Green garden and looking grown up

Saturday 25th: Brendon was pleased to get some work done in the ditch this afternoon.
Hezekiah having fun out there too.

Sunday 26th: Brendon out early in the morning raking up mostly sticks around the garden. Hannah did a good job helping pick it all up. It was lovely that he could actually get the grass cut, and that it needed it. The last bit of rain has finally got things turning green.
Asher was enjoying a cuddle with Ruth. It was so sweet to see her climb up and enjoy sitting on her lap. Normally Ruth will be the one who picks her up.
In the afternoon Rachel and I went to check out Possum and Pam's. The gift shop has moved premises and is now also a "cafe". So we both enjoyed a brownie for afternoon tea.

I took the opportunity in the afternoon to quickly get a family photo taken. On Thursday a lady will be coming to "interview" me about the free insulation we had put in last year. She said she would like to take some photos. When Rachel learned that it would be on Thursday morning (while she is at work) I could see she was disappointed. So it was nice to have this photo to give to the lady - which had all of us in.
Ruth gave Brendon and I a break this evening and became the "toy" for these two.
I had to smile this evening when Brendon got dressed for Church. Hezekiah immediately said he needed a shirt like Dad's. So he got his white shirt (with buttons) and was ready. Looking so grown up.
He also wears his sneakers to church and he loves church so much that he "gets ready" every day of the week. So out of all our children - Hezekiah is the only one that seems to always have shoes on. The others almost never have shoes on. ;-)

Monday 27th: Ruth made this person for Hezekiah today. He decided it was his friendly "monster". He played with it for a couple of days before it broke.
Asher saw the camera out and just kept saying "cheese" until I took a photo of her. :-)

A very happy brother.
On Tuesday I took the older girls to Ballet and St John again. Things have been finalized for Rachel's ballet for this term. As she doesn't want to be late every week for St John, but also wants to do her ballet exam - the answer is that she is only going to have 4 lessons with the rest of the group (and be 20 minute late for St John on those days). Then on 5 other weeks she is going to have an earlier private lesson with her previous teacher (who is running the older ballet lessons this term as their normal teacher is on maternity leave). Rachel is so thankful for how it has worked out. Her teacher has given her a program for daily practice at home. So it's going to be a "full-on" ballet term. Her teacher explained to me that these are the biggest exams - so she really does need to work very hard for them.
It also looks as though she is the only one in her group that is going to do the exam this year - so it might work out well for them too that Rachel can just focus on her exam work during her private lessons.

Shadow gets a sister and a new home

Shadow has really missed having her brother around to play with over the last 6 months. And although the children love her very much, life is just too stressful for us to think about getting another dog. So we started looking for a new home for Shadow. One that would provide her with the canine family she so needs.
A friend suggested we get help from Second Chance Dog Rescue. They use their facebook page to advertise "private adoptions" and it didn't take long for someone to make contact with us. This family also sadly lost a dog 6 months ago. Their dog Honey now also needing a sibling. So we organized for them to come and have a visit today. Honey and Shadow got along straight away. The couple had fallen in love with Shadow when they saw her photos and it was solidified when they saw her and Honey playing so nicely together.

It was fun to watch them.
I was really impressed with Shadow too. She stood still and allowed Honey to give her a good sniff all over. Honey often goes to a dog park - so she knew exactly what to do. Shadow must have learnt quickly from her. It was really good to see.

Honey is just 1 year old. So they both still have loads of puppy energy and we could already see how much they would enjoy each other.

Hezekiah and Hannah started crying as soon as the decision was made that Shadow would head home with Honey today. Hezekiah came and gave her a hug and said goodbye.

Then the girls wanted a photo with her too.
It was very emotional to say goodbye to her, but we do also know that this will be so much better for her.

Her new owners sent this photo in the evening. These two had spent hours outside playing (and knocking water over in the process). I don't think I have ever had Shadow sit so still for a photo. She will sit nicely when you ask her to - but as soon as you start moving away she will want to come with you. So I could see she had already had a good play and some of that pent up energy had already been used up.
They even sent us a little video clip and we could immediately see how happy Shadow was. She settled in right away.

She is going to be an inside dog now too. Look at her already sleeping on their bed. :-)

ANZAC Centenary

Unfortunately Brendon had to work this morning, so we tried to make sure we could get as much involvement in ANZAC day today as we could. Rachel and Ruth spent the night at the Love's home. Rachel headed off very early with Lila to attend the Dawn Parade in Christchurch. They then got back to Amberley for the parade there. Rachel was so excited to be a part of the colour party for St John and she even got to hold the flag. Hopefully we will get some photos from her day and then we can share those with you.
The Love family would normally attend in Amberley too, but as their one son was involved in Waikari this year, they headed up our way. I was so pleased that Ruth got to experience it all. It was a day to remember.
With it being the ANZAC Centenary this year, our community organized a 100 horses to do a 25km walk.
Photo: The only photo I got today on our walk to see the horses.


