Girls back, party prep

Monday 20th and the 2 1/2 weeks of only having these three children at home comes to an end. Although the younger two only got to see the older girls on Tuesday morning. Their flight arrived at 8pm (it was due at 7:30) and Hannah travelled in with Brendon to pick them up. She was very excited about seeing them.
Tuesday saw us back into Ballet and St John Youth for the older two. I let them have the extra day off school though as they were rather tired from their long day of travel as well as having a bit of unpacking to do.
Rachel's ballet class is now at the same time as Ruth's class, but at a different hall (with her old ballet teacher who has been teaching them the last term and doing extra lessons for Rachel). It's an extra 10km travel for me but it does work so much better for her as she can get in her normal lesson and can still be done with time to spare before St John starts.
Wednesday 22nd saw Ruth enjoying helping me get some chicken liver pate made. She was fascinated with cutting up the livers.
And even called Rachel over to have a look at all the different parts. They were both very pleased with the end results - and I was pleased to learn that Rachel enjoys the pate too. I just remember Ruth eating spoonfuls of it when she was anaemic as a toddler. With my latest reading about Healing Tooth Decay, I was encouraged to get back to making it more often.
In the afternoon Ruth got Hezekiah to help her fill the wood box. She gave him the job of picking up pieces of kindling and he ended up with half a bag of them which he brought to the house.
Thursday 23rd saw Bronwies cancelled today for the girls as Rachel and Ruth had to get to Amberley for a St John Competition practice. Thankfully they could take the school bus down and so we only needed to fetch them at 8pm. It was a long afternoon / evening for them.

I got to watch Rachel doing a drill just before we left. The competitions are coming up on next Sunday (2nd August) so they were glad they could get this extra practice time in as they missed all the practices during the holidays.
This also reminds me of a change we made this week. We have started having our main meal at lunch time. So Brendon just gets the meal the next day for his lunch, and we all just have something lighter for dinner. This is already working much better for us all. Especially with Hannah and Hezekiah who were always hungry the whole afternoon and just kept asking for more and more food. Now they get nice and full on a good meal.
Friday 24th - and back to fun at Champion Centre. Warm enough to head outside today. :-)
And some more play dough fun.
Asher got some visuals today from her speech therapist. I had made up a list of words that we could start with and she got them done for her this week. It will be nice to all be working with the same "pictures" for different activities.
Saturday 25th and birthday party preparation time. Ruth made marshmallow fondant and we got the cake baked. I had bought a pre-made gluten free cake mix as a treat but the cake ended up being too small. So at the last minute I decided to make another cake with one of my THM recipes (gluten and sugar free). The round cake for Ruth worked very well and I had extra. I had asked Brendon what I should make with the extra cake and after a bit of thought he said "a cell phone". He didn't think it was very practical but he said he was just thinking about what Ruth would like. I thought about it a bit and realized he had a great idea. I could make a rectangle with the extra and make a wallet and a cell phone.
Then we wondered where we were going to put the candles. I suggested using a bit of the first smaller cake on the side.
Brendon came up with the brilliant idea of making that the phone charger.
The cake tomorrow is really Ruth's project. She has been looking forward to doing it herself for a while now. So I got my "play" this evening in making these as a surprise for her. It ended up not being a total surprise as I didn't want to wait for her to go to bed before I started. She was very pleased though. I was so glad I got to make something special for her. It's always a very practical way for me to show love to my children, and it's the one thing I do look forward to with each birthday.