Last Day in January

Walking around the block with granddad

Walking in the Park

Little Elke

Knights helmets made at the weekend

Drinking tea with the grandparents

I got some interesting links from my sister Marg about making savings in our groceries shop mainly in not wasting food and eatting fresher food. Lots of good ideas...
In 2012 i would really like to get a handle on our money, i have started a spreadsheet for all our bills as a start.

Photos of many good days spent with the folks above.

The Last Days of January

Walking at the weekend up the forest always requires a power ranger suit and a hat by Granny

Our Home
The duck house in need of a new roof

Hen house with new door Steffen made

Our three indian runners as yet no eggs..

Snow on the hills
The two boys adventuring in the forest
Elke Standing


Saturday museum gang (Jonas, Granny, Thorben, Steffen and Elke)

A castle building kit bought in the second hand shop for 2 euros (hours of fun)

some random things from my week....

Our beautiful home built and documented by 'Rooms to Improve' is giving us stress, the builder has gone bust leaving some large enough snags. We have no warranties to date on some of the work done. At least the heat pump fault has been fixed (800 euros later), the leaking flat roof is another issue!It would be great to get all the snags fixed by one contractor. We are trying to be optimistic.

Funny things the boys said....Jonas wants to marry a girl from playschool and Thorben wants to marry a cat.

I had some ICA mums over for tea and biscuits. Hoping to get out to the first ICA meeting in Hollywood of the year.

We are just back from Collins Barracks in town. We mostly looked at the war museum section...swords, guns, uniforms, life size tanks and aeroplanes which the boys liked. It is a lovely museum and has a nice coffee shop. We paid for parking and realised afterwards we could have parked for free inside....next week we will be in the know. We plan to go back to see the decorative art section.

Grandad had a birthday yesterday and we called in to wish him happy birthday after having lunch with some friends in Bornabreena. 3 mums and 9 kids....makes a lot of noise!!!

We have to renovate the hen house for our ducks, Shelley is going to give us more ducks so we need space for them.

Working three days a week and fitting in meeting up with friends is proving exhausting. It might be better to stay at home for one of my days with the kids instead of leaving home. I need the time for housework and doing things with the boys. I havent seen some of my dear neighbours in weeks literally.

My sister Margaret in the US is married to Andy for two weeks today. Yeh!!!!

We had the first snow of 2012....

Walking in Avondale January 2012

Steffen with Elke on the picnic in Avondale

Two brothers laughing on a picnic in January 2012

Randon pictures, beach day, finished house photo, german relatives, house renovations of last year, and family

Some of Jonas's photos taken with his new camera from Santa

We had a busy week with home life and working too. One of the days i managed to come home while it was bright from work and walked up the forest with the kids. It was lovely, very spring like for January. Sometimes it just takes a little more effort to get the wellies on and head out even when you are tired. It is hard to leave the kids in the morning but you got to do what you got to do to pay the bills.

We are trying to take the kids somewhere interesting every saturday morning. This morning we went to the Dead Zoo in Dublin with Granny. The boys loved the shark and whale skeletons hanging from the ceiling. Lunch afterwards in Eddie Rockets was also a hit.

Last week we walked in the forest with Grandad

I re-organised the boys art stuff...

We went to the national art gallery with granny

We got eggs from our hens

The boys made pizza with Daddy

Dressing up

Drawing with Ciara

Family picture

Other family picture over Christmas 2011

Walking in the forest on new years day

Starting Out

We had a great weekend. We went to the National Botanic Gardens in Dublin on Saturday morning, it was lovely and empty. The boys enjoyed seeing the hot houses with palm trees and cactus. Then we went to Granny and Granddads for lunch. Myself and mammy did a tour of the second hand shops in town i bought a gardening magasine 2009 January addition for a euro. It has a good article about growing a forest garden, myself and Steffen would love a small woodland area on our smallholding.

Today we did jobs around the house and Steffen fixed the hen house door we had been closing it using a corrugated piece of metal and a block for ages. He also planted out two damson trees. I took the three kids up the forest behind the house in the afternoon, Elke was on my back in a sling. Jonas was keen to go deeper in to the forest off the beaten track, but Thorben was afraid.