In the early years of my blog life, I used to join in with some other bloggers and write a weekly post about the things I had been loving for that week. The blog link was started and hosted by NZ blogger PaisleyJade, and the aim of the link up was for us all to focus on all the little things in our lives that make us happy. Because looking back it's these little things that make up the big things. It's also a great mindset to purposefully look out for things that have made you happy, no matter how small, in what may have otherwise been a mundane/difficult/run of the mill/whatever else sort of week.
Several years ago the link-ups stopped happening. Social media had changed so much and the way in which we were all sharing our posts had moved from blogging platforms and email across to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. There were fewer and fewer bloggers linking up the old way, and fewer and fewer comments being left the old way too, so the ladies hosting the link-up felt it was time to retire it.
I always meant to carry on my Friday Things I'm Loving posts, as I'm a great believer in looking out for the little things, but without the weekly reminder it kind of fell by the wayside. Now though, I'm determined to start mine up again. Better late than never!
So here are the things I've been loving this past week.
Starting off with looking for a bright side to the not very summery weather that has hit us the last couple of weeks.
Fraser (3) loves his yellow wellies, and will wear them even if it's not raining. He also has a pair of wellies for one of his favourite teddies, Blue. This week, as it was the last meeting of our Parent & Toddlers group at church before the summer holidays, we had planned to have a little Teddy Bear's Picnic. Fraser had really been looking forward to the chance to bring his favourite teddy to Toddlers. The night before the picnic, when he went upstairs to bed he looked out Blue's wellies and put them on him so that he would be ready to go to the picnic. On the morning of the picnic, while I got things into the car, he and Blue enjoyed lots of splashing in puddles together.
He loved the Teddy Bear's Picnic - which we hosted indoors as a result of all the rain!
Fraser continued to make me smile in the rain, despite the fact that it was still pouring down a couple of days later. This time it was his froggy umbrella smiling up at me as I pushed his pram that brightened the greyness of all the rain.
~~~~~~~~
David was keen to play Scrabble one night this week. He's always struggled with his reading and spelling, and was finally diagnosed with dyslexia this school year, and so this would usually be the last thing he would choose to play. But his confidence in his ability to spell has come on a lot this year, largely thanks to the extra help he has been getting from the excellent learning support teacher at school. So despite my large ironing pile that I had planned to get through that evening, I set it aside to join him and Calum in a game of Scrabble. Things were going well for me until I saw my second selection of letters!
~~~~~~
Has anyone else been collecting all the Lego cards from Sainsbury's? Our collection got off to a great start, and we were given cards from various people too, but then having so many so quickly meant that we soon ended up with a huge pile of doublers. By trading some of these we eventually ended up needing just four to complete our collection, and this week our store held the last of their swap shops. So we popped along, got those last four cards and then gave them the rest of our monster pile of doublers to help out others.
~~~~~~
Last Sunday we enjoyed Sunday lunch at my hubby's sister's house. Whenever we go there for lunch, rain or shine it will involve a walk with her dog, usually to the school playing fields nearby.
And once at the playing fields we always have to stop for a while at the long jump sand box, where everyone shows of their jumping skills.
While we were out we even managed to get a rare photo of me and my boys all together.
(Along with my sister in law's dog, who is perhaps the most photographed dog in all of Scotland!)
~~~~~~
I'm really loving how my little vegetable garden is coming along in the new section at the bottom of our extended garden. I'll leave more about that for another gardening post, but this week when I popped out to plant out some things from the greenhouse, in between rain showers, I spotted some beautiful little Forget-me-not flowers at the bottom of the garden.
I've always loved Forget-me-nots. They are such tiny and delicate things. They also always remind me of my Granny Tong, simply because I remember I first ever saw and heard about what these flowers were when I was quite young, at her house. They always grew beside the wall at her house. So the name seems even more appropriate!
I was also pleased to see that there is the tiniest little fledgling pumpkin on one of my plants. I still have very low expectations of these ever amounting to much, especially if how little sunshine we have had in the last couple of weeks continues for much more of the summer, but a little bit of me hopes that they might just surprise me.
~~~~~~
Finally, and probably the biggest thing we are all loving this week, is that school finished up today for the summer!
It was also a big day for David (11) as it was his last ever day of Primary school. He was a little bit sad, as the staff at his school are so lovely, and he has so enjoyed the responsibility of being a P7 and being able to help out with the younger classes, but he is more excited about joining his older brothers at high school after the summer.
