Paint, pretzels and play

Monday 5th: What a beautiful day. The girls made the most of it and school holidays and sat in the sun painting this afternoon.
Ruth's lovely creation.



BELOW: We had so much wind over the previous 24 hours that the garden is full of branches. It was incredible how many came down. Thankfully all small ones.

Ruth quickly took a photo of Asher's arrangement of DVDs this afternoon. She was very impressed that she had put them in such a nice pattern. I am sure it was not on purpose though. Brendon is patiently waiting for her to choose the one she wants so he can put it in for her.

Shadow enjoying a nap on her lounge bed this evening. Woken by Ruth taking photos. :-) Ruth tried a few different camera settings, so Shadow had a few photos taken.
Tuesday 6th: Our first try at making pretzels. Ruth had a go, but it was a bit too hard. Especially when every now and again a bit of un-blended lentil got stuck in the tip.
They looked and tasted great. Next time we will sprinkle sea salt over them before cooking. And try make sure they are all the same size. This time we had some soft with others nice and crisp (depending on thickness).

Wednesday 7th: Ruth took this photo of the sky this morning. It was so pretty.

I finally got the camera out with me to get a few photos of the kids on the tramp. The school holidays have seen them outside having so much fun.
This is a fun one with Asher in the air. They know to wait untill she has bounced onto her bottom before they do any really big jumps. Once she is down they are allowed to "double bounce" her - so this was the result. She loves it.

Asher is getting much better at bouncing with them too. You can see how high Ruth is here.

They love running around the tramp too. You can just see the orange pants of Brooke who has been visiting during the school holidays. Brooke is really patient with Asher and always talks to her so nicely and helps her and checks that she is ok.

Asher loves playing in Rose Cottage too. I got a bit of a fright though as she had closed the door and there was a big bang. I immediately thought she might have fallen with a seizure - but it was just the toy oven's door falling as she opened it. It was a good reminder for me though of the fact that it is just that much more stressful having a child with uncontrolled seizures. You always have to be on the alert and ready.

It was sweet to see Shadow following Asher when she climbed onto the back of the ute.
And Shadow gets very excited when Asher is on the tramp. She follows her around like this and sometimes even tries to get to her through the mat. When all the kids are on (I don't let them jump if Shadow is under) it's been fascinating to see that she only follows Asher around and shows no interest in any of the others.
She would jump on their with Asher if she could.
I spoke with a lady who does training of epilepsy assist dogs and she said labs are very sensitive to energies - so Shadow is obviously very concious of Asher's change in energy when she is on the tramp.

Thursday 8th: These three had so much fun on the tramp today. They were making up funny songs and playing so nicely. Hezekiah just got a big grumpy with me when I brought the camera out. ;-)