I'm not quite sure what happened to Summer...

... but it's managed to come - happen - and be on the brink of leaving, and in all that time I've not managed to blog at all. Even now I'm just snatching a little time before I go out this morning, having woken at ridiculous O'clock, and I don't think I'll get this finished (or nearly finished).

It not been the most sunny of summers ~ weather wise, or other wise really. If I look at it broadly, it feels like we have hopped from one struggle to another ~ and we aren't out of the woods yet. I'm not really complaining (much), because I know life gets like that at times, and then it has a habit of sorting itself out again ~ thankfully!

I haven't blogged seems Stitch's birthday, which seems a distant memory now and there's no way I can cover every even from the of May onwards, so I'll link to Flickr albums here and there through this post, so you can see the pictures if you want to.

Early June was DD's birthday ~ the big 10!! I can't believe he hit double figures ~ a significant milestone in this house ~ and I didn't even do him a blog post :(
But he had a lovely day: he received the lego set he really wanted (Police Station) plus a few other Lego bits, and he got to go to Costa with Daddy for the, what has become traditional, drink and cake.

The rest of June was spent finishing off as much of the school-year's work as we could before we went on hols in July. As a family we tend to holiday in early July because we can, and because it's much cheaper ~ and often the weather is good then too. This year we had planned well ahead and booked a cottage in North Devon. We considered that this might be the last year that we are able to holiday with all 10 of us together, as Jake might be working next year (and/or want to take his holiday in other ways), so we had treated ourselves with a cottage rather than camping and I can only say I am SOOO glad we did. 

The week before we set off for Devon the car was due an MOT (why we get it done just before hols each year makes no sense ~ need to change that), but for the first time since we had it it failed. There were a couple of things that were not that big a deal, but then it needed some welding work doing too ~ and that was a major deal!  We drew breath and paid the bill and contemplated a holiday on a tighter budget than we had hoped. Kindly my nan offered the children some spending money ~ so that would help a little. BUT THEN, two days later, Paul ran over the hugest nail and got a flat! Knowing we had a long journey ahead the spare was not an option, but then it turned out the spare had perished and needed replacing anyway - so two new tyres later and we were truly skint!! If we had been going camping at that point we might have had to cancel the holiday because although the accommodation is cheaper when we camp, we end up spending a lot of money on 'easy' food. It's very hard to cook for 10 on a camping stove, and we certainly wouldn't want to try every night for a week! Not only that, but camping also means we 'go out' every day - come rain or shine - because there's not enough to do in a tent, or space! The cottage meant we could have a more home-from-home arrangement. We could cook 'budget' meals and if we ran out of money there were things to do in and around the farm that would keep us occupied. We also took toys, games, laptops, films and even the Playstation with us, just in case of skint, rainy, stuck-in days!!
As it turned out, although we had the odd shower here and there, and enough over-night rain to make us all very grateful not to have be worrying about leaks in canvas, it was an overall lovely week, and we got to spend a significant amount of time on the beach :D.
All the pictures can be found here; http://www.tmfh.me.uk/devonholiday. The titles that start 'Devon'  are from our holidays, but here's some mix and match highlights...

After our holidays the children were here, there and everywhere. DD had gym training right throughout the holidays, but missed some being away on other holidays! Once we came back from Devon it was a couple of weeks until the schools broke up round here, but as soon as they did DD and his cousin were whisked off for a most of week, down to Weymouth (yes, all the way back down South) with their Nan & Grandad. Later in the summer Stitch went with a different cousin and spent a week down there too.

Other than holidays the kids have had a holiday club at church one week and the older ones have spent time with friends. We have tried to take a few trips out as a family, but this always seems to be quite challenging to make happen. We managed a quick jaunt around Dearnford Lake one Sunday afternoon and a day out in Delamere Forest one Saturday. But somehow our lives seemed to be pretty crammed despite not formally 'schooling'.

