Now we are six....

Rebekah turned 6 recently. It was a great week leading up to her birthday with presents and cards arriving in the mail from friends and family.
The highlight for her and one that she had been waiting for for almost eight months or so was this:





















She got her very own Bible - full length, unabridged etc:)




We had told her about it not long after she turned 5 (or maybe she saw it at Koorong) and fell in love with it. So, we promised it to her for her 6th birthday, along with this:
























The night before her birthday we had a family dinner with my side of the family and then on her actual birthday she had a ball at a local wildlife park with three of her closest friends where you could pet the koalas, feed the kangaroos and even pet the kookaburras, can you believe that!





















































I am so glad that the NSW Board of Studies doesn't need you to register your child for homeschooling until 6 because that lines up with CM's philosophy of no formal academics until that age. So, you can guess what I've been busy with...these past few weeks!
We officially started Grade 1 the week before she turned 6.
We had our interview with the Board of Studies officer today and guess what, guess what! We've been approved for two years! Praise God! We are so excited!
He was impressed with the records I kept for our trial year last year and also our program of learning! In fact if I can brag some more - he said on his report that the approach I was taking to documenting Rebekah's program could well serve as an example for other home schooling families! (Please don't hold that against me my home schooling friends:)) In fact a special thank you to Michelle and Helen my fellow homeschooling friends without whom I couldn't have done it!

Now for nostalgia, here are some photos of Rebekah on her birthdays aged 1 to 6.

Clean Up Australia Day

I know this is a bit late....still! I got to tell you, I've lived in Australia for longer than "Clean Up Australia" day has been running and I'm ashamed to say that this year was the first time I took part in it.
Our church is wanting to be more involved in serving our community in a practical sort of way, so we thought this would be a good way to do that!


















Mind you, the place we chose, didn't need much cleaning up. All we found were a few cigarette butts and a few popped balloons and lolly wrappers. But, the kids were all excited, not sure why? maybe it was because for the first time they were not being told off for touching rubbish? :) or maybe it was the gloves? :)




















The whole thing was very well organised and there was even a lunch bbq put on by Clean Up Australia day for all the volunteers which we unfortunately couldn't attend.
It was a fun day out! I think we'll be doing it again next year for sure!

Post impressionist's impressions

We headed down the highway to our nation's capital on Thursday to see the exhibition on that's on now at the National Art Gallery - Masterpieces from Paris, Van gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne and beyond. Post impressionism from the Musee D'orsay.
Rebekah was sort of excited because she knows a bit about Monet,Van Gogh and Cezanne, thanks to Charlotte Mason (as do I too actually, thanks Charlotte!)
In fact she brought along her Picnic with Monet board book and a Van Gogh art calendar that we got last year.
I just love how homeschooling Charlotte Mason style has enriched my life - yes, MY life!
How else would I have enjoyed this wonderful exhibition.
We chose to go during the week as the crowds thronging there from all around the country is pretty amazing apparently, none like this gallery has ever seen before!
Thankfully we only had to wait twenty minutes in the queue!
Was the long trip there and back in a day worth it? Absolutely! There's nothing quite like seeing all those amazing paintings in real life. I mean, there they were on the wall a foot away from us, we could easily reach out and touch them. They looked like they had been painted just yesterday not a hundred or so years ago! Stunning, amazing, beautiful, fantastic, those are some of the words that came out of our mouths that day!
The highlight for me was "Starry night over the Rhone" by Van Gogh.



















To stand there and see the amazing detail up close in the painting and how he used his paint brush to capture the effects of the night sky and the reflection in the water below was just amazing!
The man was a genius!








Ron's favourite was Monet's Water Lily Pond:



























And to keep the kids happy they had a family activity room and one section of it set up like Van Gogh's "Bedroom at Arles".
Rebekah like most kids has always loved this one.





















And here's Rebekah in the painting! :)



















Pretty cool, don't you think?


Got any plans to go visit? You won't be disappointed!

Do they get any cuter?

Well, it happened Sunday week ago....Rebekah lost her first tooth.
It so happened that we were at church and so she had a lot of friends to share the exciting event with her (and us) :)
It's been more than a week now and I've just been amazed at how cute my daughter is with the gap in her mouth and the way she talks now due to the gap...it's all so... cute!
Seriously....do they get any cuter than this? !!!



















The tooth fairy came too....though she had been told by a friend just recently that the tooth fairy isn't real and it's really your mum and dad that put the money there!
So, Rebekah told us NOT to put any money UNDER HER PILLOW because she wanted to see if the tooth fairy was real.
We put the money NEXT TO HER BED instead.
This has now led to a whole new situation....she thought it came from the tooth fairy and her friend told her there is no tooth fairy, she told us NOT to put money under her pillow, so we put it next to her bed. A few days later, she told her friend that the tooth fairy did come and she knows for sure because she knows her mummy and daddy WOULD NOT lie because lying is bad...oh dear, we dug a hole for ourselves didn't we!
So, we had to fess up and tell her it was us and that we put the money NEXT TO HER BED and NOT UNDER HER PILLOW because we didn't want her disappointed. We were not (technically)lying!
She WAS disappointed, very disappointed that the tooth fairy was not real.
The next day, she told us that when her next tooth falls out she wants to see if the tooth fairy is real. We don't know what happened to our conversation about the tooth fairy not being real when we fessed up! Oh dear!
Where's that parenting manual again? :)

Oh no! She's growing up!!!

