Monday, June 22, 2009

All The Beauty In The World

What a beautiful world we live in! Just take a look at these pictures and you will agree with me!

While I was looking at photos the other day, I found these!

If I look at the amazing things God has made, I am overwhelmed! He created the Disa, pictured below. It is an amazing flower that he designed. I would want him to decorate my house if this is what he can do! Wow!











I remember walking in Natal with the owner of the farm, through what we called: 'the secret passageway'. It was filled with azaleas! It was so beautiful! He told me that he thought that the angles spray painted the flowers.
I remember being amazed at how beautiful the flowers were!

God is a wonderful artist, designer and decorator! We are privileged to live in a world he created!






























































These lovely views, these beautiful lilies! I am amazed at how beautiful he can make things!























My favourite picture is this one!

God is the one who creates, all the beauty in the world!

Learning Through Lapbooking

I love lapbooking! It is such a great way to do schoolwork!
Schoolwork is much more fun! I am so glad we found lap booking websites that had lap books for
free on them!


Me, sticking all the little 'booklets' into my lapbook.








Beth is doing lapbooking and loving it! Anybody can lapbook.
Nancy, Beth and Gabrielle are doing a 'Big Sister Lap book'. My mom found this lap book on 'Lapbook Lessons'. You will have to sign up as a member. It is for free. You will be able to print all the lap books they give
you!



















Gabrielle always has to join in! Nancy did a sort of 'lapbook' with her! She is now doing a 'Big Sister Lapbook!

Beth did a 'Humpty Dumpty' lapbook when she did the letter Hh.

There are other wonderful websites and you can print as many as you like! Here is a lovely website that has LOADS of lap books, Home school Share.

Lapbooking is great fun, you can design all sorts of folds and things! On Homeschool Share there will also be a 'free lapbook templates' page so that you can make your own lapbook. We
made our own one when we did the Bushveld. Here are the pictures of them.






















My friend did a lap book for her Llatl. (Learning Language Arts Through Literature) I am defenitly going to do a lapbook like hers for my next work book! I really love it!



























We also did a frog one when we did Frogs. It was supposed to be for Beth, but my mom decided that it was a great opportunity for Nancy and I to learn about frogs. My mom can get quite carried away with school, and we had to have FROGS in our house! Well, they were only tadpoles, but we had to watch their 'Metamorphoses'. It was really horrible, because they were in our dining room so as I ate supper, our friends the frogs, swam around!






























We also did a cat lapbook, which was really a lot of fun! That was one of the best lapbooks I have done!

I am also busy with a Zulu lapbook. We are still busy with 'Jock Of The Bushveld', as I wrote we were doing a bushveld lapbook. We bought it from Footprints Through Our Land. They have lots of South African lapbooks.

There are so many lapbooks! We now do lapbooks for just about everything!

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Rebekah Is Two Weeks Old!

Rebekah is two weeks old today! It really does not feel like she is already two weeks! She has already grown so much and has changed! We took some photos of her! She is so cute and is a perfect little person in our lives already!




























































Tuesday, June 16, 2009

The Princess Party












On Thursday, we all went to Durbanville for my mom to have a check-up. Seeing as we were there already, my mom suggested that I go stay at my friend, Heidi-Mari. It was her sister's sixth birthday that Sunday, but she was having her party on Saturday. She was having a Cinderella party. I helped Heidi-Mari with the game preparations and present wrapping for Pass-The Parcel. We had a lot of fun! Heidi-Mari's mom made the most beautiful Cinderella castle cake dress for Danika, and you can have a
look at the pictures she took of the cake on her blog. Everybody had to dress up as a princess. Beth and Gabrielle looked gorgeous in their outfits! My mom made a pouchstyle drawstring bag to match Danika's dress as a present.
We all had a great time at the party and all went well! I would just like to add that Danika, Heidi-
Mari's sister looked amazing in her Cinderella dress!

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Rebekah's Homecoming

Exactly 43 hours after my mom's C-Section, she was discharged from hospital! She came home on Friday with our new little sister! My mom does not like hospitals, and felt she could recover much quicker at home. We all excitedly awaited the sound of the bakkie coming down the road. When we did hear it, there were many screams of excitement, but not too loud, the littles were sleeping! We all had a quick turn to hold Rebekah, as my Aunty was leaving in less than ten minutes, to miss the traffic on the way home! Beth was the first to wake up, really excited that Mom was home again! Gabrielle was REALLY excited that mom was home! She came in with a scream of joy and was so happy with her new sister and was holding and cuddling her within seconds of her waking up! Gabrielle tried to hush and comfort Rebekah! It is amazing that a two-year-old, knows exactly what to do with a newborn baby.















Mom, ready to leave hospital with Rebekah.

















Granny holding Rebekah at the cafeteria at the hospital.


I video recorded Rebekah's first bath, something that is very special to watch at a later stage. She was really good, not like the rest of us, who apparently screamed the whole time! She actually seemed to like her bath, until we took her out, that is!

Later that night my dad got us a movie, so that my mom could settle down while the littles were quiet! I held Rebekah through the whole movie!

Rebekah is really cute and extemely good! The newborn vests and baby-gros don't even fit her she is so small! It was an absolute shock when we saw how tiny she was! She is a 'real' new-born!

We have had people from our church and friends bring us meals. It is so sweet of them to take time out of their day to stand in the kitchen making us a meal! They even make salads for us! It has really lifted a HUGE load off my dad and my shoulders, the day is busy enough on its own without making supper!

