ebay advertising deal

... just in case any are interested...

if any of you are like me and like to get rid of some of that unecessary clutter lying about the house - ebay is offering a 'no insertion fee' for advertising your fixed price sale item between 9-13 December.... More details here

A good time to get rid of clutter!

I think we will try and sell all the left over lattice from our cubby house construction (yes, we over estimated...) plus a number of other bits and bobs.

It really isn't hard to advertise things on ebay - have made some really good sales before (although this latest deal is only for the fixed price you set) - just requires whipping out the camera - taking some photos and then sitting down to put the details in.

...for your interest...

Summer fun

It has been fabulous to have a week away. It came about rather quickly. One of David's work contracts came to and end and we talked about the possibility of seeing if there was any vacancy on the holiday house belonging to friends of ours. There was - the following week. YAY. What a treat to leave the busyness behind and take some quiet time together as a family

Some highlights:

• Singing together in the evenings after Bible stories
  
• Watching Marco Polo together (or rather part of the series - there are quite a few of them...)


• Reading 'The Silver Sword' together as a family (or rather as Owen and Rosa roamed the house to see what mischief they could find while we were so engrossed in a captivating book;). We actually finished the last couple of chapters this afternoon after we had unpacked most of our things

Eating watermelon:

Visiting a lookout over Noosa

Enjoying the beaches

Eating Lebanese lentil soup (yum) with yummy sesame seed and spice covered bread. The kids had lebanese pizza. It met with approval.





Playing in the park

and just hanging out with the broom!

Overall a lovely time to relax, to read (oh and I finished reading 'Stepping Heavenward' for the second time - great book ... see below) and to enjoy the precious little ones given to us as gifts.

Thanksgiving

We enjoyed celebrating Thanksgiving for the first time with some friends. Inspired by my friend Anya, I thought it might be fun to try. Also found that it has lead me to more thoughts and praise for the goodness of all the blessings I have in Christ.

It was a special treat to have Knox with us. Knox is from PNG. He was diagnosed with some type of bone cancer a couple of years ago (sorry I don't know all the specifics about his illness except that this poor man has suffered much physically and though he is quite a young man it has aged him and caused him to be much shorter than he was) He came to Australia to be treated. He was told by the doctors here that he had a very small chance of being successfully treated due to the nature of the cancer and how far it had spread. His church in PNG have been in constant, fervent prayer for him. He has received treatment here in Australia and so far he has responded remarkably well to the treatment. He was back in Australia for a check up with doctors. We were grateful to be able to share thanksgiving with this Godly man. I was encouraged at his enthusiastic spirit for the Lord, his cheerful disposition and the joy he gets from singing to the Lord with others.

We also enjoyed some precious time of catching up, sharing fellowship, food and Scripture with some very sweet friends.

It was all such a personal treat and left us rejoicing in the Lord as we set off for a week's holiday at Peregian Beach.

Thanks to our precious friends who not only made/brought yummy dessert, punch, fudge sauce and a sweet bouquet, but flavoured the evening with their presence.

... and no need to wait to thanksgiving to offer our sacrifice of praise to our Lord - make a special occasion of it around your table - bringing to each other's mind the blessings bestowed upon each.

Praise offered to God manages to calm me in the fluster of life.

Sudocream

... hmmm... sudocream... meant for nappy rash on little bottoms...

something about it just seems to be bekoning to my little Rosa....
... wasn't so fun being found was it my little smooch?

Keeping little ones occupied

Here is an idea I tried today with Rosa and Owen. Thought I might share it for any who want simple ideas to keep little ones occupied for a few minutes (handy while preparing dinner)

I used a flip-lid box (I happened to get these ones from Ikea at about $1 each - but any container they can get into themselves is ideal - especially something like those click end boxes).

On the outside of the box I stuck little vecro dots or strip - the adhesive ones. Then I collected various objects from around the house - milk bottle caps, pegs, small toys, keys, etc (I found objects with a flat base work well - sometimes I cut the sticky dot in half to fit the surface better). and attached the sticky velcro dots on the side or bottom. Little ones seem fascinated with velcro so they can stick the objects all over the outside of the box.

Here are my young uns' trying them out:

Boys Brigade

Ah, enough to make any Mamma proud....

...and not just my newly found skill in learning to tie a tie (a first for me!)

Josh came home beaming tonight that one of the other boys had handed down his boys brigade uniform. Joshua has been so keen to get a uniform, but having joined late in the year was trying patiently to wait until 2009. He has been dying to try it on and asked if he could wear it Christmas day :)

Ah what a handsome, smoochable chap I have ...

so glad he is not marching off to war...

sniff, sniff... out with the tissues!

Cookies with cousins

We joined with cousins today to do some Christmas baking. It was chocolate cookies (sorry, no recipe - made it up as I went...but just a basic roll out chocolate biscuit dough with added melted chocolate just to give it a real chocolaty flavour) studded with mini m&m's and shortbread shapes with cherry noses (and some plain ones later to have one end dipped in chocolate)

It was hands going everywhere - some even into mouths... (if you look closely at this shot)

I think the cousins seemed to enjoy it going by the noise level, the laughing and the funny comments that were coming from the peanut gallery!

