Lavender Bath Salts

We having been making lots of homemade gifts for friends and family for Christmas. For a couple of years now we have been giving foodie things such as jam, chutney, sauces, and chocolates. So this year I decided to try something different.

I made this with my five year daughter and how we did it:

We added 2kg of Epsom Salt into a metal bowl. Onto that my daughter dropped 180 drops of Lavender Essential Oil. Add 1kg of bicarbonate of soda and mix together. Put into jars. I used 200ml kilner jars, and this filled thirteen. Once I had finished I decided that some dried lavender would look nice in the jars, so this will be a job for tomorrow. They will then be tied together with some ribbon. My daughter will take some to school for her teacher and TA, hopefuuly they will enjoy them.

A month of mixed blessings.

I have felt that my feet have hardly touched the floor this last month.

My middle child turned three, she is also completely dry during the day. Her speach is coming along in leaps and bounds, but we are waiting for an appointment with the Speach Therapist. She is a constant source of amazement to us, and every birthday is a very proud day. I also find it a time when I reflect to her terrible start in life, but I hope that in future years i will not think about it.

My baby is now one, that year flew by so fast. He had a great day with a little tea party. He gets more confident each day with his walking, and he is a very cheaky little chap.

Mr Sunflower was made redundant in the same week as his birthday, so it wasn't much fun for him. The owners of the restaurant decided to shut it, so there was nothing that could be done. However he got straight back out there looking for work, so we will see what happens. I feel a lot more confident this time because I have learn't lots of skills from people at the www.selfsufficientish.com its well worth a look, especially the forum.

Flossie Kitten

Meet our latest addition to the Sunflower family her name is Flossie, and she is 13 weeks old. She still can be a little bit shy but I can't really blame her in this mad house. The children love her and hopefully she will fill the hole left by our last cat. Here she is with the little mouse that I made for her.

Finger Puppets

My eldest daughter decided that after I made her a cushion for school,that I can now make anything. She wanted a mouse finger puppet, so I made her one from odd and edds of felt that I had. So then her younger sister decided that she now wanted one. I got a bit excited by this and made her a fairy. Since then I have been busy making a princess. I can't make up my mind whether they are good enough to give as gifts? I would welcome any thoughts that anyone has please. I would either give a couple of different finger puppets, or a tooth fairy bag (please see earlier post) with a fairy puppet.

New Chickens

Last week with the remains of my birthday money I went a bought myself two more hens. We had lost one of our other girls in July and she was sadly missed, I was also having to buy egg as the other girls pretty much stopped laying. We decided after much thought to stick with hybrids, and we bought a Speckledy Hen and a Bluebelle. The Speckledy is called Poppy. The Bluebelle has been named Dr Mumbo by the ever crazy hubby.

This is a photo of their first adventure in the garden.

Garden Produce

I have a normalish sized garden, on an end of terrace plot on an average housing estate. But I am moving away from pretty flowers and trying to feed my family from it.

The last few years we have been growing lots of fruit and veg in various sized pots. This year I managed to squeeze a Raspberry and Goosegog bush in the boarders. Along with some thyme and lemon balm. At the moment we are eating spinach, mache, raspberrys, strawberry, peas, watercress and rocket.

We also have four Mrs Chickens. These are called Dottie, Daisy, Rosetta and Shadow. Shadow has just started laying after being broody for three weeks. I lifted her off her nest and realised that she was trying to hatch some snail shells, crazy bird. So at the moment we are getting four eggs a day.

I have bigger and better plans for next year. I am planning to build two new raised beds, so I have much more room to grow goodies.

Where has my baby gone??

My son is sadly the last of the sunflower seedlings, he is now seven months old and time has flown by. I am always so grateful that he is a strong, happy and healthy baby. This afternoon I was thrilled when he sat up on his own. This evening we where sat in the lounge when he crawled, I was amazed. Arrrr, where are those stair gates??? What a clever boy, two milestones in one day. I wish that he would slow down a tiny bit, just to give me time to enjoy the rest of this precious first year.

This is him an hour or so after he was born, by emergency c-section weighting 9lb 2oz.

Elderflower Cordial

Yesterday I spent a fun few hours collecting Elderflower with one of my ishy friends, this included lots of chatting, tea and homemade cake.

Last year we followed the Cordial recipe on the http://www.selfsufficientish.com/ This is a fab site full of useful info, with a forum full of very helpful people. I have learn't so much from them including how to make bread confidently, and lots of help with keeping my chickens.

However this year we made it up as we went along. We borrowed a huge industrial catering pan and filled it half up with water, adding sugar, juicing some lemons and oranges and adding. Boiling all of this up, then adding your Elderflower heads, leave for 48hours. Then strain through a muslin and bottle. I then put the bottles in a hot water bath and boiled for 5 mins, hopefully that will preserve the cordial for about a year.

My eldest is converting her friends to what she calls Princess Bubble Juice. She even took some into her reception class as they have been learning about flowers.

Father's Day and Firsts

Today has been a day of firsts here at the Sunflower Gal house.

Our eldest daughter lost her first tooth, she was so excited at the thought that the tooth fairy will visit tonight. Yesterday I bought felt to make her a little bag to put the tooth in, but it beat me to it.

Our other daughter did her first wee on the potty, Daddy and I where so proud as this has been a long time coming.

Our baby son was seven months old yesterday, so today was his first Father's Day.

Happy fifth Father's Day babe, your a wonderful daddy to the tribe xxx