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.

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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

Birthday Party

Have a lot of pictures to post and also a few things I'd like to blog. Bedtime is not many minutes away, so will start with just these two tonight.

This past weekend, we had a twin fifth birthday party. Thanks to Talia and Brenna these cakes were made. Abby had selected a giraffe design and Buddy the racing car. I was really pleased how they turned out.

At the end of August my precious friend Ruth (who is like a sister) had her 40th birthday. Her husband spoiled her with a surprise party. After knowing about the party plans for months previous and having Ruth bring up some really tricky conversations about her birthday and parties, it was wonderful to have the surprise party go so well.


Here is Ruth with another sweet friend Tina, her husband and the newest addition to their precious family.



Bear with Ruth. As you can see from these pictures the theme colour was RED!
Ruth, I am so thankful for you. You have been a enormous blessing in my life. Thank you for listening, sharing, praying, loving and helping. I love you sister!