (not very pebble-like) but that was all part of the fun.

Then when they had been baked, cooled and coloured, we made mosaics using playdough as a background. I know this only barely qualifies as Art, as it's not permanent, but I thought we might enjoy doing it again on a future occasion. And besides, I'm running out of storage space to keep permanent sculptures!


Froglet tells me that his mosaics are dinosaurs mouths with lots of teeth. He also discovered that the pebbles leave a nice pattern in the dough when they are removed.

I have more OEA photos to post from previous occasions but not time to do it in right now so it will have to be another post.

Jógvan in Switzerland - day 2

The following day we stayed close to home and wandered around the old town in Stans, which is the capital of Nidwalden canton. It's a town of some 15'ooo people. This is Froglet's favourite fountain, on the wall of someone's house. He splashed about in it a bit as he always does, and Jógvan sensibly kept clear while he was doing it!

Jógvan really wanted to have his photo taken in front of this old wall and plaque because he thought it looked pretty. The plaque's inscription reads:

Ave civis bottmingensis. Hic versi capillus anno MMIX.

The online translator assures me that this means:

Ave citizen bottmingensis. This to whirl hair yearly produce MMIX.

Which seems unlikely. Armed with the knowledge that Bottmingen is a town elsewhere in Switzerland, would anyone like to translate for me?

Finally, we tried to take a picture of Jógvan with the church spire. Unfortunately it was very big and rather far away and he was very small and close. So we couldn't get both. But Jógvan agreed with us that the details on the church spire were more interesting than him, just for this once.

And that's all I have time for now. Coming soon: Jógvan's new item of clothing and his trip up a mountain.

Jógvan in Switzerland - day 1

The cute bear in the picture above has been staying with us for the past few days. He's on a world tour before he ends up with a very brave young lady suffering from cancer in Australia. He started off in the Faroe Islands with Hans and Shinta, then stopped over with Henny in Finland before making his way on to America via Switzerland. If you'd like to show him your home town and pray for his future owner too, drop Shinta a line to see if he still has space in his schedule.

Here's what Jógvan did here in Switz.

Knowing how fond he is of boats, we took Jógvan to Lucern, where we walked along the lake front and watched the sailing boats, ferries, mountains and Froglet leaping on rocks. The mountain in the background is Mt Pilatus. Legend has it that Pontius Pilate came here in his old age and is buried there, hence the name. Legend also has it that Pilate's ghost, disturbed because of his role in Christ's death, causes storms on the lake, and that dragons live on the mountain.

At the end of our walk we took a ferry back to Lucern. We had hoped for the paddle steamer but timed it wrong so it was just a normal little ferry. Jógvan enjoyed the view anyway.

OEA - splat painting

While we were in the UK, we saw this type of very open-ended painting on CBeebies. Froglet was quite taken with the idea so we did it as soon as we got back. I just didn't get round to posting about it before now!

This weeks theme at Teaching My Little Bookworm is Mixed Mediums. I figure we kind of did that back when we were supposed to be doing tissue paper, so our mediums are yellow paint, red paint, and blue paint. *cough*

For splat painting all you need is paper, paint, some bits of sponge, and something to splat with - we used the back of, er, one of those things you use to turn over pancakes and meat in the frying pan. (Help! My English is fading away!)

You'll also want to clear a two-metre space on all sides of the splat-er. More if they're older and likely to splat harder! Soak the sponge bits in paint - you may need to experiment a bit for the best consistency - then arrange them on paper and have at them.

And you may want to strip your child down too. Mine is wearing his undies, although you can't tell from the picture.

Disclaimer: the pile of clothes in the corner is not laundry but outgrown clothes being packed away!

A review

This is an excuse for me to put up some pictures of my gorgeous baby girl! But not many because she doesn't seem to be very photogenic at the moment. Mostly her expression when looking at the camera denotes a combination of mild shock, suspicion and disdain.

