The Selfish Giant

On Saturday, Calista and I joined Linda and Thomas at their church.  The Grace Baptist Praise Symphony Orchestra presented CELEBRATE MUSIC:  THE SELFISH GIANT.  They did an amazing job!  The kids had fun in the informal setting – they could dance, clap and enjoy the music.

Here’s Lali saying obediently smiling at the camera:

And then the serious photo just as the orchestra were starting:

The musicians – including 18 year old Amy Mack who composed her first symphony!  We were privileged to attend the world premiere of “The Awakening”, inspired by Wind in the Willows.

Afterwards, there was a “musical petting zoo” for the children – they could try out various instruments (percussion, brass, woodwind and strings were represented).  Here’s one of Calista playing the triangle:

After the concert, we took the kids to a park for a quick picnic – they ended off the day by playing “marching band”

BLUE

We’ve been so amazed at the Lord’s provision.  We haven’t bought one thing for our little baby boy.  And yet we have almost everything we need already!

One of the things that made a big difference in making it all feel very “real”, is the super-cute bedding we were given.  Here are some “rough” pictures…

! It’s fun to be a kid !

It is indeed fun to be a kid!  The point of these pictures?  Sharing some of the fun with Lali’s grandparents…  We miss you!

Playing dinosaur!

“Helping” with the dishes:

Teaching dolly how to drive:

Painting – outside, cause it’s messy!

Painting – inside, with wonderful non-messy paint!

Playing dress-up…

Helping Daddy wash his bike.  And then playing architect…

Party “at the beach”!

It’s a little bit scary – Calista is almost turning three!  We celebrated this with an “At the beach” party last Saturday…  A bit early, we know.  But we wanted the grandparents represented, and the Essex’s are headed out to their STM today.

Here are a couple of pics of the fun…

I made my first “properly decorated” cake.  Yeah me!  When I asked Calista what she wanted, she said “Mermaids!”.  So that’s what she got – well, at least she got one

Thank you to all the friends who joined us.  Here are some of the kids sharing snacks:

It was only when I took the picture that it dawned on me that the kids are sitting at the table and there’s no space for the adults!  So we moved them to a blanket on the lawn:

That backfired though, cause the adults just ended up joining them  Here’s the birthday girl with the Lash family, blowing bubbles.

And of course we had time to open gifts…  Thank you so much to all the friends (well, their parents!) for their generous gifts.  Here she is opening one from Oom Chris and Tannie Estelle:

We missed our family and friends from SA, but really enjoyed sharing this day with friends here.  We’re so thankful that we’ve been blessed with so many new friends – God is good!

Vir Oupa

For those who missed the title – “FOR GRANDPA”…

My parents both have green thumbs.  Skipped a generation, I think.  We now have evidence that Calista can plant something and water it, AND it might just grow…

And then, three weeks later:

Tommy turns 3!

Can’t believe how time flies!  It feels like just the other day that we joined Chris and Linda in celebrating Thomas’ second birthday.  Yesterday, he turned THREE!

We joined them at Mountasia.  First we had yummy pizza, and they surprised Lali with a pre-birthday gift.  We gave him (and his dad!) a kite – perfect for our windy days…

 

There was a fun piano and Calista entertained everyone by dancing around.

And the kids got to take some rides in the arcade – although they were both pretty scared!  So sweet how they were holding hands…

We ended off the day by playing mini-golf.  Well, we tried…  Mostly wthe kids ran around and we ran after them

We had a lovely time.  Thank you so much to the Lash family for including us…

Visiting the Craigens

One of the sad things about seminary is that you make friends only to have them move on a year or two later…  Well, this time we have to say goodbey to the Craigens  Dr Craigen and his wife Colleen have served at TMS for 15 years.  Before that they served in several European countries.  Now it’s time to retire.  We will miss them!You can look at http://www.gracechurch.org/grace_today/posts.aspx?id=818 for a tribute to them.