A Week in the Life – Friday’s Photos

(“A Week in the Life” is an idea started by Ali Edwards, and involves photographing everything your family does for an entire week. Her ability to capture the most ordinary, normal, everyday kind of stuff, and making it beautiful, inspired me to give it a try…)

I would have to say that Friday was our most epic day of the week. Kaylia gave herself a drastic new make-over, and the girls spent the entire day preparing for a Broadway presentation of C.S. Lewis’ The Last Battle, performed by an assortment of Disney characters and Polly Pockets.

The day started out normal enough…

I made some breakfast bread for the girls, and then did my exercising while the bread was in the oven.

Then I had my own breakfast – rice cereal with mixed berries, walnuts, and chia seeds.

The girls started playing while I had my breakfast and did a few things on the computer.

We had a few issues with Kaylia trying to cut the mane on one of their toy horses, which made Anika very upset. I had a little talk with Kaylia about not cutting the horse’s mane. This has been an ongoing fascination for the last few weeks, but it’s the first time she’s ever actually cut anything…

We got the situation under control, and I went back to my breakfast. Suddenly, I noticed that it had been too quiet, for too long. I asked Anika, “Where’s Kaylia?” and Anika said she didn’t know. In the back of my mind, I remembered hearing the pantry door close, and I knew. I ran for the door, and there she was, with long strands of hair at her feet…

I burst into tears, Anika screamed, and Kaylia beamed proudly. I grabbed the phone to call Ben, and he burst out laughing. I told him it was cut above her ears on one side, and he laughed some more. Then he said, “At least she didn’t cut her ear.”

I hadn’t thought about being thankful for safety yet. Good thing he balances me out a bit!

So we made an emergency hair appointment, and jumped in the car to go find some professional help.

Her new look:

It is very cute, but it will take awhile to get used to! Thank goodness it could be saved!! We have family pictures coming up next week!!

We went on with our day, a little sadly – Kaylia, because she didn’t want such short hair, and me, because this is all a bit of a shock to my system!

But thank goodness we had Anika around to distract us with her elaborate schemes for a production of The Last Battle. We listened to the story on CDs all day, while the girls busily worked on auditioning the Polly Pockets, making costumes and sets, and planning out every last detail.

While they were busy with this, I used my clothes shaver on a stubborn cardigan…

…and made some gluten-free biscuits.

We had rest time…

…and then we went down to the basement to work on getting it ready for our big day tomorrow: We are adopting a ministry! Baby Blessings is a ministry that collects used baby items and delivers them to women who need a bit of help financially. The items have been stored in our church building, but since our church will be going through major renovations for the next year and a bit, Baby Blessings needed to find a new home. Since we don’t do much with our basement, we offered to take them in!

Tomorrow is Moving Day, so we finished getting the space ready.

After that, it was time to get back to work on the play. Anika needed a Colormen army, so I helped make some armor:

Pocahontas is ready for battle.

Ben had to work another long day, and couldn’t get back for supper, and I was fairly exhausted after our wild day, so we threw some food on the plates, and called it a meal.

After supper, we had some major clean-up to do, me in the kitchen, and the girls in the living and dining room. We got everything ready for putting on the play first thing in the morning, as soon as Daddy wakes up. We got some programs ready for the Polly Pocket audience…

..and then the girls headed off to bed. I worked on pictures (again!), and Ben finally came home.

One more day, and that will be the end of our Week in the Life! Here’s hoping tomorrow isn’t quite so memorable!?!

The Best Kind of Days

“After all,” Anne had said to Marilla once, “I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string.” (Anne of Avonlea)

My faithful helper.

Going through a “picnic lunch” phase.

Trying to be just like her big sister: reading a book while eating lunch. Too bad her books are just a bit larger…

Everybody’s favorite meal.

Telling some stories.

Oh, delicious lunch. Put some nuts in your stir-fry. It’s my latest obsession.

It’s always more fun to play under a table.

What makes an ordinary day the best kind of day for you?

Can I Be Pretend?

I was making supper the other day when I happened to overhear this little conversation:

Kaylia: “Anka, can I be pretend?”

Anika: “Why, yes, anyone in the WORLD can be pretend.”

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That may be one of my favorite things about having kids – any day is a good day for pretending. For a child, there is so much simple joy and amusement in the little things, and anything can become magical.

