Cassie's Cuddles

I wanted to share my exciting news with you, but now it has turned to sad. I was so overjoyed to discover that I was pregnant. I guess you wouldn’t believe that someone who has five children would be so excited, but I was. Jared was pretty happy too, and the kiddies couldn’t contain their excitement. After Dr appointments and the like, confirming, hospital bookings etc, everything came crashing down with bleeding. Today I got home from Maroonda hospital, after being told that I had miscarried. May I just say though, that there is trusting in our sadness. How can I praise God when everything good happens, but not when sadness happens? God is sovereign, and this is all in his plan for us. I may not know why, but I trust Him. I have a great God, afterall He has sent His son to die for me, to forgive all of my sins. He is a great God, greatly to be praised.

On Wednesday I recieved my swap from my swap buddy, Leanne. It is always an exciting event to get a parcel in the mail, filled with individually wrapped presents. Take a look at what Leanne made up for me.As you can see, Jared has so kindly fixed my blog for me, so I could actually show you these goodies. Sorry, Leanne that it took so long to show everyone. I have done a few interesting things in the last week, so let me show you.

I melted some crayons and re shaped them. I will not do this again, I have stained a few things green. I have  thrown them out…..FAIL!My sister let me borrow the Dvd’s “Against the Wind”. It is an Australian drama made in the 80’s about the colonial settlement in the late 1700s. I noted the above scene, the lady is drinking from a cup. I paused it, and ran off to my cupboard to see this..Snap!I taught Cassandra a new skill this week. We cleaned the floor grooves with toothpaste. It worked a charm. Don’t ever throw your toothbrushes out folks, they have so many uses.Do you like my little doll I made? The pattern is from a Tilda book. I put a couple of flat marbles at the base to make it sit well. I have also done some more sewing, but I haven’t taken photos yet, so I had better get to it.

We had a family Church BBQ at our house last weekend. We have been at a different church for a while, so we wanted to catch up with our home church. We had about 35 people in total. It was a shame that it rained, but everyone fit into the house alright. It was a lovely day of fellowship.

Oh man, what is a blog without pictures? My dear hubby has even emailed my blog server, I was then able to upload one photo!! Now I can’t even do that. Ugh, ugh, ugh!! I have so many things to show you. I will need to go and nag, I mean ask, Jared to help once again.

Jared took me to see Courageous tonight. Granted I begged yesterday, when I realised that it would only be on for a few days at Forest Hill Cinemas. I let it go, thinking it wouldn’t be possible and then he came home from work and said “Do you want to go to the pictures?”, oh yeah. I really enjoyed the movie. It is about Fathers stepping up to their God given role as protectors, providers, and teachers. I thought that it was great for mums and teens too!  If you have the opportunity, go and see it.  The worse part was sitting next to a woman who kept burping, what’s with that? She couldn’t say excuse me?  I suppose it could have been worse eh?

Oh, No!! I have exceded my limit in photos, again!!!!

Jared, oh Jared where are you?

A couple of months ago, I sent a letter and a tube of Vegemite to the Duggars. I was asking for a favour. I was hoping that they might write a note to a young lady who was getting married. I must admit I was disappointed that they didn’t write back in time, but today….I recieved a postcard from them. Ok, so it wasn’t for the young lady that I wrote for, but for me. I was still thrilled.On the back was a little message, and what I love is that the postcard had the gospel printed on it. What a wonderful opportunity that they have to share the gospel with people who write to them.Today Jared took the children (except for Stephanie) to get the car serviced. He potted around the city with three (while Lachlan was at school). Stephanie and I went up to Sassafras which is only 5 mins away.  There are some cool shops there, particularly the toy shop. I love buying toys to put away in the present cupboard ready for a pressie for someone special. This is what I bought.I said to Steph, “when I die, empty the present cupboard quickly, because when someone sees it, I will look like a nut”, Steph said “perhaps I could hand them out at your funeral?” That girl cracks me up! Seriously though, I would like Bibles handed out at my funeral, when people walk out the door. After all it is the greatest treasure. To read for yourself of God’s grace to us. while we were sinners, Christ died for us.

My Tilda swap buddy emailed me to let me know that she got her parcel yesterday, so now I am free to show you what I gave her. I haven’t recieved mine yet, so I will wait eagerly for my trusted postie man. This is what I sent to Leanne.I enjoyed making the little doll and stocking for her. There is also a Tilda book for her, she loves angels.

