Sunday, December 24, 2017

The week before Christmas

Tuesday 19th: Anastasia's colic has been so bad that I decided to try and get an appointment for her this week with a chiropractor. I was so pleased with the lady the Lord directed us to. We had the first session this afternoon and she even called in the evening to find out how she was doing.
Hannah wanted to come with and so we ended up making it an outing for us too. We did some Christmas gift shopping and had a fun time together.
We ordered a ham this year for the first time. So we read the instruction on the "ham bag" and Brendon and Ruth got it all sorted.
Wednesday 20th: While Hannah and Hezekiah were at the library today, a lady stopped by with a food box for us from the red cross. The drop off had been organized with us, but what we didn't know about was the big box of presents that she had for us too. Ruth and I spent some time sorting them out and seeing what was for who (some had stickers like "16 year girl" but most we had to sort out). Ruth was then in her element getting to wrap them all. What a wonderful blessing in so many ways. I don't think we have ever had so many presents under the tree.
Thursday 21st: Ruth joined me in taking Anastasia for a follow up chiropractic appointment this afternoon. I forgot to get a selfie taken. The lady was so kind and squeezed me in for a session too (at a huge discount too). So I was really glad to have Ruth there to help with Anastasia.
Friday 22nd: Such a special photo with these three.
Rachel is working a lot more on the farm during the holiday, doing cleaning. When she was offered the job we had a chat about how I would cope at home. The arrangement was made that Rachel would pay Ruth a percentage of her wage and then Ruth would be employed to help with Asher. This week has gone really well and it has made the holiday a lot easier for me.
It's a hard job watching Asher, but the financial reward helps Ruth to have the patience and energy to keep going. She also does Rachel's dishes when she is out and makes bread too when needed.
Rachel is also thrilled with the opportunity as she has been wanting to get a decent phone for a while now. The extra work makes it possible for her to get a really nice one.
Asher had a seizure at 4:30 this afternoon. Unfortunately this was a start of a cluster for her over the next couple of days. On Saturday she had 2 at 3:30pm and 7pm. She started her pacing at 6pm - so we were not surprised by the 2nd one. On Sunday she had 2 again, at 7:30am and at 1pm. She was pacing early this morning too. Thankfully they were all short (just 1 min each) and she then had a good break for a couple of days.
Saturday 23rd: Brendon doing a great job of getting an unsettled Anastasia to sleep - and enjoying a nap himself too.
As Brendon and Rachel will be working on Sunday morning and then we will be out, we said we would open presents on Christmas Eve. So as expected, they asked if they could open one present each today (the eve of Christmas eve).
Ruth loves being the present distributor.
Hezekiah was thrilled with his sword and pirate accessories. Hannah also got a sword and we thought they would have at least something fun to do today with the new presents. Unfortunately Hezekiah's sword broke within an hour of play, so that had to be fixed and he was allowed another present for today.
Sunday 24th: Church, lunch and then presents. No point waiting till this evening as the presents will give them loads of entertainment this afternoon.
Ruth first wanted to read a Christmas book. The birth of Jesus in a rhyme book.
Ruth enjoyed finding presents for people and deciding what to give out. She knew most of what was wrapped.
So pleased with his new little tiger.
A lovely lego set.
Asher wasn't really interested in it all - as we expected. She had slept after her last seizure and the pacing thankfully stopped. Perhaps just extra tired from 5 seizures in 3 days.
Ruth chose the elephant for herself. She had so much fun with all the presents this year - even though she didn't get as many as Hannah and Hezekiah did. Her enjoyment from giving is wonderful.

Rachel bought a bow and arrows for both Hannah and Hezekiah. These proved to be SO much fun over the next weeks (and lasted a lot longer than I anticipated).
Brendon helped Asher unwrap her presents, but she wasn't really interested at all. She never has really understood unwrapping presents.
He got a few to unwrap for himself too.
Rachel got a few nice things too - a highlight being this cool hot chocolate set (with mug, hot chocolate tin and mini marshmallows).
Such a big stash of presents. What a treat.
Ruth has bought herself slime a few times, so it was a huge highlight for Hezekiah and Hannah to see that Ruth had bought slime for them. They had so much fun with it.
A fun gooey photo.
For the first time in 10 years, fleas have come home from the farm. The piglets do sometimes have flea problems, but they normally treat it quickly and so Brendon's section don't see them much. I think with the holidays things have not been done as quickly. Brendon and Rachel were badly bitten and Brendon had spotted a few on his legs in the mornings. So we decided to just flea bomb the house while we are out on Christmas day. So Anakin got his flea treatment today. He almost seemed to know and came over to Brendon while he was getting it ready. Hopefully this will sort it out properly and we don't have this to deal with again.

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