One of my main occupations this summer has been helping the girls to clear out many of the toys from their room. On the whole they have very little that they 'play' with these days and all three are desperate to have a 'grown-up' room. Lilo does still play with her Barbies (and my old Sindy) quite a bit, so she's kept a smaller selection of favourites and the rest went. Some of the Littlest Pet Shop proved too hard to say goodbye to and ended up in a smaller box, back under a  bed. The sizable collection of Sylvanian Families houses, furniture and dolls has been relegated to large plastic storage boxes to await offspring to inherit! Almost all their Playmobil was handed down to younger brothers and dressing up clothes went to charity shops or our church toddler group. That said, the Disney princess dresses (which cost a fortune) found their way into storage and we tried to save enough to share between all their daughters-to-be! That left a gigantic collection of Polly Pocket, a small collection of My Little Pony(s), some more Littlest Petshop and all things 'baby-doll' to still get rid of. Knowing that all those things carry Ebay value I have spent my summer photographing and listing everything on Ebay and have made them a not-to-disagreeable amount of money from so doing. The money will go towards the room refurbishments, which they have asked for as a joint Christmas gift this year and seems like a great idea to Paul and I. Now just to find the time to actually do it..!

Other significant time-consumers this summer have been computers! Both of our main PC's bit the dust. Mine (a little over 18 months old, and just outside warranty) hit a graphics error, which doesn't sound like much, but is a bigger deal than it could be if it wasn't an all-in-one touchscreen PC. Because of what it is it needs to be sent back to the manufacturer and quite frankly, probably isn't worth the repair cost. Then Jake's died too, refusing to power on. His was a PC I had repeatedly repaired, and it kept blowing out various components (including the power unit once before). In the end I concluded that the motherboard is probably shorting, so I removed the hard-drive and declared it defunct. Being that money was extremely tight already, I had to figure a way to make the best of a bad situation ~ being left with three vintage, but working laptops and one relic laptop that also worked, but barely! I decided to investigate & upgrade the RAM status of all of them, and try to make them all a little quicker and functional for as long as we need to use them. I did succeed in speeding up three of the four, but one refused to accept additional RAM (even though there was no real reason why it shouldn't). So now I have two moderately quick, but still vintage laptops, my SLOW vintage laptop and the relic, which is now a teensy bit faster, but still a sloth really. My final investment ended up being a Raspberry Pi-2. I had looked at this as a cheap little 'hook up to a monitor' option to give us internet access for some of the websites we use, but chose against it until I was discussing with the children what they would like to learn about this year. Lilo said that she would like to learn how Minecraft works ~ and so at that moment the RPI became a very real option again :D. She was so happy to receive her little computer in the post and I think it will be very useful to all of us - it's certainly faster than the relic and my laptop. Sadly though, we still can't afford to buy a new PC, but I do have a plan...

OK so I think that might be my summer summed up. I'll do my 'planning' post separately for those who are more interested in the home-ed of our life than the ins-and-outs of all the family stuff ;-)

Stitch Turn Eight.

So this boy turned eight!

It was a funny sort of birthday, because he was actually away on Energi camp the actual day of it, where I believe they made a proper fuss of him and he had a lovely day (and was then sick the following day with the bug that spread through the camp and then came home - sigh). We had packed up a couple of little things for him & sent them with Abbie - a big 'it's my birthday' badge and a little transformer robot thing - just so he had something to open that day.

So on the Saturday after he came home we celebrated his 'home-birthday' with his choice of meal and opening his presents & cards.

He'd asked for this Lego helicopter, and although I was reluctant because he is rather one for loosing bits, he was thrilled, so I'm glad we did get it in the end.

He and DD have been collecting the City Police set, so these extra little characters were just for fun.

The boys then spent quite some time building together. DD was finding the bits and Stitch did all the building.

After a while DD went off, but Stitch persevered and completed the set with very little help from anyone else.

He must have been at it about 3 hours or more. It kept him busy ~ and he's kept it together since (so far).

I struggle to believe that he is already 8. Time is flying very fast.

