Morning time plans

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Prepare to laugh

Sit down before you scroll down for a very funny face!

Enjoy.














We love you Hope
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Easter Wreath

 


It seems so hard to keep this week in perspective. I don't want to let it pass and find that I skip to Sunday's celebration without fully realising the cost of Friday. But I am looking forward to Sundays celebration.

And how do you couple it all with the commercial things. We do Easter eggs, and use them to decorate our home, I guess in a similar way to we decorate a tree at Christmas, but how do we ensure that they don't take away from the truth and seriousness of Easter and why we have it. I desperately don't want to do things because I think they are fun(egg hunts) or pretty (egg wreaths), if they take away and belittle Easter, I want to be willing to loose the things that take away from Christ.

And in writing all this out I am realising, that I want to let them know that this is a very special time of year. We decorate at Christmas and at Thanksgiving, and at Easter because it it a very special time of year. We are not having an egg hunt because the Easter bunny left them, but because we want to mark days as special, making a special effort to give our girls and ourselves a special event, as a celebration. Because the finished work at the cross is worth celebrating. I am praying about how to put in place good traditions, and am excited to see how our Easter celebration pans out over the years.
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Monday, March 29, 2010

"Heidi, don't put your tongue in the water"

"I's washing it"

Really it was very simple! Why have I never thought to do that?

Saturday, March 27, 2010

The first ladybugs of spring

 

The look on her face says it all. Heidi is super excited about the ladybugs in the garden. She made them a little home in a bucket and collected 4 for the collection. It was not planed to be wearing her ladybug sweater at the time but it did mean that it was a must have photo opportunity. Argh, I have only just noticed that it's buttoned up all wrong! Serves me right for trying to be all clever.
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Wednesday, March 24, 2010



Somedays it just seems like a good day to have Micky mouse shaped pancakes :)

Monday, March 22, 2010

Day 1!

It feels a little like so far so good, not sure how the rest of the day will pan out, but we shall see.

I think the best bit of my day is preschool time with Heidi (today we did block puzzles with her having to really think about where pieces go) followed by sewing or another craft. I started making a cushion cover for her so she has a special spot to sit for bible time. She had a ball sorting through my scraps basket and deciding which fabrics she likes. Today I cut a whole bunch into 4x4 squares, and will see what takes our fancy for a design when we reach this point. Taking time to sew for my girls is wonderful.

 


So the rest of the day....

rest time for us all

chores that weren't finished this morning (Me while the girls are sleeping)

outside time/ errands (although if the promised wet snow and freezing rain comes will change to a movie)

supper prep and eating (the bit where Hope cries and we try to enjoy our supper)

and playing with Dad (Heidi's fav. bit if the day)
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Sunday, March 21, 2010

 
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The Schedule is planned

Well, I finally sat down and sorted out the first draft of the schedule. I am sure that it will need some tweaking as I have already noticed that the laundry fails to make an appearance. It would be good to say, not on the schedule, not doing it, but I suspect that will not work as there are no elves in my house to do it for me (and Mum's not due for a few weeks to come)! Also if I adopt this as a standard for things I hate, then do I have to use it for fun things too....no! So, laundry will find a spot I am sure.

The book I am using suggests for the first week just aim to follow the schedule to 9 am which sounds sensible and so that's the plan for tm. That's 3 hours of organised time! Argh. The hardest past aside from getting up at 6 is persuading Heidi to stay in bed till 7. Hopefully preschool time with Mum, (10:30 each day) will help her to learn what a 7 looks like and then she will be able to figure out when she is allowed out her room. Praying for us would be appreciated, I really do want to do this as a benefit to the girls, and a Mum who has had her quiet time, and showered and dressed is a better thing.

I've been following the chores schedule that I made out for a week now and it really is going well.
Each day we have set chores (sweeping kitchen, downstairs bathroom, tidying rooms and laundry).
The the other weekly chores are divided up monday to thursday.
Fridays are reserved for one of 4 monthly chores.
One sat a month Tom is going to take our Heidi girl out while I spring clean one of the 6 areas of the house, so that's each room thoroughly stripped out and cleaned twice a year.

Lets see how it goes.

I am quite exhausted thinking about it!

Time for bed.

Monday, March 15, 2010

How thoroughly do you clean your fridge

 

 

I popped into another room for a few seconds. When I got back, my Heidi girl was even washing the sachets of soysauce from the Chinese....now that's thorough!
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Friday, March 12, 2010

Why I want to schedule.....

Perhaps a better title is why I am going to schedule, as many of you who know me, know that I love to be reactive and drift along enjoying the things that come my way. Basically it boils down to having fun and getting a lie in even if I have already had 8 hours sleep!

BUT...