See what I mean? To be fair she's sat next to the engine of a rather noisy paddle-steamer. But still.

So a while back I mentioned that we won a giveaway hosted by FutureMama for some stunning hair clips made by GeorgiaBlue. It was pretty hard to choose, but in the end we went for some colours Nutmeg has in her wardrobe (pink and turquoise) and some others we just thought looked nice. They arrived at the end of July - and they are sooo pretty! I was excited about them already before they got here but when we saw them we were all thrilled. Even The Engineer thinks they're wonderful - and let me tell you, he is picky.

Here they are threaded onto a pen because the bows arrived looking a little flat. I don't normally take pictures of the wrapping a parcel has arrived in, but I was really taken with the presentation of these. They came folded up in brown paper sealed with the cute GeorgiaBlue sticker and arranged on several lovely little cards, which we're now using to keep them all in one place.
OK they were inside a jiffy bag too. But that was as un-photogenic as my daughter.
I know, I should have picked a different colour pen for the photo, it was just what was to hand.

Here's Nutmeg on the swings near our home, with me. Looking suspicious and frowny, as usual. I'm told she gets it from her mother... My hair isn't that colour any more - that's the natural look, which I intend to go back to at some point. For the wedding I had it dyed dark brown with two blue streaks.

As we've been away visiting family, Nutmeg has been wearing her new bows quite a lot. Here she is at the wedding, eating her first ever rusk.

I think my favourites are the ribbed polka dot ones, both green and black-and-white. The silky fabric ones are cute but there's something about the texture of the dotted ones that I just love.

Look a smile!

Two things I particularly like about these clips:

Firstly, as Nutmeg has such fine hair and relatively little of it, it's been hard to find anything small enough to stay put, but these don't slide by themselves. She has to knock them to get them to move, and even then they don't actually fall out.

And secondly, these are clothes-peg type clips, whereas all the ones we've found for her over here have been the sort that you bend back and then snap shut. Which, on the top of a small baby's head - you know, where that soft spot is - is not brilliant. So these are absolutely what I was looking for.

I'd like to be able to balance that by giving you some things that I don't like about them...but (un)fortunately there isn't anything! My only quibble is that there aren't enough bright blue or turquoise ones on offer.

If you like the look of them, you know where to find them.

MTM - people and faces

This was a last-minute tin but Froglet was very excited about it because he loves face-biscuits. They're very popular generally over here. The Swiss call them spitzbueb which means something like cheeky rascal. (Bueb is boy).

Avocado, olives, tomato, cucumber, nasturtium flower, bread-cheese-jam people, spitzbueb

Froglet made three different faces with his ingredients. I had thought he might put the flower in the persons hair but it got used as hair and as a nose before he ate most of it. After that he used the rest as a flower! In picture two the bread-person and cookie are "bruises" (?!) and in picture three the bread-people are ears.

Don't forget to check out what everyone else made here.

Another award

Another one from Susana, whose blog you should certainly visit if you like crafts, or baking, or homeschooling, or babies... And she even likes cleaning too.

The conditions for the Honest Scrap award are as follows: I have to tell you ten things about myself, and I have to pass this on to ten other blogs. This is a fun one and I'd honestly love to hear ten things about all of you so if you're reading this and haven't had it already - or have but would like to do it again - consider yourself awarded!
(Please leave me a comment with a link to your ten things, in case I'm not already following you)


My ten things:

