Grace has a certain height that she likes to stay below, and if she happens to cross that height threshold her eyes go wide and she wants to come down again. The height is around about the top step of our ladder, but the same goes for trees and other things you may climb.

Grace wanted to help me clean some leaves out of the gutters, but to reach the gutter she was going to need to stand right on top of the ladder and this presented a challenge, especially seen as she really wanted to help.

Getting up to that top step took a bit of time, with Grace asking questions like,

• What if I fall?
• What if the ladder breaks?
• What if the wind blows the ladder over?

Grace did get to the top though. It look a few rounds of things, but eventually she was brave, overcame her fear, had fun cleaning out the leaves……and made it back down again!

Happy birthday Daniella! We joined Daniella for a pink my little pony  birthday, and enjoyed some sun and good friends – a lovely relaxed time. 

Messy….very messy….but yummy!

Eli takes the little cars, crashes them and then goes with his “fix it” truck to collect them for repairs. He says to Donné when she picked up a car to play with, “No mommy, not the flipping car,” but literally means flipping – he flicks them over to crash them, hence the flipping car. 

These two were very happy with a surprise gift from mom. I think there are going to be many hours spent shopping for fun.

Bike rides with our neighbour

Some fun swing time at the park (where the swings are too long, so legs need to be pulled up into a “bomb”)

We joined Hannah for her Haunted House party today. 

Hannah is one of Grace’s best friends, but being in different schools and different parts of Cape Town means different groups of friends.

Today, for the first time (that I’ve noticed), Grace was shy to meet the other children. She’s been shy about older children, but I can’t think of a time she’s been shy with her peers (although I may be forgetting some obvious times, which Donné will remind me about in the morning).

She was off colour today with a bit of a head cold, so that may have played a role.

I’m okay if she just needs some space to be an introvert at times – I know I need that sometimes too. 

We joined James for his Little Prince birthday party today. I loved the wonderful cake, and all the careful detail in the decorations and gift bags for the children.

Making a happy birthday video for Gemma, who is shares a birthday with James and is away at the moment.

Grace, Janpaul and Andrew are busy organising a “going out” in school. A “going out” is a small group excursion to answer a particular question, for example, going to the aquarium to learn more about starfish, or interviewing an expect to learn more about what they do.

A large part of the going out learning process is the planning of the excursion. There is a list of things that they need to organise, including a chaperone, directions, any costs that may be involved, food, etc. – everything needs to be carefully planned and documented before they go, and they need to action it on their own.

They are planning to go to Vergelegen which is a wine farm just next to Lourensford where the school is. They have wonderful grounds, with old trees and rich historical grounds. According to Grace, they are, “going to find out about old things and old trees.” Grace has a question about how the very old yellowwood’s canopy has grown together with the other trees.

So today they phoned Vergelegen to find out about costs. Janpaul (who is very well spoken and extremely polite) made the call and got the information about entry costs and the cost of the tour of the grounds. Grace tells us about this and adds, “And we nearly booked breakfast! Janpaul was booking breakfast but we told him not to.”

Apparently at some point the conversation went something like this (I imagine from how I’ve been told):

Vergelegen: “Would you like to have breakfast here?”

Janpaul: “Oh, that would be lovely.”

Vergelegen: “What is your phone number? And would you like to have a wine tasting too?”

Janpaul: “I’m only 8! I can’t drink wine and I don’t have a phone number!”

At some point Grace and Andrew realised he was booking breakfast unknowingly and realised that was probably out of their budget, so cancelled that booking.

I just love it, and would have loved to be a fly on the wall to see both sides of that conversation.

All in corner putting up a heater for Adam – how many of us can squish in there?

The super hero mantle has passed from one brother to another