This Friday's 'granny time' was taken up with a cool mosaic craft. It was quite a simple craft for the girls this time, where all it really involved was matching coloured squares with numbers and stick it on the already prepared picture. The girls loved this craft and the end result was very rewarding.



My mom really finds the cutest crafts - the girls really can't wait to see what will be next! Usually we are more involved in helping the girls, but this time we enjoyed drinking our tea and just chatting while the girls were busy. Later on in the afternoon I employed my mom's services to help me get my invitations ready for my 30th...I'll add a post on that on a future date.

Rachel's finished product - (notice the spelling of here memory verse, which they have to learn for junior youth).

Amanda's finished product. She came up with the idea to write their weekly memory verses on their boards...which I think was a fabulous use of this craft!

Amanda somehow managed to lose her other pair of glasses at church a few weeks ago, and so we had to schedule for the girls to go for another eye test. This time we opted to go to Specsavers, who give kids under 12 free eye tests and glasses. I must comment on their excellent service, as the whole thing really didn't cost us a cent, and they treated us like gold. We were really impressed. The optomotrist did up her perscription from the last pair, so Amanda is actually enjoying wearing them again, whereas the last pair were not doing their job anymore...

So here's my studious Amanda with her new purple-rimmed glasses.

I would like to introduce you to 'Bob'. Yip, you guessed it, it's not any of the young men, it's the push car. He has been part of Krugersdorp Baptist since 1999, and so is celebrating it's 11th birthday this year. Apparently Bob used to be longer, but a few years back they shortened him to make him easier to move around the corners, and also lighter, as he is extremely heavy. Once a year the youth of the Westrand get together for a push car race - last year Krugersdorp came third. This year however the youth have been training hard to get into shape, I think they want to go for gold this year.

Here are the three young men who have repainted and fixed Bob up for this year's race - Jason, Steve and Vince - they are also three of the four 'Year-for-life'ers.

Somehow they convinced Glen to get in the thing so while they pushed it down the road...I must say that I was quite nervous seeing the speed they went down the road, knowing that it doesn't have it's own breaks, and also knowing how heavy it is...if one of them were to let go on a down-hill, that would just be the end...anyway, I kept quiet, and said a silent prayer, and waited for them to return...which they did, thankfully!

As you can see, Glen enjoyed himself, but I am not too sure if he would be so easily convinced to go again.

The push car race is on Friday the 5th of March - I will let you know how Krugersdorp does this year!

I just love it when my kids keep themselves busy with their own crafts. Rachel decided that I needed a plant on my school desk and proceeded, on her own, to make me one.

I just love her creative streak - and as you can see, if you know Rachel, you will notice that serious concentration going on. So now the little tree lives on my school desk, and has dropped a leaf, which in Rachel's mind makes it look more authentic.

This morning while the girls were having their quiet times outside, Sugar tried to catch a bird...which ended up getting caught by Bonnie, and then as Rachel told us the story, 'Bonnie called Clyde to come and eat him.' So there was the little dove, caught, with no hope of escape...when (drumroll......) Rachel saved the day, for the little dove that is.

She just couldn't stand seeing this little birdie hurt, and so she took it away from them and brought it inside, very concerned that the little thing was sooo hurt. The girls proceeded to name the dove Sally, and put it in the bathroom, tried to feed it hamster food, and enjoyed putting it on their shoulder like a parrot. I decided not to intervene but to rather leave the 'problem' for Glen to sort out when he got back from his prayer walk.

When he got back he convinced the girls that it would be better for Sally to be set free, and so we prayed that God would protect 'her' and went outside. Shortly after I took a quick pic, Sally jumped off Rachel onto the ground and then flew up into a nearby tree.


It was such a wonderful experience for the girls, and they really got to see that God even cares for little righ-necked doves. I am blown away, once again, at Rachel's love for little creatures, and her lack of fear to touch and hold them. Truly a gift from the Lord!

Yesterday, while we were all enjoying the beautiful lavender bush in our garden crowded by little butterflies, I came accross this little guy who I had seen a few days before, and warned the girls to stay away from, but this time he had caught his dinner...I had to try out my new found feature on my camera, which Lynn had shown me, and I thought it would make a great picture...and I must say, I was thrilled to see how it had turned out.

The little spider had caught a bee, and the bee was filled with little 'miggies' or flies. Really cool. The spider, as I have found out is called a white crab spider, and I found this cool link which actually shows the crab spider catching a bee -

http://sciencehack.com/videos/view/xzFhxnDuM-0 - Enjoy!

So from both the spider's side and mine...a great catch!

Sugar fell asleep on Rachel's hand, and so Rachel, in typical Rachel fashion, decided that she would take it one step further...

As you can see...Sugar was completely in his element, being treated like royalty - as he should be, of course.

Purrrrrrrfect!

We had our first Sunday School hosted fun evening last night, where we had to dress up as our favorite superhero character, or a made up character. Since we didn't actually have any proper costumes, we opted to make up our own characters:

Amanda was 'Rainbow Promise' and her super power was that she could see 'Mr. Invisible' through her umbrella, and she also proclaims to 'baddies' that God always sees what they do, and then they would repent and become good.

By the way, the boy in the background over there is Aaron - Nick and Lynn and the boys came over just for the night, for another 'maybe last visit' as they have been delayed here in S.A. still awaiting their visas. We don't always know what God is doing...but we know that He is doing. We are just glad to be able to spend more time with them before they go.


Rachel was 'Super Grace'. She can turn into a dangerous falcon (although she kept calling it an eagle). She could unfreeze people with her powers and set them free. (Of course they would first need to be frozen by a 'baddy' to be set free.)



Here we have from left to right - Wolverine, Cookie Monster, Joker, Flash and Random Guy. The Joker won the prize for the best character all round.

Rachel found two butterfly pupas outside a few days ago, which she decided she was going to observe to see what happens...one of them got squashed by her sister (by accident). This morning while they were playing in their snack time, they happened to look inside the container that the pupa was being kept, and found that there was a little butterfly trying to stretch out it's wings. Rachel, as you can imagine, was so excited to show us her new little baby. I don't really know if it will survive, as it looks so frail and helpless, but Rachel is quite sure that with her loving care it will make it. I don't know where Rachel got this incredible intrest in bugs and things, but even though I wouldn't touch them, I do encourage her to pick them up and observe them. I just love it that she enjoys finding out more about God's creatures...Amanda by the way, enjoys learning about them and observing them as well, but is more anxious about actually touching them...

This is the kind of day we had today...

You know when it's been a really lazy day, when you've made your kids eggs for supper...I know, this is not really the best all-round supper, but they were so blessed to have something of their own choice, and I was just too glad that it required little effort. What would a home be, if you didn't break the rules every now and then...right?