Well there goes the summer, I'd better get blogging!

Wowzers!  I knew I hadn't blogged for a while, but I didn't realise it was over a month ago!
I never seem to manage to keep up with blogging through the summer months, so much going on, and the boys go to bed much later, so I don't get much of a chance to get on the computer.
But they have gone off to sleep before 9 o'clock tonight, so I plan to do a bit of a catch up beofre sitting down with my chamomile tea and getting on with christmas knitting!

Our first festival of the summer, holifair - a little local affair.  The sun mostly shone, we tried out our new mansion tent and had a fun time

Tris turned into the childrens entertainer, more and more children came up to join his merry dancing! Rowan at this point was mesmorized, sitting at the front watching the band.  He usually shys away from too loud music, but he knows the drummer and that gave him the confidence to sit right at the front.

Capoeria - the hypnotic drumming the were doing sent both boys promptly to sleep!

A spot of DIY, brighting up a very dull bit of hallway wall

Reuben admiring his and Rowans art gallery

I know we live close to the beach,  but sometimes its fun to have a beach in your garden!

8th Wedding anniversary - We went to a puppet show with the boys, then went out on the weekend to watch an open air play

This mountain was part of our garden beach, it was an egyptians pyramid, then a mountain for lego men and many more things that shamefully I cannot remember!

Random chicken shot!

Family fun day at St Agnes

Second festival - Aeon, Day two.  Day one was so wet we hid in the tent until it stopped raining!

A friend had made this wagon for pulling the kids around in.  People were amazed at it and kept stopping us asking if they were all my children!  they did look like a little blonde tribe!

Zorbing!  Can you tell by that grin how much he enjoyed it?

Rowans other love - Devil sticks

Making a bow and arrow

We camped with a lot of friends this time, which makes a big difference.  The boys had a fab time, in fact it was probably their best ever festival

Rowan wanted me to paint his face as a golden spiderman, mmm I'm not sure about the outcome, but he was impressed!

And Reuben wanted a green spiderman?!

Reuben found the real face painting lady, not rubbishy mum and dad!

this moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. 

Joining in with Soulemama for the first time this week 

July - in photos

I know July hasn't finished yet, but here is this months antics so far........

A Teenage ninja turtle and his sidekick taking apart a broken bubble machine to see how it worked!

Rowan has a long list of experiments and activities he would like to do from his encyclopedia, this week it was Prehistoric Landscape

The finished product.  He was very proud to have put rocks from Nannys drive in there!  ("I knew he must be collecting them for some reason", she said!)

Beautiful sunset from our garden

The same evening

First harvest, carrots, onions and wet garlic

Monster Rhubarb!

Al fresco painting

Sandpit fun

This is the chickens favorite spot in this warm weather, they have dug the grass out from under the bush and created their own dust bath.  Everyday when I pick the laundry in they are laid out throwing dust under their wings having a good old roll around!

A day at the beach - a lovely little cove that only locals know about.  It was busy this weekend, about 10 groups down there, just how we like it!

Rowan and Tristan have a new hobby - Rock climbing.  Tristan has started a course at a local indoor climbing centre with my brother and some friends.  So whenever we go out for a walk he starts looking for boulders to climb.  Then Rowan starts joining in and then decided that he would like to have a go at bouldering at the centre.  He loved it, but was very certain that he did not want to go anywhere near the ropes and harnesses, but he would like to go freeclimbing on the boulders every week.  So the second week going, he tells Tristan which wall he wants to climb and up he goes, no worries.

Rowan is an extremly cautious child, he has only really started wanting to climb trees and other high things and jump off recently. So when he climbs he thinks very seriously about every move before he makes it, this is proving to be an excellent skill when rock climbing. 

Big carrots!  I have never had any luck with carrots.  I never know why, but every year I try and they allude me.  But not this year, look at that beauty!  I am very excited.  Sad, I know, but it is very exciting for me!

We are really enjoying our harvests this year, this lot became a lovely salad with omlettes from the chooks, backyard meals, I like it!

Two cheeky pixies - in the veggy patch eating the peas!

A trip to Truro museum to see the new exhibition proved to be great fun.  It was full of knights costumes from films, like Gladiator and stuff like that.  I am not really into epic, battle films, so I didn't really know about the films they were from, but you could try some of the bits on.  Really heavy helmets and sheilds.  And of course there were costumes for the kids too!  When looking at these photos earlier I couldn't work out which knight this was until I looked at the next photo..

