Starting School

Today was the big day for Alasdair (5).

He had been counting down the days this week until he would get to be like one of the big boys.

He looked so smart in his uniform, which he laid out nice and neatly last night.

Starting school never seems so daunting for a younger sibling. Alasdair has made the train journey to take his older brothers in to school since he was born, and so is well used to the routine!

The boys all attend a Gaelic Medium Primary School, where, as the name suggests, they are taught entirely through the medium of Gaelic. They learn how to read and write in Gaelic before any English reading is introduced, which is not until the end of their third year.

The reason for the train journey to school is that our local council doesn't have a Gaelic school. Instead they have an agreement with Edinburgh council that they will pay for the transport of any children in their area to allow them to attend the Edinburgh school. There is one other family at the school who live near us and so also travel in by train, which is why there are a couple of girls in the photo below - just in case you were wondering! We are able to take turns of escorting the children to and from school, which you can imagine is quite helpful.

The catchment high school for the Gaelic school is the only high school in Edinburgh that offers Gaelic as a subject, as well as some other subjects in Gaelic depending on what Gaelic speaking staff they have, and so the older boys still travel into the city for high school. 

The Primary school also happens to be almost right next to the office where my husband works and so most days he is able to do the morning run. Very handy!

Now, take a look at those two high school boys above again.

James' first day of school photos (back in 2005) are not on this computer but I did find Calum's. 

This week he started high school, this was him starting Primary school in 2007.

And with James, then 7, and David, then 21 months.

I'm not sure who has changed the most, James or David! Calum looks reasonably similar, I think anyway!

Fast forward to 2010 and here is David on his first day at school, along with his best friend. They still remain very good friends and I think he's still on her list of boys she might like to marry!

So, after seeing them all round about his age, which boy do you think Alasdair is most like? I can't really decide!

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Back to School

Just like that, the summer holidays are over. 

For the oldest three boys anyway.

Calum started high school.

It didn't seem quite such a big scary thing for him to start high school as he already has an older brother there to look out for him. When James started high school a couple of years ago it meant him having to get off the train a stop before the one we get off at for the Primary school and walk most of the way to school on his own until he got to the place where he meets his friends. That was a pretty big step for him but with Calum it's not such a big thing as he will always have his brother to chum along, and vice versa too.

He really enjoyed his first day at high school, and the little bit more independence it gave him.

James (14) started his third year in high school, although technically they move up to their new timetables in the last three weeks of the summer term. He has now chosen his subjects for his exams at the end of fourth year and is really enjoying being able to do the subjects he has chosen to do rather than having to do a little bit of everything.   

His favourite subjects are Art, Music, Craft & Design and Physics.

David (8) started Primary 5 today. Everything about his interests can be summed up in the fact that he wanted this photo to be taken with a football at his feet. And that once I had taken it he asked me if I was sure I had got the football in!

Alasdair (5) is about to start Primary 1 but because the school staggers the start dates of the P1s he won't start until Friday. 

He's looking forward to being like the big boys, although he did ask me if Fraser would be OK at home without him around to help me!

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Anniversary Cake

A couple of weeks ago my husband and I celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary.

I'm not sure what that girl would have thought if you had told her that 16 years later she would be the mother of 5 boys!

I know she wouldn't swap it for anything now!



Anyway, in my opinion all celebrations need cake.

My first choice of cake would always be chocolate, but it wouldn't be my husband's and so I decided to make a carrot cake instead. That way I could even kid myself that it was healthy too!

I was aiming for an old fashioned, rustic kind of look with the cake and didn't want to decorate it too much but I did want it to look different from an everyday kind of cake. That's when I remembered about this printable cake bunting I had pinned to a Pinterest board a while back. (Click here for the printable)








It was just the look I was after for the cake and you could use it for any occasion.

Rustic and old fashioned, a bit like our marriage?

Well, I guess it's old fashioned by today's standards but maybe not quite so rustic!

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Make it Monday - How does your garden grow?

Remember these vegetable boxes that my oldest boy helped me build at Easter time? (I wrote about them in this post here.)

Well, although it took me a while after I wrote that post before I actually got the chance to get anything planted in them, they are coming along quite nicely now.

I popped out in between our heavy rain showers to get these photos of them tonight.

In the first box I have potatoes, which should be ready for eating in a few more weeks.

In my middle box there is some cabbage and swiss chard. The leaves from the potato box are spilling over on one side and the courgette (zucchini) plant is pushing it's way over from the other side! There is also a rouge sunflower appeared at the back of this box! I have sunflowers growing in other parts of the garden so I can only assume a bird stole a seed and it ended up in here! 

My courgette plant is doing well, with quite a few lovely fat, green courgettes on it. I actually have my sister in law to thank for this plant as she planted a few extra seeds in case they didn't all work. They did, and so she gave me one of them.

There are more tatties in the box with the courgettes.

As well as the veg growing in the boxes, I have a few other bits and pieces. I  have some more potatoes growing in a couple of bags.

I'm particularly pleased with these lovely shiny pots of basil I have on our patio. I grew these from seed and they took ages to get going but now they look so healthy. I love fresh basil and the smell from the pots is divine too!

Also on the patio is a pot of yellow tomatoes.

And I always like to have a few pots of cut and come again lettuce and rocket on the patio too.

August has been much wetter than July was, but still nothing to complain about by our Scottish summer standards. Last night, though, was decidedly cooler here and quite windy. The wind has finished off my lilies for this summer!

Last night I thought the air was smelling a touch autumnal, although I hope that's not the end of our summer quite yet.

I'm not the only person who thinks that the seasons smell differently, am I?

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9 months old

Sweet little Mighty Mouse (as he's sometimes known in this house) is now 9 months old and so I thought I should record some more of his milestones here, as much for my own sake as for anyone else's!

