Garage mess to creative space

Friday 13th: With Josie being able to help watch Asher this morning for a couple of hours, I asked Arianna to help me in the garage. It was good that I could give her solid time as it was a huge job. This is the before photo. I know - it's bad. You can understand why Brendon said it would take a week to clean it all up.

By the time he was home, this was how it looked. This has been my goal since we moved in - for the children to be able to do art work out here. They finally have a desk and their art supplies handy. There is a big box of art supplies that still needs to be sorted - but we made a great start in getting it usable.

We have a load of junk that needs to go to the dump. Arianna even managed to get this packed neatly against the side so that by the time Brendon got home, the main part of the garage was cleared and the 2 cars could get parked back inside. I was so very pleased with how much got done today. Arianna is such a hard worker and it was also great to have time to chat as we stood and cleaned storage boxes.

Once Brendon was home we took the children to the pool to cool off. Hezekiah showing me how he is practising his stokes. :-)

Asher constantly counts "one, two, three" and wants Dad to throw her up in the air. So by the time we leave he is absolutely exhausted.
Hannah has been practising her handstands and is doing so well. I encouraged her to keep her feet together and point her toes - and she did it wonderfully.

Cuddles with Arianna. She watched Asher while I got the veggie bake done for the BBQ dinner before bible study.

It started well enough with Asher having a great time with the balls that were there again. Unfortunately there was an accident between her and Hannah (they ran into each other) and from then she just didn't settle. She just kept wanting to leave. Eventually Brendon and I just put her in her car seat and sat and ate our dinner in the car with her.

Hezekiah had a wonderful time with the boys again.
Arianna also had a great time. She met 2 ladies who speak Spanish (one from NZ and one from Columbia) and the NZ lady is studying to be a nurse. So they had a great time chatting. She also met another nurse and was so pleased to meet new people. That helped me to not worry about us not being around through dinner. She was more than comfortable without us. :-)

We had brought Hezekiah's push bike and the bigger scooter which Hannah then used. After their dinner they headed off with the boys all the way down the drive. They had a great time playing before Brendon took the younger 3 home. Arianna, Rachel, Ruth and I stayed for bible study and desert.

Saturday 14th: Arianna and I left early with Rachel and a ute load of junk for the dump. We dropped Rachel off at a friend and she will get dropped off at church on Sunday morning.
Arianna and I then had a busy morning getting to the dump and doing other errands on the way. We then joined the ladies from church for lunch.
In the afternoon there was loads of fun on the deck. So much fun with Dad.

Ruth earned a bit of extra money by hammering down all the nails that had lifted slightly, while the others played a bit of netball.

Asher having a turn too.
Ruth is going to a friend's birthday party next week, so she made a beautiful card this morning.

She also got Hezekiah and Hannah doing some art things. She had found a white wax crayon and die in the art draws that we sorted yesterday, so she showed them how to use that to create a picture. Left to right - Hezekiah, Hannah and Ruth's creations. Ruth was experimenting with mixing colours, but used a bit too much red.

She also showed them how to create some things with old toilet rolls. Hannah made this lovely bunny.
And Ruth helped Hezekiah make this racing car (which he loves).
I am so glad we put that effort in with the garage yesterday. It is already bearing fruit. :-)