A very busy weekend

On Saturday we went to our Kempton Park neighbours' daughter's stork tea (baby shower.) Here is my good friend and previous neighbour, Brenda, talking to some guests.

Karin opening her gifts.

Thelwyn and Dorette watching Karin opening her gifts and ohing and ahing about all the cute baby clothes.

Meanwhile Franco and Martelize had a happy time on Franco's donut. Franco is teething and here is he chewing Martelize's hand. She didn't seem to mind though. A little later she was licking his arm!

Saturday afternoon was the Rugby Curry Cup final. We are Blue Bull fans as you can tell by our T-shirts. Watching intently are Gert with Franco, Thelwyn, Frans and Martelize. Outside it was raining! Bliss after the drought we have had so far!

Hendrik having a good time.

Dorette finds the Huisgenoot more interesting than the rugby. But like her mom, she enjoys the atmosphere...

Guess whose team is losing? Watching rugby is serious business!

Ouma is not all that much into rugby. Playing with Franco is far more interesting.

Franco could also not care about the T.V. He enjoys his rugby ball though. He is starting to sit, but Ouma's hands are ready to "catch".

Martelize, however, watches the rugby as intently as her parents!

On Sunday Jan's varsity friends came to visit and we had a great time.

Jan, Miekie, Santjie, Carl, Amanda, Erik

Another concert at Salvokop

Here we are again! Lalie and I in front of the Inkululeko stage busy with a concert!

I was the principal of the pre-school (Inkululeko) at Salvokop from its beginning in 2000 till the beginning of last year. In this time, the pre-school performed many concerts and other performances. The community centre (older children and sometimes adults) also regularly performed "Easter Dramas" (Passion plays) and end of the year concerts. I was always in charge of the pre-school performances: not too difficult with lots of help of the rest of the staff, Win Bryant who readily made costumes and my sister Lalie who always helped with decor, costumes, dressing children etc. Jan also always helped with anything from welding tables to installing lights. The community concerts were another matter altogether! Here Lalie shouldered the burden for most of the productions alone. This year she did so again!
About 3 weeks ago, Lalie (who is at the moment once again a substitute teacher at the pre-school), got the go ahead to produce the major part of this year's community concert (again!). I volunteered to help, but my help was very limited. (I only manned the overhead projector and was the narrator for one item).
Lalie wrote the scripts, directed, made the costumes for each and every child.... and to get them fired up, she singlehandedly treated the different groups to camps before rehearsing started. These camps have been going on for years. The result is groups of committed children despite their very disadvantaged backgrounds. It is so heartwarming to see the development of individual children, but also of the community as a whole.
Here are some pics of the different items... produced at very short notice! As Lalie says, she could not have done it without God. All is part of His greater purpose for the community! He is there! God, you are so awesome!!

St George and the dragon.

The whole dragon: moving wings, tail and claw. At the actual performance, his vicious mouth no longer opened and closed so easily: the boys had so much fun practising with it, that the head nearly did not survive to the bitter end. An interesting phenomenon was that many boys who were "naughty" or poor achievers in pre-school pitched up for this drama with great enthusiam. At the community centre, anyone who wants to, can be part of the drama.

Surrendering to Jesus...

Ordinary men empowered to fight in Jesus' name

Angels against demons

A part of the Senior girl group dancing gracefully. Lalie taught them some ballet steps and they all beamed in their beautiful wide skirts and pink organza wraps. They really internalised the music and the dances.

Sabatha: She has been part of the community centre since it started: she joined the Pre-school as a 3 year old, only a month after we opened our doors. Now 8 years later, she is still an eager member of the drama group. Her younger nephew, Khotso, is also a very reliable community child: he can be sent to call his friends to come for practice. Sabatha's older siblings used to take part in all the dramas but have now moved on. What a beautiful family

Young girl angels dancing

Babysitting Franco for a weekend

This weekend Jan and I had to look after Franco. Gert and Dorette had to go for the weekend for a work related retreat. I know now why God gives babies to younger people. It is nonstop work! But it was great fun. Franco was as good as gold. It helped to have Thelwyn, Frans and Martelize here too.

Friday afternoon soon after I had arrived with Franco. Thelwyn and I put both cousins in Martelize's cot and they had a ball together. Here they are watching Thewlyn who is trying to snap them.

Cousins playing footsy.

