The pitter patter of little feet.

In the past month or so I've had four friends give birth to new little blessings to their family. It's wonderful to see God growing His nation here on earth! For us it's been a time of questioning again as to whether or not we'd like to add to our family of four. The discussion continues to have no conclusion, but while we wait for a decision we're getting a little taste of what it would be like.

Unfortunately xenophobia is a whispered threat on our doorstep again. With the World Cup coming to an end people started feeling threatened about the availability of work and so threats were made towards our Zimbabwean maid and her community. Charity and her husband have a one year old daughter. It is not unusual for Zimbabweans to work and live here and have their children live at home in Zimbabwe with grandparents. I've had other maids before who have left their children behind because it is a better environment for their children. Sound crazy? Isn't Zimbabwe in the media often for their political problems?

Reality check! We live in South Africa, where although we've come a long way towards freedom for all, there is still poverty and lack of employment. And so having a little baby to protect, Charity and her husband debated whether or not to take her back home. For Charity this would have meant being left on her own while her husband took their daughter and not knowing when they'd come back. As she was the only one with work she would stay behind. But how does one afford the costs of journeying home on the salary of a domestic?

My first reaction was anger! Why couldn't they stay? Hadn't they come here to seek asylum from their own country? Couldn't we as South Africans see that threatening them with violence was just what we had fought so hard to change in our country? We wanted equality-didn't that mean for all? Then I realised that I was talking from a priviledged perspective still. After all I'm not the one living in a shack with no work trying to feed my family. So we were left with what our hearts felt was the only option.

For a while I had been asking Ray if he would consider having Charity and her family live on our property. God has His ways of preparing us. We both need time to make decisions and this made it easier to make it quickly-something we needed to do as time was limited.

And so now we have this precious little girl and her family to play and live and learn with.....

Before the World Cup started there was much debate as to whether or not it would be a good thing for our country. Yes, this may sound like bad news, but I'm still choosing to live in hope that the Lord can use even this for His good!

So far there has been little news of anything serious happening. Although many Zimbabweans have packed up and left there are still some who have chosen to stay.

So while we wait patiently we're enjoying the sound of little feet again!

And in between it all, The World Cup!

I know it's all over now, but I thought I'd share our Soccer World Cup experience with you.

First of all we needed to look like supporters. So we painted South African flags on fabric and I did an easy sewing job stitching them onto yellow shirts-yes I can sew in straight lines! I think my children's Soccer shirts were THE best. OK, I know I'm biased, but hey I'm allowed to be aren't I?

Then Ray decided we had to look authentic too-so he splashed out on shirts for us.

To celebrate the opening of the World Cup we all gathered at our friend's home to watch the opening game. The kiddies had an amazing time watching their parents get all enthusiastic, loud and passionate about supporting their country. They all quickly mastered the Vuvuzela (or Bubuzela as Michael calls it) and had soon created their very own Fan Walk.

Now, I'm not much of a soccer fan so going to a game was never a dream of mine. But it was for Ray. When tickets first came out he couldn't think of spending money on one so he placed the thought of attending a game at the back of his mind. That is until the Cup actually started and the reality of it being on his front doorstep set in. As he watched each game his desire to go grew more and more until he was surfing the net, asking at work and hoping for any chance of getting his hands on one! (He even rode through to town one day on his scooter because he had heard he could get one somewhere!)

And then one day I received an e-mail in my in box: I'm going to the game tomorrow! Will tell all about it tonight. I was so happy for him! And so in awe again of how the Lord knows our desires and would even provide him with a FREE ticket to a game! How awesome is that!

Well he went and here are the photos to prove it:

The REAL FAN WALK!

The Stadium at night.

The Game.

Yip, and this is where he was seated! Can you see the roof top? Phew, that was pretty high up, but it never ruined the experience. He was on a Soccer High for days afterwards. So much so that he wanted me to go to a game too. But that wasn't to be :-(

p.s. if you're wondering how he got a free ticket: a friend blessed him with one after his wife couldn't go with him.

And then there was a quick "Spring" clean.....

After the bathrooms were complete I took the opportunity to do a clean out of the house. I usually do this at this time of year, so it coincided perfectly with the need to clean up all the dust from the renovations. This usually means cleaning out and rearranging all the cupboards around our home. It gives me a chance to throw out what isn't being used and to rearrange items to allow for better access or user friendliness.

During breaks from cleaning these are a few activities which kept us busy:

Making shapes with spaghetti. I got this idea from my friend Kath. She has a lovely little blog journalling her adventures with her boys.

We played number games with our fruit-discovering and comparing how many segments our naartjies had. And of course my creative designer girl thought it would be fun to create shapes with these too! Fruit can become such a great maths apparatus. Jenna has learnt about halves, quarters, sharing, doubling and just general adding and subtracting using fruit.

This was one of the photos I wanted to post last time but it got "stuck" in the camera. Jenna joyfully dancing at her final ballet lesson of the term. So sweet!

