Here We Are Together

When Emi woke up this morning she said
Oh, is it still dark outside? Listen! Is-it raining?
& it was. Seeing the disappointment on her face,
I did what every responsible mother would have done.
I picked up Emibody important :
redcat, bluecat,whitedog, (you see,we are creative with names..)
gathered up my children, (still in their pijamas, of course!)
& we had a picnic.
A picnic with apples & cinnamon on toast,
with a guitar & felt balls, with lots of noise & an awful lot
of pretend cookies. Now we are off to make some real cookies,
because apparently the pretend ones are “ah-gone.”

This, ladies & gentlemen, is, what it is all about.

I have just had an argument with a girl i know.
She told me that, if i breastfeed longer than six months, i
damage my child & give him a mental illness.
Needless to say that I am no longer friends with that person.
Breastmilk is best for children, this a fact .
It is something I feel very strongly about, as I was not able
to breastfeed Emily, & i still regret that more than anything.
I will not let anyone tell me that i am hurting my children
simply because i am doing what’s best for them.

You might want to read this information about breastfeeding beyond infancy.

Why on earth would you want to discourage anyone
from doing the right thing?

How could this be wrong?

What’s your opinion on this?

Since I started the playfood making for Christmas
I have been thinking & thinking about how to make
realistic looking cookies, that would be easy to make,so that
they are easy to replace.

& Then I remembered.
Of course! Salt dough! What could look more realistic
than cookies that are actually made out of dough & baked in the oven!

Salt Dough Recipe:

2 cups flour
1 cup salt
1 cup water

mix till it’s smooth,
then just use it like dough.
When you are happy with what you made
just bake it in the oven for half an hour
at 150°C . Paint it if you like, & seal it with clear varnish
(I am not going to paint /seal these,as I am quite sure that
Emily will try to eat them.)

I also handed some of the dough to Emi
to keep her entertained. She made a horse & a monster.

Other things to do with salt dough are

handprints:

& play pizza!

What would you like to put on your pizza, Emi?
” A carrot.”
& what else?
“snowballs!”
okay,great idea! Anything else?
“ketchup and feet!”

so there you go, one carrot-snowball-ketchup-feet pizza:
(next to the pizza are a horse & a monster,
& one of the monsters is sitting on the pizza,
but is not actually part of it.

Exactly one year ago today we moved to England.

My friends often ask me “Do you miss germany?”.
That’s easy to answer.
No, no I don’t.
I live in a beautiful place , where the people smile when
they see you, & it doesn’t matter if you know them or not,
they will stop & say “good morning, isn’t this a nice day?”
They always offer to carry your shopping to the car ,
they will go out of their way to open a door for you,
& no one rolls their eyes at a crying baby.

We have a beach & we have a forest, horses and cows,
& most important, we have ducks we can feed.

The only thing I miss?
Family & Friends.
But they visit, & so do we.

Yesterday I got up at night,
to have some time to knit & sew,
& someone I used to know a long time ago
told me that I am going to get divorced soon,
& that I had an average 1:14 chance of this marriage lasting.
To that I replied
“Well, Anthony & me love each other more than -average-”.
I cringed at my own reply,trust me i did,
but , it’s true. I simply know that we
are going to spend our life together.

It was getting late, so I sneaked back into the bedroom,
& l layed down between “our boys” , as Emi & me call them.
Emi,at this point, had moved out of our bed and into her own bed,
which is in our bedroom,too. It’s really quite crowded now, &
it makes me so happy.
I could not imagine this any other way.
I might miss a few people from germany,
but what we have here is just so much better.

Also, rocks just waiting to be painted, from our beach:

I am going to show you how to make
quick & easy felt sushi,
the perfect christmas present for.. well.. everyone.

[Excuse the pictures,
it's grey & rainy outside,
& we lack proper lightbulbs.]

You will need:

wool for felting in dar green & two “sushi” colours,
(i chose orange & red for this one),
100 % wool yarn in white / beige.
(I used Rovan Big Wool 100% Merino)

Wrap your first sushi colour with the yarn,
then move on to the second colour.
It should look roughly like this:

After your two colours are completely wrapped,
add a layer around both of them,
make this layer as big as you like, this will be the “rice” of your sushi:

When you are happy with the size of it,
put the green felting wool around the outside.
Make sure that no white is showing through!

Put the whole thing into an old sock,
& tie a know at the top.
(I used a baby hat here, but socks usually work best!)

