Holidays begin

Saturday 12th saw me off with the older girls for an afternoon and dance. I only managed to get a photo of Rachel in her solo outfit. The group one you will have to see on the video.
My two penguins. They both did really well. Hannah enjoyed it so much that she kept complaining that Rachel got to do two more concerts on Sunday. She wanted to do more as well. :-)

Ruth did really well and got the trophy for the most promising ballet dancer. I think this was possibly because of the exceptionally high mark she received in her exam this year. Her teacher had said she didn't know it was possible to get such a high mark. :-) We are so proud of you Ruth. Well done.
Sunday 13th: Asher had another "meltdown" today. She was so upset this afternoon. Ruth was so helpful and got some stickers out to distract her.

I got to spend extra time with Rachel today with dropping her off and then picking her up later from her lift for the extra concerts she had today. I was thankful I didn't have to do the full trip to the concert. And we got to chat about so much again.
We took this photo on our way home, in the Weka Pass. We spotted a bit of green, so decided to capture it. There is not much green around us at the moment as it has been so terribly dry.

As we got home I remembered to take a photo of the hedge. Brendon and I cleared all the branches along the road this weekend. We were really grateful for our "new" neighbours help. Ruth helped by being inside watching Asher on the monitor while she had her nap.
Ruth had been told by her Brownie leader that she had come 2nd in the 3rd term competition to create a poem / song. This week she got this in the post as a prize. :-)
Monday 14th: Asher had another melt down this morning. Ruth tried her best to draw her out of it with her favourite book and the stickers again, but this time it didn't work. She just stood in the corner of the kitchen and cried and cried.
In desperation I asked her if she wanted to go outside. I didn't really want to go out myself as it was getting so close to the middle of the day and really hot outside. She went straight for her pram in the garage though, and settled down straight away. I was able to bring the pram into the house and she happily played in there for a while.
These episodes are happening more often now and I think are the main reason her neurologist said the other AED's available are not even worth trying at this stage. She had one of these meltdowns in his office at our last visit. At the time I thought it was only because she was tired. Now I realize he was recognizing what he often sees. Sadly this may be a direct side effect of the medication that she is on. For some reason it seems to be effecting her more.
Right: Rachel received her First Aid Level 2 certificate in the post today.
At 5pm Asher had a 9 1/2 minute vacant seizure. We had to give her the extra medication at 5 minutes and she really struggled to settle afterwards. She was exhausted and I could see how badly she wanted to sleep, but I could also see how the drugs were keeping her from it. She couldn't lie still for more than a few seconds. I had her on my bed with me and after almost an hour of wriggling around, she finally fell sleep.
She woke just before 7 but was still very tired. I tried to get her to eat something, but she was not interested and climbed into her bed. So she got her evening medication and went back to sleep.
Left: This afternoon the kids got to see the fire truck race past. There was a big fire not too far from us. It has been such a dry year that the fires have been a problem. Thankfully the 14 fire trucks and helicopter got it under control.

Tuesday 15th: Asher enjoying the new page of stickers that Ruth has given her to play with.
Right: Rachel and Ruth had seem some "galaxy" clothes artwork and gave it a try this afternoon. It worked really nicely. I just don't know what it's going to look like after it's been washed. It's just normal paint (not proper fabric pain).
Wednesday 16th: Hannah asked me today if Puss was pregnant because she had noticed her teats were bigger. So while she was sitting in this chair next to my computer, I kept my eye on her. To my amazement, I could actually see the movement on her tummy. So I called the children over to gently touch her tummy as it moved around. It was such an amazing experience. My guess was that there were 3 as I had felt two on her tummy and a 3rd quite a bit further up on her side. Ruth was hoping it would be 4. We had no idea how long she has been pregnant. We quickly got a box ready for her in the passage cupboard, hoping she would choose that area to have the kittens (as the door can be left just open enough for her). Little did we know that we would only have the one day to enjoy her pregnancy as the kitten were born that night (more in the next post).
Ruth and I have been rather busy with making loom band candy canes for our Christmas cards this year. We discussed the idea of making biscuits that we would not be able to eat - and the decision was made that we would have to break the biscuit tradition and come up with another plan.
Today Ruth signed up for the Library's holiday reading program, so she read to me while I worked. It's a lovely story, so I enjoyed listening to it while I kept my hands busy.
Ruth will be looking after a neighbours chooks (and checking on the other animals) while they are away. So she went over this afternoon to get all of her instructions. She came home with this onesie. Cute. :-)