Autumn

These are some photos I put in a post last May, and just realised I never published them.

Learning to write

Since starting school Holly has gotten so much better at reading and writing.  It's really exciting to watch her progress.  A few weeks ago she was playing schools with Zac.  Holly, of course, was the teacher and Zac was the student doing some drawing.  I had to chuckle to myself when I saw what they'd come up with.  Can you read Holly's comments on Zac's work?

Grait (she later corrected her spelling to great)

Almost great!!!!!

Dressing up

Claudia has recently discovered her love for dressing up.  As you can see in this picture, it's not enough for her to simply wear one item from the dress up box.  Nope, dressing up for her usually involves putting on as many different items as she can manage (or as many as we will help her with)!

Trampoline fun

Starting school

Last year at school orientation, Holly made a countdown chain.  The idea was that she tore off a link a day between Christmas and when school started on 3rd Feb.  This was a great visual reminder of how close the start of school was.  The chain seemed so very long at Christmas (I wish I took a photo), but of course shrunk very rapidly, until we were left with just one link the day before...

... and then it was the day!  She was so very excited.  She proudly put her school uniform and shoes on, and kept checking how long it was til we were going to leave.  I watched her with an overflowing heart.  Thankful.  Joyful.  Excited.  Sad.  Anxious.  Proud.  Overflowing with love for my little girl.

As we got out of the car and walked up the hill to school, she gradually got slower and slower.  She told me she was starting to feel a little bit scared, but that she was still excited.  (She's pretty good at processing her emotions.)  I told her that's normal.  And we kept walking slowly.

When it came to that moment of separation, she clung on a bit, but eventually let go without any tears.  The only tears were from me, but I hastily put my sunglasses on, and made sure she didn't notice!

That first day felt so very long to me.  I hadn't really realised just how big a deal it is to send a child to big school.  It was wonderful to see her smiling face at 3 o'clock, and to hear that her day was great (even if I didn't get to hear many details!).

Impromptu Wednesday afternoon face painting

Sometimes it's fun to do something a bit exciting to brighten up a mid-week afternoon

Preparing for Christmas

This year I wanted to make sure that we were prepared and organised for Christmas.  More than that I wanted to ensure that my children had their hearts and minds turned to the real meaning of Christmas, to the wonder of God becoming man.  And so, I decided we would use an advent calendar, with little pockets into which I would put little pieces of paper with daily activities and bible stories to read.

It was a lot of fun, but, I won't lie, hard work coming up with a different activity each day and then actually following through with it.  A few days I wished I hadn't started it!  Holly in particular loved the idea of it, and made sure that we pulled out a piece of paper every day (even if Zac might have let me forget some days!).  I'm glad we pushed through though, I do think it helped the kids focus on the real meaning of Christmas, and also helped me to be organised with Christmas-y things that needed to get done.  Here are some photos of the highlights.

Acting out the nativity scene for our Christmas card

Nativity cookies (we gave sets to preschool teachers)

Making wrapping paper

Making mini Christmas puddings (recipe from Colin Christmas DVD)

The nativity scene we coloured in