Tid bits from our day

Joshua made up a word search and cross word puzzle after his school work recently. It was all his own idea and he used some words from the Where's Wally library book to put into the Word Search . Did a great job - even had a few words which were almost identical to answers - just to try and trick me:)


Just for fun today we made fairy bread at morning tea time. I am always amazed how
even big boys like the simple things !


Even as I type, Rosa and Owen are jigging around to nursery rhymes on a CD I borrowed from the library yesterday. Rosa kept running out to the kitchen to tell me which song was playing - "Mummy, row boat song!"


... and that brings a close to my blogging - squalks coming from front room...

affliction, suffering, all that hard to understand stuff

I have, from a small child often wondered at the meaning of suffering. I have wondered why in the OT there was so much violence. I wanted peace - I wanted to sleep comfortably, securely, resting in the image I had of God as a God of all comfort, peace and rest (and indeed he is... but that is only half of the story).

As an adult I have come across people... and even little children who have/are suffering. I have seen in my many waits in the hospital, children whose precious, well-formed little faces carry some partial deformity - a small, georgeous chocolate coloured toddler with fuzzy hair growing from her otherwise perfect chubby cheek... a child whose face was so deformed he wore a hat to distract from his somewhat grotesque features... Whilst waiting at the traffic lights one day I glanced across my shoulder to notice the woman in the car beside me with skin on her arm and half of her face - obviously scarred from severe burns. I had to keep myself from wanting to be sure I saw what I thought I did - marred, wrinkled and scarred skin... not pleasant... I have been with a Mum who was deeply embarassed about her severely autistic son's shrill cries and screams, triggered by nothing apparent. His cries seemed to call out for others to stare as the quiet, sweet woman (I knew her from Owen's school) gathered her things together and exited the swimming pool, seeking to take refuge from the onlookers. I have been in recovery room after minor surgery with Owen to hear the woeful cries of children, sometimes cries of terror as they recover from general anesthetic... I have seen my own child, though only for a short time with tubes all over his red, irritated body, braces straped to his chubby arms to keep him from scratching himself for the intesity of the itch, and a huge piece of tape covering the wound from his chest where his small, heart had been under the surgeons knife.

Sometimes I grieve. I do not question God's goodness - I just grieve. I admit to an incomplete understanding - just feel the pain. Sometimes so intensely it impacts me for days, returns the following week or even months, years later. Not from our personal suffering - indeed we have not really suffered at all. Just the whole overwhelming thing of worldwide suffering... the poor, the persecuted, the physically or mentally impaired, the teenage girl amongst her attractive, self-consious peers who herself bears deformity that causes many to be so embarassed they want to look away. Families whose sons are kindnapped in the night and forced to join military groups which later ask the boy to take the gun to their own beloved parents or their own life will be taken... We are talking about young boys. Pain... gut pain... but a God who cares?!

I have been thoroughly challenged and encouraged through reading a book my beloved picked up: Polishing God's Monuments - Pillars of Hope for Punishing Times by Jim Andrews. I have found it (still have about a quarter of book to go) a fantastic book about suffering - God and His Character and how we as Christians are to bear up under suffering and pain. I am just loving it. From a Father of a daughter (and later her husband) who endure long, drawn-out pain and isolation - he experienced the depths of despair, frustration, anger, etc. etc. The book gives inside, detailed accounts of his daughters accident, illness and his own spiritual battle to rest in God. It has been one of those hard-to-put-down type of books.

The title, puzzling to me initially becomes clear as he explains...

What God did back then (a moment of God - getting through to him after anger about daughter's illness) still astounds me. That is why I regularly memorialize God's monuments of faithfulness. I store up in the "seven plentiful years" the great acts of God in my life, to feed my soul during those inevitable "seven lean years".

As you read about Juli and Paul's sufferings and what our family has endured, be assured that this habit of polishing monuments has played a large role in sustaining us. On many occasions when we were just about to lose our grip, this monument-polishing discipline was the difference between spiritual stability and utter calamity. For us it has been polish or perish.

..will tell you no more - because I don't like to give away what the book can say/explain in a much better way than I can!

Highly recommended.

Deals with pain and suffering head-on.

Very specific - helps you to better understand/ how to help those who suffer

Takes you back to God/His Word and His Character

A goodie!

Featuring Daddy

Thought it was time we featured Daddy, especially in light of the fantastic lego gears he came up with whilst playing with Josh. I could see the deep concentration on his face and knew it was going to be a goodie!

Well here it is - and if you could see it spinning around you'd be impressed as I was (my lego creations usually relate to houses or simple boats). Learned a few things about gears myself.

and...

What do you think about this style of yoghurt?

Daddy obviously likes it!