My lovely beautiful precious daughter has of today got her first "wobbly" tooth!
She was in tears with the pain this morning (after biting into some apple) until I explained that it was all part of growing up and reminded her of what Ron would say if he was home "that will toughen you up":) This brought some momentary relief and back came the tears. So....quick thinking mum said we'd better call daddy at work to tell him the "exciting" news coz she's growing up into a "big" girl and this is what happens as you grow up. A bit of the tooth fairy might have been thrown in there for good measure to:) Well, those two things seemed to fortunately end her tears and we got to share it with daddy at work. Ron asked her how she first realised her tooth was wobbly and she said "well, I was wobbling my tongue in my mouth and then my tongue felt my tooth and the tooth felt all wobbly"...so that's how she discovered it!
As far as co-incidences go, she actually picked out her "tooth fairy" book for me to read to her this morning (before the discovery)!!
Also, she had planned on writing a letter to her best friend Ava. So, we incorporated our experience of the day into her letter to Ava and here it is:



















Amy, if you are reading this, Ava should receive her first snail mail from Rebekah tomorrow.
I love snail mail, don't you all? I want Rebekah to experience the pleasure of writing and receiving a "proper" letter and hopefully by introducing this early on in her life, she won't get too "high tech" to write a "proper" letter when she grows up:) or am I hoping in vain? :)

Washing machines and weevils!

As you may or may not know, we had a very long.....holiday and got back a couple of weeks ago.
We usually find a few not so nice surprises when we come back from a loooong holiday!
I recall that one year, we remembered that we had read earlier to turn off all power points before you embark on a holiday, which we dutifully did! We are such sticklers for safety etc! we switched off all the power points in the house before we left feeling so good about ourselves! Well, on our return we were greeted by a nasty surprise when we opened our fridge! Yes, in our zeal, we even turned off the switch for the fridge:) We have never done that one ever again!

Well, this time, besides being welcomed by a musty smell in the house, I found our washing maching didn't want to wash our clothes anymore after the first load and we found some heebie jeebies in the pantry a few days later when I went to get some flour out! We found some weevils....aaaaahhhh!
As my beautiful dd would say, "I've never ever come across that in my WHOLE life before"!! (and she is just 5, well almost 6:))

Needles to say, I had a busy weekend, cleaning out our pantry! It now greets us with the aroma of tea tree oil when you open it...you see thanks to almighty google, tea tree oil and bay leaf are deterrents apparently...I'll have to see if that works and if you're interested I'll get back to you on it:)
As for the washing machine, google came in handy again and I worked out it's the cold water valve thing-y that's not working! So, while we wait for it to get fixed, I'm back to the old days, manually filling up my washing machine with water for each fill cycle! I guess it's better than washing by hand or as one of my friends said : hitting them on a stone like my native country women have done for centuries! Well, my friend, you will not find me doing that!

While I am on the topic of google, I am so guilty of turning to google first for answers that I recall about a year ago, when Rebekah was only five or even before that, she asked me a question to which I said I didn't know the answer and her reply was "why don't you google it?":) I still chuckle when I remember that!

Any of you had any funny / nasty surprises after your holidays?

Happy New Year

We are back from holidays and what a splendid time we had too!

I highly recommend a five week holiday - heaps of time to unwind and totally relax! :)
Since we got married (15 years ago) Ron and I have made it a point to have a holiday at the end of the year. We started out with two weeks for the first few years, then it became three and gradually four but this last holiday, we set a new record - five whole weeks! What a luxury!
If you've never had a holiday that long, I highly recommend it!
We had ample time to truly unwind and relax and recharge the batteries.
We always find that we come back so refreshed mentally, physically and spiritually.

We visited Ron's family in Victoria and spent some time in peaceful Apollo Bay on the Great Ocean Rd.
We also up with Jeanne, my dear blog friend. It was great to meet her in real life and her delightful daughter Jemimah!
We got to house mind for a relative who was away on holidays and got to enjoy their lovely rural home along with the chooks, dog and get this - a tennis court! This was a holiday within a holiday for us, a huge blessing!
Rebekah got to do a few firsts over this holiday - she got to swim for the first time without her arm floaties, hooray for Rebekah and she also had her very first sleep over at her cousins' place!

It's nothing quite like being away from the busy-ness of city living to refocus for the new year.

One of my scriptures for this year that I have been meditating upon and keeping at the forefront of my mind is Proverbs 14:1

¹ The wise woman builds her house,
but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.

As women/ wives / mothers, we hold so much in our hands as far as directing and creating the atmosphere of the home and what happens in a family's life.
My prayer has been that God would give me the wisdom I need to be the best wife, best mother etc in our home so that I would seek to "build" up our home and not "tear" it down.

So, happy new year and hope you all have a GREAT 2010!