1/ I loathe cleaning. Probably because my mother did/does.
2/ I trained as a conference interpreter - my dream job.
3/ Public speaking scares me stiff. Yes this does clash with number 2.
4/ I currently work from home as an (occasional) translator from Danish.
5/ When we were first married we woke up one morning to the sound of scraping at our back door. Looking out of the window I saw a lad only slightly younger than me (I was 22) trying to force the door. When he saw me, he smiled, waved, and left through the back gate!
6/ I always wanted 4 children, but The Engineer beat me down to 3 and now probably just 2.
7/ I like doing the washing. Even though we share a washing machine with a potential five other families (currently just one though). And I like folding it too.
8/ We own rather a lot of books. Whenever my parents visit, they bring more of mine that they found in some box or recess of their house!
9/ It's really hard to think of ten things to say about myself rather than my children or husband!
10/ When The Engineer gets home from work we are going out to buy a 7-seater Citroen, to replace the ancient Audi that we currently have. This is because a functioning car heating system is pretty much essential in Switzerland in winter if your parking space is outside. Unless you don't mind not being able to see through the windscreen. This year a heating system would have been nice on several occasions in summer too!

So there you have it. Enjoy your award everyone!

I'm FLYing. Or will be, soon.

The house is overwhelming me. I had considered showing you all a picture of what the living room looked like Monday morning when we got home. But I figured you've all seen footage of earthquake zones before.

It shouldn't overwhelm me, because it's not such a big place, at least not by American standards. We have three bedrooms, a living/dining room, a kitchen, bathroom and shower room. And the balcony - no garden or stairwell as it's an apartment.

But nonetheless, it does overwhelm me. I don't know how other people manage to raise children and clean at the same time. (I understand still less how anyone enjoys cleaning!) At the moment, the house is in such a state that I barely know where to start. So I have turned back to FLYlady, in the hope of getting a routine set up.

Flylady says: You can do anything for fifteen minutes.
Flylady also says: It didn't get like this in a day, so it won't get sorted out in a day either.
And finally Flylady says: Are you living in CHAOS? (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome)

No, no I'm not. Actually I'm living in COBYHTTUAYFUS.
(That's: Come Over But You'll Have To Take Us As You Find Us Syndrome. I know, it's not so easy to pronounce as CHAOS).

But I would quite like to be able to feel that things are always nearly company-ready. So let's see if this works.

We're back!

We just got back from the UK where we visited the grandparents who live there and attended Zia's wedding. Ewythr is the name for my new brother-in-law, on here at least. Of course you all immediately recognised this as the Welsh word for uncle. ;-)
Zia looked beautiful, the wedding went smoothly, and I did not fall off my ridiculously high heels when going up to pray for the happy couple. Oh and the speeches were very funny. Froglet got to see his little cousin S and run wild with her. Ewythr didn't want children at the wedding for this very reason, but Zia said her nieces and nephew would have to come and in fact S was a bridesmaid. She did very well for a two-year old! And Froglet ran wild in a quiet sort of way - lots of running but no screaming - so we thought that was pretty good too.

Once the wedding was over and we'd seen all the various bits of my family, we headed back north to The Engineers hometown and had a proper holiday with his. (Weddings do not count as holidays. In fact anything that involves me wearing high heels does not count as a holiday). We went to the beach twice, even though it's a rather long drive by UK standards. Froglet loved that. He paddled in the freezing water, hunted for shells with me, looked for crabs with Granddad, built sandcastles and flew a kite. The Engineer is hoping that we may be able to rent a cottage near the sea next year so we don't have to drive for two hours every time we want to get there.

On another occasion the boys flew some rockets and aeroplanes. Most importantly, we went to Leeds and visited Borders while the grandparents took care of Froglet and Nutmeg, so we had a whole hour to ourselves to just look at books. Ahhhh... wonderful. Of course we came away with loads.

Hope you've all been enjoying your holidays. We'll be back to our usual posting sort-of-schedule soon!

Birthday cake and jelly

(You probably already know that when Brits say jelly they mean jello. But I thought I'd mention it just in case anyone is reading this hoping for a jam-type jelly recipe.)

So yes, we made birthday jellies and birthday cake. Mainly because I really wanted to try out our new jelly mold/muffin tins. And I also wanted a birthday cake, of course. We made Cranham Honey Cake, which involves glacé cherries. I love glacé cherries.

MTM - I'm 30, and Switzerland is... much older.