It's already 6 years we have lived in this house ~ longer than any home we have had in the almost 20 years since we were married and certainly longer than we anticipated living here! Back then Stitch was my baby ~ only just 2 ~ how cute was he?! :D

He's still cute, in a bullish, boyish, bull-dozer kind of way :D

He really is my bruising boy and struggles to be still, or pay much attention to anything other than screens really, but he is very loving and sociable. I must admit, he drives me to distraction at times, but I love him enormously. He is very bright and clever, but has some deficit on the 'common sense' front ~ I'm hoping that's just down to being 8!

Love you Stitch xx ♥ xx

ARTY POST...GIACOMETTI GLUE & PASTEL MEN

This week's lesson came from here

I love the way these came out, even though they may not be as skinny as they should be. I think perhaps we needed to use thicker glue because this ran as it was drying. All the same, they look great & they were relatively easy :D

Phoebe's  &  Abbie's

Stitch  &  Mine

Lilo  &  DD's

We think DD's looks like a pile of rocks, maybe... 

(borrowed image of Kinder Scout)

Chip didn't quite have the stamina to finish his, but here he is hard at work...

He'll finish off one day next week I expect ~ he loves to be arty :D

COOKING & ART CATCH UP

I'm a bit behind with my Home-ed blogging, so just for now this is what we've been doing in Cooking and Art ~ the two things we do more collectively.

COOKING:

Custard trials...

We cooked two types of custard; traditionally made with eggs and milk, and the other with custard powder. It was generally agreed that the traditional one was nicer, but another time we might make it a bit sweeter. Abbie also felt it tasted rather to eggy, but there's not much can be done about that ~ perhaps more sugar would change that a little. The powder version was quite uniformly disliked and was really quite tasteless! Problem is, my children have got rather to used to the taste of Birds 'ready to eat' version of custard and neither tasted anything like that!

The powdered custard was improved by the addition of cocoa and a little extra sugar ~ then they ate it! I meanwhile happily finished off the traditional version, which I thought was delicious!

All about Eggs...
Then last week we made a little back-track and had a lesson 'all about eggs'. We talked about how to tell if eggs are fresh, how to store them and how to use them. We talked about their numerous uses and how to prevent curdling them when you add them to things (which of course we had practised the week before with the custard). Each of the children then practised breaking and separating one egg ~ which left me with a few eggs to find a use for ~ so so we made pancakes (as not everyone is fond of omelette, which would have been my first choice). The children asked if they could make chocolate pancakes, and as we'd already had lunch and this was just for fun, I conceded ;-)
They made up the mixture and from Joel down to Lilo they all made their own pancakes, and of course they then spread Nutella on them too. 

ART:

We are all quite grateful to see a few sunny days at last; sunny enough for us to be able to begin to take lessons outside. We took art outside a couple of weeks ago and, appropriately, painted butterflies :D

These were oil-pastel and ink. The children had the choice to outline in oils and paint in ink, or colour-in in pastels and wash over with ink. The results were quite lovely, but most of the children struggled not to make a mess with the oil pastels because they are so smudgey.

In order; Stitch, DD, Phoebe, Abbie, Lilo, Mine & Chip's (started but not finished). I don't think Joel kept his :(

This week we did a bit of Lichtenstein Pop-Art, because it was simple and relatively easy, but it still took a long time, and these are the only finished two - Abbie & Phoebe's. I'll put the others' pictures up as they emerge. 

18 YEARS AGO...

18 years ago today... I became 'mummy' for the very first time...

...And today is the day I become mother to an adult! Yes, so he's still a teenager, but is a full legal sense he is an adult. 

18 years ago today the UK heralded the dawn of a 'new-labour' government ~ and now, in just a few days time, the boy born moments after the results were announced, gets to vote himself on the government for his future (and ours).

I will never forget the moment I held that tiny red boy in my arms and how my heart just knew such overwhelming love for him. His is the pregnancy I remember most clearly, and the labour and the birth ~ not because it was painful, but because it was beautiful! He paved the way for me: he gave me faith in my body and enough insight into of it's ways, that allowed me to safely birth 7 more children at home. He taught me that I am strong ~ and brave ~ and able!

Jake was not the easiest baby, or toddler, or small boy, or slightly bigger boy!
BUT he was always funny, chatty, clever, quirky and very winsome ~ he is still all those things. I always adored him - even on the days when he drove me to tears! 

He was always very easily distracted and discipline was difficult with him because he was very 'self governing' ~ such a strong sense of self and a will to go with it! In these regards he's not much changed, but the difficulties that come with those characteristics are now tempered with more awareness of how he affects others around him and a growing understanding of how to turn his struggles into strengths.

Jake always struggled with physical affection ~ even as a tiny baby ~ he needed hugs and cuddles, but disliked the restriction they brought. He cried to be held, then struggled to get down. He fed in a hurry and cried often for more, because he never quite took enough in one sitting! Thankfully, as he has grown he has found ways to show his affections without being uncomfortable ~ I even get a hug from him occasionally these days ;-) ~ and he is always very loving and affectionate towards his younger siblings - they adore him.

I know Jake has always born the brunt of my parenting struggles ~ being the first every step of the way is definitely the short straw! But I hope he knows how much I love him ~ that deep, deep love (and hint of pride) that wells up when I look at the lovely man he is becoming. I hurt when he hurts. I rejoice when things go well for him. I ache when I see a fall ahead, and I struggle to resist reaching out to stop him hurting himself, but, just as when he was small, he would rather run ahead of himself and face the scraped knees than walk quietly and sensibly by my side! He has always been a 'go for it' kind of person and I don't wish to change that about him at all. I want to send him out to 'go get the best out of your life' with all my blessing. I want him to aim high and not be afraid to fail ~ to be true to God and himself, to be faithFULL and fearLESS!

The way ahead is just about to spread wide before him, with choices everywhere he looks. Each choice will shape him and lead him to more choices. I'm not sure he has a plan really ~ and in some ways I love that he doesn't because he is free to go wherever his journey takes him. He's never really been a planner, or a forward thinker, and I suspect he will always be somewhat swept along by the waves that pass underneath him - sometimes bobbing gently along with life, sometimes hurtling rapidly towards the next adventure and occasionally (not too often I hope) recoiling from a storm. In six weeks time he leaves college ~ and full time education. He isn't going into higher education. He is content to have achieved what he hopes will be a very acceptable grade in his Btec and to now want to go and 'get a job'. Ideally he would still love that job to include photography in some way, but he is aware that his love of images may just have to remain a passion until he can find a way to make his passion pay!

And so I'm left wondering and praying about what the future holds for my grown-up boy:

I pray for his happiness.
I pray for his health.
I pray for his peace.
I pray for his success ~ however he measures it.

I pray for his 'one-day' marriage:

• I pray he falls deeply, madly in love, marries and stays faithful to beautiful Christian woman, who will walk by his side through all that life throws at him ~ the good and the not so great, as it is apt to do. And that he will cherish her like nothing else ~ and love her like his Dad loves me ~ utterly and completely. 
• I pray that his wife will love him, cherish him and encourage him, and when life gets rough she will know how to help him through. 
• I pray that his marriage will be strong and beautiful. That he will be able to take the good stuff he's learnt from his Dad and I and build on that to make his marriage even better than ours. That their faith in God will be at the very centre of every decision they make together and will be the cord that binds them and entwines them. 

And if he never marries ~ I pray that the relationships he has with Jesus, his friends and his family can be all those things for him!



We love him Lord. When he was a tiny baby Paul & I entrusted him to you, acknowledging that he was always more yours than ours. We've raised him as best as we could and taught him of you. We've encouraged him to find you for himself ~ and he has. So now, it's coming time to let him travel with you, without us so much at his side. It's nearing the time where we have to let go and let him find his own path. It hurts Lord, but then Love often does. Look after him Lord ~ he's Your precious child.