a little help...

A little help goes a long way...look at this...what are you planning for Christmas Presents this year...you can Give A Miracle...as little as $50 buys a cradle for a baby at the orphanage...$25 a set of sheets and towels...imagine being able to fund a whole cottage (a House Mum lives there with 15 children full time....) And Ben when you are reading this I would like this for Christmas please...not a whole cottage obviously...but something else...

I am busy cutting up a sheet to make handkerchiefs...Craft Hope are requesting handkerchiefs and pillow cases (to go in the baby cradles instead of them sleeping on plastic) and so on as well as baby blankets, booties and beanies...go take a look and see if you can even send a few pillow cases to help...

And if you do nothing else just pop over to The Miracle Foundation and spend a few minutes looking at the video...I found the movie Slum Dog Millionaire rather disturbing so it is nice to see this video of children in a positive situation...

And Children of the Forest...We sponsor a child there...Here she is...I would love to go and visit her one day...It is a very small charity and they are always in need of pencils, crayons, lead pencils, erasers, toothbrushes, hair brushes, and soap as well as underwear and clothing...maybe you can buy a few extra things when you are out shopping and send them off...every little bit helps make the difference in a child's life...it is easy to do nothing but not that much harder to do something...Lissy

busy morning...

We have had some VERY windy weather in over night and today...no damage fortunately...

After dropping Evangeline at her class, Morganne and I went to play group...Ben had taken her last week...she was very busy inside all morning...It was too wet and cold for any outside play...
Matching...Carrying...Music...Stacking...eeek...this was Morganne's idea and Dawn the playgroup leader was quite happy for her ot do it...Magnetic Play...And more magnetic play...Money...Window Cleaning....start them young...And playing with trains...Action songs...Morning tea...And then Jen and Imogen came for lunch...the girls played together beautifully...
And Evangeline stamping M's face..."for a treat" she said...lol...And we are in for a windy night too...Lissy

plenty to do...

There is always plenty to do around here and I have been pretty busy...I have been doing some more purging of stuff in the kitchen and my scrap room...sorting out some fabrics and stuff as I really want to get on and sew a few things for the girls while they are little...I have made an apron for Evangeline that she requested...it is mostly finished...but while I was sorting the fabric I got side tracked...I decided to make a few baby blankets to send to Craft Hope...destined for an orphanage in India...I have made two so far and will do one more and then post them off...they are cotton one side and a knit on the other side...While I have plenty of other jobs that need doing around here it is a nice feeling to do something for others...as a mum I find it very distressing to think of babies and children going with out the basic essentials in life...I am considering getting out my crochet hooks and seeing if I can make some squares for Knit A Square who make blankets for children orphaned or abandoned due to AIDS in Africa...I have some wool sitting around here that is not being put to good use...I have also been bundling up clothes again to send to Children of The Forest where we sponsor a child...mostly Morganne's clothes and some bigger clothes I have gathered too as there are kids up to the age of 16 there...some friends give me some gently worn clothes every so often to send...I figure these charities have probably suffered hugely with the global economic crisis...So I have been a bit side tracked from my clean up job...but I am back onto it today!

I have about 30 roses to start pruning...I stared some today...and a lot of weeds to remove in the garden...we have had a lot of wet and cold and very windy weather but the vegie patch looks rather happy! Evangeline made her own sandwich today using some of our very yummy lettuce...I am still working on the wooden furniture I bought for the girls...getting coats of paint on when the weather permits...here is E in her new apron next to the kitchenette...she chose the fabrics and wanted a bib apron...I went on excursion with Evangeline's class on Wednesday...to Landsdale Farm...the weather was pretty bad initially but fined up when needed...And there was an open classroom morning on Friday when you can go in and see the children's work...it was great to see what Evangeline is working on...writing...Trinomial and binomial blocks (the basis of algebra - each colour red, blue and yellow corresponds with a, b and c in algebra...)...Exchanging 1s 10s 100s and 1000s...And building structures and so on...Morganne is adding more words all the time...her latest is "bess" meaning mess! She actually took me to where she had spilled her water the other day saying "bess, bess"...She can say "yes" which is quite a positive way to communicate with a toddler...She doesn't ever say 'no" but will shake her head if the answer to a question is no...generally she will answer questions and you can work out what she wants...

Ben went back to work on Tuesday...we had thought he would be home for another couple of weeks...I still have the 14 layouts I started to finish...they all have the photos on the backgrounds...so I just need to add titles and journalling...and then I should print out some more photos...E wanted to make biscuits (cookies) the other night so we made a batch of Afgans...my childhood favourite...yum...And hanging around here together...E was a gem today and cleaned up the playroom all by herself...it was in a huge mess...Morganne is up from her sleep and now they are happily playing in the now clean playroom...so time for we to get some more jobs done...Lissy

another week...

I am not sure where time goes some days...and here it is the weekend again!

Ben and I went to Parliament House for lunch on Monday with our friends Frank (MLA) and Shauna...it is a beautiful old building and was rather interesting to have a look around and the meal was lovely too...

Evangeline is doing really well at speech and may not need to continue...YAY! We will do a review next week and see...Morganne is getting into her Suzuki music class now and trying to sing and do the actions...

Simona and the girls came over for a visit after school on Wednesday and we had the motorbike out which they loved...Morganne had her first little ride...Plus they climbed trees and rode on the tractor...lots of fun...We have had a lot of wintry weather too...we were supposed to go to Whiteman Park on Friday after school to meet with our mums group but the weather was horrid...I did manage to go and see a movie though...The Proposal...I laughed a lot and really enjoyed it...We have managed a bit of motorbike riding today in a fine spell...Morganne is playing a lot with the mini baby born dolls...and in her car...And we have a new member of the family...she turned up on Wednesday and as yet seems to have no owners...we have called her Tilly and she has settled in fine! We thought Ben was home for another couple of weeks but he is leaving on Tuesday...We are having some friends for morning tea tomorrow and other than that we have no real plans for the rest of the weekend...I didn't get any more scrap booking done this week...maybe tonight...Lissy

our sunday...

We have had a nice Sunday...Evangeline has been keen to ride to the shop on her bike so Ben and her set off this morning on their adventure...it is about 2km each way...Meanwhile Morganne and I had breakfast...And then we went to Eden's birthday at the Cuddly Animal Farm...it was nice and warm...E had great time visiting and feeding all the animals with Eden and Morganne had a good time too...Tonight we had to go and pick up a car at someones house and Morganne screamed all the way home...that does my head in! But other than that
all was pretty good...I hope you had a good one too...Lissy