13 months and 5 days old!!!

 

This gorgeous child is already 13 months and 5 days old today!!!  I was not anywhere near a user-friendly computer on her 13 month day to capture all her newest tricks.  So, here goes.

 



• Linmari has added to her vocabulary and now also says "Ouma, Oupa, (Grandma, Grandpa), eina (ouch), eier (egg), no (shakes head)" after a week with the grandparents.
• Linmari further advanced to saying "Kyk daar (look there), ja (yes)".  I'm sure there were more words, I just cannot remember them. :-(
• She is too cute for words, starting to point, click, drag and drop (my dad always said that my nephew treated us like a user would treat the Windows OS, LOL).  Last night she kept on pointing at the kitchen counter and we thought she wanted fresh strawberries.  Turns out, she wanted COOKIES and knew exactly where to find them!  Today she screamed and cried like it was nobody's business.  When I investigated, she indignantly picked up a building block that she was playing with and pointed to it.  Then she proceeded to pick up another building block after placing the first one down on the floor again, and pointed at the second one.  And then she BABBLED!  She seemed very upset with her building blocks - HAHAHA!
• She babbles a LOT and non-stop!  I think she's taking after me.
• She's started to open the fridge and investigate what's inside.  NOT very convenient when I'm trying to cook.
• She loooooooooves frozen strawberries and smoothies!
• She has decided that she no longer likes olives and lemons.
• She is currently cutting FOUR molars - OUCH! (On Friday night she kept on saying "Eina" (ouch) and throwing tantrums, until we figured out [my husband, really] that her gums were really sore and that she is actually cutting those teeth.)
• She is quickly becoming quite the master of climbing onto tables.  Her latest endeavour involves figuring out how she'll get onto our dining room table from the futon situated next to the table.  She's already figured out how to get onto her own table out on the patio.
• Linmari has suddenly become Miss Independent....it's both frustrating and cute at the same time to observe!  If I touch anything that she was about to eat I can forget that she'll eat it.  She wants to, NEEDS to, pick up her own food with a spoon or fork and she doesn't need anyone's help - THANK YOU VERY MUCH!  (*groan*).  So we're on loads of finger foods now and most meals are eaten out on the patio at her table to avoid having to perform hectic clean-ups after every meal.  She seems to love the arrangement.
• Linmari looooooooves cheese as well!  In any form - grated, sticks, processed, whatever!
• Her sand pit is one of her most treasured play areas. 
• SHE CAN STACK TWO CUBES ON TOP OF EACH OTHER!!! HURRAY!!!!
• She can sort loose cubes into a muffin tray - how cool is that?!
• She's still not sleeping through - we're attempting sleep training again (a bit of a nightmare with her cutting teeth).
• She's attended her third wedding for the year and thoroughly enjoyed it.  Especially the bit where she got to dance with her daddy, and then with her stroller!

Every day I'm amazed at what my child can do.  I realise that life in and of itself truly is a miracle!  What a fortunate parent am I to get to stay at home and experience all her milestones with her?!  I just want to call everyone and tell them how wonderful my little girl is!  Love this kid to bits!

On a more productive note, though.  Since our little bit of a financial dilemma (in a worldly view, not by ANY means in a spiritual way) GOD has provided generously in our needs.  I started baking way more, including milktart, and also learned how to make koeksisters from my mom.  Then one of Thinus' colleagues asked whether or not I could make his son turning 5 years old, a SpongeBob birthday cake.  I said "Sure". worked out a price and together with a friend set out to make and decorate the cake.  Below is a picture of the final product.  I couldn't have done it without my friend's help.  She coloured and rolled out all the fondant, made all the facial features from a picture I had drawn her and stood by me till nearly 11 on Thursday night.  The hard work paid off and it seems like there were a few people that were interested in my cake baking skills.  All I can say is "Soli Deo Gloria!" - "Glory be to GOD alone!".

May you all have a blessed week!  I better get my baby's washing on the line and then get into bed.  It's rather late and I need some uninterrupted sleep!

Hubby and Baby celebrate their Birthdays!!!!

Today Thinus and Linmari are celebrating their birthdays.  Last year this time, I was in quite a bit of pain, not really thinking about the fact that Thinus would be sharing his birthday with our child.  Never in a MILLION years did I think that would happen!