Sir Reuben

Sir Rowan

And of course, there had to be a battle!

Sports Day

Even though Rowan and Reuben are home educated they still had a chance to join in on 2 Sports Days this year.  Reuben wasn't up for joining in, but Rowan loved it.  He was not bothered at all about winning, he just loved running with the other children!  He would happily run along with a huge, silly smile on his face!  I am gutted I didn't get any photos, I was too busy cheering!

Anyway the first Sports Day was at Rowans old waldorf-ish preschool, he took part in everything he could and happily received a gold medal for taking part (now a prized possesion)

Then we held one at our home ed group.  It ended up with only 3 of them wanting to race, Rowan was up against his best friend and another girl his age.  They were both very determined to win and did win most races, Rowan happily coming in last.  Until the dressing up race that is...  The other 2 were so set on winning they couldn't get dressed as they were rushing and then there was Rowan, slowly and calmly getting dressed as he went along the track, not caring if he won or not, then he ambled across the finish line fully clothed, whilst everyone else was in a pickle!  It was a real case of the Tortoise and The Hare!

Forest School

For the last 4 weeks, Rowan has been attending a forest school that we have arranged for some of the local home ed kids.

It has been quite a journey so far for Rowan as this is probably the first time he has been involved in group activities without the support of either me or Tris.

The first week he was hesitant and reluctant, but we stayed nearby and the leaders noticed his reluctance and helped him into the activities.  He seemed to enjoy it.

The following week was great, his confidence soared, he trusted the leaders, he was having fun, he even played with children he had never played with before.

The 3rd week, however it all seemed to go pear shaped.  Rowan had his first lesson in how nasty children can be.  I don't know what was said as Rowan doesn't want to talk about it, but one of his friends said something horrible to Rowan, which really upset him, then just as he was getting over that another freind said something, at that Rowan just wanted and needed to go home.  He is so sensitive that when children start to gang up and be horrible he gets really upset, also I think as he is so big for his age, people tend to forget he is 1-2 years younger than most of his friends.

So, I was not looking forward to the session this week, thinking he wouldn't want to go.  But he was fine, the group was smaller, which helped and the 'gang warfare' of the previous week wasn't apparent and after the intial helping in he loved it.  He even joined in!  Which is a huge thing for Rowan, he is a 'sit on the side and watch' kinda boy.

So 2 more sessions to, what shall they bring?  Hopefully more of this confident and happy Rowan.

Massive blog update!

Wow, I knew I hadn't had a chance to update this for a while but I didn't realise it was almost a month!  I have lso many photos and so much to write about I don't think I will manage it all!

I think I will finish last month with some photos....
So here's the end of June

Rowan has had an amazing fascination in extreme weather, so we have been finding loads of experiments to do.  This was a tornado (his favourite extreme weather!) in a bottle

The tornado!  Hours of fun!

Making blue ice cubes for another experiment

The blue is the ice and the red is the warm water, it was quite amazing to watch as the blue swirled under the red, but really hard to get a good photo of!

First proper day at the beach, unfortunatley it ended in a parking ticket!

Reuben climbed right to the top of this cliff and then started to throw little stones off, one of them hitting a lady!  Oops!  She told him off when he got down, but not for throwing stones for climbing the cliff as he will hurt himself!  I was not very impressed with that!

Rowan has become so confident in the water this year, last year he would run as soon as the wave touched his toes, now he spends ages in the sea.  Reuben did get dunked by a wave and had a bit of a shock though!

Eggbert, the cheekiest chicken around!

Big mama

R2D2 and Fluff.  I do so love having these lovely ladies in our garden, although if they could just stop pooing on the patio that would be great!

One of the many rainbows of the summer!

The boys had a day out with Daddy as myself and a friend went to Bristol to a q&a session with Sandra Dodd, an unschooling lady from USA (more on that later),

They went to Lappa Valley, a theme park place with loads of steam trains

And these are the photos i come home to! 

And the last shot of June, the back of Reubens head!  I love it though, just look at those scrumptious locks!

Fathers Day

The boys put loads of effort into making little things for Tristan on Fathers Day, they coloured in some frames that we had printed off the computer and stuck photos in, made cards, learnt a song to sing to Daddy and made him a lego space station!

Rowan did all this writing himself, just asking occasionally what letter comes next.  I love the way his y's curl around so flamboyantly.

A picture of Daddy, complete with glasses, hair, tickles on his chin, ears and rather large  and sticky out cheeks!