My First Poem

Last night at about 8:30pm I came up with a verse to the poem that is below. As I was in bed already, I got up quickly and turned on the light. I scribbled the verse down and got back into bed. The next minute I was up again, writing another verse down. I went to my mom who was feeding Rebekah on her bed and read the verses to her. She liked them, so I went to tell my dad who was busy on the computer entering exam marks (he is a high school teacher). He liked my incomplete poem, but said that I was to get into bed and not do anymore, as it was already late.

It was hopeless. The next second I had another verse for my poem, and another! I went to tell my mom and she said that I could lie in her bed and complete the poem. She did not want me to disturb Nancy, but understood that when inspiration strikes, one needs to act! The verses came and I wrote them down (not very neatly though)!

Then, I was finished! I read the poem to my mom and dad and went to bed. I needed to change a few things as the poem had started off one way and ended in another.

I have never really enjoyed poetry, I guess because I never really understood the poems I read. However, lately my mom has been reading much more poetry to us, so maybe the bug is biting!

Now I love writing poems! I can't wait till I find another poem to write!

Here is my poem. I hope you enjoy it! If you have a poem that you have written, feel free to share it with me on 'comments'.

On That Day:

What will it be like
On the day
When Jesus comes
To take us away

Will the thunder crash?
Will the mountains fall?
Will the clouds part?
Will the seas roar?

Will he come in a chariot
Made of gold?
Will he come
To take back the world?

Will we go
Hand in hand
Through the pearly gates
And in Heaven stand?

Did you know,
Jesus can,
Hold the world
In his hands?

Will he come?
Will he stand?
In front of those who have-
Served him all their life and
Made him glad?

Will the trumpets sound?
Will the kingdoms fall?
Will they know
He is Lord?

So, What will it be like,
On the day,
When Jesus comes
To take us away?

Kelly-Anne Gray

Spring Banners

We have been making spring banners for the last few days. Our spring banners are paintings of butterflies and flowers joined together to make a banner.

They are not just normal paintings, the butterflies are symmetrical paintings and the flowers were wax drawings with paint over it. It was great fun making these! The bodies of the butterflies were long rectangular shaped, decorated with glitter glues.

We learnt that all of us can't craft at the same time. It is very chaotic with Gabrielle wanting help and Beth complaining that her glitter came out too fast and Nancy and I trying to do our own and all of this with Rebekah in my mom's arms. Now the Little Ones do theirs first and Nancy and I do ours afterwards or when they are asleep.

The banners make the house look so beautiful and really bring spring in even if it is just like winter outside, pouring with rain!

On day one we did the butterflies. We folded a piece of blank paper in half and opened it again. On one side we put blobs of different coloured paint on and then folded it in half. We had to be careful that we did not put paint near the edges or the paint just oozed out.










































There were so many butterflies and only after we had put them on the string did we realise that we only needed three or four, not as many as we had done! Here are all the butterflies drying in the kitchen.








Later in the day my mom cut out a body shape for the butterflies. We left the butterflies to dry and we decorated the bodies. It was fun designing the different patterns! We decorated them with glitter and sequins.




























Next my mom made a butterfly shape and we traced it onto the butterflies. We then cut all the butterflies out and stuck the bodies on to them.

We then made the flowers. We drew flower shapes with white wax crayons on blank paper. When we had made enough we used water paints to paint over them to reveal the secret flower. We had to also be careful that we did not go over the wax more than once or the wax crayon drawings would disappear.




















Once the flowers were dry we cut them out each with its own shape and pattern.

We then took some string and cut some cellotape and laid the butterflies and flowers bottom-up behind the string. We put a butterfly first, then a flower. Butterfly, then a flower and so on. Once that was done we stuck them to the string.

We then got my dad to display them on the wall. I can tell you, its tough being the dad! He had to stand on chairs and reach up and stick these 'things' on the wall!










Why don't you make some Spring banners and celebrate spring with these bright, fun and colourful banners!

Who Are The 'Little Ones'?

I often talk about the 'Little Ones'. You may wonder who they are. The Little Ones are Beth and Gabrielle. Rebekah is still a baby and will become a 'Little One' when she starts walking. I don't really refer to Rebekah as a 'Little One' yet.

I am going to tell you about Beth and Gabrielle.

Beth and Gabrielle either love each other or hate each other. It is extremely funny watching them hold hands and tell each other they love them one minute and the next minute they can't stand looking at each other!

They share a room and often I used to hear Beth telling Gabrielle to stop singing. Gabrielle used to sing a lullaby to make herself fall asleep!

These two are so cute! But, Beth is fast becoming a 'Big girl' and Rebekah will soon become a 'Little One', changing the dynamics of our family.

















