and almost over a year

Stopping to look at things that interest the boys and catch their eye as we walk here and there is becoming second nature. We try not to rush and leave more time than is necessary to get from a to b and remember the journey is as important than the destination. Today it was this 'beautiful' (Pumpkin) flower. It's not the best picture but we were examining it for a good 5 minutes and discussing it's features and what contributed to making it a 'beautiful' flower.
Bean took this photo of Plum. A child's view on the world always interests me. The boys seem to insist on approaching her from this direction most of the time and I can't fathom why. It's never enough to hold her hand, it's definitely all about eye contact and getting those smiles and giggles!

Bean turns five this week and is busy preparing for his birthday party. He asked for one and I said that he would have to help with the organising, this also gives me the opportunity to manage some party expectations. He is busy painting posters and making planets (it is going to be a space party.) It fascinates me that Bean choose to paint numerous number five posters today adding to his knowledge of both reading, writing and number value, amongst other things, all admirable things to be doing at his age and stage and certainly on a par with his peers educated in school but I was pondering the learning that has now been embedded because he choose to do this himself, I'm sure it must be worth more this way (will look it up.)
Bean also picked up his Australia books again today, he was very interested in it's position on the planet.

Pumpkin watched an I can cook episode today and announced that he would like to make the recipe they had made. It involved strawberries which I knew we didn't have but said we could look up the recipe and buy the ingredients to make it. Unfortunately the recipe was not on the associated website (boo) but there were plenty of others (yay.) Instead we looked at a couple until we found one that he liked the sound of and as it happened I had all the ingredients in the cupboard so today's baking effort was honey tea bread. We'll be taking it out with us for our snack tomorrow...thank you Pumpkin.