More Advent Openings
I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed getting out of bed so much… over the last 8 days I’ve been woken to the sound of my boys whooping with delight over the beautiful and thoughtful things Leonie has picked out for them each day. (There was no expectation for her to do something each day for them that’s just the measure of her generous heart!)
One of the best things they have said this week was when they opened this awesome magnetic story board with some of the nativity characters in it and Bounce said to me ‘Mum I think Jesus is coming for us‘ (he wasn’t in the first parcel of these they unwrapped.) I thought to myself yes little man how true.
Day FOUR:
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| Awesome jacket and skirt pattern, airhostess beads and gingerbread cottage |
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| Story board with nativity characters |
This morning I was thinking about all the amazing things Leonie has picked for me and I felt like oh my gifts are so small in comparison and then I thought isn’t that just like Christmas. We carefully pick gifts for others and wrap them with care but really they are so very small in comparison to what heaven gave us at Christmas. A God who would walk as human, grieve, feel pain, lose friends, have enemies, laugh, eat, hope…. A God who would give up power and clothe himself in helplessness.
Day FIVE:
(the glo sticks the boys received were squirreled away faster than I could get a photo of them. Flip was found sleeping with his that evening!)
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| Brownie In a Jar |
I love how no matter how generous our love, how kind our deeds, how wonderful our words they are only ever a tiny glimpse of the extravagant love of God who gave everything. A God who opens his arms to love us just as we are.
Day SIX:
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| Gorgeous Crocheted Flannels |
This Advent swap has been so wonderful and it’s not even half way through. Leonie has really chosen things so carefully in line with the things I said I liked. I think it is such a compliment when someone picks something for you, with you in mind. That is really the great discipline of gift giving to buy what someone else would like rather than what you would like yourself.
Day SEVEN:
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| I adore this quote – all framed up for me x |
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| Star Garland |
I’ve also had such fun listening to all the excited exclamations of the boys and their sense of anticipation each day. Their absolute favourite has been the magnetic story board and they are already telling and re-telling the story to each other with the characters they have so far. It’s made me think after Christmas I need to make some more characters for them to re-tell other stories they love. I do remember getting hours of delight from my mama’s flannel-graph boards as a child.
Day SEVEN boys:
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| More magnetic characters |
Tune in next Saturday to see what else has excited and delighted me… and to see if I’ve been brave enough to cut into this fabric which literally made me squeal when I opened it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen fabric I love more!!!
Day EIGHT:
friday classics
fish language – on the way to school this week I heard Flip telling Bounce he could speak fish language. Bounce said he could too but Flip said ‘no you can’t but I can introduce you to the fish and then when they know you, you will be able to speak their language’.
4-year-old knowing and wonder – we had a beautiful Christmas celebration with some other families this week and Santa came with gifts for each family. Bounce informed me seriously and quietly that ‘Santa was actually Sam’s Dad’. Then the next morning when the Wise Men had moved from the bathroom to the top of the fish tank he said to The Atlas – ‘How could the Wise Men have made it over there? They must have climbed down and crossed the kitchen under the table, climbed the draws and heaved (don’t you love 4-year-old words!) themselves onto the fish tank. It’s amazing.’
I love the look of wonder on the children’s faces when Santa arrived even though they ‘knew’ who he was. They are at this beautiful place of fully entering in to the magic even if they know the truth.
We received all the pieces to make a gingerbread house – Whoop!!
There is actually heaps to love this week and so much of it is about the boys so I might just do another post about them over the weekend. I am so enjoying this Advent season.
Head over to Meghan’s the home of taking time to be grateful each week.
Happy For
Yesterday it began to rain while I was at school helping to organise the end of year Christmas pageant (so not a pageant but when else would I get to use that word!!) I had washing on the line….
When I came home this is what I found – my neighbour rescued the washing off the line and put the pegs in Flip’s cap and put it all under the verandah thingy we have. God Bless a washing fairy!
These 2 boys that love each other so much – The Atlas and I found them playing together with this suitcase one morning before school.
I love that the when a very large and exciting advent box arrived Flip decided to race down to his room and wrap a parcel for Daddy so he didn’t feel left out – I so love that kid’s generous heart.
I love that I have the best advent swap partner ever!! Leonie is one of those incredible, generous, over-achievers (love a good overachiever!!) – I am in for an AWESOME December.
The box also contained those ‘air bag’ packaging things which were joyfully burst as well.
