Time For Tots - Activity #2

Hello everyone! Time for tot activity #2! It is quite an easy, non-messy activity and you can whip it up in less than 5 minutes for that possible ‘bad day’ which might perhaps occur sometime this week, though I pray not!
Toddlers can really only concentrate for their age plus one minute – not very long in Madam R’s case. She is going on two years so she played with this activity for - 3 minutes! Not very long, but long enough for me to get some cute photographs!
So here is what I did with her this morning – we played with ‘Tongs and Toys’. She learnt how to use the tongs and how to transfer each toy from one bowl to another.

You just need two bowls, tongs and various toys and things from around the house!

Pick up one toy...

...And put it in the other bowl...

...And again...this time with deep concentration!

She soon ended up playing with the toys instead of picking them up with her tongs!

Please, don’t forget you can also share activities. Just write a post on your blog with fun and easy tot activities and link your actual blog post HERE. I need all the activity ideas I can get!

Have a wonderful week ahead!

‘To the Tots’,

Kelly-Anne

My Mom's 40th Birthday

On Monday my mom turned 40! We decided to have a desserts evening to celebrate. We had three other families join us, each bringing a pudding. Throughout the week we had been busy making decorations and preparing the puddings we were making.
The theme was ‘pink and orange’ and we had lots of fun preparing everything for the party!

Learn how to make the following: Beaded Candle Holders, Decorated and Recycled Vases.
After lunch on Monday my mom and I went to a lady who lives quite close to us. She is a hairdresser and works from home for very reasonable rates. This was my mom’s first cut in about 3 years!
After that we had to hurry back to set the table and get dressed because our guests were coming at 7:00pm!
Here are some of the photographs of our ‘Desserts Evening’:

Some of the delicious desserts!

A beautiful evening for a party!

The dessert in front is called Peach Classic Choc. Cheesecake.  It is made with our own cottage cheese and our own preserved peaches.  We also made the chocolate biscuits that are crushed for the layers!  It is a very rich dessert!

Coconut chocolate squares...

Meringues!

We had a lovely evening of desserts and fellowship!

Dear Mom, I hope you had a lovely birthday and enjoyed your desserts evening. Love you lots, Kelly-Anne

Time For Tots - Activity #1

This week Gabrielle and Rebekah played with gloop! It is made with maizena (cornflour) and water. It is one of the few substances known to man that is neither a liquid nor a solid...imagine that??? Never mind the little ones being amazed at this! I was playing with the gloop, too! I had to keep on reminding myself that really this activity was for the LITTLE ONES, not for ME!!
I added some green food colouring just to give some colour to the gloop.

Feels a little bit funny...

...Try make handprints...what do they notice??

Can they make a ball???

“Look at my hands!”  Rebekah (20 months)

“And Mine!” Gabrielle (Age 3.10months)
Have fun playing with gloop!
‘To The Tots’
Kelly-Anne

Wordless Wednesday

It has been such a long time since I last posted a Wordless Wednesday!

Nancy dressed her up!

Blessings,
Kelly-Anne

Time For Tots

There will be a series of posts here on Beautiful Girlhood on activities to do with toddlers.  I think most homeschooling families with small children find themselves at a loose end when it comes to toddlers!  They are ever-demanding, and when trying to do your schoolwork, they always find a reason to interrupt...

...Or a perfect place to make a mess!

But we need to work with them, not against them. Finding and actually doing activities with them fills up their little tanks and they are happier tots the whole day leaving you in peace to finish what you are busy doing!!

If anyone has any activities that they are willing to share, please create a post with your ideas on your blog with a link back to my blog. Then leave a comment on this post with a link to your actual blog post so I can have a look and try – I always need ideas!If you would like to share ideas for things to do with toddlers, they must be easy and not overly expensive to make. Recycled things would also be good, but basically anything that little people enjoy doing! (Tried and tested please!)

When I have finished with this series I will give my top five favourite activities with a link to those blogs! So do join in!

I do believe as young girls learning to become Godly wives and mothers one day, we need to learn how to look after toddlers and what a better time to do it when we have small brothers and sisters that ALWAYS need things to do to keep them busy!