Well, this weeks theme - Celebration - was remarkably apt. Monday was my thirtieth birthday. (Although I've been thinking of myself as thirty for a couple of months already. This seems to happen whenever my birthday is approaching).

Moreover, August 1st is Swiss national day. So we combined the two into a Swiss birthday tin. I made Aelplermagronen (Alpine macaroni cheese) and put all the ingredients in the tins separately.

Clockwise from back: pasta x 2, cheese sauce, bacon, fried onion, apple sauce

I had to make it all separately anyway, as The Engineer is not a big fan of onions or applesauce - at least not on his mac-cheese! It is a pretty odd combination, but I rather like it. Some cantons also put potato in, but potato and pasta is too much starch for us. I should also say that the pasta we used is the wrong sort, it ought to be proper macaroni.

Froglet ate the pasta (under duress), the apple sauce and the bacon, rejecting the cheese and onion. He must be the only child in the world not to like macaroni cheese!

We also made cake, and birthday jelly/jello (non-Swiss this time!) in our new muffin tins. These are they, minus the jelly - which you can see by clicking here - I just wanted to show you because I'm really chuffed with them:

As you can see, they have lids at the top and the bottom, because they are actually jelly molds, but I thought they would be so cool for having MTM picnics, like this one we had last week.

Don't forget to check out what everyone else celebrated this week.

An award!

I was really flattered to receive the following award from Susana at Our Homeschool Fun last week. Susana writes a fantastic blog full of interesting tips and ideas and all the things she's done with her three children - soon to be four! and I am amazed she finds time to do it all, on top of homeschooling and housekeeping. If you don't know her already, and you have a minute, stop by there.



To accept the award, I have to pass it on to 15 blogs that I have newly discovered and enjoy reading. I've put something about each one so you can see if any spark your interest.

Godspace - my favourite - currently running a series called "what is a spiritual practice?" and accepting submissions for it. Check her out!
Yummy Mammy - life as a single mum in another country, trying to move home.
Future Mama is learning about babies, pregnancy and the like, writing funny stuff and hosting cool giveaways.
Blue Cotton Memory has five boys, some grown up already, and a lot of wisdom to share.
Down to earth is all about gardening and making things at home, simply. Great recipes and ideas.
Filth Wizardry - Full of fun, messy ideas for kids!
Hans and Shinta live in the Faroe Islands. Never heard of it? It's between Denmark and Iceland. Go have a look, she's organising a round-the-world trip for a toy bear for a sick child - perhaps you'd like to host him?
The Artful Parent - the title is self-explanatory, I think.
Traveling the Blogosphere - featuring lots of different blogs from around the world. Lovely.
Wise Craft - has a lovely fabric flower tutorial which is on my to-do list! and lots of other things.
Unplug Your Kids - currently on holiday but usually full of ideas.
Your Cool Friend Cheryl - cool and funny. Kids and crafts.
Five Orange Potatoes - this site has everything, but I love it because of the garden and flower related stuff. Oh, and the activities. And...
4 Crazy Kings - Where I get lots of craft ideas!
Steadfast At Home - I love her thoughts about being feminine (which I'm not!) And about her garden.

Open Ended Art - yellow collage

Click here to see what everyone else did for OEA!

Not only did we start on this late, but it was not a very auspicious beginning:

After your milkshake, would you like to do a collage?
What's a collage?
It's when I give you glue and paper and you do some sticking.
No. I want to drink my milkshake.
Of course, but when you've finished your milkshake?
No. I want to play in my house.
How about if I give you the paper and you can stick it to your house?
Hmm. No.

Ah. So I tried again after the milkshake:

Would you like to do some sticking now?
No.
Not even if Mummy comes and watches you?
Yeah! Sure! Sure!

Bingo. Must remember to specify that first, next time!

