A visit to the Tide pools

October is a beautiful time of the year to visit the beaches in northern California.  We gathered the kids, our picnic lunch and met some friends over the hill at the beach.  It was a chilly morning, but we were able to catch a glimpse of the monarch butterflies with wings pulled tightly closed in the trees before heading towards the sun and up to the tide pools.

 Lots to see and explore.  It was a perfect outing for our group.

 

 

 

3 Things I'm grateful for:

1) Being so close to the ocean

2) Spending time with family and friends

3) Our beautiful natural world

Pumpkin Art

Painting pumpkins is just as fun as carving them.   Such creativity these two have!

3 Things I'm grateful for:
1) Beautiful outdoor weather in October for painting
2) That my littles still have a few mornings home with me a week
3) A quiet few moments just to watch

A Teddy Bear Tea

The kids were home sick all last week. Once we got past the feeling bad part of the illness mid- week it was really enjoyable having them home, snug as bug in a rug. We spent the whole week in pajamas, sleeping, eating, reading and resting. Such luxury! They were still a little slow on energy so there were lots of hugs and getting along well, which made it even more sweet.

Towards the end of the week when they were really feeling good I brought out the first book in the Paddington Bear series and began reading aloud all about his adventures in London with the Brown Family. It gave us the opportunity to pull out all my old London coffee table books and we went over what life was like in London for Paddington. What the taxi's looked like, the double-decker buses, the train stations, the shops, homes, parks, etc. In the book, Paddington often experiences tea so we set about to put together a tea luncheon party for some of our favorite teddy bear friends.

The kids had never had tea before. We decided to make it really fun by using some of my favorite vintage tea cups and dishes. We had a nice decaf herbal tea with milk and honey. For our lunch I made egg salad sandwiches cut out by a cute round shape, and open faced ham and tomato with cream cheese on a mini bagel. Fresh pears, blueberries and chocolate chip cookies rounded out the rest of our tea.
They loved the fancy tea cups and felt very special drinking out of the grown up cups and using the little mini gold spoons to stir up their tea. They all tried the tea but didn't care for it. Orange juice was later added.

We even laid out a special children's tea setting for our teddy bear friends. Bubba is so sweet making sure his teddy bear licks his saucer clean, just as Paddington Bear does the first time he sits down for tea with the Browns.

My busy girl really enjoyed the tea. She plays tea party a lot with her dolls. The boys, too really had fun. I look forward to many more fun improntu tea parties with all my children.

3 things I'm grateful for today:

1. Spending the morning at school with my oldest

2. Having a long lunch with my parents, sister, nephew, niece and 2 of my kids

3. My hubby for bathing the kids and putting them in their pj's so I could finish posting this post.