Beth and Gabrielle in one of their loving moods!

Gabrielle is mad about horses and used to steal my HQ magazines off my bedside table. Every Thursday I ask her where we are going, and she replies: "Horsies"! Pronounced 'ho-sees'!

Beth wants to do ballet when she is older. And she drives my mother crazy every day asking for schoolwork! She loves to be busy and is miserable when she is bored!


















They are just so cute!

Life is very busy and loud with them in the house. But would not change it for the world!

Nancy - The Best Playmate!

I know I have not told you much about Nancy. This post I am going to tell you how she makes anything into a game. She invents so many games and if she is not playing, the game is boring.

Nancy is the second eldest of our family and will be turning ten in October.

Nancy loves to read and her favourite book is 'The Pilgrim's Progress'.

Nancy and I are quite close, even if we get cross with each other at times. Nancy was nearly five when Beth was born, so for five years we just had each other to play with.

She loves ballet and is very good at it. Her favourite animal is a dolphin. She has only ever seen dolphins in the distance, swimming and jumping and we toured up the whole coast line to try and get her to see some dolphins!

Nearly everybody says that Rebekah looks like Nancy.










Rebekah.


















Nancy.

Nancy is also very funny, making jokes and funny things out of something very small. She can invent the grandest of games out of a chore! I would so like to be more like her. She hardly ever complains about doing a chore or drying up - again!

The Little Ones adore her! I remember, when Beth was a baby, Nancy would make noises of farm animals and Beth would laugh and laugh!

I can learn something from Nancy my mom says. I agree with her. She has such a good attitude about doing things and serves with her whole heart. When I would like a track built for my bicycle that I can't build, she does it. When I want her to push me on the wagon, she does it..... cheerfully!

Nancy is a great playmate. Once Nancy had something she had to do for my Granny, and we had just set up a game, Beth and I tried to play by ourselves, but we couldn't. We ended up helping her finish what she needed to do! She makes a normal game into something special. A game that was much more fun than it would have been had she not joined in.

Sometimes I persuade her to doing something that I know I can't do and she still does it. I really have to watch that I don't do that, (my mom says that is manipulation), because she has such a sweet heart that she will do it even if she does not feel like it.

















I am so glad I have a sister like Nancy! She is the best playmate I could ever have wished for!

House Rules!

Yes, we have special house rules in our home. My mom was looking at the Dugger Family Website one day, and came upon these House Guidelines.

There are times when I really dislike these as I really hate having to apologize when I 'break one of the rules'. My family are much more apologetic than I am. When they have done something that is wrong and has been listed on the house rules, they quickly say: "oh, number 17 says never to raise a voice to yell"......so sorry!

Print these guidelines out and stick them on the restroom door or on the fridge - or both!

They do work. Just make sure you read them every day. My mom read them to us every morning for the first few mornings. Now, we read them on our own!















"Be attentive and look for ways to serve others with sincere motives and no thought of self-gain". (Number 11 of Dugger Family house guidelines)

Rebekah Is Three Months Old!

Wow! Today Rebekah is three months old! It feels like yesterday my mom went into hospital to have her! She has grown so much and is a real little sweetie! What would life be like without her?

Here she is posing.

























Rebekah had a full on photo-shoot today.













Look at how big she is!













Laughing.










Smiling.











Being cute.










Content.

Here are a few photos of Rebekah when she was younger:










Rebekah, 4th of June 2009.










Rebekah at two weeks.










Mommy's little angel.










Rebekah at two months.

We all love Rebekah. She gets hundreds of kisses, cuddles and hugs everyday!

A New Start!

I love Spring. Spring is when everything comes to life - the animals are born, new flowers start to grow and everything comes to life after Winter. God's creation is really amazing! You feel truly refreshed when Spring arrives!

Spring reminds me that there is always a new start to life. When something goes wrong on Tuesday, we have Wednesday, and Thursday and Friday to just start again!

I love the verse that says that GOD'S mercies are new every morning. That the sun still rises again and that I have a clean slate to start again.


















We can start a new day with a clean slate. If you had a day that you failed yesterday, you have the next day to start again. We just have to go to GOD and ask for forgiveness and an opportunity to start again.

Spring is like life. After Winter, Spring comes, a new season, a new start to life.













Don't get discouraged if you fail today, we always have tomorrow to start again, tomorrow is like Spring!

God Parting The sky

This is a picture that somebody took. It looks as if God is parting the sky. I often said, when I was younger and the sun was shining through the clouds and the rays of sunshine were shining on the ground, that: "God is coming down".

This is a beautiful picture and shows me God's greatness and how big and powerful he is.