Tents out of curtains…

Dancing like a princess…

Or setting off on an adventure…

You never know what kind of pretending you might come across.

Happy Monday! May your week be filled with all kinds of adventures…

Weekend Favorites

Every Monday I am faced with the same dilemma – I have a collection of wonderful, random moments that stick out in my mind as being my favorite moments of the weekend, but how do I decide which ones to share? How do I connect these random bits of wonderfulness into one cohesive blog post?

This weekend, I decided to make my life easier. I’ll share all the favorite moments, and I won’t worry about connecting them, because part of the wonder is in the unexpected, in the surprises of delight that come to us when we slow down enough for them to catch us. So here they are: My favorite moments of the weekend…

1. Racing Canoes in the Sunshine

Every fall, Steinbach Bible College comes to camp for a retreat, and they have a giant canoe race. It is highly anticipated by students and staff, and Ben still gets excited about it, too – his glory days at SBC are still fresh in the memory, and he did his own fair share of canoe racing.

So every year, our family joins in the festivities by riding along in the “rescue boat”. When we are out there, on the water, in the sunshine, feeling the excitement and energy of all those students, there is no other place I would rather be.

2. Discovering a New Treat!

For all of you who liked the Banana Ice Cream post, I’ve got a new delicious discovery to share with you! It’s called Coconut Cream (recipe found here), and it is amazing. Oh my goodness. If you like macaroons, and you like healthy treats that can be eaten guilt-free and with much-pleasure, then you have got to try this one out. So easy.

You throw some coconut into the food processor (which was still in the dishwasher getting cleaned from being used for Banana Ice Cream, obviously), blend it until it starts to get smooth, add a few tablespoons of coconut oil (which is crazy healthy for you), and blend it until its all creamy. You can add nuts or raisins or whatever you feel like, but for our first time making it, Anika wanted chocolate chips. Since I wanted this to be the most positive experience possible (so that the girls will actually want to eat it again in the future!), we went with chocolate chips.

And I cannot describe to you how yummy it was. But I will say this: I’m not supposed to have chocolate chips, and I had NO intentions of eating any of it, but Kaylia didn’t finish hers, so I decided to take a tiny little taste, purely out of curiosity. I really was only going to take one bite, but the next second, I had inhaled all of it. My stomach didn’t feel too great after, but my tongue and my brain were in food heaven.

So delicious. Thick, rich, creamy. We ate it too fast to take pictures.

3. Enjoying the warm weather. I love fall. Especially this fall. Especially on slow, peaceful Sunday afternoons when Ben and I can sit outside and watch the girls play:

The girls were swinging and singing “Ring Around the Rosy” at the top of their lungs.

The sun was shining through the trees.

 

It was quite wonderful.

Hope you had a wonderful weekend, too!

Weekend

There’s been some heavy-duty playing going on around here this weekend. Kaylia seems to be feeling a bit better, and it’s so good to see both girls perky and having fun. We’ve been doing some painting…

and some pretend cooking…

and playing with Polly Pockets. Kaylia LOVES this car, while Ben and I hate this new activity so much that we hide the car when she’s not looking. But somehow it keeps reappearing. And the same thing keeps happening over and over: Kaylia takes the dolls out and they talk to each other, saying “Bye-bye” or “See you!” or “Have fun!” or “Love you!”. Some combination of those 4 expressions. Then she tries to put the dolls into the car, but she can’t get them to sit properly, so she cries and whines, until we say, “No whining, Kaylia,” and then she says “Help.” So we help her get the dolls in, and then she takes them out and starts the whole thing over. She did this for almost an hour straight yesterday morning, and then another half hour in the afternoon. It keeps her entertained, and I got a lot of housework done, but oh, the drama when those dolls don’t sit properly!

Resisting Temptation

As you may have noticed, I’m always really happy when our girls have moments of playing together nicely. We had another moment this morning, and I rushed for my camera.

The sun was shining in so brightly, the girls were playing so sweetly, and I just had this sense of everything being right with the world.

And then just as I snapped a picture, Anika said to Kaylia (in a super cranky voice), “Stop wrecking my tower. I wish I could slap you!”

Umm…right. Fortunately, she refrained, and at least it looks like they’re playing together nicely…