Assembly and Armistice

Friday 9 Nov: A certificate for Hezekiah at assembly today. Well done!
Hezekiah was also so excited about going to Youth Group for the first time this evening. It's from 7 years old - so he although he could have gone 2 weeks ago, we had other plans.
VIDEO
Anastasia having so much fun with Dad and trying to say "more" so sweetly.

Saturday 10th: One advantage of having an older sister with a license -trips to the tea room.






BELOW
Sunday 11th: A different day today with our church and many others joining together to have an Armistice service - 100 years since the end of World War 1.

So many uniformed people joining in the parade.

Rachel at the front of the St John Youth, leading the colour party.





So special to be part of this special event.

VIDEO
Just a short clip to capture the power of the canons that fired 100 times during the morning.

Flag flown at half mast.
And even a fly by.
They came past together.

And then a bit later one by one. It was a very special addition to the morning.

Then we met up with friends at a local part to have a picnic lunch.

Brownies, biscuits, friends and five seizures.

Monday 9 March. Rachel has been inspired by all the facebook links on different braids. She did a beautiful job with Hannah's today.
Thursday 12th: I needed to take a photo of Hannah in her uniform for her Brownie book. She is looking so grown up already.
Most of the other photos from this week were of Puss. I decided to put all of those in their own post.
I was given a couple of bags full of clothes for Asher and Hezekiah. He was thrilled with the blue dinosaur pjs. Another one growing up so quickly.


Friday 13th - Hezekiah used me as an obstacle to climb and roll over this evening. He had so much fun. So I just protected my head and let him go for it.

With Hannah turning 7 next week she was allowed to go to Youth tonight for the first time (for 7 and over). She was so excited. She will enjoy getting this regular time to play with Katie.

Saturday 14th saw Ruth and I back to the 4 square to sell more biscuits. Hannah joined us today.

Sunday 15th: We were a little disappointed this afternoon when Asher had a 2 minute Tonic seizure at 4:30. We had hoped that she would make it to at least 2 weeks again (which it would have been on Tuesday).
She went very pale through it and didn't pink up nicely afterwards. So Brendon called one of our paramedic neighbours. They had previously said that if we ever needed oxygen - we should just call. So this was the first time we had taken them up on the offer. Eventually we had all 3 paramedic neighbours here (the oxygen was not at the first person we called). Thankfully Asher pinked up nicely on her own within about 10 minutes (8 minutes after it stopped).
I was really thankful for the one lady specifically saying "thank you for calling". Brendon had said earlier that he was sorry we had called and then not needed it. She obviously wanted to make sure that we knew they didn't mind at all. I really appreciated her comment. It is such a blessing to have people around who really care and are happy to go out of their way to help.
Monday 16th: Ruth playing with Puss.
Unfortunately Asher had 2 seizures this afternoon. A 1 minute vacant at 3:40 and then a 2 minute vacant at 5:20. Both times she didn't have her normal sleep afterwards and just had a time of resting.
Tuesday 17th: Asher always hears if my phone makes any noise and I generally let her "play" with it for a minute or two. It matched her top today, so Ruth wanted to take a photo. :-)
At 4:30 in the afternoon (while I was doing the ballet run again) Brendon said Asher had a bit of an "episode". It wasn't like a normal vacant seizures as she was still looking around and moving. He wasn't sure if it was even worth noting in her book, but then she had another one very similar on Wednesday morning. Both times she was very sleepy afterwards and wobbly on her feet. So we are not quite sure what happened - but have noted it for her doc. The seizures just do not keep to any set pattern at all.
It is a bit of a concern that things are just not settling down for her. So it's again a time to trust the Lord that little bit more. To again just remind myself that He is in total control and that He has a good and perfect plan through this all. I am again so thankful for His peace - which truly does surpass understanding.

Youth Year End Party

Asher was up early this morning and ready to go and play with the puppies.
Rachel and Ruth helped me make sushi to take with for the Youth Year End Party's shared lunch. I am rather impressed with our first efforts. The girls learnt really quickly too.

It was very hot at home but when we arrived at the Spencer's it was raining. Thankfully that did not last long and after lunch the sun was shining and the kids got to do the slip and slide they were looking forward to.
Hannah got on quite quickly actually, even though looking a little nervous.
Ruth had loads of fun.




Hezekiah had a try but fell onto his bottom as he ran on and so was a bit nervous about going on again. Perhaps next year he will be just that little bit bigger and enjoy it as much as Ruth does.

Above: I love that Kerry says the water balloon fight is HER favourite part of the day each year.
I think it's a highlight for all the children too.

The children were all pleased to see a second container of balloons come out once the first one was empty. Hezekiah's goal was to just get them to break (as they need to land quite hard to pop). He just threw them at the ground. It will be interesting to see when he realizes people are actually throwing the balloons at each other. :-)
We headed down to the pools to cool off later and again had the pool all to ourselves.