Bath bombs and blue boys

Monday 2nd and time for that monthly children's photo (I forgot on Sunday 1st).
The younger children were excited when they spotted the men doing the painting of the road markings. They all raced out to have a look.
I had a look too - it's quite interesting to see how they do it. :-)

Rachel was so pleased when her new arrows and quiver arrived this morning. These are more expensive arrows, that she won't let the younger children use.
She was even more pleased when she took the plaster off her foot today. It was put on last Wednesday by the doc with a paste that he had recommended to remove verrucas (warts on your feet). It has been worrying her since November. She even did her ballet concert in December with pain in her foot from it. When she was away in January there was a major change in it though. It finally came up to the surface of the skin and was totally exposed (before it was just under the skin - the doctor telling us that it was a verruca). I really should have taken photos of it for you to understand how big it was and how painful it was for her to walk. She has been missing out on ballet this year as she goes, but can't do any of the work on her toes - as it's just too sore. The plaster was looking rather dirty today, so instead of waiting till Wednesday (as the doc had suggested), we took it off today.
He said it might take 2 or 3 weeks - but that it would take it away completely. Rachel had used a nail file to file it as low as possible before putting the paste on. We were all so surprised today when we took it off and almost the entire wart just came off. I wasn't going to post this pick - but id does help explain. It was just so wonderful to see that clean new skin in the middle. With no trace of the verruca. Yes, on the left there was a small bit left, so we put a new bit of tape and paste on that small area and by Thursday it was gone too.
While I was getting some shopping after dropping the older girls at ballet - I got a text from Brendon letting me know Asher had had a seizure (at 4pm). So when I got home I saw this - cuddling comfortably in Dad's arms. She had a second one at 5pm, just before I got back. I had thought about taking all the children with me when I went, so I was extremely glad that Brendon had managed to get home in time for me to leave the younger ones. It would not have been pleasant to deal with seizures while we were out.
It had been 2 weeks since her last seizures - so we were very pleased with that.

When I took her from Brendon I could feel she had a temperature. It wasn't too bad (38) and my guess was that it was related to the little cold she had over the week before.
She asked me for milk and while she was feeding she had another seizure (at 5:30) so we gave her a dose of the other medication and thankfully she didn't have any more seizures.
I used belladonna and some peppermint essential oil and that helped keep her temp a bit lower (with out having to put even more "drugs" into her little system). She slept in the lounge with us through the evening. Giving me that extra bit of peace of mind being able to keep an eye on her (better than via the video monitor if she was in bed). I could easily just give her a kiss to check her temperature too - we didn't want it getting too high as that could trigger more seizures.

The kids were pleased with the watermelon that I bought. Unfortunately we left it till Friday to eat and on Friday morning it actually exploded. So we didn't even get to enjoy any of it. :(
Thursday 5th - Hannah is so pleased to have a brownie uniform (even though she is officially only joining in a couple of weeks once she is 7).
They had a fun day making bath bombs today.


On Friday morning I called Asher's neurologist as she has not been eating well. Last week I thought it might just be because she had a cold. On Tuesday however - after her seizures - we upped her new medication to the higher dose that the doctor wanted it at. Since then her appetite has gotten worse - with her totally skipping 2 meals every day. It was good to chat through things with the doc. He asked if we could try for a couple more days - but if there was no improvement he said we could either drop to the lower does or stop altogether.
In the afternoon we had Asher checked at the doctor and he said her throat was red. They sent a swab off to get tested (just to make sure it was not a strep throat). I decided to rather check this because with her having a sore throat - I don't want to rush dropping the meds altogether. So we have dropped them down to 1/2 dose and will see if there is enough of an improvement over the next few days. This will also give her throat time to get better. That may again be playing a part in her not eating well.
On Saturday morning Ruth and I sold Guide Biscuits at the local shop. Yip - it's that time of year again.
The children were invited to a new neighbours birthday party in the afternoon. Brendon took Ruth, Hannah and Hezekiah and they had a great time. I forgot to send the camera with and wish I had. Hezekiah apparently just loved their dog and it was fun hearing all about it when they got back.
On Sunday Brendon got the apples picked from our tree. Hezekiah was his little helper. :-)
We were all rather impressed with how many we got.
Rachel and I spent time in the afternoon making apple crumble and cutting up extra apples so that we have 3 extra apple bases for the freezer.
Asher likes helping herself to the apples in the crate. :-) She had a really good day today and actually ate at every meal. So we are pleased we dropped the medication dose down. We will just have to monitor it through the week ahead and see if there is enough improvement. Otherwise we will have to stop the new drug all together. She is doing much better in herself - so I think the sore throat is also sorted. It was good to know that her throat was red as it allowed us to give her homoeopathic things specific for that and I think they helped it clear nice and quickly.
NOTE: We got results from the swab on the Monday and it was normal - as we had expected. It was good to get confirmation though.

