2 Kittens and a crushed finger

Monday 26th: Dad is back to work today. We have so enjoyed having him home over the last 2 weeks.
At least we could enjoy our first game on Rachel's Chinese checkers board this evening.
Thankfully Asher didn't try and get the pegs at all. She happily watched one of her music DVDs and did her puzzles.

Dad did really well and won. Rachel was close at the end but Ruth blocked her from finishing. Brendon was yellow, so he was the first to get all of his to the triangle on the other side of the board. We struggled a bit to see the difference between the black and blue. We will have to put something extra on one of them for future.

With two more kittens taken yesterday we are down to just two. It makes it much easier to give them cuddles now.
It also helps us to make our final decision about which one we want to keep between these two.
Stripes happily sleeping on Brendon.
Anakin does seem to enjoy being in arms more than Stripes. Even though he woke up, he was happy to stay with me. So relaxed in arms.
We are thinking of keeping Anakin. I find it quite funny that he is the one we have been drawn to as he is the runt of the litter. Not only is he small, he also has a lot of longer hair, so it makes him look a little scruffy. It will be interesting to see what he looks like once he is bigger and has filled out a bit. He does have lovely markings on his face. Brendon called him "angry eyes" when he was tiny.

Tuesday 27th: Little Miss's milk is obviously getting less and less. The vet says she probably doesn't have much at all anymore. So we finally got some dairy milk again and she enjoyed that with her kittens.
He loves having the kittens sleeping on his lap.

What a funny way to drink - from underneath your mother. Thankfully Little Miss is not very heavy. This was the first time I had seen this though, and so had to take a photo. So funny to see those little legs sticking out there.

Hezekiah with Stripes while he did some of his Math Seeds. The children are all doing some work through the holidays. They are not allowed to do any computer games or watch any movies unless their work is done. Hezekiah loves Math Seeds but is being diligent in slowly working through his Reading Eggs too. He is doing really well. I keep saying to him "you read that really well" and he says "I didn't read it". He is starting to see things without having to really work at it. So that's great.
Hannah is also working on Reading Eggs (she just has the last 20 lessons to do according to the assessment). She also does some sequential spelling.

The three girls do Reflex Math and then the older 2 both do Word Smart. It's a great vocabulary program and Rachel is really enjoying all the fascinating words she is learning. It's a great help with spelling too. Rachel also does sequential spelling and she is watching the DVD lessons for Algebra Math U See. So she has quite a bit of work (2 math & 2 spelling). She can get it all done rather quickly though. It's great that they are all keeping up with their basic math and reading. It will make it much easier once the term starts up at the end of Jan.
Asher enjoyed playing with these character dominoes today. I will admit - it was me that started sorting them into similar piles. She enjoyed it once I had it started. :-)
More cuddle time. So cute. This boy just loves the kittens SO much.
Ruth hasn't gotten to cuddle the kittens that much, so today I put Stripes on her lap when I saw him sleeping. He immediately woke up and jumped off. So I asked Hezekiah if she could have a turn with Anakin, and thankfully he stayed asleep for her.
I had a huge fright on Monday morning when Asher got her finger stuck in a door. She didn't even scream in pain which confused us all (and made that the door wasn't opened as quickly as it could have been). We just thought she was upset about the door being closed. When I looked at the finger it was almost flat (well under half it's usual thickness). It was so traumatic for me to even see it like that. I quickly got her some pain medication and she spent a good hour with me, crying and telling me "sore". She wouldn't let me put anything on it (even a cold cloth). Thankfully it didn't bleed much. My heart was breaking for her and I was so thankful when the pain relief was finally working.
Our bodies are amazing and I was so relieved when through the day I saw it returning to it's normal shape (this photo taken about 24 hours later). Thankfully there were only two very small cuts in the skin (the one seen in the photo and then another small one at the top). I know it will look worse as the bruising starts to show.
I just pray for a full recover and full use of it once healed. I had phoned the health line to get advice, and they had told me that I may need to keep giving her pain relief through today and even tomorrow, so I was really surprised when I didn't need to even give her a 2nd dose. It was also a relief to see some movement in the finger later in the day.
Ruth got a pack of Dora cards out to show Asher. She got her sorting them into the different colours.
Asher getting a little cuddle from Anakin.

The lego came out today for a bit of creative fun.

