Stars, in their multitudes!

When you are away from cities, (and the associated light emitting technology), on a clear night, you can catch a glimpse of the sheer awesomeness of creation. The birch and pines surrounding the cottage are magnificent, towering trees, but even they are rather dwarfed by the sky.


To capture this image Uncle Nelson and I went out on to the dock and set up the camera to take a sequence of 30 second exposures (with a pebble held over the shutter release to keep it taking photos!) I then merged the photos together.

Josiah is learning how to stand

Standing is something we take for granted every day, but BOY is it exciting the first few times!

Risky too... :)

Rose's 6th Birthday

Our Rose is now six! That's amazing - yet her surprise in this picture, she tells us, was the wonderful cake being put before her...

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That party was on the weekend - a great adventure at Salcey Forest with 14 little people and their respective parents (including Lara's) along for good measure. The rain only added to the puddles (and thus, fun) and there was hot chocolate and sausages afterwards. Lovely. 

Because Rose had asked for a three tier cake, there was ample, and more than enough left over for her real birthday tonight. Here she is on cake round two.

We are so thankful for all our wonderful children.

Daisies

Don't you think that daisies are the friendliest flowers?

Breakfast

Josiah's favourite breakfast is toast. But there still is some fall out...

Lara and Josiah

My lovely wife and baby boy, after a good old play at the park.

Playing at the Park

We had a fabulous, four-generation park-crawl with the kids, us, Lara's parents and Great Nana. The fun was infectious... and the odd rotating see-saw was irresistible for Great Nana! We love her discarded wheelchair in the background!

Late summer beauty

I have just realised, these are three of my favourite plants... found growing in Jenny and Nigel's new garden. And jolly pretty too.

He's still happy! (and now toothy)

Our Josiah still beams in the early hours of the morning, after a night of broken, nay, shattered sleep. The teeth may be part of the cause. That and he's just social. At 12, 2, 4, and 6 am... but with a grin like this - all lost sleep is more than forgiven.

Our family in silhouette

Here we are after a lovely day at Woburn Safari park, Rose is jumping and Josiah's flying :)

Late Summer Evenings

Late summer evenings spent walking across grassy fields are late summer evenings well spent.

Sitting! (Temporarily)

I like to sit in the sunbeam.
I also like to roll forwards and dribble on the carpet...

Old friends

We had a visit this afternoon from some dear old friends - Jonny and Debbie, and their lovely kids. Despite having not seen them in three years, and each family had grown by another son since we last met, it was like no time had passed. The only other change... Tim forgot to by the customary apple strudel!

The "Cunshry Side"

When the girls had some friends over to play, they put one of the A1 misprints from Daddy's work to good use, and produced a massive, collaborative picture of the countryside which is now up in the conservatory. We love it!

See if you can spot: piggies in the mud, badgers, foxes, bunnies, sheep, fish, butterflies, eagles....

First Shoulder Ride for Josiah

Nearing the end of our adventures in the woods today, we thought Josiah might like a little shoulder ride. Turns out he did! And the easy access to Daddy's hair was an added bonus. I don't think those tufty-bits on the side of my head are there any more...

Self-timer joy

Ok, so this is not one of those great photos, but it made us laugh.

We set up a quick self-timer (we-were-here-together) shot, and at the last moment, Ana leaps up, completely obscuring both her mother and brother. Love it.

(And I think my handbag-shorts combo is special too!)

Rose's Ice Cream

Rose knows how to properly enjoy an ice-cream on a walk. The nice young man in the forest cafe gave her the biggest ice-cream, and she did justice to it. A lovely, minty vanilla swirl. Yum!

The delights of a fallen branch!

We discovered this fallen branch on our trip to the park and clearly had to have a play!

Baby in a sling

When the buggy went to work with Daddy we wondered how we'd manage the park, and Auntie Crystal's sling came to the rescue! This is Josiah having just woken from his nap in it on a lovely blustery bright day.

The double decker couch - awesome!

Ok, so this probably makes no sense to you if you haven't seen the lego movie... But we have, many times! And our double decker couch was proof of Emmet's genius as it stopped an overtired argument :D

The priceless priceless gems you find when you tidy a little girls' room...

This lovely letter was found in Ana's room today, along with a few others to the rest of the family. All on torn scraps of paper but so precious!

Happy Josiah

It's all just SO exciting! I'm even beginning to grow hair!

Out without the kids!

An evening out where we are the kids!

Thanks to Jane and Vern inviting us to a lovely meal out to celebrate their anniversary, we had our first evening out with no children for the first time in about 3 years! The wonderful Amanda babysat to make it possible and we felt YOUNG!

Sleeping yummyness

So cosy!

My super duper sisters made me my first den!

The play gym became a tent filled with toys and Josiah loved it!

Note : apologies for any photos not quite up to the usual standard, Tim's set it up so I can blog from my phone,  but at least it may mean something gets blogged! Currently while Josiah is feeding :)

Beaming Josiah

Here is our wonderful five-month old Josiah having a good old play on the play-mat.

You may think that we had to choose from lots of photos to get one with a smile like this. Not really true. My hard drive is getting quite full of beaming Josiah pictures. Give him a grin, and the one he returns will be so delighted and genuine - such a gift.

(And welcome back dedicated blog- readers...)

Josiah Zachary Flynn Farewell

We are absolutely thrilled to announce the arrival of Josiah Zachary Flynn Farewell.

May God bless him, keep him and make his face shine upon him - now and always.

On the swing (or horse, depending on your point of view)

Here, the two girls were pretending to be riding a horse. I seem to remember a similar picture that my parents took of Daniel and myself at a similar age.

Another similarity, is that the kids have asked me for a (real) horse. I know both Lara and I have always wanted one... now we just need space for four!

Rose

Here's our Rose.

Easter Bunny Play

Rose and Ana's plays (and associated costumes) are getting more and more interesting. Here, dressed in one of Daddy's old t-shirts and some Bunny ears from Nana, accessorised with some make-up from Lara's drawer, we present... the Easter Bunny.

Sofa Jumping

Yes, we're still here... and to prove it, here are some pictures of the kids undertaking gentle, calm play...

 

Sea Spray

Pembrokeshire sea spray.

Beyond that island lies a lot of water, some fish, then Canada and America.

Really, Very High

So here we are up top of the Bishop's Palace in St. Davids. It was at the bottom of a hill, but nevertheless, extrodinarily high - up some very, very steep and tiny stairs. I just fit. The old Bishop must not have eaten very well if he had wanted to frequently come and survey his lands from up here. He also would have needed a good head for heights.

St Davids

On our holiday this winter we had a day out at St. Davids. This involved exploring the Bishop's Palace, and climbing from the dark basements, right to the top of the tower.

Here are Rose and Lara counting the steps up from the Cathedral. I can't remember how many there were, but there were plenty.

Strange happenings in Wales

Some might take a bucket.
Some might take a kite.
Not for this Welsh gentleman,
He thought he'd take a bike.

Yes, oddly enough we saw this man wheel his bike down from those cliffs, and take it for a walk in the sea. It was one of the strangest things I've seen in recent years.

Cooking with Rose!

Cooking with Rose is ALWAYS messy.

This time we were making the Christmas favourite: Tim's Chocolate Yummies of Destiny and Waistline Destruction... Fun!

Winter walk

Just before Ana's Christmas play, Lara and I had enough time for either 1) getting food for supper or 2) taking a beautiful walk down to the floodplain near the river.

Guess what we chose...

Rose and the frosty floodplain near Rainbow Bridge

Here is Rose near Rainbow Bridge.

A winter walk

 

On one of my day's off this week, after collecting Rose from a full-on morning at Nursery, we went for a beautiful walk across the floodplain. We ate the chocolate crispie cakes Rose had made that morning, found some frozen puddles and played many, many games of Pooh-sticks.

Frosty Rose

The early part of this week was graced with the most beautiful frosts - like this one. 

Resting on the sofa

 There is more than one way to sit on sofa cushions!

A big dig

 In July we decided to overhaul the bottom of the garden - the place where only weeds would grow.

We build a wall for a raised bed out of some lovely old reclaimed bricks which we were given via Freecycle. Then we began to plant up the bed, only to hit rock - or rather concrete at a shallow depth. So, we dug, and dug, and dug some more.

After a fair while of toil, here are Nigel and I, triumphant over a large block of concrete which we managed to remove. (We did have to break through the just-built wall though, to get it out!)

Dancing on the sunbeams

 The girls were taken by the beautiful patterns made by the sun and stained glass windows in the chapel on St Michael's Mount. They broke into a spotaneous jumping dance all around the shimmering lights.
Beautiful.