Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from sunny New Zealand.  Wishing you and your family much happiness!

*Thanks to Steve Greig for these pictures.

Today's the Day!

Wanganui Airport - Photo Credit

Finally, after six long months, the wait is almost over.  We are going to be headed to the airport in a few short hours to pick up my Mom and niece.  They get to stay with us for a month and a day. :)  That means they will be with us for Christmas!  This will be the first Christmas in 6 years that I've gotten to celebrate with at least part of my family.  I can't wait!  I woke up super early this morning (5 am) because I'm so excited!

Just for Papa

My dad likes guns. A LOT!  He likes to shoot them, collect them, and refurbish (is that the right word?) them.  So this post is just for him.

Abby was sitting at the table last night eating her tea when she called for me, "Look, Mummy, I shooting the infantry."  I turned around to see her using a piece of lettuce off her sandwich for a gun.  (In case you're wondering, she was singing "I'm in the Lord's Army" she just got the words mixed up a bit.)

I also realized I never posted this picture for my Dad.  He sent this Daisy Red Rider BB gun over for Abby.  Don't worry - it's not loaded in this picture, it is kept in a safe place where she can't get it, and she has clear instructions not to touch guns without Mummy or Daddy around.  Gun safety is very important to us and when she gets older we will teach her how to use them properly.  For now, she just doesn't touch!

Sunday Blessings

Photo taken at the Winter Gardens in Wanganui

Yesterday it was our family's turn to ride the bus to church and look after the children.  We had 29 children ride to church with us and one adult (the Mum of one of two of the children-her name is Renee).  When we arrived at church I noticed another Mum (her name is Nicola and she has never come to church before) with her daughter.  I thought she had just dropped her daughter off for church and would leave, but she stayed for Sunday school and church.  This was such a blessing.  About 10 minutes later another lady (Ruby) who has never been before walked in and sat down for Sunday school and church.  What a complete surprise and blessing.  

Because I was on the bus I didn't get a chance to talk to these ladies much, but some of the other wonderful people in our church took the time to sit with them and talk to them.  We found out that Nicola has a brother that was seriously injured in a chemical spill at his work place this week.  He was taken to a bigger hospital out of town to be treated and things were not looking good for him.  Nicola said she prayed and told God that if her brother lived through the first night she would be in church on Sunday and every Sunday after that. Her brother is still alive and she kept her promise to God.  Please pray for her brother, though, he is still in serious condition.

Would you please join us in prayer for these three ladies, Renee, Nicola, and Ruby?  

God is so good!

Little Yellow Girl

Ok, I just had to post this.  I just finished this dress for Abby.  Next time I will make some changes to the pattern, but this works for now.  

Her Daddy (and maybe her mummy, too) loves her in the colour yellow.  Found this material that someone had given us and made this for her.  Now we just have to wait for summer!

GBC November Calendar

Here is the November Calendar for our church.  A very busy month for us as we prepare for our annual preaching conference at the end of the month.  This year Pastor Bruce Goddard from Wildomar, California, will be our guest speaker.  This will be his third trip to New Zealand, and we are looking forward to having him with us.  Would you please join us in prayer for this conference?

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

We have a pretty amazing park that is only about a 10 minute walk from our house (it's only about 5 minutes if you have longer legs than a two year old and you don't stop to look at every leaf, flower, and rock on the way there).

Kowhai Park

When we moved into this house I thought, "Yup, we are going to go to Kowhai Park  once a week."  Has that happened, umm . . . no.  The last few weeks have been getting warm here and we have started going to the park more.  This week we went twice!  

One of Abby's favourite places to go is down by the storybook characters.  There is Humpty Dumpty, Little Miss Muffet, and the Three Bears (they are all concrete statues).  Abby has invited Miss Muffet to come to church with us several times, but we're still waiting for her to come. :)

On Thursday when we went, Abby decided she wanted to eat her morning tea (snack) down with the Three Bears.  Here a few pictures of my Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Sitting on Baby Bear's lap

Mummy Bear in the background

You can't see them in the photos, but on the other side of the carpark (parking lot) there is a pirate ship and a castle.  This is such a fun park - for all ages.  The teenagers from our church even love coming here!  So much to do and so much to see.  Anyone want to come for a visit?

But I Don't Want to Give up Bread!

I love bread.  White bread, whole-wheat bread, French bread, I love it all.

A month ago I decided to give up gluten.  I hadn't been feeling well.  I was tired all of the time, I couldn't think clearly, was constantly having headaches, my mouth was full of ulcers, just to name a few problems. :)  I had already figured out how to make many things gluten-free for my daughter (she's been off gluten for over a year now) so it wasn't going to be too hard for me to do.

The one thing I knew I was going to miss was bread.  I had a bread recipe that I'd been making for Abby (here), but my bread machine is slowly dying and I knew we couldn't keep it up forever.  I had to find a recipe to make without a bread  machine.  I found this recipe on Pinterest for hamburger buns and decided to make it into a loaf with things I had available.  So, here is my recipe for yummy white bread.  {I like this recipe more than my other bread recipe}

Here are the ingredients you'll need:

1 cup warm water

1 tablespoon sugar

1-1/2 teaspoons yeast

3/4 cup brown rice flour

1 cup + 1-1/2 tablespoons potato starch

1/2 cup tapioca starch

1/3 cup white rice flour

1 teaspoon salt

3 small eggs

1 teaspoon white vinegar

1/4 cup vegetable oil

Step 1: Preheat oven to 170⁰ F (80⁰C).  Yes, it is supposed to be that low of a temperature.  Grease a loaf tin.

