New Ballet Student

Yesterday Hannah had not been her normal happy self and at Rachel's ballet lesson she had a sore tummy. This morning Ruth woke up late and had a terribly sore tummy. She ate some breakfast and then lay on the couch till she felt better.

Hannah kept her company. Thankfully Hannah seems fine today. I was hoping Ruth's sore tummy would pass just as quickly which it did.
For lunch I made poached eggs for the first time ever. I still have to work on getting the yolk softer but I think this will be much easier to achieve than with soft boiled eggs. The girls really enjoyed them.

I finally got around to finishing up Ruth's skirt today. She loved helping me with the sewing. She took all the pins out on her own which she was excited to tell Dad about.

Ruth then took her first photo. OK - this was about the 6th one she took as she slowly adjusted so that my head was not chopped off.

The skirts all done. Almost - they were so excited about wearing them - I still have a little bit of fraying to do on Ruth's hem.

I finally got to ask Rachel's ballet teacher about the possibility of Ruth starting next year. I knew she took 5 year old girls last year but Ruth will only be 4 1/2 at the beginning of next year. Unfortunately she does not plan to start any new groups. There is also no more time on Tuesdays as she is already teaching the whole afternoon she is here. She has got new 6 year old joining the current 6 year old group next term. So I started wondering if Ruth would be able to do the work this group just did for exams. I have Rachel's primary exam music and so Ruth had her first lesson with Rachel this afternoon. I was amazed how quickly she started picking things up. This is after just one lesson and she is doing it totally on her own. Yes, she goes left first instead of right. I have helped her to correct that. It was because Rachel always goes right first and forgot to be a mirror as the teacher.

Granola

My friend Lynn posted the recipe for this Granola on her blog yesterday and so I decided to give it a try. It was delicious and even the girls and Brendon enjoy it. It's great to have a snack that does not have much sugar but all those other good things in it.
Thanks so much Lynn. :-)
Here is the recipe:
• 2 cups rolled oats
• 1 cup shredded coconut
• 1 cup sliced almonds or chopped peanuts *I used chopped walnuts
• ½ cup seeds (pumpkin, sunflower, sesame etc) *I used those three and linseeds
• 1 cup chopped fruit (raisins, dried apricots, cranberries, dates etc) *I just used dried apricots and dates
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 3 tablespoons (42 grams) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 1/4 cup (55 grams) Demerara or light brown sugar
• 2/3 cup (160 ml) honey
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract *I forgot this as I normally do :-)
Turn oven on to 180 degrees and place the rack in the center of the oven. Grease AND line a cookie sheet with spray and baking paper.
In a large bowl mix together the rolled oats, coconut and nuts. Transfer to the baking sheet and bake for about 15 minutes while the oven is heating, stirring occasionally. Remove from oven and transfer the oat mixture back to the mixing bowl, discarding the baking paper. Stir in the seeds, fruit, salt, and cinnamon.
Melt the butter, brown sugar, honey, and vanilla in a small saucepan, placed over medium heat. Once the sugar mixture comes to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for a couple of minutes. Remove the saucepan from the heat and pour over the oat mixture. With a large spoon or spatula, stir the granola, making sure all the dry ingredients are completely coated with the butter mixture.
Pour the granola into the greased pan and, with damp hands, lightly press the granola evenly into the pan.
Bake for about 12-15 minutes, or until light golden brown. Remove from the oven and let cool for about 20 minutes before cutting into bars, fingers or squares. *Once it was firm enough I tipped the granola out onto a cutting boards so that I could make nice cuts with my big sharp knife. Can be stored at room temperature for several days.

Clowning around

Hannah is such a clown. She really had us laughing so much today.
Rachel has enjoyed using the Math-U-See songs to learn the skip counting facts (along with her blocks). She decided to "play her guitar" while she sang.
And then obviously her sisters wanted a turn too. I just love Hannah's guitar. And then what gets us laughing every time we watch this video is what she does when I say "point". I did not notice when I was filming (otherwise I would have said "point with your finger"). You can see that these girls do a lot of ballet dancing in this house. :D
Ruth also wanted a go at this song.
But I had to film this one as well. I was so surprised to hear her singing along. She does not know the words for the song part yet, so I suggested she make a clicking sound with the music. So when Rachel comes in to sing - that is the funny thing she is trying to do with her mouth. Eventually she gives up the idea. :-)

Celery and sewing

This afternoon the whole family got involved in helping make a HUGE pot of soup. While Rachel was washing the celery Hannah asked for a piece. She gave her a small piece from the top and we were all so surprised to see her chomp away at the leaves even.