And then Ruth got stuck into doing some of her guiding work. She was learning about how much drinkable water there is available for use in the world. It compares to just 4 drops on that spoon (all the water in the world pictured by the 20 l). The 2 cups taken out of the 20 l represents the fresh water (the rest being salt). And so it get's less and less till you are left with just the 4 drops. So she showed the family this illustration this afternoon.

And some artistic fun with one of the badges too. Doing some Mexican art. We also had some fun games to play too.
It's not ideal doing the Guiding by correspondence, but it does give her some interesting things to do on the weekends and during the holidays. It also gets the whole family involved as we often end up being like her patrol or unit. So it's gotten us all having some fun and learning together.

School holiday week 1

Monday 26th: Ruth making the most of the holidays with painting her nails. She used a sponge to get this design (not the best use of the nail polish - but thankfully it wasn't an expensive one).
The only beef we have left in our freezer from our previous cattle beast, is mince. So I am having to get a bit more creative with it. Today, instead of making meat balls, I made meat patties - for burgers.
I didn't have rolls, but the bread worked. Ruth and Rachel were really impressed with it. Hannah has a bit of a mental block against mince, so I tried to "distract" her with little "With Love" signs on them. Unfortunately it didn't work.
Hezekiah still goes to preschool during the school holidays. Asher's EIE works for the Champion Centre, which is closed in the holidays, so Asher stays home. At least I am more mentally prepared now for the fact that school holidays means more work for me. :-)
When I picked Hezekiah up today he made sure I collected the two "Bat Man" shapes that he had made. He made one specifically for Asher. Sweet boy.

In the afternoon I left Asher at home with Rachel and headed to the preschool a bit early. They had a special afternoon tea for Naomi who is leaving at the end of the holidays. She was Hezekiah's teacher, so I got a picture of them to help remember the fun they had.
Tuesday 27th: This morning Ruth had blood tests done again. When she saw the doctor at the hospital 2 weeks ago, he suggested we do a screening for Thalassemia. She just wanted a bit of a break since the last blood tests, so we waited a bit. It did make it much easier going in the holidays as we didn't need to rush to get her there after school but before the courier comes. With it being a rare condition, I don't think we will get results very quickly. At least the blood has been drawn. Now to just wait for results.

At 4:30 Asher had a 1 minute Vacant seizure. It made me realise she hasn't had many vacant seizures recently. The last one was 7 September, but before that it was early July. We do expect things may be very different over these months while her medication is reduced. So we are always thankful when the seizures are short.
Wednesday 28th: It's always fun to have some toys packed away for a while. When you bring them out again they are so much fun. It was great having Ruth and Hannah enjoying the lego today.

They created a hotel. Ruth took a few photos, so I will include them as she was very specific about how it was designed.
So nice to see them having so much fun together.

There were many bedrooms.

The Sing Start has come out again and I think it will get used regularly through the holidays.
Asher seems to be wanting to drop her afternoon naps. I put her in bed as usual each afternoon, but she hasn't slept. At least on Monday she played in her bed for an hour. Today she wanted to get out straight away. Thankfully she was happy to just bring extra chairs and sit and watch the girls singing for a while.
Hezekiah had face painting at preschool today. He was a green lion. For years he has loved his imaginary "blue lion" friend and had an imaginary friend called "blueie". Recently he has decided though, that his favourite colour is now green. He has been watching a lot of Star Wars recently and has decided that you get upgraded from a blue to a green light sabre, and his new favourite colour is green. And so now he plays more with his imaginary friend "greeny." :-) It was rather rubbed off by the afternoon, but he still wanted a photo to remember it.
Thursday 29th: Ruth has been using the holidays to get a bit of her guiding work done. She managed to finish all her work for the Detective Badge today.
At 5:30 Asher had a 6 1/2 minute Tonic seizure. She was sitting on the bench in front of the TV as she often does, and she just went back and then fell off. I spotted her as she was going back, and both Brendon and I jumped to try and catch her, but it all just happens so quickly. Thankfully it wasn't a bad fall. I started getting the medication ready at 4 1/2 minutes, but had such a hard time with the syringe not fitting. Eventually at 6 1/2 minutes I had the medication drawn up, and it stopped.
I think today's seizure was from her just being so over tired from no naps this week. I hadn't even bothered to put her in bed this afternoon. She was so tired after the seizure that even after an hour she was still fast asleep. So we just got her evening medication done and put her in bed for the night.
We will change that back and make sure she does at least spend some time in her bed. Then at least she can get a small nap on the days she needs it.
Friday 30th: One of Ruth's school friends said she would organise a sleep over for their group of girls in the holidays. Ruth was thrilled yesterday when plans got made for tonight. She wasn't too pleased with me wanting to take a photo. :-) She was packed and ready this morning and got picked up just after lunch. She was especially excited about getting to ride a horse.