Look at this amazing photo that our neighbour Val took, capturing so well what an incredibly moving event today was. Truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
The plan had been to have a short stop in Hawarden by 9am. So I got Hannah, Hezekiah and Asher ready and we headed up. We arrived around 8:50 but there was only the signs of the horses already having gone past. They had been very early and had gone through at 8:30. So we missed them. This makes me even more thankful for Val sharing her stunning photos with us.


The photos above are of the service held in Wakiari that Ruth got to attend. Thank you to the Love family for sharing the two photos above and the next two photos.
It must have been amazing to be at such a big service. Many hundreds more people here today than any other year.
Left: Ruth trying on one of the soldiers hats. She said it was incredibly heavy.
Ruth then headed home with the Love family and we fetched both her and Rachel later in the afternoon (once we knew the traffic would be more reasonable). They both had a very memorable day. Thanks to the Love family for making that possible.
I'm not sure how long News Videos stay on-line. I will post the links here in that hopes that they do stay a while.
It was really special seeing our little village on the news. :-) One News, 3News and The New Zealand Herald.

Pizza, pain and a party

Monday 13th. We didn't have the greatest start to the week with Asher having a seizure this morning at 7. It was a 2 1/2 minute Tonic seizure. I updated facebook (as I know there are so many people praying for her) and the prayers were heard and she only had the one this week. It was again an 8 day gap (same as the last time) and we are thankful for this. To have only had 3 seizures in the last 2 weeks was great. The previous two weeks she had 9. So this is a great improvement.
It was lovely to have the Spencer's pop in for a visit on Monday afternoon. They had to rush off home though as the snow started to fall at home. They didn't want to get snowed out like last year. (The photo above was taken as they were leaving.)
Tuesday 14th saw us having a visit from one of the social workers from the Champion Centre in town. We got all the paperwork sorted for enrolling Asher from next term. She got a referral to them from her neurologist, mainly because of our concern with her speech. It will be such a blessing to have other people involved with getting to know Asher and giving us help and advice on how best we can help her.
Wednesday 15th saw me trying out something different for a pizza base (gluten and grain free). It was ok - but I will keep working on it and share once I feel I have found the best combination of flours (so far I have used buckwheat and coconut).

On Wednesday evening Brendon and I headed off to play some squash once the little ones were asleep. We only got the one game in last year - so hopefully this time we can get back to it on a regular basis.
Rachel is old enough to watch the others at home now - but Asher has always been the bigger concern. So we waited till she was asleep and I had the peace of mind that we were just a couple of minutes away if Rachel needed us. I even set the timer so that she would regularly check Asher's video monitor. And they were fine.
Unfortunately Brendon's string snapped just as we started our 3rd game. 1 game each and 1 point each. Perhaps that was a good thing as we would have been even more stiff if we had pushed through another game.
Just general holiday fun for the children the rest of the week. With Brendon needing to fetch his glasses and us needing to get him a new squash racket - we headed into town on Saturday morning. We have not been into town as a family for ages. While Brendon got his glasses sorted Rachel treated the others to a ride on a couple of the cars. This one rather overloaded with all 4 of them.
We got the extra few shopping things done and then I bought a box of mini magnums for us to share. It was a nice treat for them all.
Although Brendon's eyes are not too bad, he will be wearing glasses all the time now. We are hoping they will help his eyes relax and that this might help with his headaches.

And our last stop before lunch was the dentist for me. It's been a bit of a long story. I had a filling put in less than 2 years ago on the outside of a molar - I spotted the tiny hole just at the gum. That filling fell out in March and the dentist convinced me to replace it. Well, the replacement lasted for less than a month and again I had the trauma of it falling out when I brushed my teeth, a terribly sore tooth and having to organize an emergency trip to the dentist. I headed in after dropping Rachel for her camp on the 2nd April and again asked that they just take the tooth out. I was again convinced to try another filling and so had filling number 3 put in.

Over the next 2 weeks I was constantly anxious every time I went to brush my teeth though. I worried that it would fall out again (and hated the thought of all that was involved with that). The tooth was still sore after 2 weeks and I was only eating on the other side of my mouth anyway. I was having to take ages brushing my teeth - being so careful in that area. And I was just tired of it all. So with us being in town on Saturday - I decided it was time to finally get it out. It took a lot of convincing to get the dentist to agree - but finally she saw that there was just so much more to the situation than just a filling.

I can't just pop down to have it fixed (Brendon would have to take time off work to watch Asher) and if it came out it would most likely be in the evening and then I would have the trauma of trying to rush to organize something. Our distance from town and Asher's medical situation helped the dentist understand. They have also all said that 2 years is a "good" age for a filling in this position - so I just don't want the financial burden of knowing I will have to have a new filling every year to two years (and all the trauma that will go with it).

Thankfully I had brought some soft food for myself to have while the others enjoyed lunch and then we headed home. I was pretty much out of action for the rest of the day and the whole day on Sunday. The more I moved around the more pain I had. So Brendon was amazing and just gave me all that time to rest.

Hezekiah looks so smart in his
"Church clothes" which he insisted
on wearing to the party.