Once the leaves were finished on this one I suggested she rather get a thicker piece. She was quite pleased with how juicy it was and ate a whole stalk eventually. I know we will be hoping to grow celery again next year. :-)
We had bacon and eggs for lunch yesterday and today and I used the left over of the pack to add to the soup with some mince. We had the soup for dinner and the change from the normal vegetable only soup was really good. I think the bacon had more effect then the meat actually. Now I understand why people use bacon bones in their soup. Yummmmyyyyyy.

Once the soup was done Rachel got stuck into her sewing. She was so excited to have it almost finished in just two days.
Here I am working on one for Hannah. I still have to work out how to use the pieces I have left to make one for Ruth.

So very pleased. She still needs to fray the hem but she is very excited about the result.
Well done Rachel.

Chim Chiminey

Our fireplace has not been working wonderfully the last week or two. We often get smoke coming out the front when we open the door and it really can stink the house out. So Brendon organized to borrow some brushes and got up there this morning.
Last year the chimney sweep had come and had put wire mesh around the top to stop birds making nests. The mesh was so blocked up with soot though. The bottom section that Brendon is taking off in this photo was especially bad and so we decided to rather leave this bit off. At least there is still the mesh over the top which would be more of a temptation to the birds in summer.
It was quite scary for all of us with Brendon up there. It's a high room to start with (being a double story house) and then the chimney itself is incredibly high.
When Brendon got down he said he finally understand the Mary Poppins song:
Chim chiminey
Chim chiminey
Chim chim cher-ee!
A sweep is as lucky
As lucky can be
He said they are lucky if they don't fall down and break their necks. We were all pleased when it was done. What a brave husband I have. He does not like heights any more than I do.
Then we had to work out how to get all the loose soot out the bottom of the chimney. We figured out how to move things in the fireplace and got that cleaned out. We were thankful to get the fire going again. We had let it die out last night so that it was cold enough to work with this morning but it was a cold day today and so it made us all very thankful for what the fireplace does in keeping us all nice and warm.

It amazes me how within the last month or two Hannah has all of a sudden just taken to books. These old books from Brendon's mother are her absolute favorite. You heard her reading from The Three Bears the other day and she loves paging through and finding the stories we have already read to her.
I had started to wonder if she would ever be interested in books. She always seemed just to busy to sit still for long enough. So it's really great for me to see.

Rachel got started on her old jean skirt today. She cut along the seams so that we had nice pieces to work with. Then we moved them around and worked out a bit of a pattern.

Rachel really enjoys sewing and is in her element when she is busy with things like this. She even loves sewing on buttons for Dad. :-)

IDTA Grade 2

Rachel was very excited about her Ballet exam today. They go in to do the exam in groups of 3.

She was just bubbling with excitement as she waited for her turn.

Waiting for the bell to ring letting them know the examiner is ready for them.
Rachel said it went really well. Thankfully we will have the results within 3 weeks. So the wait will not be as long as last time.

As a friend was watching the little ones we used the time to get some fruit and veg shopping done. This must be the most citrus fruit I have bought in one go but I don't even think it will last a week.

We also stopped at a recycling type shop to drop off our old TV (as nobody wanted it). And while we were there Rachel and I went through some of the old clothes that are piled up. And I mean really piled up. Rachel thought it was so much fun walking along the top of this massive pile of clothes. It was over a meter high in the back of the room. I really should have taken a photo. Unfortunately we did not find any nice winter material but we did find a number of nice big items of clothing that can be used as material as Rachel learns. It's great to have material for free because if you make a mistake you can always throw it away. So Rachel is very excited about the sewing she will get to do over the next few months. And who knows, perhaps she may even get some items of clothing out of the experience. :-)

More snowflakes

Today we made some more snowflakes. This time it was easy enough for the little ones too. We were pleased that the toilet rolls that we have been collecting have white inside so we did not even need to paint them.

While Rachel was busy upstairs with something Ruth helped me hang the snowflakes up (we had extra big ones from yesterday that were too big for the place mats). When Rachel came down stairs we both waited to see how quickly she would notice. And we were not disappointed. She said "Coooooool" before she was even off the bottom step. :-)

Snow and bears

Again Rachel was so very excited to wake up it snowing. Again it was on and off and there was a bit of rain too - so only a small amount build up on the ground. She is still hoping for a good snowfall to be able to build a snow man.

Yesterday I had looked at our autumn place mats and thought that we must make winter ones. I had searched a few sites for ideas and information on making snow flakes and it ended up the perfect day to make them.

We are all very pleased with the results. It was too hard for Ruth and Hannah to help but Rachel did an excellent job of creating different patterns and making different cuts.
And we thought you would love to hear Hannah telling her favourite story. The Daddy bear upset about his porridge that has been tasted and then the baby bear whose chair is broken. I love the voices she puts on. Hannah you are just so sweet and we all love you so very much. Thanks for all the smiles.