My dad was home on Monday and Tuesday to help my mom and look after us. I was very sad when he left this morning! Luckily school holidays are round the corner, so he can be home with us a lot more! ( He is a school-teacher).

It is lovely to smell baby shampoo again, and to hold another baby in our arms again. She is another arrow for God's army and we are so privileged to be Rebekah's family!

















Beth and Gabrielle posing for a picture while mom was away! They look so cute!














Five sisters together!















Beth holding Rebekah.

















Gabrielle holding Rebekah. Being a big sister really suits her!

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Photos Of Rebekah

Here are the photos of Rebekah:
















The nurse taking Rebekah to my mom.

















Daddy dressing her.































She is really cute! I cannot wait to meet her!

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

She Is Here!

She is here! My new little sister is here! I am so excited! Her name is Rebekah Faith Gray. She is the smallest, weighing 3.1k.! Praise be to God! She is here safely! I can sing and shout, she is here, my new little sister is here! I will put some pictures on tomorrow. I cannot wait to meet her in person!

Today Is The Day!

Today is the day that our baby is going to be born! We are now going to be a family of 7! I am looking forward to that! I like the number seven. It is used many times in the Bible! I really cannot believe today our baby, that we have waited so long for, will be born this afternoon! A new chapter in our life will begin!

On Monday night, we packed the baby's bag. It was a lot of fun! We did it when Daddy had put the Littles down! It was fun putting the shampoo in a little container and choosing the clothes she is going to wear at the hospital!!

Yesterday we cleaned the house, so that the house will be clean when my mom comes home. We do not want the baby having hay-fever from the dust!

Our friends let their house keeper come and cleaned for us! I helped with the dusting and cleaning, as there was a lot to do as Pumla could not clean everything! My feet were so sore afterwards! I was cleaning from 10 0' clock in the morning to
2 o' clock! It is nice to sit back and take a look at the clean house and know that you have done everything you need to do and now you can enjoy some well-earned free time!
It was fun though!

My mom sewed the sheet this morning. She was very busy this morning even though she was going in to the hospital later today! She finished the curtains the other day! It looks really nice now! Nancy painted the toiletry box white, as it was brown with an ugly cover inside. My mom is going to make a new cover for the box!

Last night we made a video of moms tummy with the baby still in the womb, and all of us were drawing pictures with cream on my mom's tummy! We also took photos of us hugging my mom's tummy!

I will put some pictures of the new baby on my blog tomorrow, as my dad will only be home late tonight and I will be asleep! He is going to take the pictures.

My mom left us a little chocolate so that we (the littles) would not cry! Our friends gave us a present of a notebook and a pen! It was nice to have something to make us feel a little happier about my mom and dad leaving!

My Aunt Charmaine is staying with us! We are actually going to have a nice time despite the fact that mom is away and we will miss her! I get to play 'mommy' for 3 days! Our food is just about made for us, as one of our friends is bringing us a meal for tonight! Another lady gave us mince to make a sauce for spaghetti! It was very sweet of them to offer to make meals!

My mom's prayer was answered, she has a room of her own with a lovely veiw! I am soooooooo glad about that!

My dad will phone us when the baby is born! I cannot wait! I remember with the last baby, (Gabrielle) we went to some friends and they looked after us. I was in charge of Beth, as she was only 2 years and 8 months! I put her down for her nap, made sure she ate, pushed her in the pram when we went for walks and sang to her! I was only 10, but I was a real 'mommy' to her! We waited forever for my dad to phone and tell us that our new little sister was born! We went the next day to visit my mom! We were not allowed in the maternity unit, so my mom had to come to us! The nurse brought Gabrielle for us to look at! We would have loved to hold and cuddle her, but we could not.

I held Gabrielle and helped to put her to sleep and to change her! I was sooooo excited to have a baby sister! Now, I get to do it again! Nancy is now going to be able to do more with this baby! she is much older than she was before. She was 7 with Gabrielle and 9, nearly 10 with this one!

The littles are down for their nap at the moment. They were very good going down!

We are going to visit my mom on Friday. I am soooooo excited to hold our new baby! I will post some pictures of us there.

















Nancy painting the toiletry box white.

















Nancy washing the rocker.


















Me packing the cotton balls into the packet.















The packed bag!



















My mom appliqued the hearts onto the curtains she made.















The curtains when they are finished.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Baking Biscuits (2 More Sleeps To Baby)!

On Friday, we made biscuits for the ladies who gave my mom a Baby Shower. The little ones helped by mixing and punching out the dough. You can imagine how much dough was left once they had gotten hold of it! We made three batches, so that we would have enough for us and the ladies (and for the littles who ate a whole lot while punching the shapes)! We packaged the ladies' biscuits in a bag with a ribbon around the top. We to gave it to them with a card we had made, as I wrote before this post. It was quite difficult with the littles, as they just wanted to do everything we were doing and I got quite annoyed with them! I have put the recipe below, if you would like to try it! There are also photos of us making the biscuits! Gabrielle was so excited that she could mix the biscuits! You can see the look of glee on her face!


































































Biscuit Recipe

250g butter (softened)
125ml sugar
2 egg yolks
5ml vanilla essence
500ml cake flour (we use a third cornflour to make it lighter)
2ml salt

Method:

1.
Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

2. Beat in egg yolks and vanilla essence

3. Sift in flour and salt, beat on a low speed until soft dough is formed.

4. Turn out dough onto a floured surface, knead lightly. Refrigerate for half an hour before using.

5. Roll out and cut into shapes.

6. Preheat oven to 180 deg celsius and bake until pale golden and slightly darker underneath.

Ice if desired.