A Compost Bin

We have just gotten a compost bin from my Grandpa. What was also nice was that it had lovely compost in it already! We have wanted a compost bin for a long time to start a veggie garden. Compost is really pricey at the nurseries, so we wanted to make some compost of our own!


















We now fill up a bowl with apple peels, egg shells, tea bags and even the crusts of bread the Little Ones don't eat. At the end of the day we take it round to the back of the garden to the compost bin and throw the stuff in! It takes a while to decompose, but at least we have some compost to start with.














This month we are just focusing on doing our garden for school - planting veggies, planting flowers and just making our garden look pretty. We are going to be doing various outdoor projects this month too.

We have also wanted to plant vegetables, at least just salad vegetables, as we love our salads and have them often in summer. It is so expensive now for a cucumber. Even carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers and especially lettuce are going through the roof in price. That is why we want to plant salad vegetables ourselves - why not?

Watch this space for up and coming pictures of our veggie garden and compost! Lets get gardening!

Happy First Of Spring (!)

Today is officially the first of spring! You would never say so though! It is as miserable as ever outside! My mom says thatit usually rains on the first of spring , which is really sad, I was looking forward to doing gardening or something like that!

We decided to make some flower-shaped window biscuits with brightly coloured sweets to celebrate spring, but they were not as successful as we had hoped. The sweets in the middle stuck to the pan when we tried to take them out! The biscuits just crumbled. The biscuits were very yummy though! We used our tried and tested biscuit recipe for the window biscuits and used Sparkle sweets for the windows.

We were really disappointed because they looked great and we were really excited to eat them!

Here are the photos of us making them and the picture of the biscuits that did not break!












Nancy rolling out the dough.










Cody was really happy. He got to eat all the pieces of dough that fell on the floor. Yesterday he ate a whole pan of bread dough that my mom left to rise outside! Boy, was my mom mad!!!










We put all the different coloured crushed sweets in different bowls.













Beth putting the crushed sweets inside the holes of the biscuits. We crushed the sweets as the whole sweet would not fit in the hole we punched out of the middle of the biscuit.













Rebekah was so patient with us and waited in her chair for a good 15 minutes or so!










The biscuits that looked OK. They were yummy though!

Here is a picture of what it looks like outside. Really miserable out there!










There is a tiny bit of sunshine, but the clouds are very black still!

Next time I think we will make the hole bigger so we can pile the sweets up. We will also leave them to cool longer before taking them out. Well, we live and learn, don't we!

In A French Frenzy Part 4

We had a very successful French dinner! We had some friends of ours round to join us. We usually just do it for our family, but this time we decided to have some friends to join us to make it more exciting! We have had some really nice meals for school when we study a different country. We have done China, Italy, America and now, France. It was such a lovely evening, though we were absolutely finished by the time the evening was over!










Our Chinese dinner, 2007














Our American dinner, July 4th, 2008

We had some lovely French music to go along with the evening. I must just tell you it was my dad who organized the music. He was really sad for us when he heard what happened to us at the library. Well, I guess you would like to know what happened to us at the library?
Nancy, Beth and I went into the library by ourselves while my mom was in the car with Rebekah, who was sleeping. The librarians were extremely unhelpful and in the end gave us some classical music by French composers which DID NOT help us! Of course Nancy and I did not know any better - I mean what do I know about French music? I don't even know normal music! Of course my dear daddy was extremely unhappy when he heard what had happened to us and went out and bought us a lovely French CD - which he never normally does! It felt quite special to know the story behind the music playing! And, as it turned out, we really all enjoyed the CD immensely and are still listening to it!

Nancy was in charge of setting the table while I finished off our lovely lamb stew. She did an excellent job and made the table look beautiful! She put the model Eiffel Tower in the middle of the table with some flowers from our garden around it. I am very proud of her for doing such a lovely job even though she knew the time was running out!

Nancy and I dressed in blue and red clothes. We did not have any white clothes, so we just wore red and blue!

We had planned on eating beforehand so that we would be free to serve and do everything we were meant to do, but ended up eating with everyone else due to the time running out!

We had such a lovely evening and we really enjoyed giving our presentations before a course and serving AND eating! Everything was soooooo yummy, though I liked the stew and the cheese board the best!

I really must say, we were absolutely finished by the end of the meal and just about fell into bed once everything was tidy. What did not help was that we had our food market (I will post more about this another day) early the next morning! We really enjoyed our evening and that really made up for the tiredness!

Here are the photos of our French evening:










The Crudites we served before the meal.










Me sticking the menu onto card stock.










The table Nancy beautifully set.










All of us enjoying our dinner.










Nancy saying her piece while I get stuck into my piece of Nougat!










The yummy cheese board!