Here's what he did before getting bored:

Click on the photo to get a closer look

An advert for the local bus service, fireworks, Swiss flag with yellow cheese cross (from a magazine). It's Swiss national day soon, can you tell? Also an old handprint and a bunch of the sticky-backed plastic that we used in our OEA with paint last time! Which is why those bits are yellow... and in fact he had already added them to the house, when it was still just an Ikea cardboard box.

To use up the leftover glue, I made serendipity squares - first time I've made them. They're not quite finished yet so no photos. But here's my lovely boy in his newly decorated house instead!

The handprint is one we made for party invitations back when he was turning one!

MTM - weather!

We've had a lot of hot weather and thunderstorms recently, including the largest hailstones we have ever had, I think. (nothing like what you get in America of course, but still the size of large marbles).

So here is our tin - I think these ideas were my own but I've seen so many other tins that maybe I have been inspired elsewhere and forgotten it. If you've done a weather tin let me know and I'll link to you! and don't forget to click here to see what everyone else did this week.

Pickled onion hailstones, yellow nasturtium-sun in blue banana-yoghurt sky, bread and marmite thunderclouds and yellow pepper lightning, white bread/cheese/marmite cumulus cloud. Served on upside down lasagna tray for thunder noise!

Froglet absolutely loved playing with this meal.

Look Mummy, the thunderclouds have arrived...
*bangs them together while making thundery growling noises*
I'm going to dip it in here to make blue thunderclouds. Why are you writing down what I said? ... what's a blog?

The great thing about pickled onion hailstones is they accurately portray what a hailstone looks like inside as well as outside! Marmite is British yeast extract (Aussies and Kiwis also have it but theirs is slightly different).

We can take the flag out later and stick it in the muddy ground where the plants are growing.
*When asked what for:* For fun! And to show that it's windy.
The hailstones are dropping out of the thunderclouds...
bang! It went in the sun!... bang! It went in the blue sky!

We were meant to have snow too, but I hadn't had chance to make it so we had it as a snack later instead:

Chocolate and coconut snowman, strawberries hidden under cream snowclouds.

Look Mummy, I made an eye and a nose for the snowman.

Open Ended Art: Yellow Paint

This time I got to choose what materials Froglet needed for his craft. Yellow paint was a given. We also had white sticky-backed plastic, a paint roller, scissors, a pen, imitation canvas (the sort of textured paper you get for oil or acrylic painting) and red and blue tempera. Because we only have red, yellow and blue tempera. We should really invest in another colour, like white.

I asked Froglet whether he wanted to cut up the SBP himself, or wanted me to cut it, or wanted me to draw shapes for him to cut. He chose the latter, and announced that he would like birds. We ended up with two birds, an egg, two cars and some squares. After a bit of a meltdown when the first car lost its wheels in the cutting process, peace was restored and everything else cut out rather well. I cut some thin strips from the scraps, which Froglet thought might be trees. One of the scraps looked a bit like a whale, so we used that too. Then I helped him peel the back off the SBP - he couldn't manage it himself - and he stuck all the bits onto the paper.

It's a forest, with cars and birds and a dolphin.

Some rearranging was necessary before the final result was deemed acceptable. Fortunately this stuff peels off nicely.

Next we made three pots of yellow paint and talked about what colours might result if we mixed in a drop of red to one and a drop of blue to the other. Froglet thought red and yellow might produce green, then after stirring a bit he suggested pink, and finally orange. He got blue and yellow right first time. Then we discussed whether the orange paint was really orange or whether it was still more yellow, and the same for the green. After that I let him loose with the paint roller.

After waiting for it to dry and peeling off the SBP, here is the end result.

The daddy duck is in this car and the other one is the visitors car.

I love how the greeny-yellow has dried almost fluorescent. Froglet was still in painting mode when he had finished the first masterpiece, so he did this on a sheet of Ikea packing paper (note to self: this stuff is way too thin for paint!)

He had more fun than last time and we stretched the project over a couple of days too! Check out what the other crafty mums and kids did for the blog carnival here: