I did make it

I did make it to Magnolia Square and to meet the lovely pair behind We heart books (Of course I came home with a new book). There were so many lovely books it was hard to choose one but I spied a book I knew was going to be special.

I was attracted by the illustrations of The Enemy - but upon the reading the story to myself at home I was struck by the power and the poetry of the words: two lonely soliders facing each other across a batterfield. Who is really the enemy?

My eldest is probably not quite ready for such a topic but I have other books (Duck, death and the tulip) that are waiting for those moments and those questions.

Three things

It's been a busy week....hopefully I'll get to the magnolila square market on the weekend. And with all this work I've not had much sleep - and possibly been a little cranky - but despite yawning most of the day I managed to find a few things to pick up my mood

Stacked gum boots - cute.

Chalkboard art: Melvin the runaway sausage

Poppies on the way home (don't you just love the colour of poppies).

Bedtime reading

For the last couple of nights the two year old has picked this wonderful book to 'read' at bedtime. I am quite happy to induldge as I love this book. Told entirely through the illustrations this is really a look and find book. There are so many characters to follow and quite a few dramas apart from the missing cake. Tonight I finally realised one of the characters had a red spot on his bot!

Similarily I love this series by Rotraut Susanne Berner. Again the stories are told entirely in pictures. A friend purchased a copy of 'Summer' when my second son was born and of course I collected all three (Spring, Winter, Autumn). We are currently reading Winter and rembering the times where we too had Christmas in winter.

Guess where we went today?

That's right the beach. Wasn't it the winter solstice on Sunday? (I know!)
We have had so much rain during the last month that the sight of sun was almost dizzying. I decided to take the lead from Amanda and pack up the children and head to the beach. It is the first time that I have taken the two on a bus to the beach but it couldn't be harder than some of the other journeys we have made -and it wasn't. Perhaps I could have taken more sunscreen and snacks but I can see us doing it again. It was a glorious day - one of those days that fills you with energy for the rest of the week.

I love this

On the last page of Danny the Champion of the World by Roald Dahl via Land of Meg and Loobylu

Saturday spinning speller

I love this little trinket - and it has been everywhere with us today. In the past couple of months there has been quite alot of interest in words and letters at our house and this toy is perfect for word discovery. I purchased it from Stubby pencil studio which has all sorts of lovely items (if you look below you will see our jar of smencils - scented pencils).

R is for red robot

Look what arrived in the mail this week. I saw the little guy in the latest edition of LMNOP magazine and well I knew he was going to fit right in to our house - and I was right he was an instant hit. He even managed to sharpen a stick to the delight of one (we have been doing some stick drawing as inspired by Myrtle and Eunice).

Talking about robots we also love Robot's Pet by Nigel Gray (published by Koala Books). The rhyme just creeps up on you and the illustrations are so fun. The boys love all the different animals that Fred, the robot, tries to keep as a pet...arhh funny!