Pancakes, jewellery and a reading challenge

Monday 27th: Asher had a 1 minute seizure at 1pm. She was on the toilet at the time, so a clear reminder that she does need to be watched ALL the time.
Tuesday 28th: Asher spent the day at home today as the teacher aide had training and the other backups where unfortunately not available. I had a meeting in Culverden, so it was nice to be able to just leave her at home with Rachel. It won't be long before that won't be an option anymore. Rachel is finishing up her high school work this year and will be looking for a full time job. She will only be 18 in April next year, so she has done really well in getting it done this quickly.
Ruth and Hannah were both involved with the 7-a-side tournament at school today. Both their teams did very well. Out of the 6 games each, their teams only lost 1 and Ruth's drew another. Great results and it sounded like a fun day.
Wednesday 29th: LEFT: It was so adorable seeing Anastasia and Asher crawling after the train this afternoon.
A wet day today, so Anastasia and I didn't get to join the walking group. Ruth missed school last Friday as she had a headache which got worse if she moved around. She felt like a cold may be starting on Sunday evening (both Rachel and Ruth started with a sore throat) and felt so blocked up today that she just spent the day resting at home.
Rachel hasn't made pancakes in ages, so it was a real treat for everyone when she made a huge batch this evening.

Thursday 30th: Ruth was very pleased to get her final certificate from Xtra Math. And on-line drill practice that her class has been working on. They only work on one operation at a time. Division is the last one, so she has gotten through them all now with 100%. Great job Ruth.
RIGHT: One of the boys in Asher's class was playing with this when we arrived. I was pleased to see that Asher waited for him to finish, and then had a few goes herself. She got the beanbags flying up nice and high too. It was a favourite activity at the Champion Centre, so it was great to see one in class too.
LEFT: I was a bit late in thinking about taking this photo of Asher pushing her buggy to the library this morning. As there is no school tomorrow, they went to the library today instead. It was sweet to hear (and see) this new tradition of hers. The buggy goes with anyway as it needs to be with encase of a seizure, and also as a backup if she gets restless (it can still be her safe place).  The added bonus is that it slows her down on the walk over (otherwise she tends to just run ahead). She is also quite adamant about pushing it herself and doesn't want any help at all.
RIGHT: And just look at this sweet munchkin. I smile every time I look at this photo. You can tell it got nice and warm today.
LEFT: Hannah climbed into bed with a book as soon as she got home from school today. It is such a blessing to see her enjoying reading so much. She had a hard start on her reading journey, and so it is very special to see her having overcome those struggles and enjoying reading so much now.
Who said males can't multi-task? Hezekiah has been working very diligently on Reading Eggs lessons over the last month, and today decided to carry on with the interactive story he was reading on the mini, while getting the next lesson done. :-)
Friday 31st: It was a teacher's only day at school today, so the children were all home and keeping themselves busy. Ruth made a necklace for Hezekiah's friend who is having a party on Sunday. Such a lovely one.
Hezekiah was a bit upset when Ruth tried to hold it around his neck before it was finished (to check the size) and so it slipped out of her hand and she had to re-do it. Hezekiah felt really bad and so decided he had better buy the necklace from her instead of her just making it for him. I thought it was really nice of him to be willing to use his own money to buy the gift - and also as a way of thanking Ruth for her efforts.
RIGHT: Ruth is really enjoying her blue tooth earphones. She has been diligently creating as many jewellery items as possible for a market on Sunday.
LEFT: Ruth was dancing with Anastasia and Asher wanted to join in. Such a fun photo. Such a great big sister.
RIGHT: Ruth and I spotted the magnificent colours in the sky as the sun went down this evening. So we quickly ran out to try and get a photo of it. Unfortunately the lens of my camera is no where near as good as our eyes and so this picture doesn't do it justice. It was amazing.

Saturday 1st: No children photo yet as Rachel is away at a camp this weekend.
It's a leadership training camp that a lot of the CEF leaders are attending. The trainers are over from Australia. It's great that these young people who are always giving at the CEF camps have an opportunity to be spiritually fed and encouraged.
LEFT: Our HUGE dot-to-dot book arrived today. Ruth didn't waist time to get started on one.
RIGHT: She also made this lovely green necklace today. She doesn't like green herself, so it was good that she could work with them as someone else might love it. I have numbered the photos and am trying to help her sell them on a local buy sell fb group. The market on Sunday was unfortunately very wet and so not well attended. She only sold $7 worth of jewellery. So I've listed them on-line and am just hoping she can get a few more sold for all her hard work.
LEFT: Giving Anastasia some walking practice.
RIGHT: Brendon had to finish up his sermon prep this evening, and so we closed the door from the dinning room (where he was working) to the lounge (where the children were watching TV). Anakin spotted his reflection in the glass and kept scratching it. It was so funny to have Anastasia on this side watching him. We opened the door and he wasn't interested in coming through. Just wanted to scratch that other cat. :-)
Sunday 2nd: Father's Day today, so Brendon got a couple of chocolate presents this morning. :-)
The family was spread out this morning though with Rachel at camp, Ruth at the market and Asher spending the morning with Rachiel (her teacher aide). So it was just 5 of us to church this morning, which felt like such a small family. :-)

