Zacharias

Luke 1:13-14 "Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your petition has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will give him the name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth." vs20 "And behold, you shall be silent and unable to speak until the day when these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which shall be fulfilled in their proper time."

So our whale ends our Old Testament decorations and we will spend the rest of the time looking at all the prophecies that are fulfilled around Christ's birth.
Ruth enjoyed some cuddle time with the kittens this morning. She asked me about the long hairs and when I told her they were whiskers she started singing "whiskers on kittens" from "These are a few of my favorite things" (Sound of Music).

The girls decided to use chairs for their picnic today. We have ordered a new blade for the lawnmower and I am glad the girls have not made any comments about the long grass. They enjoyed watching the kittens playing around in the garden while they ate their grapes.

The table salt has started forming on the pencil now as well.

The table salt and rock salt bottles needed changing again. It's great that we finally have some crystals growing on the rock salt string. Amazing that the table salt produces white crystals while the rock salt produces clear crystals. I now wish I had done a sugar one at the same time. It would have been great to compare them too.

The day was really warm and I thought chops on the BBQ would be great although it had cooled off by the time we started cooking. We all joined Brendon outside though and played charades for the first time. It was a great way for Ruth to remember the story of Zacharias and how he could not talk until John was born. She thought it was very funny when I tried to communicate (without words) that it was time to go inside for dinner. Rachel got that one ok, but they needed Dad's help to understand when I asked them to set the table.

We had such a fun time with everyone having their turn (even little Hannah who acted out washing her hands and dancing).

The cats enjoyed more time outside and I was wondering how Tiger would manage as he got really high into that tree (top right). But he got down fine and even Smoky was going down in this photo.

They had gotten a little wet though as it had been drizzling. This proved to be another educational opportunity for Ruth as she got to see how they clean themselves. In our charades earlier I had pretended to be a cat cleaning my face (which Rachel got right away) and so Ruth got to see it this evening for the first time.