A few days back late in the afternoon I was wondering what the kids were up to outside and why things were so quiet. So I peeked out the front door and saw this. They were standing quietly looking out the gate.

I asked them what they were up to and Nathan replied "it was cold, so if we snuggle close together we will stay warmer". I sense another expansion of the Mount Everest discussion when we talked of hypothermia/or if he got stuck out in the cold and cuddling to stay warm. It was freezing out there and they probably were really warm like that!

The drew a picture each for their great-nana who is in hospital. Danielle's been keen for the past few days using our new crafting supplies.


For a part of the afternoon, Danielle has been making "letters". She's been folding and pasting a piece of paper in half and "writes" on it, then posting them in the slot under our nature table. It's so neat to see her come up with her own ideas completely independent of what Nathan is doing.

Today the kids and I built a structure to grow some vine fruit on in Spring. Nathan was keen to help and gave the sawing a go (he's right into it at playcentre, but was a good opportunity to give it a go on a real-life item) - unfortunately, bamboo isn't the easiest to work with and also with it tending to move around a bit it made the job tricky. He then moved on to digging the holes and wanting to pull the cable ties tight. Once this is all built and the vines grown, the kids will be able to use it as a sun shade/hut/house etc if they want.



Nathan, who seems to did holes all over my front yard (where I'm trying to have a nice herb garden), was redirected to the corner of the yard to dig to his little hearts content.

Danielle discovered some planks I had put on some tree stumps (left over from collecting firewood) in the yard, then climbed the tree for the first time after a bit of struggling (and oh so proud!) since her legs were still a little short to get good leverage, then moved on to watch the chickens who kept wandering up into the upper yard and risked their lives with our dog who could see them and would have loved to get out of his enclosure to eat chicken for dinner (and made it almost to the road yesterday). Our barrier didn't work, so until I can figure something out (or they decide they don't need to investigate further than their own large yard) they will need to be supervised while out.