Loom bands, glasses, tie dyeing and a party

Sunday 22nd: Ruth taught me to make bees today. We had a fun time together.
She had made a couple before, but we found and even better "pattern" today which included wings. They look really good.

The main reason is that she is going to Jamboree in January, and she wants to take a whole lot of "swaps" with. The Jamboree is called CB16. Thus the "bee" (for B). We got the idea of the little tags from a girl that Rachel met when she went to Jamboree 4 years ago. She has 30 swaps made now, which was her "minimum" goal. We have enough tags to make 90. :-) So we will see how we get on over the next month.

While I was at training with Shadow this morning, a whole lot of old cars drove past. It seemed some got a bit lost and so ended up on the smaller road past our house. It made for a couple of nice photos though. :-)

Monday 23rd: Ruth has gotten into her loom band mode and decided that she would make some presents for "Santa". On the 20th Dec we are (Lord willing) going to a Christmas Party in town that we were invited to through the Champion Centre. There will be a Father Christmas there who will hand presents out to the children (and this time - not ones the parents have to buy and give to him). We had to give the age brackets of the children - so Ruth is especially excited to see what she will get. She does love getting presents, but she also just loves giving. So it was really heart warming to see her thinking of giving something to the Father Christmas on the day. I wonder if he will get any other presents. She has wrapped it up now - but I asked if I could take a photo before she wrapped it up. Such a

Tuesday 24th saw us heading to Champion Centre again, this time to see the dietician. Hannah and Ruth came with today and played nicely in the family room while we were busy. Unfortunately she hadn't gotten a heads up that we were on the FAILSAFE diet. Although she knows the diet, she hasn't really dealt with it in the last few years. So she gave me some tips and said she would have to refresh her memory through the holidays. My big question for her was "where to from here". We have seen major improvements on the diet, but don't know what to do from here. We do need to get more variation, but we don't want all the issues back.
One suggestion from her was to try and make more variation. Even if it's just a different plate and a slight difference in flavour. So today's lunch got "decorated" into faces for Hannah and Hezekiah.

Wednesday 25th: I finally got to take some photos of Asher with her "new" glasses today. She is doing really well with leaving them on. So time will tell if they are going to help or not. She does so love her time outside, and especially on the tramp with her siblings.

This afternoon Brendon headed down to Amberley to pick up six 2nd hand doors that I had bought (for just $2.50). So he took the opportunity to take Hezekiah for an outing a bit further from home.
So much fun for him to be at a different park.


Special time with Dad.

On Thursday I had a young lady come around to see if she would be able to help as a second carer support person. We had a lovely morning with her here, but it ended up not working out as she has too many family commitments at this point.
She spent most of the time outside with Asher while I got some windows washed. Asher had been on the tramp with her glasses but then gotten off and was just enjoying the garden. So her glasses came inside. Ages later I noticed that she was back at the tramp, so I asked Ruth to take the glasses out. Just as Ruth arrived Asher was having a seizure. The lady noticed it immediately, even though it was a vacant one. So we don't know yet if the glasses will help or not. Thankfully it only lasted about 1 1/2 minutes. It's been a good 10 day break for Asher - so we are also thankful for that.

Friday 27th and off to Champion Centre again. I have a new friend giving me some "carer support" on a Wednesday morning and she managed to come with today. It was great having her with. Asher had a really hard trip in, most likely aggravated by the fact that we left an hour early so we could drop Rachel off for her First Aid course, and we did some shopping on the way in too. She was really stressed out by the time we arrived at the centre. My friend suggested that perhaps Asher was not coping with the "change in routine" and I think she is spot on. There were a few other things that we chatted through and it was really helpful having her input.
I took a photo of the "new" shoes the physio found in the 2nd hand box. Unfortunately they are only just a little bigger than her current ones.
This afternoon Ruth got to tie die two tops for Jamboree. We found out that her group colour is purple. I managed to get 3 tops really cheaply on Trade Me. One purple and the others pink and blue. So we thought we would tie die those and see if we could get them more purple.

At first we had too much water with the die. We don't have special tie die, but are just using some art die that we got from Correspondence school years ago.

Eventually she was using a dropped and really concentrated die.

She used two different techniques. We had looked up quite a few different ways of doing it. We went for the spiral and the scrunched look.
The pink one came out nicely. We will probably do the blue one again and add more red. (They did stay in bags for 24 hours and then had to dry - so the photo was taken many days later - I thought I would put it in here though so that you could see the results.)
And Friday evening was the farm's Christmas Party. There is not always space for the casual workers (like Rachel) to attend, but this year there was. So she was pleased to be able to get to join us. And she was even more pleased when I suggested she wear one of my dresses.
It was a real treat for Brendon and I to get out together - without Asher. A neighbour had offered many months ago to help watch the children if I ever needed it, and so I finally took her up on the offer. She knows the children as she is one of the first responders when we call the ambulance.
So she has been in our home many times before, and has seen Asher having seizures. So it was a real blessing to have complete peace of mind and get to enjoy an evening out. We are so grateful.
Ruth took some photos and so Hezekiah and Asher ran out to be a part of the fun. Asher ended up being a real little monkey and only went to sleep after 9pm.