Emma decided to teach some dance skills to Grace and Hannah, and when they were done she says, “Okay, you two can come to my house in the holidays and practice.”

And it’s not a birthday without sushi

Sheriff Grace…

…and her trusty deputy

Making stick horses

Jungle gym fun

Happy girls

Pin the badge on the sheriff. Grace, Hannah, Sue-Ann and I drew and coloured the sheriff.

The hat cake

Grace was counting hoorays to make sure we got to 5

Scrumptions yummies

Cowgirl invites

Grace’s birthday is on Sunday, and her birthday party is tomorrow, and earlier in the week she had a birthday celebration at school which Donné and I both went too. Party, party all the way.

School birthday cake, which Donné made

Enjoying some birthday cake

Singing happy birthday in group time

Tap your heels together and say the words! (Eli was having some fun with Ethel’s shoes)

When I woke up this morning Donné says to me, “Do you realise you wrote this long blog post yesterday, but forgot to tell the funny part of the story?” Hmmm, quite right…..kind of like forgetting to tell the punch line.

We all went along to watch Grace’s last swimming lesson. Grace keeps her eye on us to make sure that we’re always watching her. I said something to Donné and Grace says, “Mommy, daddy! You’re supposed to be watching me swim, not talking.” Yes, ma’am. That had her instructor giggling away.

Monday was Grace’s and Eli’s last swimming lesson with Lizel and Charlene (at Quicksilver Swimming Academy). That is now the end of the road with them as we move to Somerset West. It has been such a wonderful journey with both of them, and we’ve all learned lots along the way. We’ve gone from Grace not even wanting to go in the pool with Charlene, to her being a confident swimmer loving every moment that she can be in the water.

I am personally very grateful for the parenting lessons I got from Charlene’s process with Grace when she was little. Through that I learned that we make choices that we believe are good for our children (like learning to swim and going to school), and even though it may be tough to deal with that process upsetting our children it really is for their benefit. The process with Grace and Charlene changed the whole way that I approach these things, and I’m really grateful for that piece of insight and wisdom. Charlene has been great with both of our kids and has a great sense of humour.

Lizel has been amazing, gentle, patient and loving with Grace in the water. With her help Grace has grown massively in her confidence in the water, and it has been wonderful to see her taking leaps and bounds as a swimmer. Fortunately we’ll be keeping contact with her, as it turns our we’re moving in next door to her sister in law.

Charlene and Lizel are great and I highly recommend QSSA for swimming lessons in Durbanville – lovely people and great facilities. Thank you to you both, and we look forward to seeing you again soon.

We’re busy getting ready for Grace’s birthday party and there are cowboy(girl) hats around…

We had a lovely breakfast with the Parker’s this morning, ranging from poached eggs on wilted spinach through to Italian meringue, which all really just sandwiched lots of good time talking and catching up. Grace and Caleb played together making paper planes, building Lego train sets, and exploring the Goldiblocks. Good times with good friends.

Eli has been enjoying exploring new things, or just engaging for longer periods of time with toys. He was having some fun looking at the Goldiblocks today