With Asher going to bed so early last night, I suspected she may have a restless night - which she did. She woke at 1:30 and came into our bed. It ended up just being a bad night for me and I woke with a terrible spasm in my shoulder. It was getting worse through the day, so I ended up heading off soon after lunch to get to see our chiropractor in town. I was heading off to our Church's Ladies Retreat this afternoon anyway, so I just left a little earlier.
I took this photo this morning. Asher has started really enjoying playing two games at once. I had to smile when I saw her reading two books at once. It was great that she was looking at each page (and not just paging as she used to do).
While I was in town in the afternoon there was a torrential storm at home. Rachel had written and told me about the thunder and lightening getting closer and closer. A bit later I heard that it was hailing (the garden already white) and then a bit later that the house had flooded. Thankfully mostly on the vinyl in the kitchen, entrance and laundry. We heard from neighbours that there was 30ml in just 7 minutes. So Brendon and Rachel really had their hands full drying it all up.

Saturday 1st October: The ladies retreat was at Mt Hutt. Unfortunately the chiro didn't do a great job and I was still in a lot of pain overnight and didn't get much sleep at all. At 6:30 I just decided to get up. The one advantage of that was getting to see a beautiful sunrise.

The day started off quite stressfully for me when I heard that the washing machine was not working. Brendon was trying to wash all the linen they had used to dry the floor, and it kept stopping. I talked him through setting the machine to spin only - so at least we knew where the problem was. The whole situation had many lessons for me to learn. Thankfully one of the ladies saw that I was upset and sat and chatted with me. I quickly realised two main things. First - this new trial was something that Brendon and Rachel were given - not me. Secondly - I need to stop trying to fix everything. She had mentioned how much Psalm 34:19 had helped her. It says "Many are the afflictions of the righteous; but the Lord delivers him out of them all." I immediately realised that I was trying to get them out of their trial. I needed to stop trying to do God's job. I needed to trust God to deliver them. It was a very important lesson for me to learn.

The teaching sessions through the weekend were a real blessing to me as well as all the conversations I was able to have with many different ladies. It was lovely to get to know so many of them. Sundays are so busy with most of us looking after children, so it was so good to have time to just chat without distractions.
A couple of the ladies also did nails on Saturday afternoon. There are a few ladies in the church who use Jamberry and I enjoyed getting my nails done. Rachel has been interested in nail wraps for a while, so I plan to help her organise a party. I look forward to seeing how long this lasts. I have normally got chipped nail polish within a day or two, which is the reason I never bother putting it on. :-) It was nice being a bit "creative" in choosing and I loved what some of the other ladies did.
The theme for the weekend was Mexican Fiesta and these were the amazing flowers we enjoyed.

Sunday 2nd: The weekend was a blessing to me in many ways and I thank the Lord that I had the opportunity to go. We enjoyed a lovely lunch together and then headed back. We arrived at church (in town) at 4pm. I had a few things to pick up on my way home and so eventually got home at around 6pm.

As Rachel was heading off to another CEF camp on Sunday morning, she gave Hezekiah his present from her in the morning (a day early). I forgot to ask Brendon to take a family photo and so that will be a bit late this month.

Ruth's friends had these Dora dolls that they gave Ruth for Asher. She does love Dora at this stage - so she was very pleased with them.

Asher had another drop in her one AED today (we drop it every Sunday). In July she was on 14ml a day. She is now down to just 6ml a day. She had a 3 minute vacant seizure at 1pm today (just before going for her nap). She has had a seizure every Sunday through September. This may just be her body adjusting to the new levels.

For those who are wondering about how her seizures are compared to previous years - I can share some quick pictures from the end of September. This first one shows the total number of seizures. It really is fascinating for me that in 2014 and 2015 she had had 45 by the end of June and 89 by the end of December. Exactly the same in both years. So I already felt really positive this year when at the end of June she had only had 36. And so far the total is still below what it was at this stage the last two years.

