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!

Happy Easter

If you missed my last post, I am behind and trying to catch up.  These photos are from our Easter party in April.  In New Zealand, we have several days off for Easter.  We have Good Friday - this is a public holiday and nearly all of the shops are closed.  We have Easter Sunday - again nearly all of the shops are closed.  Monday is also a public holiday (Easter Monday), but most of the shops are open on this day.  So basically we have Friday to Monday off.

On Good Friday we decided to get some of our friends and their children over to have an Easter party.  Yes, the children got lots of chocolate and lollies.  Don't worry, on Sunday we made sure they learned what the real meaning of Easter is.

Abby and Friends

Craft Time

(I love handprint crafts.  Each year you can go back and see just how much bigger the children have grown.)

Morning Tea Time

Easter baskets and bunnies to take home

Getting ready for the egg hunt

Enjoying the spoils

The Dads

It was such a fun morning together with friends.  The weather was perfect and we had a wonderful time together.  Thanks to Silvana for the photos.



My poor, sad blog

When I started this blog, I had very good intentions of updating it regularly. If you have been following my blog, you know this has not happened. I forget and forget to post and then wonder where should I start and why have I left it for so long.  There are lots of reasons why I put it off.  The biggest reason is that it is winter.  Yes, you read that right, it is winter here.  The room our computer is in is so cold.  Like most homes in New Zealand we heat only one room.  The room the computer is in is not the room that we heat.  Most days you can see your breathe in the room all day long.  I don't like to type when my fingers feel like they are so cold they are going to fall off.

I could also blame sickness.  This winter has been extremely hard for our family.  We seem to be continually passing bugs back and forth.  We just seem to be getting over everything and then one of us gets sick and starts the cycle all over again.

I could blame being busy for the reason I don't get around to blogging.  Since I last posted in March we have had an Easter party, an ANZAC service, a youth rally, a big bus blowout, and a Bible revival.  That added together with everyday things really makes for a lack of time in the blogging world.

Putting all of those excuses aside, here are some photos of things that have been going on since my last post in March.  These are all from April.  There will be more (hopefully) in the days to come.  If you don't like seeing lots of pictures of Abby, then you may want to quit now.  If you do (Mom) then continue on at your own risk!

One of our favourite places to visit: Virginia Lake.

A hand-me-down dress from a friend.  Doesn't she look so cute!

ANZAC service at church (ANZAC day is our memorial day.  It is held on the 25th of April every year.  On the Sunday closest we have a special service at church.  On the actual day there is a ceremony at dawn (5:30am) at the local war memorial.  Abby and I didn't make it this year.  We were sick and our beds were so warm and snug. Maybe next year.)

Coming up next: Easter party at our house (if I can find the CD of pictures!)