Unfortunately the pain and time for recovery was a lot more than I imagined it would be. So this has ended up putting a delay on getting into playing squash regularly. I have continued with pain for a full week after having the tooth out.

At 7 Brendon headed off with the older 4 children to a combined birthday party the church was putting on (Rachel being one of the birthdays to celebrate). It was fun to hear all the stories. It sounded like they all had a great time.

It was great to get all these photos from Rey and Manel (as I forgot to send our camera with them).

Sunday 18th: These 4 spent ages playing together outside this afternoon.

Monday 20th. Kerry popped in for a quick visit with the children after school today. It was lovely to get the time to catch up and Katie and Hannah especially loved their time of playing. We had two very excited fairies.
Tuesday 21st saw a very excited Rachel with St John starting up again. She missed ballet today as the group lessons are all 15 minutes later this term. We are hoping to work things out that she can still continue with her ballet and still get to do exams. I will update you once things are finalized. Because she arrived quite early for St John, she was able to help with the Penguins (the younger children who meet before). So she got some good work towards her leadership training.

Wednesday 22nd: I found this photo on my camera from today. Hannah had hurt her hand, so Ruth wrapped it up for her. Hezekiah thought this was a fun game and so pretended that his foot was sore so that he could be a part of the "game" too. So he got his foot all wrapped up.
Thursday 23rd: Ruth and I are so pleased to see Asher willing to build the lego for a change. She has been able to for a while - but just prefers to have someone else build so she can take it apart.
Ruth and I gave her lots of applause for her building.

Ruth had a fun time with Hezekiah this morning. I love all the little games they come up with.
Left: Under his "tent".
Below: the top view.


Thursday also saw Brownies starting up for the term. The lift that Ruth and Hannah normally have does not work during this term as she has her boys with for rugby.
So I had gotten my head around having to take Asher with and just take all the girls. Rachel included as she is able to be a helper and get some more leadership practice in. In the end Brendon took a bit of a shorter lunch and left early enough for me to leave both Asher and Hezekiah at home with him. This was such a treat for me. I got a full 2 hours to just sit and read and pray and have no children to look after at all.

Reading started and tightening finished

Monday 6 April: A friend has offered to come and do some reading with the children in the morning and she came today for the first time. It was such a blessing to have an adult have a full, uninterrupted bit of time to sit and listen to Hannah read as well as read to Hannah and Hezekiah. They both really enjoyed it. It also didn't take long for Ruth to start reading some books to her too. Ruth is really good at reading but does not enjoy it. So it's great that she asked if she could read to her too.
Rachel's birthday today but as she only got home late from camp we were glad we celebrated with her before she went away. It was nice that she got to have a long chat with Nana today.

Tuesday 7 April: Ruth is so good with Asher. And if she sees that Brendon and I are busy with something and need her distracted for a couple of minutes - she knows just what to do. The almost guaranteed thing that will work is when Ruth says "do you want to read Tickle, Tickle". Asher will go and fetch her book (her absolute favourite) and they will sit and read it. Over and over and over again.
Wednesday 8 April: Ruth tried to have some fun with Hezekiah and Hannah and a masks she made. Unfortunately she ended up scaring Hezekiah.
So she made him a mask, and another for Hannah, and tried to bring some fun into it.
Left: Asher saying "cheese" as soon as she saw the camera out. :-)

Thursday 9 April: I spend ages every day building lego variations for Asher. She will take the "creation", hold it up and say "mm". You HAVE to say "mm" back before she starts meticulously taking each piece off and putting them into the toy box.
Today I taught her to say "wow" rather than "mm". :-)

The friend's reading visits are paying off so wonderfully (and so quickly). This afternoon I spotted Ruth helping Hannah read a story book they found off the bookshelf.
This evening we also finished off Ruth's hair. We started tightening on Friday evening and only missed Sunday. It was a total of 6 evenings with a total of 5 hours and 15 minutes, with 269 braids tightened.
We really do need to try get into the habit of doing it more often (rather than only twice a year). It will be much quicker and less painful.

For those interested in knowing more about how we actually tighten the braids - I asked Brendon to make this little video.

Friday's lego creation by Ruth.
It was quite appropriate today that Ruth had to write a Haiku poem about rain. We have had lovely rain over the last 24 hours. After such a long dry spell - it is very welcome.
Here is Ruth's Haiku poem:
Rain is pouring down.
Splashing, dripping, sopping wet.
Leaking, soggy boots.

Saturday 11th. Fun with Dad. Asher had so much fun rolling over his head. I always get a little nervous when I see her playing so wildly (with her head moving around so much).

Sunday 12th. Puss enjoys playing with the odd teddy that is left lying around. She is so much fun to watch.
Brendon and Ruth headed out for some time today.

Look at this beautiful shot of Ruth. She really is growing up.
Not too old to climb on the sheep for a photo though. :-)

Posing for a shot (and only realizing afterwards that there were a few spider webs that hooked onto her hair).
Ruth asked if she could do Rachel's hair. She had fun trying a few things.