A car and a club added to our garden

Tuesday 24th saw some excitement for Hezekiah. When I dropped the older girls off for Ballet I picked up this scooter for him (I got really cheap of a local buy sell fb page). He was so excited.

That added to the excitement of Dad arriving home with this old ute. Once I was back we managed to the the ute off the trailer.

I am sure he is going to spend many hours out here playing. :-)





Thursday 26th saw Asher, Ruth and I heading into town for Asher's follow up hearing test. We left just after 7am and hit the traffic before we even reached town. We knew there would be traffic with a 9:30am appointment.
I have to smile when I think of all the people in Johannesburg and Pretoria who do this every single day - for a much longer period that what we were in it. The traffic actually eased up nicely once we got into town and it kept flowing and we managed to be on time (even with the extra long walk from the temporary parking area).
Ruth took this photo of what was behind us (below). Something so foreign for her. :-)
The hearing test went well. The man actually said "she is really clever" and so this made it a bit tricky.
She picked up the timing of the "toy" that would light up just after the sound - and so often she would look for it without the sound prompt. They are comfortable with how much she is hearing though - so at least we know that is not an aggravating factor in her slow speech development.

Thankfully we were back by lunch time (one advantage of an early appointment) and so Asher could have her afternoon nap as normal.
Ruth then joined Rachel and Hannah outside for their first meeting. I'm not sure if their club has a name (I must remember to ask them), but it does all seem very official. :-)

Friday 27 saw the girls out for another meeting before lunch. They are talking about meeting every day. I know that won't end up being very practical, but I hope they do manage to keep it up a couple of times a week. So special to see them having so much fun together. And Hezekiah joins in too (with more flexibility).

Rachel had a kitchen day today. She had a very productive morning. She made an apricot slice, an apricot crumble (I got a box of really ripe apricots at a great price on Thursday in town), a big batch of wraps for their lunches and even almond milk for Dad. At lunch time her birthday cake was in the oven too.
She worked really well today and I was really impressed with how well she multi-tasked and got the speed up on getting things done.

So in the afternoon the cake was cool and ready for the freezer, 3 big lasagne dishes were made (2 go in the freezer) and I got stuck in once Asher was in bad and while she did all the parts to the lasange, I got a few things done too: some cashew milk (for Asher and I - the red lid warning Dad to stop - it's not his bottle), Chocolate pudding (for me from the cashew milk), and hot chocolate mix (just cocoa, stevia and salt - ready to use for a healthy hot chocolate - Brendon and my "go to" hot drink now that we are off coffee for a while). As well as helping Rachel were I could and doing dishes as they were needing to be done. It has been great working with Rachel lately and getting so much accomplished. She is such a big help to me and I am so thankful that she so enjoys working in the kitchen. I am always so happy to just come and wash dishes for her and leave the cooking up to her.

Once her lasagne was done she headed out with her bow and arrow. Her new arrows had arrived this morning - so there was much excitement to "test them out".
The girls are all very impressed with how strong Hezekiah is. He is able to pull the bow string back on his own, Rachel just helping a bit with the aiming.




So cute to see in this photo that he had closed his eyes when he let go. :-)









Hannah getting good technique in there too.


No photos from Saturday (and it's too long ago to remember what happened). I know the girls were really diligent and got meetings in every day for a few days in a row.

I got this photo on Sunday though - of Hezekiah enjoying some lego fun with Dad.