Monday 3rd: I forgot to get the children photo once everyone was home yesterday afternoon, so I was pleased to get this one before bible study this afternoon. The challenge now is to keep Anastasia sitting still - as she kept trying to crawl forward.
Hezekiah has worked so diligently over the last month, doing either 4 or 5 lessons every day. Today was his last day and he finished up lesson number 120!

So that means he raised $120 for children's medical equipment.
Great effort Hezekiah. Well done.

Assessment, Sangam and shopping

Thursday 23rd: My drop off photo this week. Asher spotted the two girls on the teachers chair. The children often swing each other around on it. So it was heart warming for me to see Asher go over and start pushing the girls around. I had to make sure she changed direction after a while and then stopped after a while going the other way. Asher will get very dizzy and not stop. I'm not convinced yet that too much head movement won't trigger seizures, so we have to just help her from overdoing things. It was really special though.








Anastasia getting more time practicing standing. The cat is wonderful motivation to stand here. She loves playing with him. Just look at that happy face.
The book club order arrived today and Hannah had ordered a book that came with "putty". It's like slime, but specifically gave the idea of blowing bubbles in it with a straw. What a big bubble. Thankfully it's got hardly any colouring in it. The previous slime that she had been playing with this week had so much colouring her hands would be stained after playing with it. And unfortunately the colouring had a negative affect on Hannah emotionally. So I was very pleased to see the enjoyment she could get with this one - with out the negative colouring.
Ruth and I quickly headed off after school to get her to her camp assessment in town this afternoon. Anastasia obviously coming with. She had to put up a tent, a shelter and a clothes line. She had two girls with who helped. They will need to do their assessments soon too, so it helped them to know what would be involved.
She then had to talk to the assessor about running the camp kitchen, hygiene and food safety. She also had to show how she would set up her kitchen, so the leader had brought some lego for her to use to show her kitchen plan.
She also had to prepare some hot drinks, so the girls enjoyed some hot chocolate after the cold job of putting up the tents with the cold wind and drizzle about.
And the assessment was finished we headed over to visit another Guiding unit who were having a Sangam night. They did a whole range of activities relating to the Guiding centre in India. Including having some Indian food for dinner.

Dressing in Saris.
Getting some henna art on their hands.

Although Ruth wasn't mad about the colour of the sari she got, I thought it looked amazing on her.
Some wali art and rangoli as well as learning to count in Hindu and fitting 16 girls in a car. :-) It was a great evening. And Ruth and I got to also enjoy listening to an audiobook while we drove.

Friday 24th: I love how Anakin will come over to Anastasia for a rub.
She loves going into his box too. Such a cutie.
Rachel headed off early this morning for a St John camp this weekend. It was a special one that she had applied to attend and was very pleased to be accepted. She first stopped at Mrs Sampson who had said she would help her alter some fancy dresses she got. She is planning on attending the home school formal later this year, and got two dresses at a ridiculously low price. They just needed some alterations and Mrs. Sampson did such an amazing job. They had a lovely visit over lunch too. What a blessing.

Saturday 25th: It was lovely to see Asher go over and sit next to Anastasia this morning. She is trying to interact with her more, which is so special to see.

Hezekiah has enjoyed playing peek-a-boo with Anastasia around the rocking chair lately. It always makes me smile watching them and seeing her face light up ever time she sees him.

And Ruth giving Anastasia some time at the piano this morning too. What a busy morning she had with her siblings. So special.
Yesterday we had a delivery of new curtain rails (ones that help keep the rooms warmer) as well as new (curtain bank) curtains for the lounge. We so very spoilt. Our previous curtains had gotten damaged during the earth quake repairs, so it was so nice to get these. Ruth and I headed into town this morning as I had a sore tooth that I wanted to get checked. Thankfully it was only sensitivity and the tooth is fine. It gave us an opportunity to get some shopping done though. So we bought the curtain tie and we got that up this afternoon.
Rachel will have a lovely surprise when she gets home tomorrow. They look so nice. The lady had said she had some chocolate brown material and we said that would be fine. This was so much better than expected. At night they have so many different colours and are just lovely. I don't think I have ever seen curtains as nice. Both Brendon and Ruth made the comment that it made the room look so cosy.
And the extra trip also allowed Ruth and I to listen more to the audio book story. It's been nice to listen with her. We will have to continue listening on our own now though, as I don't think we will get enough time on our own to get it finished. And it's a detective story, so I am keen to find out what happens (and who did it).