Step 2:  Mix sugar in water, sprinkle yeast over the top of the water and leave this to proof.

Step 3: Mix dry ingredients together.

Step 4: Separate the whites from 2 of the eggs (keep the yolks, you will need them soon).  Beat the egg whites until soft peaks form.  You can use an electric mixer if you want to.  It only took me 3 minutes to do it by hand.

Step 5: Add remaining egg, egg yolks, vinegar, oil, and yeast mixture to egg whites and blend together well.

Step 6: Add egg/yeast mixture to dry ingredients and stir for 3 minutes.

This is what the mixture will look like after you have stirred it for 3 minutes.  It looks runny, but trust me, it will work!

Step 7: Pour into greased loaf tin.  Put it into the warm oven and TURN THE OVEN OFF!!!!  Let rise for 30 minutes.

Step 8:  After 30 minutes take the bread out of the oven, turn the oven back on, and heat it up to 375⁰F (190⁰C).

Step 9: When the oven has heated, put the bread back into the oven and bake for 30 minutes.

Step 10: Remove from oven and tip out on to wire rack to cool.  Brush with melted butter or margarine.  Let it cool for at least 15 minutes before you try to cut it.

 By the way, all of the problems I was having before I gave up gluten are gone!  Now if I could only find a good tortilla recipe that's gluten free.

Spring - Around our Yard

Yes, finally, spring has come to our side of the world.  It has been a long, cold, windy, rainy, and miserable winter.  While the rest of you were enjoying your nice, hot summer, we had just the opposite here.  The days of sun are so nice.  Here is a collage with some of the flowers that are blooming in our yard.  My husband had the computer with Photoshop so I had to use Publisher to do this.  

 This is a miniature rose bush by our back porch.  I love it!

A couple of weeks ago we dug out a really ugly plant that was growing in this planter box.  We put some cauliflower and broccoli seedings in its place.  

I've also planted some spring onions, corriander (cilantro), and basil.  One of these days we will {hopefully} get the garden dug over and plant some more things.

I love spring.

Quote for the Day

"If at first you don't succeed . . . 

try. . .

try again.

Photos from June

Thought you all might enjoy some photos from a typical Sunday here at Grace Baptist Church.  Each Sunday we send out a bus and two vans to pick up people for church.  We mostly pick up children, but over the last couple of months we've had several parents ride along as well.  Every other week our family rides the bus and leads the programme for the children.  Abby loves riding the bus and all of the children love her.   They are always wanting to sit by her, hold her, or talk to her.  She loves the attention.  Every Saturday we go out and visit the children that ride on the bus.  If Abby is not with me the first thing the children ask is, "Where's Abby?"  So without further ado . . . here are some photos of the bus from June.  (Thanks to Steve Greig for these photos.)

 



June was a pretty quiet month for us here.  We did have two Birthday parties, however.  The first was for a little boy in our church who turned one.  This was the gift I made for him.  I got the idea from here.  The rooster is my favourite.

 The second Birthday party was for my mother-in-law.  Here is Abby helping to blow out her candles.  I won't reveal how old she is! :)

This next photo is especially for my family.  Look like anyone else you know?  I'll give you a hint, her name begins with an "A" as well.

 And last but not least, Abby and her tea set.  I've had the silver tea set since I was young, it's nice to see it played with again.  Now I have an excuse to play with it again.  We've had lots of tea parties.

 And that's all for June!

Mother-Daughter Luncheon (catch-up post from May)

Each year we like to have a mother-daughter party at church.  We normally do this at Christmas time, and it's usually crazy busy then.  This year we decided to do it in May for Mothers' Day.  Our theme was "It's in the Bag."  Here are some photos from that day.

The invitation

The tables set up

Close-up of table decorations. 
I was really wanting some polka dot serviettes (napkins), but things like that are expensive here.  I walked into the supermarket one day and they had these serviettes for sale, really cheap.  I like to think that God had something to do with that!

Monique-a huge help with this.

Mother-Daughter photo time. 
Monique helped me set this up, but Abby was not in the mood for photos.

Best Friends

And again

And one more

Time to eat!

Here are some details: for lunch we served pumpkin soup, potato soup, and bread rolls.  We then had carrot cake, banana cake, and chocolate cake for pudding.

We played a really fun game that I found on-line somewhere.  As each of the ladies came in we would weigh their handbag on a kitchen scale.  The one who had the heaviest bag won a prize and the one who had the lightest bag also won a prize.  We also played pass-it-up.

I found some interesting facts on-line about purses and used these on cards on the tables for part of the decorations.

I hope the ladies enjoyed this as much as I did.  Thank you, Monique, for your help setting up.  Thank you, Trish, for looking after Abby so I could set up!