Big sisters are so much fun

It was a first for me today to ask Rachel to do a craft with the little ones. She had made Indian feather head bands at Brownies a couple of weeks ago and so I asked if she would help the younger girls make one each.

Helping Hannah stick her feathers in.

The finished products. Well done Rachel. They not only look great but you all worked really well together.

They also spent time this morning playing with play dough. This was Rachel's cake creation. These independent morning activities helped me to get so much house work done.

After lunch and before Hannah went off to her room we played a game to see how easy or hard it is to hear where a sound is coming from. First with both ears and then with only one ear. (Thanks Fiona for the idea.) The girls all loved being blindfolded and trying to guess where the music was coming from (and taking turns holding the music player). The first sense that we are focusing on with Ruth school work is hearing.

Good friends need time apart

Ruth and Hannah play so nicely together.

Ruth enjoying pony tales today.

Ruth got these animals through the Correspondence School but they were getting a little flattened by her little sister. So we spent some time this afternoon putting some bases in the bottom so they they stay up better. Ruth is always thrilled to do things on her own. She controlled the glue very well too.

Last week was a hard week for me as Hannah just would not nap in the afternoon. It was great chatting to a friend about it over the weekend and getting the encouragement I needed to insist on room time for Hannah every day even if she does not need to sleep. So I was ready today with a high goal (2 hours playing in her room quietly) but lower expectations (expecting that I may have to repeatedly speak to her and realizing that the training process may take quite a while).

The Lord was so good and it went really well today. There was no crying and I think it helped her to know that she was not expected to sleep but that she needed to just play on her own. She had books and toys and even had the dustbin up on her bed. At one point she was really quite and so I had a quick peep. She was sitting on Ruth's bed with the blanket over her like a tent. I was wondering what she was up to and so checked. She had gotten into Rachel's room and was unpacking her little bag from church with a note book and pen. So I took those away, told her to stay off Ruth's bed and the rest of the time went well. I checked in on her 15 min before her time was up and she was lying quietly on her bed talking to her teddies. At 3 when her 2 hours were up I went and found her fast asleep.

So we had a really good first day and I won't expect all the days to be as easy. I know there will be harder days as she tests the rules and checks to make sure that what I say is not going to change. And I will also be positive about her strong character and persistence (rather than thinking of her as being stubborn and difficult).
PS: A week later I can say that there have been harder days but we are getting there. Most days she does not sleep but the time out for all of us is good.

Capsicum

When Ruth and I did the veggie shopping when we were in town she chose a pack of red and yellow capsicum. But it's not summer and we are not having salads (and I am not that used to using them yet) so I decided it was a good excuse to have pizza.
I cut the capsicum up in preparation and the younger two girls ate almost half of it before I even started making the pizza. Brendon said we should take a photo so that we can remind them that they do like it. We have gotten so used to Rachel with her fussy tastes that it's always such a surprise for us when the younger two enjoy different things.

Fire

The owners of the property had a huge fire going today.

So we headed down after dinner to have a closer look.
It was amazing to watch how high the sparks went and to hear how loud it was.

And a view from the other side. When Rachel got home from Brownies they saw this huge fire and she thought it was the house of fire. It gave her such a fright. Once she had eaten I walked down with her and I wish I had my camera with because it had moved into the rest of the pile and the fire was at least 3 or 4 times as big.

Eggs and men

I tried unsuccessfully to make soft boiled eggs last week and so I gave it another go today. I can't believe I have never made them before. The girls really enjoyed them.

Ruth often manages to get a funny face in a photo.

And another first was to make ginger bread men (and faces to go with Ruth's study on senses). I can't believe it has taken me over 9 years of being a mother to finally make ginger bread men. But I am sure we will be making them often now. It was so much fun.

I think it helps me to finally have a art / craft / mess table always ready to go.

The girls did a great job and enjoyed talking about eyes, ears, noses and mouths. They did a good job of adding fingers to the men too.

Strike a pose

Yesterday Ruth and I headed into town to get her extensions put in. I forgot to take photos when we got home so I took some today.
Here she is striking a pose with her hair tied up behind.
She is very happy with it. She wanted to have extensions for her birthday so she had the motivation herself to sit through the 3 hours it took to get it done. Not to mention the hours (well over 7) that I put in getting the hair ready over the last week.
I asked that she put some corn rows on the top so that she does not have hair falling in her face. I think it looks really pretty.

She loves having long hair again. :-)

Hannah got her hair cut on Saturday morning and wanted to pose too. I had actually tried to trim her fringe and made a mess, so Lynn sorted it out a bit and cut off all the thin baby hair. So it was her first real haircut.

She is our little Maria now (from Sound of Music).