Put it into the washing machine & wash with a few
old towels at around 60°C. You might want to wash it
twice to make sure it stays in shape.
Then just unwrap it & cut it into the size you
want your sushi to be. A bread knive will work best for this.

That’s it, you just made felt sushi
If you have any questions just ask!

Today we are having a really busy day,
a lot of reading , drawing & building.
Christmas preperation is all going well, even though
I really have to hurry to get it all ready in time.
Here is some play food I made for Emily.

Icecream, carrot, fried egg & sushi :

How is your christmas crafting going?

Before you were conceived
I wanted you
Before you were born
I loved you
Before you were here an hour
I would give my life for you.
This is the miracle of life.
Maureen Hawkins

Before George was born I was quite scared.
I thought, how can I ever love him enough?
How can I ever love anyone the way
I love my Emily? I already love her with everything I have!
I love her more than anyone else, my heart is so full with love
for her, how could there be room for someone new?
Someone different? Someone who is not my Emmchen?

But then i met him, my Babygeorge,
(that name will be his,even when he’s 15. Or 30. Or 80..)
& I fell in love.
I don’t love him more than Emily,
& I don’t love him less,
I simply love him with everything I have.

One thing I really adore about George
(along with his baby doublechin, big old tummy
& toothless smile) are his feet.
He has got the cutest chubby feet with
tiny round baby toes. The best thing about his toes
is, his second & third toe are somehow joined together.
I love that. I love it because it reminds me, whenever
I see it, how unique he is.
He is George, he does not want to be compared
to Emily, because he is not Emily.
It’s hard to remember that,sometimes, but those toes,
oh,those toes:

We are going to Sunday Lunch now, I hope you had
a great weekend!
♥

We have had a slow saturday,
lunch with the family,
sleeping,reading & eating cookies.

Is it normal that I want to eat my baby?
Not eat-eat,obviously, but
I want to roll him up & put him in my mouth.
If I had the time, I would lick his head all day,
like a mother cat.
He is just so adorable, with his big round head,
toothless smile & chubby little baby tummy.
I get to snuggle this one aaaaall day!:

Emily’s toy barn broke, so we are waiting
for a wooden dolls house the german family
is sending. Emily is very excited about this,
she waits for the postman every morning,
staring out into the rain. Luckily Oma keeps sending
postcards, she loves those.
Also,
those two are mine!:

The sleepless nights are starting to get to us,
& it is hard.
But just when I think ,
-I really just want to sleep,
I can’t read this book even just one more time,
& I don’t want to eat another pretend-cookie-,
that daughter of mine gives me a hug & says
“I love you,mama”.
& then I know I can.
I can build another pirate ship out of our dining room table,
I can eat all the pretend-cookies in the world, & they will
all be “mmmh,delicious!”. I can loose another pretend tooth
so that my little dinosaur-toothfairy can pick it up & put a shiny
pretend coin under my pillow.
I will do whatever it takes to make this amazing little
person happy.

I love you ,too, my pirate-dinosaur-toothfairy-monkey.

Emi is going through a phase where she eats nothing
but “ketchup” on toast, & because I am reasonably sure *
that this is normal, i’ll share my homemade ketchup
recipe with you, so that you can hand your fussy
toddler wholegrain bread with this healthy little sauce,
they won’t ever know the difference & you don’t feel
quite so bad about it.

[* i honestly think all of us mamas have to stop
second-guessing everything we do, we have to stop
trying to live up to someone elses idea of a good mother.
We should be kind to ourselves,
& just do what is right for our family, because
we know. That's why we are -mama-. ]

Anyway, here’s the ketchup :

You will need
one can whole tomatoes in purée
half a cup of vinegar
one diced big onion
about 2 tablespoons of tomato paste
half a cup of sugar (leave that out if you want it to be healthy.)
a bit olive oil, salt & pepper
we also like to add about 2 medium carrots,
& half a cup of sweetcorn.

Start by cooking the onion in some oil till they are soft (10 minutes maybe?)
Puree your tomatoes (& carrots,& sweetcorn),
you can do that in a mixer.
Then add the tomatoes to the onions, & add everything else,
Now cook it for about 50 minutes on low heat.
Pour it into the mixer & blend it till it is smooth .
It should be quite thick by now.
Now just box it up & put it in the fridge ,
& in a few hours ( at least one hour , i’d say)
you have delicious ketchup that is not so very unhealthy.
(This is not an exact recipe, as I kind of make it up as I go..)

Georgie had his 8 week check today,
& is bigger than 75 % of the babies his age.
(Hey, there’s still bigger ones! :D)
Here he is, exhausted, after a busy, busy day: