Cassie's Cuddles

I took three of my children and a little friend to see Chairo Christian School’s play “Beauty and the Beast” today. It was really well done, some of those children have beautiful voices. We met up with our Great Grandparent too! Much to Camden’s horror I snuck a picture of the final applause (yes, he read the sign that said no cameras). So here is my one and only photo. The bad speller is me (I guess you can tell that by reading my blog!). I just printed and Laminated 100 Eric Liddell cards, but spealt his name with only one L, ugh!!!!

Well, that sums up my day, well, nearly.Ok so the sheets are clean, the washing has been caught up, and the children have just pulled through another day of school work. After the school was done, the children went for a walk to our local milk bar, guess what they brought home? No, not a lost dog, flowers! My children are so generous with their money ( I never give them any, but G’ma gives them $2 a week pocket money). They were all so thrilled to give me this blessing, who cares about the flowers, when you have such giving children!

Oh yes, and I made a couple of apple pies!

Don’t you love normal days? It makes you thankful that there is nothing to worry about. We spent our day, schooling, cleaning, and posting off a few slide shows on CD to advertise Dayspring Day. I also finished my draft for the Burkina Faso magazine..yay! It always makes me want to cry when I learn about a country and their need to know Christ. I am glad that we have a soverign God.

Here are some photos of our discs, and the first Past missionary card on Mary Slessor.

Ok here is a picture of the swap that I made up for Meghan in WA. All of the items are suppose to encourage her to develop her creative skills, I hope that she likes it.!

On the weekend the minister’s wife at our new church  gave me a lovely package wrapped in brown paper and tied  with raffia….oh goody!  Here is a picture of what was inside, a beautiful handmade bag. Isn’t she clever? I think that she is very generous to part with something that would have taken her a lot of effort to make, let alone give it to me! I love the colours, don’t you?

null

null

Yesterday I went to my 20th High School reunion. I wasn’t going to go, because let’s just say that I am “twice the woman I use to be”. I decided that I should swallow my pride and see what everyone has been up to. It was nice to catch up with one close friend, she is a Dr of science now (I always knew she was smart!). Many girls have just started having their first baby, it’s amazing that  women are having their first baby at 37, and not at 19, like our grandmothers and mothers. I came away appreciating how God has led me during my years, and once again thanking him for my lovely family. Here are some old photos of myself and some friends, we would have been 16/17. I am the one upside down on the right.

Ok, as you can see by the photo, the tv has been sprinkled with expensive glitter. This is what happens when little Cassandra doesn’t get her way. Tonight she just climbed Steph’s bookcase and broke her fighting fish bowl (the fish has survived). Cassie needs discipline, there is no doubt about it, but I can truly say, some children are more stubborn than others…….she is like me!I made some badges for Dayspring Day today (I need to make 100), and some bookmarks. Dayspring Day is a day for children to learn about missionaries, and to encourage them to be one too. The day is in Sept, so I’m getting an early start. Steph also worked on a power point presentation, she has never done one before, so I was wrapped with what she did.

Ok, so nothing totally exciting happened today, hence the title. School went on as usual (which is really a blessing because it means that there have been no dramas). After the regular subjects and piano, it was off to Stephanie and Lachlan’s first outside of home science class. Along with a couple of other students they got some private tutouring. They both enjoyed it, Stephanie said that she asked a lot of silly questions. The highlight of the day (or should I say the low light), was that she was asked if she was her 13 year old friends mother!? This is the second time in two weeks that she has been asked if she is “Old” Someone at church asked if she was Jared’s wife? Her dad is her husband? She has vowed to always wear pigtails now, especially when she wears her nice black coat. And yes, we had crumbed fish for tea!

Today the children and I took the morning off school to visit the Carribean Gardens market, to buy 100 Dutch box hedge plants. They were $1.50 each. Now all we have to do is keep them alive! Not having a good track record, we will need to work a little  harder. Here is a picture of Camden with the plants.

Once home, the children had some catching up to do with Piano practice (I hate hearing the same song over and over again!!), and their Pace work. We also posted off the craft swap this morning, I was a bit concerned about how much it would cost to send to Western Australia. I gave Lachlan a $100 note to post it, and he came back saying that it was $87.60…………change! He made my heart stop for a brief second. Here is picture of my eldest boy Lachlan who is 11, sitting doing his school work. I also have a picture of the box, just before it was closed up to be posted. I’ll leave the contents as a suprise for a couple of days, so it will stay a suprise for the little recipient.

I had a little chat with the children today about how Cassandra gets into everything, and about how dangerous that is. Last night I came home and found that the fridge had been raided, with all of the eggs smashed on to the floor! I went up stairs to find Jared comforting the cute little villian, unaware of what she had just got up to. So my plan was to put the children on shifts. While I concentrate on Camden, someone needed to watch Cassandra. Stephanie who is 13 decided to cook a cake with Cassandra. Cassandra was delighted as soon as she heard the word “Cake”. A bit of effort, and a lot of patience produced a lovely cake, and you know what? Cassandra was calmer afterward.

Here is a picture of two of my girls, Alycia was busy with English..

I was also able to finish off a little needle case, and a pin cushion to go toward the swap I am doing for a little girl in Western Australia. The swap has been arranged by Melissa goodsell, she has a very creative blog. I will post a couple of pictures up, of these items plus some cupcake patty cases filled with fat quarters. I will post the complete swap later in the week.

Why have I titled this blog “Happy Little Hippos”? Because that is what the little children sang as they cooked up their batch of vegetable soup for the homeschooling cooking class. They chopped, peeled, cut, and spread, as nine little chefs did their best, to be just like mum. Isn’t it amazing that little ones want to be just like their parents? It can be quite frightening to think that most of us have someone watching our every move, and that they want to follow us, it makes us try a little harder don’t you think?

Here is a photo of my little chefs, besides stopping one little fellow from eating all the bread (we made some garlic bread to go with the soup), they were all very eager, and helped to clean up too!

 Now my two eldest girls have gone to Girl’s Brigade with our little Neighbour, so I need to go and pick them up.