Our lodger, Harry

Harry is a one month old little hedgehog, and yes he is a boy - we checked! He was a true lodger as he spent a whole 24 hours living in our kitchen and eating our food, aswell as the time he spent in his cardboard home in the shed.



I found him on Tuesday late morning on the wood chippings in our back garden fast asleep out in the open. He clearly wasn't alright or he wouldn't have been there, so we put him safe in a cardboard box, and on top of a hot water bottle covered in a towel to keep him warm. We fed him on egg & oats and turkey & oats, which he devoured, often standing in his food to eat it which the children thought was funny.
Peter thought he was amazing! He got SO excited and kept pointing at him and peering into the door of the box when he'd gone inside.

He was doing so well after a day, and was very nimble and steady on his feet by then as he explored our kitchen and dining room, and my feet (he had a go at nibbling my socks which I'm afraid caused me to jump away!) Anyway we felt fine about letting him out in the garden that night to see if he could find his way home. He was unsure for a moment at being put on the grass but then sniffed around a bit and went off happily at quite a pace. We felt like he would be brought back for us to help him if he wasn't going to be okay.

The next day, late morning sometime, I was sat writing something at the dining table and heard a noise that sounded just like a hedgehog snuffling around. The children were in the back garden and Michael had just come into the kitchen and I asked him what the noise was - I said it sounded just like dripping water or a hedgehog eating something. Couldn't find anything. Then a few minutes later I was in the kitchen getting Rebekah a drink of water and as I moved my foot to stand back where her cup was, my foot nudged something - I looked down only to see it was Harry exploring the kitchen again! I suppose he had been with me in the dining room before that. :o)

We fed him outside this time, and he went straight behind some plant pots and a bits waiting to go to different people in between nibbles. He wasn't quite as happy as he had been with his little home. We think he must have spent the night there though, or at least the morning, and then toddled straight in while the door was open and everyone else was out in the back garden!

We finally got a nearby(ish) rescue centre on the phone - we could only get hold of some further away when we first found him - and so we fed Harry again and then Michael and the girls took Harry over to Nuneaton to be looked after. They were excited to see a whole host of animals there - a family of owls, a swan, a cygnet, a goose, a badger, three foxes, lots of rabbits and guinea pigs, loads of parakeets and other birds, some sort of bird of prey, ferrets, a couple of chinchilla. Michael and Rebekah really loved the badger. Harry was the only hedgehog, but he will be looked after well there. Apparently he was about a month old and quite underweight. So once he is okay the man whose centre it is (just his house really) will release him over there.



It was lovely to have him around and give him some of what he needed while we could. Bye bye Harry!

Happy Hannah!

For Hannah's 7th birthday (11th July), she decided to go to Coombe Abbey, a country park on the other side of Coventry. We didn't have all that long there in the end, but we enjoyed some time in the playground, going for a walk by the river where Hannah wanted to spend a bit of time drawing the swans in her nature book, and climbing a very tempting tree.





















































































































































Then we went for the birthday treat that Hannah had chosen - riding a pony. Someone new at church has some horses and ponies and let all of us have a ride on the smallest of them, Jasper. Then the girls brushed Jasper down before we said goodbye and went home for Hannah's birthday tea. As we're not having sugar now, we have a new tradition which started on Hannah's birthday of having a fruit cake. Not the normal kind of fruit cake, but a creation made totally from fruit! Hannah's was not complicated at all. She'd asked for melon for her teatime treat, as well as some homemade pizza, chips and a dip. So we made the melons into a horse, and as hopefully you can tell from the bottom picture, she was over the moon!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LOVELY HANNAH! xxxxxxx

Happy Happy Birthday to our happy, beautiful, loving , sensitive, spiritual, talented, caring, fun-loving girl!

Sweet Sarah

Sarah chose to go swimming for her 5th birthday, so Nanny, David, Rachel, Edan and Elijah joined us for a swimming party at the local pool. They have a splash time there on Saturdays where they get out loads of floats, etc., so that's when we went for. Granma and Gramps joined us later on and we had a pass the parcel (which Gramps won, but shared his prize with his grandchilden), and then just grandparents left with us for tea. We experimented with fruit-juice rabbit jellies for Sarah's birthday as we're now no longer having cake. One was nice, but the milky ones didn't work so well. We all preferred the fruit salad afterwards! We'll come up with something better in future I think. Sarah enjoyed her special day though and the love she had poured out on her by those she loves.

Rebekah's birthday

Our little Rebekah turned three years old last Saturday (12th May). She has seemed bigger and bigger lately. Some of that I suppose has been seeing the comparison as we have seen Peter grow bigger, but she has definately been changing too. She's such a big girl now, and seems to feel it. She can do just about anything her sisters can do, and is so tall to go with it. She also loves to be little though, and to spend time with Peter, sometimes playing the big sister who wants to hold, cuddle or even restrain him, sometimes playing along with him and not quite sharing her Mummy too well! Being 3 seems to bring a sudden change of behaviour with it (I believe it has for every one of our children, as has being 2, 5, and so far with Rachel, being 8! - who knows why the other ages haven't mattered so much, but I certainly don't recall quite such a sudden change with them!) We're pushing limits all over again. :o) This has brought a sadder side to Rebekah than we have been used to, as has a recent series of accidents which turned a very happy, confident little girl into quite an upset and clingy one. Luckily, she is still our lovely little girl though, and large outpourings of love do go a long way to easing her fears. One wonderful side to her character we have seen so much of in the last few weeks (and especially this week) is her kindness. She has been so genuinely kind and thoughtful on so many occasions, often sharing what means a lot to her, giving the most spontaneous outpourings of love, and being a split-second peacemaker as she has rescued more than a few fraught situations. Going from a terrible temper to seeing a need and being a peacemaker in literally seconds can be bewildering for us as her parents, but she is full of lovely surprises as ever, and we wouldn't be without her, even when she is grumpy! She is so like her sister Hannah, and so you would think we should know what we are doing this time, but I'm afraid our memories just aren't that good - so many names and birthdays to remember!! I guess we won't do too badly, with a little help from our little peacemaker.

Rebekah had decided that she wanted a teddy bear cake for her birthday, and so we thought we would have a small teddy bear's picnic for lunch that day. It had rained all week, and although it let up for her birthday so we could play outside, it was still a bit too cold and damp to eat out there. So we shared her picnic lunch on our living room floor. She had wanted to invite her cousins Edan and Elijah (nearly 2 and 4) to her little party, as well as her friend Hannah (very nearly 3) from Nursery at church. She was so looking forward to that, and then became unbelievably shy when they came, as did they somehow! So we had a quiet little time to start with. Or course they all perked up with a bit of food inside them, and the bears did too, then they were very lively for a few more games, including hide and seek (as all teddy bears play at a picnic!)

Rebekah really became her excited happy self again though when her grandparents arrived late afternoon. Nanny, Granma and Gramps got to see a little slideshow on the Mac of Rebekah growing through many of the pictures we had of her. They were excited (even 5 or 10 minutes later!) to be seeing some lovely pictures that they had never seen before (that's what happens when they go straight from a digital camera to the computer and rarely ever get printed!) Rebekah was so excited too to see her life. She had accepted by the evening (having seen all the pictures that morning as well) that the baby was herself and not Peter, and she quite enjoyed herself. She wasn't much bothered by presents or cards all day, but thrilled in being with people she loves. She loved her birthday tea, her playmates, having her family sing happy birthday to her again (that really made her eyes twinkle!) and being the birthday girl. She had a good go at juggling with the ball pit balls too along with her Daddy and Gramps. She was a happy little girl that read her scriptures with her Nanny that night, and is definately growing a little bit bigger!

Cute little Peter

Peter is pretty quick at crawling about now and last week while I was ill he mastered pulling himself up to standing. He likes to walk around the edge of the chairs now. A few times when I have been lying down on one of the settees while ill he has crawled over with a car and a big heavy Thomas push-along toy (Rebekah's 1st birthday present which she still loves but he has really taken to), and has struggled to lift it up to me on the chair. He then has pulled himself up to standing and stood there by me playing with the train. It's very sweet - he just wanted to be with me. Luckily for me, I'm still his favourite person in the world. :o)

He has started copying our noises so precisely too. While he was in the baby carrier with Michael the other day (a place he is still totally happy to be), a crow flew overhead cawing, and he apparently even mimicked the crow pretty realistically. :o)
The cutest thing to me though is that he very clearly this week has started saying "da -dee" rather than dada as he did before. He does it on his own rather than copying it, which is very lovely. He'll be 10 months old next Wednesday, which seems to have flown by. He still giggles as heartily as ever. We are loving our cute little boy so much!!

Rachel's special day

Rachel was looking forward to her birthday SO much, as every child must do, but her biggest reason for the eagerness was that she wanted to be baptised. Her sisters enjoyed it too! Infact lovely little Rebekah has for some time now been very close behind Rachel in her anticipation and excitement for her baptism. Along the way she also grasped the idea that she would be baptised when she grows up, as her sisters all will. She has been just as excited about this idea, so much so that the day before Rachel's birthday she was busily writing her own invitations to her own baptism (asking me to spell, Nanny, Emma, Tom, Will, Trisha, Naomi, Lydia, and a few others, all of whom she wants to come to her baptism). Then when we woke up on Rachel's birthday, at breakfast she asked me if she could be baptised first? She meant first, before Rachel, and was sorely disappointed when I had to reaffirm to her that she couldn't be baptised yet but would have to wait until she was bigger. "But I am already growing bigger!" was the reply. Waiting until she is 8 just doesn't seem fair in Rebekah's mind.

We were pleased that several of Rachel's friends and their parents were able to come for the whole thing, aswell as Michael's Uncle Stuart and his brother Tom along with Becky (Tom's girlfriend) who I was so glad to meet at last - she is lovely. Nanny, Granma and Gramps each gave a short talk and spoke to Rachel, and our family sang a song called "Baptism" for Rachel. Her uncles, Tom and David, were also involved as they were the witnesses for her baptism, and they and my Dad assisted Michael in confirming her. Unfortunately the boiler wouldn't work properly that morning, so the font was pretty cold, although not freezing as two elders had gone backwards and forwards from the kitchen with as many pans of warm water as they could. It was still enough to totally take Rachel's breath away though as she came up from under the water. All she could say for a few minutes was how cold it was! I couldn't help but have a wet hug as she came out of the font. I couldn't believe how very quickly she was baptised. I suppose with many preparations to make it seemed to come very suddenly when at last I could stop totally and just enjoy her special day. Rachel received the gift of the holy ghost after that and Rachel had a warm feeling which she liked. It was a lovely baptism, and there was a special spirit there.

We had a photo with everyone afterwards which somehow turned out a bit blury, and then some lovely food, gratefully helped by both of our Mum's with a donation by a few others aswell. After a lot of planning and Rachel choosing to invite just about everyone that has been important to her in some way, we ended up with a nice group of about sixty people, and a very enjoyable time. Rachel really looked, and I think felt, radiant.

We hope you enjoy the pictures (we didn't get many in the end, but these few tell most of what we'd like to remember) and get a feel for being here yourselves (those who could't be that is).