I love that the box quickly became a boat for the teddies and then a table for a picnic afternoon tea and then a prop in the ‘wipeout’ obstacle course that the boys built.
And I’m also totally awed by our brains – I am learning lines for a performance next week and it kind of blows my mind that we can with a small amount of intention memorize and regurgitate lines we read – our brain is fearfully and wonderfully made indeed.
I love that it’s Friday and tomorrow I proudly turn 35!! Halfway to 70 – bring it. :o)
I bet Meghan has an amazing collection of things she is grateful for too – her list is always cool.
When Friday Comes
I am so grateful for the sunshine that has graced us this week
a little boy who played his violin at school assembly this week and the kind of children that sing along to ‘twinkle, twinkle’ and tell him he did really well
the sweet friendships my boys have and the ways in which they play as a group when others come without drawing lines about ages and genders…long may this last
I loved teaching a class for children at the Make Cafe last week and seeing their sense of excitement and satisfaction when they made something – some of them had never threaded a needle before the class
and the beautiful way Kirsty set the class up makes me excited about the one I am going to attend
Loving laughing until I cry watching You tube clips of wipe out – kinda a cheap laugh but we all think it is hilarious here…..
I love that it’s nearly December and so The Atlas will be soon shaving the world’s most awful mo off soon… can’t come soon enough
and I’m loving and getting totally anxious about this performance coming up soon….
Christmas is just around the corner!!! Wheee I am so looking forward to the season of advent this year
Don’t forget to enter my giveaway I’m drawing it on Sunday
Fill your heart with good things here
I love
Boys who have seen advent swap presents for them!! Oh the excitement – let’s just say there are 2 boys really looking forward to December!!
Cupcakes with someone who is 4
Breakfast brunch with my sister – I love that I have the kind of sister where we can both cry talking about a lovely picture book one of us has never even read. Yeah – we’re ’emotionally gifted’.
finding my boys on our bed reading their baby books before school one morning
Photos from the athletics day Daddy went to
Fabric bargains – marked down to $7 a metre – rung onto the til for $3.50m (so then I went back and got some polka dots as well)
Washing on the line – 3 loads, no line space left and no pegs…love those days
Pop over to Meghan’s and fill your heart up with things to love too!
Little Sad to See You Friday….
Normally I am so happy to greet Fridays but when it comes to the last day of the school holidays I feel a little sad. I so enjoy having my boys home and the easy relaxed pace. The time to craft and hang out… the little things of having the 2 best kids in the world nearby to listen to and watch.
This week I have loved watching them both make amazing leaps in the swimming pool. It’s the first time Bounce has done these kind of lessons (5 in a row) and it has been such a treat to be in the water with him. ‘Ma’ took one day and I got to take photos.
As for Flip I love the way he listens and concentrates so hard on his lessons. He is such a delightful wee chap.
Lunch in the sunshine with The Atlas
Spontaneous cupcakes with Ma after swimming.
Public Art – the great thing about a city in ruins is that people are able and allowed to decorate space and make sweet statements about life. So much of the city is bare and tangled and ugly but in so many of those spaces people are making beauty – love it.
The ring and earrings and brooch I whipped up one night in front of the TV. Love those quick projects that satisfy a crafty itch.
Getting ready for the Advent Swap – a perfect opportunity for someone who loves buying and making presents to get over excited.
Finally I’m loving that this time next week, God willing, I’ll be in Melbourne with The Atlas – husband extraordinaire. 2 days and 3 nights while Aunty N and Uncle A move in to our place to play parents. If you have been to Melbourne before please leave me any must dos.
Have a great weekend. Let the sun shine in!
Spring’s Warmth is Creeping Slowly In
I so enjoy the slower pace in the holidays – the making fun wherever we find it. The washing of bears in the sunshine, finding new hidey holes with little friends, going to Clip n Climb with Uncle A.
Sadly The Atlas begun his summer football season by blowing his knee out but he is a very good patient and the sort that still tries to help out and is most grateful for anything done on his behalf. (I’m also selfishly super grateful he didn’t do this just before the 2 of us go away on a very special trip in a couple of weeks).
We also really enjoyed mum’s shop number 2 with Flip running the shop. Unfortunately all our customers pulled out with sickness but we still had our friend from next door and Daddy was happy to part with some of his pocket-money too. Our neighbour who came is so delightful. He walked in and said, ‘Wow what a great selection.’