So keep those activities coming! I will be posting a new idea for toddler activities once a week here on my blog!!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Blessings,

Kelly-Anne

A Birthday Card For My Mother

Hello everyone! I have another card to show you that I made for my mom whose birthday is on Monday.

She is the most wonderful Mother anyone could hope for! She has taught my sisters and me how to do crafty things like sewing and beadwork and how to make handmade and homemade gifts. I know she loves the time she and I spend together making cards and she encourages me to try new things each time!
With this card I made sure I stretched my imagination and used scrapbooking stickers instead of a stamp. I also tried my hand at making swirls with small pearls.

This year is a big birthday for my mom and I really wanted to make some special gifts for her!  I made a little jewellery tin decorated with paper roses and with the same paper I used for the card.  I also put three miniature chocolates inside the tin, so when she opens it there will be a surprise inside!

My mom loves the green material ribbon I got in a prize a little while ago. I made sure I used it somewhere on her gift!

I entered the following challenges with this gift tin:

Simon Says Challenge - Anything But A Card

I love this pink, spotty ribbon – in fact any ribbon that has spots on it I love!  It goes very well with the paper on this card!

This sticker my aunt bought for me for my 11^th birthday.  When I saw how well it went with the paper and how the apron suited my mom because she loves cooking and gardening, I realised I just HAD to use it!

I really adore this little teacup!  All the stickers on this card came in a pack and all of which suited my mom’s own style!

As I said earlier, I really stretched myself by making a swirl with the pearls because my mom wasn’t helping me!  I am quite happy with the result!

These little slippers are so cute!


I also took part in the following challenges with my mom’s birthday card:

One Stitch At A Time Challenge - Make It Pretty
Fab N' Funky Challenges - Tempting Texture
Stampin With The Dragon - Anything Goes
Mami Doodles - Flower Card
Ooh La La Challenge - For Someone Special

I hope my mom likes her card and gift! I will share more photographs of her other gifts in a separate posting!
I am trying very hard to keep this card a secret from my mom! My dad had to correct this post for me because my mom couldn’t read it – not yet!! So please don’t say anything to her!
For now, have a wonderful Valentine’s Day!

Blessings,
Kelly-Anne

Valentine’s Day Beaded Candle Holders

We are having a dessert evening this coming Monday to celebrate Valentine’s Day and more importantly my mom’s 40th birthday! We have three other families joining us, each bringing a different pudding. We too are making two or three puddings. It will be held here on the farm outside on the patio. We have decided to use candles to light up the area. My mom decided to make beaded candle holders out of old Purity jars to for this purpose!

Why don’t you try making your own?

You Will Need:
1 Purity jar
Pliers
Assorted beads of different colours
Wire
A Tea light

Cut two pieces of wire, one to wrap around the jar and the other for threading the beads onto (the handle).  (Make the handle quite long otherwise the flame will burn the beads!)

Make a loop on the one side of the handle and thread on the beads.

Make another loop on the other side and attach to the wire around the jar.

You’re finished!

Pop in the tea light, attach a piece of ribbon to the handle, and hang in the tree!

We made about fourteen of these candle holders! They are fun to make and pretty to see!

I will post pictures of the pudding evening very soon!

Blessings,
Kelly-Anne

Hot Days And Swimming

It has been so hot here in the Langkloof!  In the afternoons we sometimes get thunder and lightning and heavy rain! We go swimming almost every day in the leiwater channel to at least try and cool off, but once we get out and come back to the house, we are already almost dry!  Sometimes we go swim in a dam (there are lots of dams around here) or in the river, but the channel is closest to the house, so most of the time we go there!

When swimming in the channel you need at least two people – one to block up one end of the pipe...

And another to sit on the other end...
Once the water reaches a certain level, you stand up and the water gushes through the pipe and the person sitting on the far end pops out and gets to have a refreshing ‘dunk’!


Then very quickly the person who blocked up the pipe runs to join the person who is being dunked with gushing water so you can enjoy yourselves together!

The other night we were so hot from playing games outside that we decided to go and have a dip (this was at 8:00pm)! It was lots of fun!
We are really enjoying ourselves here on Bethany farm!
Have a wonderful week!