When Asher had two longer seizures in September it made us realise that she has on the whole had much shorter seizures lately. So this got me wondering about comparing the total number of minutes of the seizures through the years. It didn't take me long to just correlate the information I already have on my spreadsheets, so I quickly got this comparison made. This year is a much better year by far. I'm hoping these graphs don't change too drastically with this change in medication. Please pray with us that these improvements continue.

Book, bike and a train

Saturday 24th: Ruth needed to watch Asher for a bit while I got some kitchen work done. I was really pleased to see Asher happy to look at books with her. They were counting all the wheels of all the pictures.
Soon after Brendon was home from work, Rachel and Ruth headed out for a bike ride. I wanted them to wait till Brendon was home so that if they needed to be picked up, he was able to go get them.

I didn't need to worry though as they did incredibly well. They travelled the 9.2km to Waikari in just 45 minutes. Stopped for their picnic lunch, had a hot chocolate at the tea rooms and then headed home. The home trip is harder and they managed it in just 50 minutes. Well done girls.
Ruth has a Cycling Guide camp coming up in October with 25 km to ride on the Saturday and again on the Sunday. The leader rode it in 2 hours, but they plan to take 5 hours with the girls with 3 nice long stops along the way (for ice-cream, lunch and activities). So with the successful 18.4 km done today I am feeling a lot more confident about Ruth coping with it all.
Rachel sent me a text once they had arrived. Just before they were going to head back I sent a text saying she should perhaps get a selfie of the two of them. She wrote back that she had already taken one - and Ruth had commented that she is become too much like me. ;-)

I got the big lego container out while the big girls where out and it was so much fun to watch Hannah and Hezekiah playing so nicely together. They had such a great time. This was after they had already spent ages outside with wonderfully imaginative games going on. It got a bit too wet out though, so the game just moved indoors and had different props. :-)

Asher enjoyed the blocks through today too. This evening she spent quite a bit of time packing them. Either packing them away or taking them out the box to give to Ruth for her building. All the while alternating with her ball game. She has been really obsessed with her ball routine lately and is getting more and more into the habit of having at least two things going at once.

Sunday 25th: We didn't go to church this morning as it was a Parent to Parent Family Fun Day today with a trip on the Weka Pass Steam Train. Hannah had tried to get an outing with Dad on Saturday afternoon, but it was just too wet out and so she asked that they head out early this morning. It's wasn't exactly dry, but she didn't want it put off till next weekend. :-) Brendon took a great photo of them.

And then we headed off for the train ride. We had Asher's pram with as we were not sure if we would be able to get her to sit in a chair for the trip. She generally loves running in new places. So we had to wait in line with all the other wheelchairs as there was only one wheelchair ramp (and far more wheelchairs on a day like this than any other for them).

By the time we got on board there was no room for her to be in her pram anyway, so we had to take her out. We were also then too late to try and get chairs together, so we ended up on two different carriages.
At one point the organiser came around with some "morning tea". She had made sure there was a gluten free option as well as a gluten and dairy free option. I was so very thankful for her thoughtfulness. It was such a nice treat for us.

Hezekiah and Hannah sitting opposite each other.

And Rachel and Ruth just behind them.

Thankfully Brendon and I managed to find two doubles opposite each other with just one lady (her children where in the single chairs on the other side of the isle). So we managed to sit together with her. We had a lovely chat with her and we were VERY relieved that the activities that I had brought with were enough to keep Asher mostly in one place. The iPad especially helped as we started as it gave her a lot of familiarity, but she could look outside regularly too.

She played a lot with the little rings too. It was a huge relief to having her sitting in one place. Brendon and I had pictured her just running up and down the train the whole trip.
It's always fun for the children to watch them turning the engine around. They were amazed that just 3 men were able to move it.

We had thankfully managed to get a 2 double seats around a table for the return trip. This was a great help for Asher as I had some small puzzles with which she (and Hezekiah) enjoyed building.

I had told Hannah that we could spend a bit of time on the open carriage on the return trip, so we headed down.

Hannah stayed for a while and had a great time. I went back to suggest that we bring Asher out for a bit. She loved the rain on her face. We asked a fellow passenger to take a photo - so it was nice to get a family photo from the trip.

Just after we got back to our chairs, Asher had a 1 minute Tonic Clonic seizure. Her mouth went quite blue, so I was really thankful that it stopped so quickly.

Rachel and I then headed out to birthday party that she had been invited to. We enjoyed the extra time we got to chat on the trip there and back.