 

At 9 months old he had his first turn in a swing.

 

 

In keeping with his lovely nature he just sat in the swing and hummed contentedly to himself while it gently swung back and forth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From around the age of 7 months he began to push himself backwards if you put him on the floor on his tummy. It wasn't quite crawling, but he could maneuver himself back a few paces, turn a little, manoeuvre a bit more and so get to a new place.

 

A few days after we arrived at my parents' for our holiday at the start of July, aged 8 months, he suddenly worked out how to go forwards. We were at my granny's house and he had his eye on her Zimmer frame. I had him sitting on the floor and then he just slowly crawled forwards as if he had always been able to do it! He was pretty chuffed to reach the Zimmer and to be able to play with the wheels on it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Within a few days he had worked out how to get from crawling position back up to sitting. All within a month of learning to sit up on his own.

 

 

Now, a month later, there is no stopping him. He crawls about from one part of the room to the next, eyeing up his latest adventure.

 

He's not just crawling now, but in the last week or so he has begun to constantly pull himself up on things. Anything steady enough will do!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At first he would get a little excited and forget to hold on and then plop to the ground, but in the last couple of days I've noticed him realise that he can gently lower himself to the ground, although he doesn't always know how to and will give you a little shriek as he asks for help.

 

He finds things that aren't toys just as interesting as his own toys. Often more so!

 

One such thing that he loves to do is sit with a book and just open and close it, over and over again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He is getting better at taking his dinner now, and will eat savoury as well as sweet, which he wasn't too keen on at first. He still isn't such a fan of lumpy food and dinner is the only solid food he is taking at the moment. Mama's milk seems to be doing the job of getting him to those milestones just fine though!

 

He has four teeth, two top front and two bottom front, that came through at around 6/7 months. The bottom teeth bothered him a little the day they broke through but the top ones didn't phase him at all.

 

As for his eczema, well it remains well controlled. I was looking through some photos of him from the Spring time and you would hardly believe the difference in him. He still has a wide assortment of creams and ointments, and I still put some Milton in his bath a couple of times a week, but on the whole his skin looks great. He does get itchy hands, wrists and face quite often but can be easily distracted before he gets too bad. The worst time for him to scratch is in his car seat or pram so we always make sure one of the older boys sits beside him in the car to keep his hands occupied and help him resist the temptation to scratch.

 

 

I love to watch him as he goes off on a wee adventure and to think of what is going through his wee head as he tries out something new, or picks some potatoes off the vegetable rack to play with, or pulls himself up to look into a box, but my favourite moments are still ones like this....

 

 

 

...not just when he is asleep but when he cuddles quietly in my arms.

 

These days won't last forever, which makes them all the more precious.

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Summer Holidays - Week 4 - The week of the heatwave

Those weather forecasters got it right after all, last week. The heatwave did hit after all and every day saw temperatures of nearly 30C, which for us Scots is pretty hot.

I think the heat maybe did something to the internet though, as all over the island there were patches where the internet was down!

At the beginning of the week Alasdair (5) helped my dad out in the garden for a bit. Under the watchful eye of Fraser.

Also earlier on in the week, my husband took the three older boys to help take the peats home for an old friend of his. His old friend also happens to be a journalist who then wrote an article about bringing his peats home, and so I'll share more about 'the peats' in another post this week.

He had enough peats to give a generous amount to my parents as well and so David (8) was only too keen to show us how he could work the tipper on the lorry they used to collect them.

Alasdair managed to pick up the smaller ones and helped to sweep up the mess.

We called in to visit some other old friends of ours one evening. The dads and older boys went out on their wee fishing boat while the younger children stayed with the mums. I tried to to explain the basics of crochet without Fraser grabbing hold of the wool too much!

When the fishermen returned with about 10 mackerel, some of the children stayed out bouncing long into the evening.

By the middle of the week we decided the best way to beat a heatwave is to hit the beach. Again.

This beach is the one from the village my dad is from. The best beach on the island - if you ask my dad! It is a rather lovely one, and not the easiest to get to so you can almost guarantee to have it to yourself. Or if there is anyone else on it they are probably relatives of mine! 

That sea was gloriously warm to swim in!

The boys love the freshwater springs at this beach and always bring a bottle of it home for my dad. 

Another day we headed to the west of the island, to the village where the Cbeebies programme Katie Morag is filmed. Alasdair is a big fan and wanted to see Katie Morag's house.

For those who haven't heard of Katie Morag, it is a series of children's books. They are set on the fictional Island of Struay but Lewis made the perfect match for filming the TV programme based on the books.

The animals used on the show belong to friends of ours and so we popped in to say 'hello' to them too. Here are some of the boys with Katie Morag's Granny's dog.

In a couple of episodes there are some highland cows and these are the stars of those episodes.

While we were on the west of the island we also spent the afternoon at another beach.

Don't you think these waters could pass for tropical ones? The sand was even so hot that you could barely walk on it!

The sea on this side of the island is the Atlantic ocean so there is nothing else out there until you hit Canada.

The waves are also much stronger there too, although they don't look it in these photos, with some strong currents, and so despite it's beauty this beach wasn't as good for swimming as the previous ones we have been to.

Still, it was lovely for cooling down in if you didn't venture in too far.

Fraser found the splash of the waves hilarious.

When they had had enough of the sea the boys raced up the giant sand cliff so that they could throw themselves down it again.

And as well as all those beach trips there was also plenty of shinty around the house.

Some more barbecues.

Some tired out little boys.

 And the chance to spend time with family. Like great granny, seen here with Fraser, who despite being a little unsure when sitting on other peoples knees, always behaves impeccably when he sits with great granny.

It was quite a week!

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