And of course we had a co-op with our story telling mom, Carol. She has such a wonderful way of involving all of the children in her stories. Here they are pulling out the "porridge" from a pot for the story that day. Even Michael, who would prefer to ride bikes outside can't resist getting involved when she tells a story ;-)

And here they are having some tactile fun catching feathers which she gently released from the platform above their lounge.

There is always fun to be had when dad gets home and he inspires some creative lego building. I'm still not sure who gets more fun out of it though, Ray or the kids?! 

Back to the in between moments........ Here Jen and Mikey spend some special time with Ray's folks. This was a really special moment for me. Michael takes a while to freely interact with his grandparents when we visit . It's been far easier for them to interact with Jenna's gentle, chatty personality. Adapting to Michael's busy, boisterous ways has taken a little longer. I was so surprised to see him hop up on granny's lap for a story without first having to be convinced. The Lord is really working in my little boys heart. 

The Final Unveiling.

It seems like monthly breaks are becoming the norm around here for me :-) Sorry it's been a while. No real reason, other than life and learning more about my precious family.

After unsuccessful visits to camera shops my clever husband figured out the camera problem on his own-a faulty cord-and now we're back on track with photos.

So now for the long awaited bathroom unveiling:

The light from the window makes it difficult to take a good picture, but I think you can get the basic idea. We installed a large mirror along the wall above the bath-but it's impossible to get a good shot of that!

Now all that's left to do is to buy a nice set of chocolate brown towels and to figure out if it should be curtains, blinds or draped cloth over the window. At this point in time draped cloth is sounding great as I still haven't got around to booking myself into any sewing classes ;-)

And finally it is finished!!!

As I type this I'm being overcome with fumes from the bathroom! Ray is busy adding the finishing touches to the shelves and the paint smells are wafting over here.

After a month long break I was very eager to share some photos of the finished product with you but alas, our camera has decided to go on strike! So you'll have to wait for The Final Unveiling.....

Or maybe I can give you a little peek....

This is our shower in the en-suite to our bedroom.

And that's all for now, as unfortunately the rest of the pictures are stuck on our camera!!!!! :-(

Having builders in our home everyday for one month, meant we needed to readjust our schedules quite a bit. There was noise and dust and at times it seemed like too many bodies in our home to contend with.

So in the beginning, to get away from all the banging and jackhammering we kept ourselves busy away from home.

Thankfully one day we had a baking co-op where the children had some fun making masks and then acted out a story to go with the masks.

Afterwards they made some very yummy dairy, gluten and sugar free coconut cupcakes!

We took advantage of a warm weather day and headed down to the beach to do some shell hunting. I know this picture looks gloomy, but it was perfect weather for the beach and the water was warm as we were on the warm side of our coastline.

After filling their buckets with all sorts of treasures the kiddies had great fun exploring the rocks and pretending they had a castle of their own.

And of course there were those days when the noise stopped and we could stay at home peacefully! On these days Jen and Mikey spent most of their time chatting to the builders asking them all sorts of questions. I just love how they have the freedom to watch and learn when we have workmen around the house. Not only do they learn about how other people make a living but they make relationships with people whom they wouldn't ordinarily meet. By the time the team of builders left the children knew each one of them by name and what their work entailed. They learnt about new tools and got to see how they worked-lots of fun for Michael who enjoyed sharing his tool set with them too. They were very eager to greet the builders every morning and quickly became little helpers giving a hand when they could to carry the equipment in.

My very sociable children, love to spend time with friends. I had arranged a baking-play date with our friends Ethan and Jadon before the builders came only to realise that it would be impossible to bake with all the dust and noise! Kath, their mommy, kindly offered her oven to us and we spent the morning baking yummy astro biscuits.

Jenna discovered the pavement chalk again one day and decided to draw her own hopscotch grid. After playing with her I noticed that she was reversing some numbers so I took the opportunity to do some number tracing-don't you just love incidental teaching!?

And of course there were the final lessons of the term to attend for Playball and ballet. I just love this pic of Michael-he's in his element pretending to be the hippo catching the baby ducklings.

And this one is of Jen before her ballet lesson-my sweet little Cat Whisperer! This is our oldest and most moody of our cats. Jenna has such a special way with our cats she's even got this skittish, very tempremental cat at her beck and call. Unfortunately I seem to have lost the pictures from her ballet lesson. All the little ballerinas were so precious and dainty. I haven't been able to watch since the beginning of the year and was quite impressed with how much they have learnt in 6 months.

Once the tiling started-they had to wait for the bathroom walls to dry out from the bad damp-we could stay at home and do some quiet activities. With all the shells we collected we made little mobiles to hang in our tree which is bare now because of Winter.

I know that I wasn't doing any of the hard work around here but all the activity was rather exhausting for me so one Friday, when I really needed to get some rest, Ray took the kiddies to the beach. Now this IS the cold side of the coastline..... can you tell?!

All the hard work is completed and we are enjoying our new bathrooms. Just one last piece of work needs to be done, by me this time-curtains! I think it's about time I find those sewing classes!