Sunday 26th: Brendon preached this morning and we had the treat of fish and chips for lunch afterwards. Brendon is on new medication for his migraines and after 2 weeks without migraines we decided to give fish a try and see if he can manage some now without a headache. He has been avoiding fish for a number of weeks now as it did seem to be something he was not able to have without a headache afterwards. Thankfully no headache today (or on Monday morning). So that was a great blessing too.

Ruth finally got around to taking some pictures of some of her jewellery creations for me to list on a local facebook site. She is going to sell them as fundraising for a school camp in November. She sold 4 items and so was very motivated to get a lot more made. The advert also brought her attention to a market that is happening next Sunday, so she wants to get as much made this week to sell next weekend.
She is listening to music on her new blue tooth ear phones. These were part of her purchases yesterday with the voucher she won at the speech competition.

My creative Hezekiah

Monday 26th: Thankfully Asher's energy levels have improved every day. She headed off to school this morning and as soon as we got into the class room she said good bye to me. I was a little nervous about her last visit ending so quickly with her feeling sick. So this was a relief for me. She remembers being there happy.
She is also eating so amazingly well at school. The new medication can cause children to loose their appetite, so this is a real blessing to see. As Rachel said - with Asher's history of reactions to medication it's not a surprise if it's actually having the opposite affect and giving her an appetite. Let's hope the appetite stays. She actually lost weight after stopping the Ketogenic diet (it's normally the other way around).
NOTE: It only lasted for about 3 days and she has gone back to not really eating much.
Tuesday 27th: Hezekiah made a train track this evening. I love how creative he is.
Wednesday 28th: Asher had a day off school today. She was a bit confused about not going with all the others getting ready. It was a short day though as school closed at 12:30 and then they had an Open Day the whole afternoon.
I headed back to the school with Hannah, Hezekiah and Anastasia at 2:30 (Ruth had stayed at school to help with things). I got to spend a bit of time chatting to Hezekiah's teacher and then spent time in Asher's class. It was good to meet some of the other parents and be able to be available to answer any questions about Asher.
Then Ruth, Anastasia and I just hung out, chatting a bit to Ruth's teacher and some of the other mothers there. They had a sausage sizzle going on through the afternoon and Hezekiah and Hannah had a great time playing.
Brendon then joined us for the official time in Ruth's class and then Hananh's. It was a lovely afternoon and so good to catch up with so many people.

Thursday 1st March: Ruth thought it was very appropriate that the garden was full of mushrooms this morning. She had read that Autumn was the time of year  for mushrooms, and so it was perfect being the first day of Autumn.

We were too busy to collect eggs yesterday, so Hannah and I headed off this afternoon to pick them up and have a treat.

Hezekiah brought this piece of wood home from school today. He often does have creations to bring home. And it's always lovely listening to all the amazing things they can do. I'm not sure that I even want to try remember what this can do as I may get it wrong. It did remind me of Diego's magic backpack that can change into anything. :-)
This evening he was "surfing" on it and Asher went over to join him.

Some more of Ruth's creations.

Friday 2nd: Full school assembly today and Asher's first assembly attended as a student. She did amazingly well. I stood up to take this photo of Hannah and she spotted me. She just said "Hi Mum" and didn't try to come to me - so that was really good. She only said it again a couple of times (I had thought we would constantly here it through the rest of the assembly).

Ruth and a couple of other children that do Kiwi Watch with her were invited to attend a schools enviro group hui at ECan this afternoon.
They left school at around lunch time and were only back after 6pm. What a great opportunity for them.

We moved the side board over today so that it was in front of the TV. We are trying to stop Asher from touching the TV. The one good thing that came from the move is that even though it was only a 2 meter move, it made the cupboards something "new" to look through and Hezekiah got playing with these domino accessories. Who cares that they were designed for dominos.

They made awesome car ramps. It was so much fun watching him play.
That is also not a watch on his arm but a Velcro strip that he found that became some fancy gadget. :-)
In general Hezekiah is so very creative with his games. I love that he can often just play on his own with his wonderful imagination.