Archive for December, 2011

Dec 31 2011

A Maz ing

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Today we went to a maze in Bright. After paying $30 we had the pleasure of walking around for 45 minutes….lost. Jared finaly said that he would take charge, so we were out within 10 minutes. I will never hear the end of this.Now I am writing this a week later, but I think we then went to Wangarrata. We walked around and did a little bit of shopping. We came home and then went swimming in the river Ovens. Jared dropped myself and Camden and Cassandra off, he went and got tea ready and then picked us up. Cool hey? Jared actually cooked a BBQ, the first night, and then we ate the meat for 4 nights with fresh salads. I loved the river. I was adventurous enough to let the kiddies go down the slide and jump off the spring board into deep water. I can’t show you a picture, because they are on my phone, and I haven’t figured out how to get them off it yet.

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Dec 27 2011

Lachlan’s 15th B’day

Happy birthday Lachlan. My boy turns 15 today. My sister just dropped him off along with Stephand Alycia to camp. Thanks, Nicky. Meanwhile Jared, myself with Camden and Cassadra are in Bright. Today we went berry picking. Don’t you love this berry?

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Dec 27 2011

Christmas.

Published by under Uncategorized

I hope that you had a lovely Christmas. We did. We went to Clifton Hill Presbyterian Church where Jared preached. We then came home on the freeway, and marveled that there was little traffic. Thankfully the day before I had cooked all the meat, and veges (except for the potato and pumpkin). We had 19 people to feed so we have two extra tables squashed into the house….good fun. We all looked in amazement at the blessing of family.

Jared spoiled me this year with many pressies. Besides my dream bike, I was also given a Samsung Galaxy s2 phone. I love it! He also ordered some Cath Kidstone towels for me (blue with white spots). Photos to come of course.

I loved seeing my neices and nephew again. Every time I see them their faces have changed, and their personalities have developed.Here is Stephanie, Lachlan and Emily (their cousin). Stephanie was given this daggy hat by Alycia, Jared insisted that she wore it.

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Dec 24 2011

On Fire!

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Yep, you guess it, our house caught fire on Wednesday (well, maybe you didn’t guess it). Jared and I were about to take Steph to a music practice, we were going to leave four children home (Lachlan is 14). We got a knock on the door, Steph answered it, and it was our neighbour, saying “you have a fire in your back yard” and then he ran off. We went out back, I couldn’t see anything, until I saw our neighbour at the side of our house, yelling. Oh man, our house was on fire! In slow motion, I thought “our house is gone, there is no way that is going to be put out”.  For a brief 5 seconds we all ran in weird directions, Jared said, “where’s a bucket, where’s a bucket?” I went back inside, called the Fire Brigade, got the children to go outside and across the rd for safety. Cassandra was in the bathroom, so Lachlan ran and got her, and took her outside. I remembered that I had a fire hydrant in Jared’s car, so I got that, and stood near the flames. I knew it was a long shot, the flames were too the trees. I sprayed…I may as well have used a water pistol! Pathetic. The water pressure for our house was also pathetic, I almost laughed at Jared’s pathetic hose. Thankfully our neighbour was trying to get the fire out too, and his hose was good. The fire was almost under control by the time the fire engine got here. Our neighbour was really upset, he had accidently started it, by pouring petrol down his drive, it rolled into our pilot light of our hot water system, and kaboom!!I am so thankful, a child wasn’t in there getting a bike. The entrance to under the house is there also, I had Alycia under there, just the day before….well, you can think too  much can’t you? We have 7 bikes there (thankfully not my new one that I picked up just the day before), three scooters, a carpod, an eletric  mower, and a number of other things. Yes, they are only things. Cassandra took only half an hour to say “yay, we get a new bike!”, pff! Of course we have insurance, but our neighbour doesn’t. It is heart wrenching to think about it. The insurance guy said that they would go after him. So maybe we won’t get new bikes, but we do need to fix our house. This will not be pleasant. We want to do, what is fitting for a Christian family. It will be another test for us.

On a brighter note, it was Cassandra’s 6th birthday the day before. The 19th. We had some visitors to help us celebrate with us. This is Cassandra coming back from a special time with Daddy to see her table set for her.I got her some things that she could do. Painting and sewing. Now, back to the fire. Can you see my Jared? He has some soot on his face, he was brave with his pathetic hose. I couldn’t believe how quickly the electicians, and plumbers arrived. We had to go and stay in a motel, because our sewage hoses had melted. Jared told everyone not to use the toilet, but someone (and no one is admitting to it), went. So there was a lovely little/not so little package for the plumber to find. Oh, really, we are not so inconsiderate….Jared buried it 😀 Life with kiddies, it keeps you on your toes eh?  We got back on Wednesday, and Jared’s parents have arrived for a few days for Christmas. The smokey BBQ smell has lessened already. Did I say that the firemen put two holes in our walls to check for safety of the walls? Now I am waiting for a scream from either Stephanie or the in-laws to say that there is a possum or a rat on their bed….shudder…..

