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.