happy things

August Highlight Reel…

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I have ended up taking a month away from the blog. Partly because I wanted to focus on our summer together as a family, partly because sometimes life happens. 

August was an eventful month that ran the whole spectrum of total joy to total disaster and everything in between. As I try to keep this blog a fairly happy diary of our lives, and I find we don’t tend to need help to remember the bad or hard things, this is a little highlight reel post.

So here is our August and our summer highlights, primarily featuring my two little terrors of course!

(Full disclaimer: These are all quick phone snaps, not beautifully composed shots… brace yourself for some awkward windswept selfies…;-))

My little family having fun on the beach

Family selfie at the park

E and M playing

Our first family bbq at home

Taking a walk in fancy dress

First costa hot chocolate

fun on the beach

playing with nature

Emmas stick house

Naomi-16

 

 

 

The Ordinary Moments #4 [The Elephant’s Child]

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This week we have spent a lot of time in the garden where I have a crazy forest of nasturtiums. Our butterfly friends, mainly Large Whites, have been frequent visitors leaving special presents on every leaf they can land on.Large White Butterfly

Emma is in her element. Every day we go out to spot the newly laid eggs and hunt out the caterpillars. She basically thinks they are our pets at this point. It is actually so much fun watching the whole lifecycle of a butterfly happening naturally in our garden.

Butterfly Eggs

I am desperately hoping we will find a cocoon at some point to complete the cycle. But I’m not sure when or where that might take place. The caterpillars are certainly very happy in their peppery nasturtium home currently. Do they go somewhere else for the next step though? If anyone out there knows the answer I’d be very grateful!

tiny baby caterpillars

We have of course re-read the hungry caterpillar, or recited the hungry caterpillar, at length. I’m trying to think of other fun things we can do this week caterpillar or butterfly related. I really want to keep Emma’s curiosity peaked, it’s such a good opportunity. That said Emma is always full of questions so it shouldn’t be too much of a challenge!

Big caterpillars

I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
I send them over land and sea,
I send them east and west;
But after they have worked for me,
I give them all a rest.
I let them rest from nine till five,
For I am busy then,
As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea,
For they are hungry men.
But different folk have different views;
I know a person small—
She keeps ten million serving-men,
Who get no rest at all!
She sends’em abroad on her own affairs,
From the second she opens her eyes—
One million Hows, two million Wheres,
And seven million Whys!
The Elephant’s Child, Rudyard Kipling

Naomi-16

 

 

 

Living in moments…

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Although we are only 10 days in to this month, for us so far it is definitely a May of moments. Some great, some not so good, and some down right heart achingly awful.

At times I think it can be easy to focus only on the ‘less than’ moments in life, it is what we naturally tend to dwell on. It takes at times, or so I find, dedicated effort to dwell on the happier moments. But I believe that choosing gratitude and joy as often as we can is important.

So while I don’t want to portray a life that is all sunshine and rainbows all the time, as it is certainly not, I am choosing this moment to use this space as a way to focus on our recent happy moments. I am choosing now to thank God for just how blessed we really are and in those harder moments, which will always come, I am just putting one foot in front of the other and deciding to trust in Him.

Emma & Daddy

Watching the Jack In The Green procession.

Jack in the green family shot

Green nosed family selfie!

bluebell walk

Sunny walk in the bluebells.

first car wash

Emma & daddy washing the car together.

baby goalkeeper

Baby goalkeeper!

first summer ice cream

First ice cream cone of the summer!

planting a fairy garden

Helping Emma to plant a fairy garden.

Looking forward to focusing on more happy moments in May and I hope you all have plenty too!

Naomi-16