Yesterday afternoon I was exhausted after a big weekend and then suddenly, our home filled with this warm, golden light and all of our tired flowers on the kitchen table came to life again. After a huge boy focused couple of days, it was so lovely to have some quiet and gentle beauty radiating from the centre of the house. 
Archie's party was a great success. 11 knights and wizards charged through the farm facing all sorts of challenges and ended with a good round of archery (which was then repeated when all of the Dad's turned up). Archie funnily enough loves archery - my mum suggested when he was born that we name him Archer. Maybe we should have listened...
Straight through the chooks heart.
During the quest they had to rescue Princess Gania who had be captured against her will and tied to the fire crystal tree. Little did they know she was under a terrible curse and had to be freed from that as well. Which they did.
A few touches of prettiness. You just have to have them.
Candles floating in the (jelly) moat.
I think he liked his cake.
It took me a while to cut into it. I did in the end but with surgical precision.
A sneak peek of the cake. But first...
A nice friendly photo begin this post. The goody bags are made so now all the children have to do is fill them up with precious things from their quest.
Time for the frightening part. I finished the castle cake today and to my dismay, found it completely overrun by tiny, arms bearing skeletons. You know how it can be.
They started shooting at the troops galloping around the moat (which has since been filled with green jelly).
Merlin leaped onto the battlements and started working his magic. The treasure is too important to be jeopardised by a minor skirmish.
See what I mean. Good treasure. Tasty treasure.
Now can you guess what this is. Here is an eye.
And here is a tail.
That's right, it is the incredibly rare 'Snowblood' dragon from the frostiest peaks of the Snowbrides Mountains. It is hard to make out but her wings are velvety and her strange eyes are almost crochet-like which is a particular marker to this species. She will be the final prize to be found in the quest tomorrow. I hope she doesn't become too frightened... I know I am.
Why is it that I find it enormously difficult to think about cooking dinner but the moment I am required to find a way to incorporate edible goblin hearts into a recipe my mind races into overdrive?
Today we had the first truly cold, Autumnal morning. Hugo has Thursday free (he is very busy with pre-school don't you know) and snuggled on the couch with the blanket I began last year. Now with the weather changing I am beginning to look forward to finishing it, however, it will be firmly off my list until we return from the south island. At the moment I am busily knitting Hugo a vest which will hopefully be worn while we are down there.
There is no time to craft just for fun and evolution at the moment and I am starting to climb the walls. As a result I thought I would post pictures of the things I am thinking about, colours I would like to use, projects I would like to finish and paintings I would like to add blossom to.
The boys had their cousins to stay last night and as you can imagine, there was lots of excitement. They expressed this by sticky-taping feathers to their hands and feet, putting on capes and jumping off the picnic table for until dinner time. It was very hard convincing them to remove their feathers for dinner but you know, it just seemed wrong to feed them chicken while they were covered in feathers. So if you are in need of a weekend activity, I say get out the sticky-tape and pluck a bird or two (don't really, feathers on the ground or from the craft stash are fine).
And when they were all tucked up in bed I knitted a new winter headband. I am still crazy for the stripes. Have a good weekend XXOOXXOOXX.