This post is dedicated to my parents who have been over twice in the last three weeks to help put our garden under control. I must say that my dad is a very hard worker in the garden, and he has blessed Jared and I very much in helping us out. It also means my busy Jared gets to have a break and not have to worry about the garden for now, sweet. Thanks mum and dad for helping. I would put a photo up of them, but I only have one of my mum’s weird ankle, so perhaps I should leave it 😀

Yesterday I spent a bit of time looking for my bagel recipe only to find that the website has now closed, ugh! Why didn’t I write down my recipe? So I searched for another, and found a suitable one. They were so easy to make, I didn’t even have to wait for the dough to rise for an hour.They are very yummy.My second batch looked better, I had to make the holes bigger (but I didn’t take a photo of those), you have to take my word  that they tasted yummy. Oh, yeah, I also made some cookies, nom, nom, nom.

Apart from cooking, finishing off school for the year (we still have a few weeks to go), we are still applying for visas for STeph, thus the photo..Haha, this makes me laugh! Meanwhile, Alycia is going through a growth spurt. She is so lethargic, I remember Steph being like that at the same age. The weird thing is the skin around her eye is breaking down too, the exact thing happened to Steph. She wasn’t so out of it, that she couldn’t make a happy animal out of her apple though.Can you see all my vases? I gave them a little clean with some salt and water today, works a charm. I learn’t this trick from “How Clean is Your House”. I also cleaned my pantry again!! Don’t you love this picture? A lady in the Church that Jared sometimes preaches at gave it to us.This is my first ever cross stitch. I made it for Jared when I was about 19. It means Scripture (the Bible), Grace  and Faith alone. You can only find out who God is and what he requires of us by reading the Bible. You can only be saved by Grace (God saves us despite us, not because of any good thing we have done), and faith alone ( a free gift).

Today is the 7th of November, so what did we do? Well, Alycia was ill on Sat, so you guessed it, Lachlan was sick today. So he got a day off. I did school with Camden, Steph did her own school, and Alycia and Lachlan slept. In the afternoon when people were feeling a little bit brighter we went to 7-11 to get a free slurpee each. Everyone seemed to really enjoy them. Later in the afternoon I also found this recipe, so I whipped some up. It was so yummy. I gave some to everyone.I think that they liked it. You can find this recipe and others here:http://www.mhcmag.com/On the weekend we bought a trampoline from Aldi for Camden and Cassandra as an early Christmas present.I did a bit of sewing on the weekend. Do you like my mermaid?and some Tilda birds.They are friends.Look at my wall. I think we have a problem.Our house is sinking, ugh!

Look at my vintage girl. My sister gave her this top. I had a track suit like this as a child…..I didn’t like it. But, hey, it suits her. It will have to grow on me.Ok, so here is my psycho secret. I am collecting smurfs. Perhaps I have enough now? I saw this bag in the op shop which now houses them. A perfect match don’t you think?

I’m back, did you miss me? This is a random night when I am actually at home. This when I usually blog, so that is why I have trailed off a bit.  I have so much to tell you, but perhaps I will just start off with today, seeing as it is fresh in my memory.Today we headed off to visit my sister in Rosebud. Stephanie drove to Keysborough where we met mum, and then we drove on together. We got to my sisters, and then looked at the garden, her house (she is having some renos done), patted her pets and then went shopping! I bought this nice jug at an antique shop. I liked it, and when mum said that it was a bargain, it convinced me.When I bought it home, Jared looked at me in a weird way, but as soon as I said “mum says it’s great value, and that it is the real deal”, he perked up a bit ( he knows my mum has great taste). I also found a dress for Cassandra which my sister bought for her, and tucked away near the ground I found a old dear friend, Snoopy!I had one just like this when I was younger. Now, I know that this looks like some kind of freaky Pixie photo, but isn’t he cute? My sister bought that for me too. Yeah, we made her broke. I also found two books that I was excited to find.Alycia saw this cushion that she would like to copy. We also went into a lovely craft shop, and my mumma found me a lovely little Chrissy present ( I will have to be patient, and put it out of my memory), yeah right!

Overall we had a lovely day. We also had lunch, and my sister gave me a bunch of smurfs (yeah, I know I sound nutty). Stephanie said today that I will be a nutty old lady who has to have a separate house to put all her toys in..(what does she mean old?). I will show you my collection soon.

This long weekend I also did some sewing.I made a mini banner which I think is sweet, and a couple of bears (from the Tilda Christmas book).I also made some bibs for a pressie, and posted off my Tilda swap. I will show pictures once my buddy has the gift. On a side note, I now understand why Jared keeps turning this picture away, or putting it elsewhere. It does look a little like a funeral notice. He should know, he had to make a lot of funeral notices for all the funerals he has officiated over. He always put the picture in an oval frame. I will now need to go shopping for a square frame, pff!