Recently I have been challenged that I should be loving my husband and girls more, and doing this by serving them in the home, cooking, cleaning, playing, nursing my Hopie girl, folding AND putting away laundry I(amazing how hard this second pat of the chore is), making time for movies and dates, being a good role model and occasionally brushing Heidi's hair!

And so, as this season of my life is based on being at home and loving my family I need to get some structure into my day, rather than drifting through. It is a desire to free time up, rather than putting so much structure into the day that I reach the end exhausted and having achieved nothing. This is truly disheartening.

Hebrews 12:28 speaks of desiring to serve God acceptably. I so want to do this. I am praying for the grace to do this. Please join me in this.

I also want to train my children in the way they should go (Proverbs 22:6). I don't want to take this out of context, I want to daily tell them of the redeeming work of Christ on the cross. I also want to teach them them self control, a love of the word, an ability to share what is in their heart and what they are thinking, being humble to Godly instruction. Teaching self control, and in this I mean disciple is extremely hard if you are undisciplined in yourself and daily dealings.


This is my season, that of a homemaker. May I do it to God's glory but in his strength alone.

More soon about how I am putting the schedule together.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

A few funnies


Isn't she getting to be such a grown up?

Heidi holds out a stick, here you go Mama.
I take it.
Look Mum, you's a sticker. And so a new thing is born Sticker, defined: holder of sticks. Make so much sense.

Recently while trying to get her dressed I told her she was just delaying thing's and really needed to come get her tights on. She turned, smiled, gave me one of those looks and told me matter of fact, "I'm not a chicken, I'm an egg!" Smart one that Heidi! I guess chickens do their delaying too :)

Monday, March 8, 2010

Chopping wood

We had a happy busy day on Sat, helping Mike and Nicole get their veggie garden plot a bit more usable for the coming year.



There was taking back one row of Cotoneasters (keeping in the little ones though for me to dig out for a free hedge this spring!)
Hope helped by sleeping well in the fresh air, well as fresh as it gets being parked next to the compost heap!

I missed getting a picture of Tom with the axe getting down around 30 poplars, here's the stumps that are left. He plans to chainsaw the stumps when more of the snow is gone.
We hauled the wood out to the waiting truck.....
And chopped it up into firewood.

And the best part is that there's brush wood waiting to dry ready for a giant bonfire :)

One of those precious days when the sun is warm on your back, you are amongst friends, the children are playing happily and you go to bed exhausted!



Wednesday, March 3, 2010

I'm going to take a lot of the old slide shows and photos off the side bar as they stretch down so far. I'll keep one up to date one, and update each month.


But don't worry you can still see all the pictures and quite a few more by clicking in this link:


http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/hindlemail


Let me know if you have problems viewing them and I'll put them back on.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Our little Hopie kicking and cooing and her favourite trick at the end.

Most recent sewing project


I was in need of a fun present idea for the kids birthdays this year. Commonly they all get the same thing, which often translates to something if I am organised and last year a resounding nothing. So this year, it is the turn of the lets use up some of the fabric downstairs and copy a really neat idea for crayon bags.
I fiddled about with some denim before deciding to go for cord, and this was the result.

This is the front of the bag, the girls one and boys one.


And the back.
There is a little notebook and some jigsaws hiding inside.
They were super easy to make and I was considering posting instructions but seeing as so many kids are getting one this year there is little point in showing you how I made them.
So Naomi and Oscar they are in the post, but you will have to be patient with the Canadian postmen....and everyone else, your birthday is coming!
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“No man can do me a truer kindness in this world than to pray for me.” Charles Spurgeon


I have been thinking for a little while now, that I need to get organised. More specifically I need some more discipline in my day to day activities.
I always thought that I was laid back and spontaneous and responsive to needs. Now these may be true, however I have come to realise that this is more selfishness on my part, I do not want to commit to a schedule because I want to do what I want to do whenever it pops into my head to do it.
Now don't get me wrong, the things I mentioned above are not wrong in themselves, it is always good to be able to meet peoples needs if a phone call for help comes through, but it is more about my heart and my motivation that is what needs working on. And so I have reached the conclusion that some structure in the day and overall in the week is needed.

So I plan to get myself in some kind or routine, not overkill and not crushing what is the joy of a surprise in a day, but in order to free me to serve my family and to do it with some consistency.
Oh and my Mum will be thrilled too!

More soon about why and how. It is something that needs to be done prayerfully, so I am sure that I am working on the areas that God has set as my priority, not what takes my fancy to schedule into a day! I'm sure that there'll be some amusing bumps along the way.

One of lifes simple pleasures

I got 2 loads of washing out on the line yesterday, out and dried! I am continually a source of amusement to my Canadian friends, the joy I get from seeing a load of washing on the line is hard for me to contain. What made yesterday so fun is that I was out in my snow boots trudging through some drifts to get to one end of the line, and I managed to restore Hopes white vests to white vests rather than white with slight orangy greeny stains. Result!
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