Surprise Child

It began with a month of prayer for new life.
For a baby, or for a child, or for a new dream of what life could be without. Not for me, but for my dear friends.
I knew the blessings of children myself and so I pleaded for this hope for them. I reminded God of the joy of children. The pride, the happiness, the sleeplessness, the creativity, the drama, and the beauty they bring.
And I felt that something was about to change.

At the end of that month, a peace had come to my friends about their future. In that time I had also become a surrogate of change for my own family. It was undeniably our fourth (earthly) baby on the ultrasound monitor.
And I was full of fear.

Fear of starting over.
Fear of 'parenting' taking longer.
Fear of Zeb no longer being the baby.
Fear of having less time for my children.
Fear of more clothes to wash.
Fear of a messier house.
Fear of labour and afterbirth pains.
Fear of damage and wear to my body.
Fear of sleepless nights and exhaustion.
Fear of the additional years of homework, lunches and school runs.
Fear about finding a baby name.
Fear about a new baby being 'old news' in our family.
Fear about finding a nursery space in our house.
Fear of the sacrifice.
Fear of not feeling joy.
Fear of my plans and dreams being changed.

Months later, the surprise has worn off. And though I still feel these fears, with each baby kick, each heartbeat heard, and each extra centimetre added to my girth, something else is slowly growing.
Hope.

Hope that my plans and dreams will change.
Hope of a new perspective when the baby arrives.
Hope that my kids will love having another sibling to grow up with.
Hope that I will embrace each cuddle, feed, laugh, and dirty nappy as I care for this child.
Hope that my heart will expand to lavish more love than I can now.
Hope of God-sent courage, strength, and peace.

So for now I am thankful, and will rest and wait for the baby that I told God would be a blessing, and bring pride, happiness, sleeplessness, creativity, drama, beauty and joy.

Boy Birthday Brightness

This boy has a lot of love to give.

He loves dirt.
He loves dragons.
He loves drawing,
Clothes and apple pie and practicing his running.
He loves his friends, his family, and his mama.

It comes in many forms with him:
Loyalty (his friendships are strong and solid); Joy (he loves to play, to work, to sit, to travel, to do whatever is going on at the time); Physical affection (his kisses and cuddles are frequent and offered to many); Care (he sees it as his responsibility, and joy, to look after those smaller than him); Thoughtfulness (he often wonders about Dad, his sisters, cousins, and best friends, and what is happening in their day); Creativity (his art is wonderful, precise and thorough, with flowers and people his top choices); and Words (he says 'I love you' many times a day, and explains why).

I am very blessed to have been loved by this boy for four years, today.

And more blessed to have loved him.

Happy Birthday Zeb!

Let It Glow

That is how my three year old interprets the lyrics.
It is very cute and quite accurate when it comes to this post.
Kids seem to acquire confidence, poise, and even optimism when dressed in character.
Superheros are braver.
Chefs are more experimental.
Lions are bolder.
Princesses are more graceful.
Though they are still the same child.
It's wonderful!

Dress ups are one of the best play tools I know.
(And even better when the costumes are stretchy and zipless)

These two dresses (Anna's coronation dress and Elsa's frozen castle dress) were made for India and her bestie for a Frozen party. Sorry no patterns/tutorial as usual as I made it up as I went along. I suppose you could say that I just let it flow!

Kid Bags for Mothers Day

Here's the link on how-to!

Pictures of Recently Enjoyed Things

For All the Single Ladies in the Morning

Quiet applause for the single Mums who get themselves and their children ready for the day each morning. Quiet applause for the husbands-work-away mums who do the same. I am in neither of these categories, but in our household, the morning routine is solely my responsibility. And it is tiresome. Not even morning people (like me) enjoy being bombarded with questions and complaints upon waking. 

Since becoming a school mum, I've been slowing discovering ways to help the flow and make mornings nice. Oh, I'm not there yet, but with some grace, we do experience a smooth morning on occasion. Here are my tips:

Wake up early. Boo. Not one person wants to do this. And after seven years straight of 4:30am mornings, I feel like I deserve some more sleeping (now my kids sleep till 5:30 average). But I gave this a trial for one month and although I was tired during the day (I should adjust my bedtime when I am doing this), my mornings were remarkably better. I woke at 5am and used the spare half hour to do something that gave me focus, and made me happy. For me that was a child-free prayer/journalling time. 

 Leave the phone alone. Better to be facing the spilled milk or lost shoes or pre-test jitters in your own household without also being consumed with the same (or probably less concerning) problems of your best friend's sister-in-law's high school exchange student on Facebook (or the coolest things you are not doing with your life on Pinterest). Ain't nobody got time for that!

Pick one thing to prepare the night before. I like to pre-prepare the lunches, since these give me high heart rates when done in the morning. You could make sure the kids uniforms are ironed. Or choose your own outfit. It's a shame I can't do everyone's hair the night before as that would save plenty of stress!

Have a good chore system. Ours is finally working well. My children get pocket money for their weekday chores (this parallels the paid work they will do one day), but are still required to help around the house (without pay) when asked or when we need to do group cleaning up on the weekends (this parallels general helpfulness and responsibility in the home of their own one day).

Know your worst point and keep it calm. My everyday bad mood moment is walking out the door to the car and then getting every child/bag/homework folder/library bag/musical instrument in place and buckled. Unfortunately this is also the moment that can be heard by all my neighbours as our car is parked outside. I don't even know why I get worked up about it, as we have never been so late to school as the miss the bell, and even if we were, it is not an issue. Lateness (or possible lateness) is just that issue that I blow out of proportion and make into a crisis. Keeping things in perspective definitely helps the kids (and me) enjoy a peaceful lead-in to the day.

Have a happy soundtrack. After aforementioned bad mood moment, I usually want to put on some chill out music of my own choice to relax to in the car. But my kids have a great knack of choosing something fun to listen to and it invariably give us a happy ten minutes of singing and seat-dancing together. It turns the mood around and creates the best send-off to school that I can think of.

So single mums, solo in the morning mums, and even mums with help from dads, I'm wishing you joy in the mornings! 

Feasting and Festivities

Hear Ye, Hear Ye.

A lovely lady turned eight this week and celebrated with a medieval party.

The invitations were of Lady Elara, drawn by my sister.

The decor focused on the banquet table, spread with a collection of second hand silver goblets, cinnamon pastry crowns, and 'grown-up' tableware; and large tab top banners (made from $2/m fabric) that we hung overhead.

The costumes were reused from our most recent Abbey Medieval Festival visit.

The food was kid friendly dinner (and not particularly medieval).

For activities, Tim made a set of wooden stocks for everyone to try, and in line with the medieval tradition we threw food (marshmallows). An easy make catapult added to the marshmallow fun. A quick game of Knight, Mounts and Cavaliers used up some energy and gave everyone a laugh.

The castle cake was cookies and cream flavour ice cream, with plastic turrets (topped with chocolate covered cones and edible glitter), chocolate pebbles, wafers, felt flags and a fondant drawbridge. It was totally delicious!

The take-home bags were felt pouches, made with a button and drawstring, and filled with chocolate coins and miniature playing cards. We also had small castle charms for the girls that unfortunately didn't arrive in time.

It was a marvelous party and the Kelly Manor was honored to host the festivities!