Franco - nearly 6 months. Happy to be (without Mom and Dad) on the farm.

Our big eyed princess - 11 weeks

Martelize was her usual adorable self. Here she is on the carpet next to Fanco. Thelwyn's hand shows how tiny she still is.

Saturday morning: Franco having fun in our bed! He had a bottle at 19:00, then again at 1:00 and only again at 5:00. We could have done with a little more sleep, but for a child who is used to waking nearly every 3 hours, this was a wonderful night. Anyway, one look at his cheerful little face, and we were wide awake as well. Thank you for being such a model baby Franco! The only time he did cry this weekend was 21:00 Saturday night when he woke with cramps. Fortunately Dorette had left medication and the problem was solved in no time. Jan was really good with soothing him and getting him to go to sleep again. Generally he went to sleep the moment we put him in his bed - no fuss, no rocking to sleep, just his cloth nappy and his dummy.
Franco pulling the blankets over his head. He loves to touch material and when he goes to sleep he holds a terrycloth nappy. Grabs it and presses it to his face. His dummy is also vital for going to sleep of course!

Franco sitting in a bumbo seat and eating his cereal yesterday morning. He tried to help by grabbing the spoon and by putting his fist in his mouth as well. What a mess! But he ate everything!

Look how neatly Franco eats his cereal! By Sunday morning both Ouma and Franco got the hang of eating neatly. Thelwyn gave us a great tip: wear the bib plastic side up - much easier to clean it this way. Where Franco ate only 6 teaspoons of dry cereal on yesterday, he ate 9 teaspoons this morning! He also ate pear for supper and butternut and carrot for lunch. Today he went on a semi bottle strike. Where he drank most of, or all of 180 ml formula on Friday and Saturday, he did not want any today - did not drink a drop between 4:30 and 15:00 when he finally drank 90 ml. He was glad to see his mum though when she arrived at 16:00!

Grandparents may spoil! Jolly jumpers are "out" as far as modern parents are concerned, but babies are still babies. Our own children loved the jolly jumper (for short periods of course). Today all three of them have straight legs and backs - they all crawled and did what babies were supposed to do. So we got one for the grandchildren. Franco tried it out this weekend and although he was not quite sure what to do yet, he smiled and gurgled a lot!

Hendrik is a great uncle. He often played with Franco and Franco loved to tug his hair and his beard. Kicking Oom Hendrik is part of the fun.

Franco practising to sit. Here he sprawls out like his gymnast Mom used to do.

Franco playing with his bunny. His handling of toys has improved much these past weeks. When he was sick about 3 weeks ago, I still had to place his lion's leg in his hand for him to hold. Now he easily grabs both legs of the swinging lion - one in each hand. He is not very interested in the toys on the tray of his swing though. He is much more interested in the swinging mechanism at the top of the swing. Will he become a mechanical engineer like his dad?

Franco can roll over and does so often, but he still struggles to free his arm!

Teddy, Thelwyn and Martelize (here 11 weeks old) Martelize's hand-eye co-ordination, balance, muscle tone etc. improve almost by the minute. She enjoys doing sit-ups with her mom.

Dear God, we praise you for a wonderful weekend. Thank you for our beautiful, darling grandchildren! What a privilege!

Weekend Pictures

We still have a problem with flies. Jan and Hendrik fastened gauze to the backdoor security gate to try to keep the flies outside. We still need to get a spring to keep it shut. Here is Hendrik busy with the flyswatter -he is a master fly killer!

Today Gert and family came for lunch. Both children and Ouma wore yellow, so we had to take a photo of course. (Martelize's yellow dress is one of Thelwyn's baby dresses that I kept.)

Jan could not resist buying a teddy for each child - Here we are trying to photograph children with teddies - lots of laughs.

Jan and Franco having a ball.

Dit was lekker Oupa!

Two cousins watching each other intently: Martelize on the floor and Franco on Dorette's lap.

It's better together on the blanket....

Holding hands.... (well, almost)

I like your dummy chain...

And I like your soft hair...

On Saturday Jan and Martelize watched the semi-final between the Blue Bulls and the Cheetahs. (The Bulls won of course). Frans and Thelwyn had taken Martelize with them to an open day at Arab breeders but they returned in time to train their own horses, leaving Martelize with her Oupa Jan. She looked so pretty in the floral dress that I bought her.