The mail box has been exciting this week too – I received this amazing and generous parcel from Lara whose giveaway I won a while ago. Very excited and inspired about what I might make.
And my new blog card – oh and ah! I know it is a little ridiculous seeing as this blog is a fancy rather than anything serious but as I am often banging on about it to people I thought this is an easier way than trying to find paper to write it on when I tell someone about it. And it’s double-sided and printed on 100% recycled paper and including postage with a voucher it only cost me $6…. so it’s a fancy but no more than a cup of coffee fancy – no judging ‘kay? and it has a quote I feel is rather apt for my life.
I can’t believe we are already at the end of the first week of holidays!
happy Friday lovelies – may the weekend treat you well x Miriam x
Friday
This week’s happy memories:
exciting parcels in the mail (more about that next week)
and PR people who happily address your review parcel to your children, especially happy-making to a little one who has been asking for post a lot lately ‘and I only wanted a letter but I got a whole parcel’.
exciting arrivals at the airport – home at last! and straight into reading tin tin, presents and playing the teddy game
exciting fashion shows attended with bloggers
and a very beautiful collection by our lovely friend Nin (feeling famous by association)
I would so recommend going and having a browse in her online shop – so lovely.
cute notes written by a six-year-old for his fish (who was turning 102!) and displayed in front of the fish tank so he could read it (he is actually the fish who looks like he is reading it!!)
cute enquiries from a 3-year-old who wondered what to give a fish and if we could put the presents in the tank and would they get wet?
a bloggers get together on Monday night to do a swap – and the treats I got – thanks Treena
sunshine, hail, sleet, thunder and lightning storms all in the space of a week or so
and a delicious giveaway for this month as well
What things have you loved this week?
Spilling Over
I often find when I stop to write a grateful post on Fridays I am ‘spilling over’ – there are so many things to be grateful for
The Atlas who spent 4 hours without a curse, an angry sigh, or throwing the computer through the window – to restore everything to its former glory and find everything that was lost. Flip is fascinated by the thought of people creating computer viruses, why they would do it and how they work – we have had a lot of conversations about how sadly sometimes there are grown ups who do bad and naughty things too just to make other people sad.
Little boys who want to wear mama’s crown and her gumboots around – just because they can. (It’s funny how at 3 they want to try your lippy and by 6 they won’t even have a kiss if you are wearing it!)
The 3 idiots (and I say idiot as a compliment) I call my own. Getting one decent photo of the 3 of them was an adventure all in itself.
Grown ups who choose to have their birthday at chipmunks for the little people.
My new kitchen accessory that my mama handed down to me (after several hints!).
An evening with some friendly, interesting and delightful bloggers
(image stolen from Sophie’s blog – home of the sisterhood)
This little man who tripped over during a wrestling match and moved 2 teeth backwards and has serious swelling and bruising but hasn’t let that stop him a jot.
Grandad who saw it was teacher only day today so thought it might be a good weekend to visit and go to Antarctica (the Antarctic Centre) with Flip and Bounce for the day.
Sometimes I feel a fraud for having landed with such lovely kids and a great husband. They are the joy of my life.
What makes you smile this Friday?
Riches
As this week draws to a close I want to focus on richness. All around us and in our own lives we often experience the speed in which our circumstances can change – health taken for granted suddenly threatened, stable circumstances instantly changed, good news, bad news, hopes and horrors.
So just for today I want to breathe in the riches I have today – the man I love at my side happy to see me at the end of every day, the healthy, happy loving sons I have been given to parent, the warmth of the fire, the happy news of babies born, a house full of the sound of laughter and dishes on the bench and mess in most rooms. Things I have today that I hope to have all the days of my life. These things do not come with promises to last forever but should I ever lose them I never want to regret having forgotten to be grateful for them every day.
Sometimes when I stop and think about the riches of my life right down to a sneaky bag of lollies in the pantry I am overwhelmed by the wonder of what I have. Sometimes overwhelmed to the point of tears that I could receive such goodness. A wonder I get to appreciate every day. Wonder undeserved – these things come about not from my good deeds or hard work – these are the abundance of circumstances that have been gifted to me.
I am rich every day, today I am stopping and thanking God and letting those blessings rest in my heart.
There is a Psalm that is very precious to me – I think of it as ‘my’ Psalm and as a special one for The Atlas and I. In it is says
The boundary lines have fallen in pleasant places for me, surely I have a delightful inheritance.
What blessings are resting in your heart today?
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