High Tea and Campfire

A couple weeks ago my sister-in-law (Lauren), Aurora and I went to a High Tea in celebration of the Queen's 60th jubilee. It's not really my thing, at all,  but I knew Aurora would LOVE it so we dressed up, borrowed so fancy hats from my mom and went. 

We had a really good time, Aurora drank about 3 or 4 cups of tea. She loved putting a sugar cube in each one (we don't generally sweeten our tea or coffee so she normally drinks tea black) and wearing her fancy new dress. She also learned a lot about who real Princesses are and what a real Queen does. 

Lauren and my brother, Mark are in missionary training and are now away for the summer in Jungle camp. What that means is that they and the rest of their class (and 2 staff couples) went up in the bush, built houses (that will be taken down at the end of 4 weeks) and live on what they brought up in order to get a taste of life in a remote location in a foreign country. They get ready by canning a lot of food (no refrigeration up there and no trips to the grocery store for those 4 weeks in fact, no leaving at all except for her midwife appointments- yes, they are pregnant :) )

I will do a post with more info about jungle camp soon. I have to wait to get some photos during the open house. There is only 1 weekend they are allowed visitors and I think it's next weekend. :) You can check out their blog here for way more information on what they are doing. They keep it very up to date (when they aren't in Jungle Camp that is...)

Here are a some photos from a hanging out with the rest of the family. Obviously Mark and Lauren weren't there (Mark is my youngest brother) and my sister Carrie, who is a birth doula, was away at a birth, but the rest of us were there and enjoyed hanging out.

 Gideon loves swinging. All the kids do really.

 My other sister-in-law, Shanelle.

 Allistair enjoying some watermelon and waiting for uncle Jon to light the fire (he insists on using a flint instead of matches or a lighter...LOL it's a bit of a family joke.

 Aurora, Elliot and Ezekiel

 It's so nice that all the cousins get along so well. They are all pretty close in age and really love playing with each other.

 Levi is close to Gideon's age, he just turned 1.

And one last silly face from Gideon. He makes the craziest faces which definitely keep up laughing!

more quiet book pages

Here are a few more pages for the kids quiet books. The first one is from Aurora's book and the other two are from Gideon's. Their books are almost done. I think there is only 1 page left in each that needs finishing touches!! wahoo!

 This page has 6 finger puppets, 3 for each page, they go in the blue pockets

The cars on this page move and the gas nozzle is movable as well.

pray like a child

I've been thinking a lot about prayer lately. Aurora is learning to pray (by herself) for more than just her meals now. Every night we ask her what she is thankful for from that day and what she wants to pray for, her first answer is always "Jesus on the cross" (I am fairly certain she has no idea what that really means, we've explained it to her of course but she is not 3 yet so I think she just knows that it's something we always say thank you to God "for sending Jesus to die on the cross for our sins") then she'll go on to list a bunch of very simple things from the day, her friends, specifically whatever ones she saw that day or week, mommy, daddy and baby Gideon, whatever treat she may have gotten that day, most days she'll list off all her aunts and uncles, cousins and grandparents.
For about 4 days she thanked Jesus for a happy meal she had gotten on the weekend.

Talking with her and prayer with her makes me think about my prayer life, Do I remember to thank God for the simple things? for the little treats and blessings he gave me last week (not the big ones, the tiny ones) do I remember to thank him for all of my friends, or for each family member by name? As adults I think we take many of those things for granted? Maybe we should try to be a bit more like children sometimes.

A

 A holding her baby brother, she really loves him.
And below is he first portrait, she drew daddy. I knew i had to take a picture of it before she erased it.

Science lesson

Preschool science lessons are so fun. Basically ours consist of finding something cool, looking at it with a magnifying glass and talking about it, the kids really don't even realize they are learning. Our last one was really impromptu. My oldest nephew (A.M.) found a dead Monarch butterfly that was still perfectly together so we "studied it" which led to looking for other bugs,  catching a huge bumblebee to "study" then release and a few other moths and beetles.

Well, they both really enjoyed it, so when my mom found a dead praying mantas she was quick to get a container and save him (despite being grossed out) for next time the kids were over. Well they were very excited about that!! Praying Mantas have to be some of the strangest looking bugs after all.

Dead Praying Mantus

And in case that was too disturbing for you, here is a flower. LOL

finger puppets

The felt monster finger puppets we've made. Monsters are so fun because you can make them look crazy and use different sized eyes and it's all just part of their "charm".
A really likes these guys. She's having a monster birthday party this year and these guys will be part of it.