A Decade Of Memories

Nancy is ten today. She is an absolute joy to us! Here are her photos of each year! Sorry about the poor quality on some of them, her early years were pre digital camera. Happy birthday, Nancy!

Birth:

















Me at 2 years, 9 months, holding my new baby sister.
















Six weeks old! Check out that cool hairstyle!

One Year:
































Her first birthday

















Her first lollipop!














Her Dedication

















Her first Christmas

Two Years













A teddy cake, yum!

















Icky, sticky watermelon!

Three Years:



































She had a piggy cake


















Four Years:


















Two pretty princesses.














A beautiful castle cake that took my parents literally the whole night to complete!














She started ballet classes

Five Years:













A flower garden party














She loves her daddy!

















She has a style of her own






























She loves splashing in the mud!

















Posing for pictures!














Tea time

Six Years:

















A pretty little six-year-old!





























She got bunnies for her birthday
















Presents!
















Boat trip to seal island
















A cute gosling, Nancy loves animals!
Seven Years:






























Riding Bolo, our old horse













Nancy and Gabrielle

Eight Years:










































Our little ballerina!


























An inventor of games!

Nine Years:













A cake that a dear friend made for her













Hunting for tadpoles! She loves nature!










































A nine-year-old princess
And has turned into a.....
































Beautiful ten-year-old princess!

So Many!

Sorry I am posting so many at once! I have been off Blogger for a while and I didn't get to posting some older ones. I hope you don't mind! Hope you are all enjoying Spring!

Teddy Bears

I know! I'm sorry! Nearly over a month later I am only posting about our craft! I hope you haven't forgotten, but if you have, I will give you a quick review.

When we had our poetry tea party on September 19th we made fabric teddy bears. I said that I would share the photos soon and here they are!

So, here are the photos of all the stages and the instructions:














What you need. Paintbrushes, lentils, fabric paint, a pattern for a teddy bear, scissors, pins, a pencil and calico.

















Trace the pattern onto the calico.














Your tracings should look like this. You will need to trace the pattern twice, one for the front of the bear and one for the back of the bear.

















Paint your bear tracings with brightly coloured fabric paint.

















Your bear tracings should look like this.
















Cut out the bear tracings about 2mm away from the edge.

















Your bear tracings should look like this.

















Pin the two sides of your bear together, right sides facing together.
















Ask your mom to sew your pinned bear together, or sew them yourself if you know how! Leave a small hole at top of the head so that you can fill the bear with lentils.

















Once you have turned your teddy the right way around, fill the bear with lentils. We made a funnel out of a piece of cardboard.














Ask your mom to sew up the hole where you put the lentils in. Draw a face on your bear.

















And your bear is DONE!!! Have fun!!!

Making Suns

Today we made some spray-bottle painted suns with hand-print rays. We have been learning about the different seasons and what causes the seasons and now, the sun. All of this is for our gardening unit. The seasons play a big role in plant life-cycles, and so does the sun - a very big role!

It was great fun making our suns and even though I wasn't going to join in, I thought a little fun after lots of writing and studying would do me good!

We used a gardening spray-bottle for the paint so we could spray the paint onto our pieces of cardboard. Each of us sprayed two. Of course the wall (after just being painted by our landlord's painting company) was a bit 'spattery', but it recovered after I had hosed it down! (We used powder-paint as it comes off things like t-shirts and walls, in our case, easily!)


















We used two different colour powder-paints, red and yellow. After a while our yellow turned to orange since we only had one spray bottle and had to spray two colours! Beth decided to aim for the window sill and gave my mom a bit of a heart attack since one of the painters were still here and at any time, our landlord could come and check on his progress and see the mess! Hurry, hurry, hurry! We VERY quickly wiped the sill down, hoping all the time the painter had not noticed the mess! Oopsie-daisy!

We then put the initial of each of our names at the back of the cardboard so the paintings wouldn't get mixed up - a regular occurrence here!














Once the paintings had dried, we traced around a plate for the sun. We then traced around our hands for the rays - the more hands, the better!

















We then cut out the traced sun and rays.


















Once that was done, we laid the sun, bottomside up and placed the rays (hands) around the circle, upside-down. We glued them down and anticipated the turning-up of our suns!




































Ta-da! All done! A beautiful sun!
































They were GREAT fun to make and we thoroughly enjoyed it! In the end, I realised sometimes we all need to have a little fun, even if it is the Little Ones schoolwork!

Till the next craft - goodbye!

Two Frogs

We are learning about perseverance in our 'Steps Programme' - a study which has two units with manuals and CDs: Foundations of Faith and Character Building. Each unit has lots of different books, each studying a different subject. For example, we have done a book on anger and arguments, selfishness and unselfishness, be the best you can be, positive outlook and working together, for Character Building. There are lots of books to go through and makes for a great Bible study every morning for the whole family. There are memory verses, fun puzzles and crafts, stories and pictures to colour in. There is even a CD for each unit which has lots of different songs for each subject!

As I was saying, we have been learning about perseverance. We read a lovely poem by Leo Tolstoy, a Russian writer and philosopher.

Here is his lovely poem that teaches us to persevere and not give up, but to try, and try again - till we get it right!

Two Frogs

Two frogs fell into a can of cream,
Or so I heard it told.
The sides of the can were shiny and steep,
The cream was deep and cold.
"Oh, what's the use?" croaked number one.
"We're lost! No help's around!
Goodbye, my friend, this is the end!
And sinking in, he drowned.

But number two, who wasn't through,
Refused to compromise.
He jutted out his creamy chin
And dried his creamy eyes.
"I'll keep on swimmin'! Where there's life,
There's always hope!" he said.
"It really wouldn't help the world
If one more frog were dead!"

For many hours he kicked and splashed,
At last he stopped to sputter,
"Why, look at that! I can hop right out!
I've whipped the cream to butter!"
So if sometimes your problems make you
Feel you want to scream,

Remember how the froggy churned

The butter out of cream!

Don't give up when you're sinking
And feeling down!
Don't give up when you're sinking,
You don't have to drown!

I love that poem! I am going to stick it on my wall and read it every day!

So don't give up, keep going, be the second frog today!

A Trip To The Stables

Today was horse riding. My dad is on school holidays, he took me to the stables. I asked him if he would take some photos, which he did. Nancy, Beth and Gabrielle came too, to get some fresh air (very fresh since it is blowing a gale outside)!

I rode Flash again and had a pretty good lesson.

My dad only stayed a little while as the others were getting cold from the never ceasing wind. He managed to take a few photos, but really disappointed me by leaving about ten minutes into the lesson! I do understand though, it was very cold and probably very boring since my dad is not exactly a 'horse lover'!



























The others had fun playing games while I was tacking up, and my dad took some nice photos of all of them!














A random photo that came out pretty well.



































I am very grateful that my dad and sisters would give up their morning to take me to riding, its not like they got anything out of it! I am very privileged to have a family like mine!

Welcome October!

Welcome October! And another month begins! I really cannot believe that the year is nearly through!

Its time for me to start thinking of gifts for the loved ones' birthdays listed below! Hey, and christmas is around the corner! I'd better get crafty! I am planning to make all christmas gifts myself this year but I cannot tell you what I am making, it's a secret!

So, whats happening in October?

On the 3rd, Rebekah is 4 months old.
On the 14th Nancy becomes a decade.
On the 24th, I will be a year at the stables I ride at.
And on the 25th, Dad becomes.......sssh! I cannot tell, just it's a BIG birthday!

Oh, and with October came the wind! We are being blown away here!

So, welcome October, we are glad you are here!