In all this I can say that God is great. How much more valuable is praise during set backs and trials. granted I have felt a little alone, with many emotions going on in my heart. I can still laugh. In fact when our house was burning and I was out the front with the children, Stephanie and I burst into laughter when we heard the smoke alarm in our kitchen go off. you see, it goes off every time we make toast, and here was our house in flames, and it took 10 min to go off, go figure.

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Dec 18 2011

A Week of Business

Published by under cooking,sewing

We had a lovely baby shower. The ladies were very quiet, I felt like a hyped up toddler. Jared said that all he heard from up stair was me..opps.Do you like our decorations? We also made a baby from fruit salad. Sounds weird huh, but it looks cute don’t you think?I got the idea from Tip junkie. Straight after the baby shower we went to Clifton Hill for their carol  service. Sunday we went to Broadford Church, where Jared preached. I love Jared’s preaching. After Church we shared lunch with everyone, they do that every week. I love this idea, too bad more churches don’t do it, it’s great for fellowship. Cassandra discovered many fruit trees, so she started to collect them, and now we have some in a brown bag waiting to ripen.We went and watched Sleeping Beauty, a ballet, staring Ellie, our next door neighbour. Ellie is such a lovely dancer. We also went and bought me a bike, cool!! They didn’t have any in the Bayswater store of Anaconda, so I called the DFO at Sth Wharf and they did, so we went in and bought it. I was sooooooooo excited, it is my dream bike. Jared went in to put it into the car, but it didn’t fit, ugh! Jared said I should catch the train home with it, noooooo. That freaked me out, after all I wouldn’t get home until 9pm. I went back and begged them to send it to the Bayswater store, and they kindly offered to send a boxed one to Bayswater, so now I am waiting for my call. Here is a picture of Jared with my bike.We had a lovely walk around the city as well. Camden looks a little like a ballerina here. He jumps with grace 😀Of course we had to get slurpees.This why I don’t like going shopping with Jared. I love him, but boy does he rev the kiddies up. The whole time they are tripping each other over and punching  each other. Keeps life interesting huh?I made a few gingerbread men. I gave one to a friend last night when we went to their house for a carols night. It was a lovely night.Yesterday I made a skirt for Alycia and then a matching rose for a plain T-shirt. This is such a simple skirt. You are just sewing selvage to selvage, then you turn down the waist to make an elastic casing, then do the same with a smaller amount of fabric, and join it on, simple!! The rose was from a Tilda pattern book.I nearly forgot the cookies!!! I joined it on  a cookie swap. /We all made 6 dozen cookies of the same type, wrapped them up, and then went to someones house, and did a major swap. It was such a fun swap. People dressed up, we played some games, and then took 6 different lots of cookies home.Today we went to Broadford again today, then to Essendon for a carols service. We finished this evening by finding this visitor in our shower.I don’t like these visitors, in fact, I want them dead.

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Dec 08 2011

Time Ticks On..

Published by under Family,Loss

I can’t believe that it has nearly been two weeks since the miscarriage. I have done a lot of thinking. There are times where I have felt a little alone, but Jared has been my great supporter. I am so thankful for him, and I realise that through this whole ordeal that perhaps I have taken this for granted in the past. He has been very tender.  Sunday was a difficult day, I thought I was fine. Jared was at a different church, so went to our home church on Jared’s advice, due to extra meetings for him. When I had people all of a sudden come up to me to say “sorry”, I had to use all my energy to keep it together. Now I am fine. I have come through the other side. God has been my strength, he has even given me a strong husband who knows me, and children who love me. Thank you God for our daily blessings. Time ticks on….

Now to show you my sewing, I made these for a young lady who is having a baby. We will be hosting a baby shower this weekend for her. I made 6 pairs of little nappy covers for her (3 boy, and 3 girl designs).I also made a few tissue covers, I gave a few away before I took this picture.These are super easy to make, you can find the instructions here:http://sewmuch2luv.blogspot.com/2011/05/easy-peasy-tissue-cover-tutorial.html All it takes are some rectangles 51/4 inches by 3 3/4

Jared went out with a couple of children the other day, and Cassandra had spent all her life savings on a bunch of roses and a fish. Well, evidently she paid for the roses, and Jared secretly gave her the rest of the money for the gold fish. I was so moved by her kindness, you see, she wanted to cheer me up. The next day, she came up to me, and asked me if I could give her some money, because she spent all hers, lol.Jared also did an amazing thing. He went into a material shop!! This was a huge thing for him to do, not only because of the type of shop, but because of the prices, lol. With Alycia’s help he choose a pattern of a bowling set WITH material to make it. I am impressed.My first outing was to a celebration of Jared’s boss retirement. The whole day was planned without us knowing what we were going to do for the day. We turned up to college, got in the back of someones van and drove to the river. It was a lovely day on the river although Jared still has me laughing when he said it reminded him of Gilligan’s Island. It made me wonder who on the boat could built us a big hut if we marooned. I didn’t like my chances.

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