Surprise Birthday Party

We had a super quick trip up to Sydney last week. Drove up Friday morning and returned Saturday afternoon. The main reason was for Rossie's surprise 30th birthday party.
Got some fun pictures...
...yep I've given up trying to have pictures of us all looking the same direction, these are more fun...

Dad, with four daughters and families..

I thought this was funny - pretty much no one looking at the camera...

...four older ones laughing :)

Rossie with the 7 neices/nephews...

...Talia wanted to kidnap Bekah

Harvesting

Thursday we brought in another reasonable haul of fresh vegies from the garden. The children were eager to help, Leah entertained Bekah, and the twins used a wagon + wheelbarrow to bring in the peas, snowpeas, beetroot, silverbeet, cauliflower and broccoli.

There was a little over 600g of peas in this picking, hopefully we get to enjoy some more at a later date as there is still quite a lot more on the plants.
Made beetroot + carrot soup. It was okay, but think it didn't really bring out the beetroot flavour enough, so hoping to make some relish soon.

Children

Our cheeky little Ammy
We got a few new jigsaw puzzles. Leah had previously found puzzles hard, but now she really enjoys them. She did this 24 piece puzzle of a butterfly over and over again.

Abby put together this 100 piece puzzle of a teddy swinging...

...and Buddy really enjoyed doing his 100 piece puzzle too.

Do you want to subscribe?

Have received some feedback to say that there are some readers who would like an e-mail sent whenever there is a new blog post. If you are one of these people let me know and I will add you.
Thanks!

Mummy's Little Girl

The Girls Room

On request: here are a couple of pictures of the oldest two girls bedroom.

My Birthday

I had a lovely birthday, with a surprise delivery from a very dear friend...
an impromtu decision to have our lunch outside like a picnic (the cubs suggestion)...

another imprmptu decision to bake a birthday cake...

and another surprise, a visit from Bear's mummy! That was special.

I enjoyed spoiling the children throughout the day - rice bubbles for brekky, wiggles number bikkies for arvo tea, fried chips+potato cakes for dinner, watching DVD's and lots more fun. :)

Thanks to those who sent cards, gifts, and birthday greetings. xo

Baby Girl

Little Bekah is growing up so quickly. We love our baby girl and are awed at how God creates each of us so differently. Bekah has quite a different laugh from the others and tends to be more serious. She is definitely a morning person (so far), and loves being outside - watching the chickens + Kelli.
Leah Love is extremely sweet on Bekah and will sit beside her bassinett and read her stories or hold her hand. Very precious to see.

The Garden is Flourishing

so we are enjoying homegrown produce.

In the garden there is: spinach, silverbeet, snow peas, peas, cauliflower, potatoes...

lots of broccoli...

(one day we brought in a 8kg haul of broccoli with still more in the garden!)

beetroot...

and lettuce - a few different types.

We are so thankful for the way the Lord has made the garden so fruitful over the winter/spring season, and given us enough rain - our tank is overflowing! We are looking forward to planting the summer crop.

Devotional

Enjoyed reading this a few days ago.

Chicks...

One of our hens now has five little chicks. Right now we also have another hen sitting on more eggs, hopefully we will get more little chicks in a couple of weeks.
Just a couple of days old

Mother hen and five chicks

Buddy's drawing of a chook :)

The Five Children

Talia managed to get these fun pictures of the children:

Bekah
'Ammy

Leah

Abby

Buddy

Family photo disaster

For awhile now we've been wanting to update our professional picture of the children. The one we have hanging on the wall right now has the twins with Leah who would be about 3 months old. So.. while Talia was here I dared to do a photo session. Well, I'm sure that now Talia understands how agonising it is trying to get one decent photo! Here are some of the images captured. Place a vote on which you think is the best one. Whatever gets the most votes I will probably get enlarged to go on our wall.

1.2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

Interstate visitor...

Little Bekah is almost 11 weeks old now! She has grown so much and we are loving having this precious little girl in our family.
From September 19-24, we had Talia staying with us. The time was over way too quickly. We all thoroughly enjoyed having Talia here and were sad that she had to go so soon.

Talia was an enormous help with the children, and the twins 5th birthday party. We also had lots of fun recounting memories and also transferring and editing Bear & my wedding video onto computer and DVD. Was emotional watching the video as four women who are now with the Lord are on it - Bear's aunt, aunt Fran, aunt Beth and Mummy, but, also quite fascinating seeing so many different things that we didn't see on the day (we only saw each other ;) ) and seeing how we have grown (in many ways! :) ) since then.

Thanks so much for coming Talia - hope that you'll be able to come again real soon!

Five years ago...

we welcomed two very special little people into our arms. The pregnancy with the twins was unforgetable. Quite early on in the pregnancy we thought that we wouldn't get to hold them in our arms. However, the Lord healed and kept them safe in the womb. Praise Him. We had regular ultrasounds to check that the twins were going fine, nearer to the end the sonographer said to us how their weight gain would probably plateau out... but... not these twins. On a return visit the same sonographer was getting quite stressed trying to measure the twins size. I had massive swelling in my right leg, and also the swelling pretty much extended from my toes till my waist. It was not fun (could only find one pair of shoes in all the stores we searched that would fit on my swollen feet & even then when I walked around at stores etc all I wanted to do was kick my shoes off ; for the last 3 months I sat up to sleep as the pressure and weight was so much; for some number of weeks I had sciatica and I could only sit in one type of chair or agony; I threw up all the time - in the car, plane, waking up, eating, one time so bad that it was coming out my nose too! [I know very disgusting!]) but worth every second to have these precious twinnies. At 38 weeks my obstetrician was very concerned for me, and presented to us the idea of a c-section. It was not our ideal, however after prayer and discussion we decided to go ahead with it. At 38.5weeks the twinnies were delivered via c-section weighing in at 7lbs8oz or 3.6kg (Buddy) and 8lbs6oz or 3.8kg (Abby). Am I ever glad we didn't wait even longer! Our first days and weeks with the twins was full-on! Bear often described it as being hit by a freight train. Those days are a bit of a blur now.

Five years on they can be described like this...

Buddy

• Seizures – he has had a few and praise God he has been kept safe through each
• Studious – he pours over every little detail in books and can derives what the story is about just by looking at the pictures
• Silly – like with Leah (his character twin)
• Shepherding – paternal to Rebekah, towards the chooks
• Searching – wants to know everything, quiet cunning with his questions in recent days
• Songs – his favourite song right now is 'I am growing, I am growing, big and strong, big and strong, growing up for Jesus...'

Abby

• Sensible – especially in contrast to two of her siblings
• Sorted – knows where everything goes
• Superior -bossy
• Sweet – looks out for Buddy’s scenery, eg. will point out trucks to him when we are out in the van
• Songs – her favourite song is 'Jesus loves me'
• Spiritual – a strong conscience, witnesses about the Lord Jesus Christ in simplicity of what she knows and enjoys
• Stories – loves to recount and teach

We love you Spaceman and Spring Blossom! xo