Blessings,
Kelly-Anne

Rain On Bethany Farm

The other day we had a storm on the farm! Thunder, lightning and heavy rain! The rain came down so hard on our tin roof that you couldn’t even here one another talking or even shouting!
Here are some pictures:

It rained so hard that in less than 15 minutes the ground was flooded!

There was a beautiful rainbow at the end of the storm!


Blessings,
Kelly-Anne

Blog Award!

Today my dear friend, Heidi-Mari from ‘Heidi’s Crafts’ left me a comment saying she had given me a blog award!
Thank you soooo very much Heidi! It was such a surprise to me!

The aim of this award is to give it to 3 -5 blogs you have visited that are relatively unknown and bring them to light [not with thousands of followers already]. So here are the terms for accepting the award:

I had to first create a blog post showing my award and that I accept it, which I have done!
I then had to show who gave me the award and give a link to her blog – done!
I finally had to pass on the award to 3 – 5 of my favourite blogs – done!

So here are the blogs that I want to give this award to:

Urban Homestead South Africa
Definately one of my favourite blogs ever! It is so inspiring to read because I’m a very keen gardener!

Practical Pages
A wonderful homeschooling blog that both my mom and I enjoy!

Maiden Of Mercy
Mercy’s blog is really beautiful and I don’t always get to read it, but when I do, I enjoy seeing all she and her family have been doing! Mercy also takes the most beautiful photographs!

~ So thank you again, Heidi for this wonderful award!

Blessings to all,
Kelly-Anne

Learning To Speak Gently

 Speaking gently is something I have longed to be able to do for a long time. But though I prayed and tried, I didn’t try hard enough. My excuse was always that I was either tired or that they were being irritating!

Is it they who are being irritating, or is it me who becomes irritated? Is it alright to allow my frustrations to get the better of me? Is it alright to lash out at my sisters who are just being normal little girls when my daily frustrations become too great? My answer is, no! I am the one who becomes irritated and it is not alright to get frustrated with them!
















“Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.” James 1:19The tongue is the most dangerous part of the body. You can ruin the relationships you cherish most just by speaking in a negative way or with anger in your voice. For many years my mom has spoken to me about this very thing. The words I sow now, the way I speak now, I will reap one day. I am causing anger and resentment between my sisters and I.

 
 “Set a guard, O, Lord, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips.” Psalm 141:
 I have also noticed that because I am the eldest in our family, my sisters are starting to copy me. They are imitating my bad ways of talking to them harshly.
I don’t WANT that to carry on! I have decided to stop that right now! No matter how I am feeling I WILL try and pick myself up! My frustrations will no longer be taken out on them, my sisters whom I love and cherish. I do not want to spoil the relationships that matter most. My sisters will always be there for me and I want to always be there for them. I don’t want years of rudeness and anger to spoil our relationship!

“Words are real things.  They bless or they curse, they lift up or they knock down.”

I encourage you, if you are also struggling to be kind and loving towards your sisters, try harder. Close your eyes and PRAY for strength to cope with this sister (or brother) that is really giving you a hard time! (My mom always says that whether I believe it or not, I can also be annoying!

“A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” Proverbs 15:1


I can’t say I am getting it right. I have lost it (my temper) a few times but I can see that in time it will get easier. I am in a bad habit at the present time, but I will keep on trying and praying!

“There is a time to keep silence and a time to speak.” Ecclesiastes 3:7

Watch Your Words

Keep a watch on your words, my darlings,

for words are wonderful things;

They are sweet like the bee’s fresh honey,

like the bees – they have terrible stings.

They can bless in the glad warm sunshine,

and brighten a lonely life –

They can cut in the strife of anger,

like an open two-edged knife.

Keep them back – if they’re cold and cruel –

Under bar, and lock and seal,

For the wounds they make, my darlings,

are always slow to heal

May peace guard your lives, and ever,

from the time of your early youth,

May the words that you daily utter

be words of beautiful truth.

I am going to cherish my little sisters today! I am going to love them, hug them and give them lots of kisses!
Blessings,
Kelly-Anne

P.S. My little sisters have many more good moments than bad!  They are not always irritating! I mean, who can resist this little face?  They give cuddles and hugs and kisses too!  I mean to keep these precious relationships!