happy christmas peppa pig

before i mention anything else, i would like to first and foremost remember the brave men and women who lost their lives on this day back in 1941. today is the anniversary of one of the deadliest attacks on American soil. Today let us remember all those involved in Pearl Harbour; all those who fought, all those who died. THIS is the post i put up last year, which interestingly enough is the most read post on the blog. over two years of blogging and it is this post that recieves the most attention. hopefully that means people still have interest in american history and a desire to cherish those brave soliders who fought on that fateful day.

let us remember and honour those veterans today with our thoughts and prayers.

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if i could paint with little e every day i would. it is not realistic because if we painted every day, every single piece of clothing e owns would be covered in primary coloured paint stains. the mess is unbelievable. as i think about my painting sessions with eleri, i realise that there is a parallel between craft time with team williams and parenting with team williams. when we paint or use markers, there are boundaries- not on the walls or furniture, not intentionally on the clothes, only on the tile floor and no eating the paint. but everything else is 100% ok. e is free to explore and create within those boundaries. once she dipped her feet into the paint and ran around the kitchen floor making little green footprints. e ran in circle after circle until there was no paint left on her feet. she continued to run in circles, only now she was pointing at her footprints and giggling. i want eleri to know that she has the freedom to be herself. to help create her world to be whatever she wants it to be. but she must stay within her boundaries. when she crosses the line, the discipline is swift.

that is exactly how rhys and i parent. eleri has wide boundaries, lots of freedom. but she is expected to operate within her boundaries. as way of a mid paragraph disclaimer, we are aware that e is only 16 months. her boundaries/freedoms are age appropriate. we base our restrictions and our discipline of eleri's cognitive ability. we know what she does and doenst understand. we have not set an unrealistic set of boundaries, but given her an appropriate perimeter on which she can explore and learn in the ways she chooses. our approach is based on trust. when she is older, say teenager, we would like to parent the same way. for example, we will trust that she is where she says she is, and will keep us informed on what is no going. no curfew will be necessary because she will keep us in the loop. we will trust e that will act according to biblical principles and choose to honour not only her father and mother but her Heavenly Father as well. perhaps it sounds unrealistic, but our aim is to create a family unit of love, respect and trust. and even though the topic of today was only about making things, i have included the extra bit on parenting because i want to look back on this, remember how we started off parenting and see what happened. that is the joy of blogging/journal-ing. it is a great way to keep detailed records.

with that said, reverb 10 for 6 December:

Make. What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it?

peppa pig christmas drawings. eleri loves peppa pig. i am not even sure how we came to watch peppa pig for the first time. but e simply can not get enough. praise baby, baby einstein, your baby can read....nothing on peppa pig. which is bizarre because it is quite possibly the most poorly drawn cartoon i have ever seen. it is a 2D drawing of a pig- the body is a giant circle, the head is rather phallic shaped with stick legs and arms. peppa pig, zoe zebra, susie sheep and so on. the episodes are 4 minutes each and eleri could watch them for hours.

the other day we got a peppa pig magazine for the car trip to and from London. it came with stickers, colouring book, crayons and cut outs. here are the results of our most recent creative time....






for the backdrop, we used cereal boxes that we opened up, paint, markers and peppa pig cut outs. we put some sticky dots on the back of the figures and the little one stuck them down on the paper. and she may have gotten one stuck on her cheek...

as for other things, i am nearly finished with a scarf i am knitting and a blanket for eleri is about half finished. i would LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to make a quilt. my mother in law has a sewing machine and if i could find the time, you can bet that i would make a quilt. one day.