To celebrate this wonderful day, we went for a family shoot, complete with the grandparents!  We'll be getting the photo's on Thursday.  I CAN'T WAIT!  In the meanwhile, here are only a few pictures I took tonight to celebrate my beautiful family.

 

I feel like I should just add that it's really late at night (for Linmari, in any case) and she's not all that willing to pose for pictures any longer ;-P  I will shortly post some more pictures of their party that we had yesterday.  But for now, we're going to crawl into bed (because we're absolutely exhausted!), watch October Baby, and have a good night's rest.

Thank YOU, LORD, for these beautiful people that I can call my very own family!!!!!  Thank YOU for watching over them!

We are moving!!!

We have been looking for a house since August 2011, and what a mission it turned out to be! But finally, on March 3rd this year, we found a home :-)

I had a LOOOOOONG list to be fulfilled, including that it should not be a sectional title, must have at least TWO doors going outside, a garden, a double kitchen sink, a window over that kitchen sink, a shower for my husband, at least 3 bedrooms, a garage....the list goes on. Most important was that it would be the most affordable house in the best area.

What we found was: a sectional title, 2 bedroom flat with a garden. It was affordable and in the best area. I've made peace that we need to get our foot in the market. And the flat was really the way to do it.

SOOOOOO, today after church we picked up the keys to our new flat! After nearly 5 years of marriage, we now can call a place our home. GOD has been ever-faithful in providing the funds for the 5% deposit that we had to put down, as well as all the lawyers' fees that went along with buying a house.

Soon we'll be able to start renovating Jellybaby's solid teak cot (BIG SMILE!), and to make up the nursery. Pictures to follow soon, promise! Tonight we're spending our first night in our home - on a blow-up mattress. We are just too impatient to start our new life there to wait for our bed to come next week Saturday. Oh, and we're taking our kettle and microwave oven with to make supper. I should probably also start to pack a bag so that we'll have clothes for tomorrow!

The excitement is very tangible in our household right now. I'm just quickly resting whilst Thinus carries out some of the essentials that must go with tonight. WHOOPEE!!!!

Praise be to GOD for providing in our needs!

PS: I even have a convection oven now! Truly a blessing from above!

Having faith

I'll just jump right into this post today. I'm experiencing disappointment, heartache, jealousy and lack of faith. Why? Because we've been trying to fall pregnant for more than a year now following the loss of our first child. And all that's happening is...nothing. Every month I slowly but surely build up the excitement that, 'this might just be the month it happens', only to come crashing at the end of my cycle when, once again, nothing....

I'm struggling with this, asking 'why, why, why???'. I don't for one second believe that I serve a cruel, heartless, distant GOD, but One that gives life, and that in abundance. Yet I find myself asking, 'Am I not a good enough Christian? Don't I pray or read the Bible often enough? Is my faith THAT lacking? Is my body just not willing to give us the child we so want?' But I've come to realise that my desire for a child overrides any other heart's desire I have. It came to the point that I had to admit that it's my top priority, not my relationship with GOD nor my husband.

I know that I have to work on that, and just last week I could reside in GOD for the first time in a long time, and say to Him, "Okay, not my will but YOUR will". That was difficult, since I am a control-freak. To hand over control (even though I never really had it, eh? Since biology is not dictated by my whims) is very difficult for me, to say to GOD "You really know what You're doing" when things aren't going the way I want it to, that's hectic for me. Yet, I know I have to release myself from this, because it's busy driving me crazy. My life comes to a halt, to a sudden breakdown every month, nothing being as important as the answer to 'Am I pregnant or not?'.

I've been spending a lot of time reading Job, and also James. Job is still difficult to read, but he kept his faith even though he endured all that pain. He never forsaked GOD, even though he had lengthy conversations with his friends and GOD about his dire situation. I want to have faith like that...

In Hebrews 11:1 it says "Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see." (NIV). I have to have faith that GOD knows what's best for me, the same way He says in Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." (NIV) He has a hope and future for me that I cannot begin to fathom, even though I would love to have a sneak-peak.

GOD says in James 1:3-4 "because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." (NIV)

HE also promises:
⁷ “But blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in him.
⁸ They will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.” (NIV, Jeremiah 17:7-8)

I have to keep on holding onto these promises, otherwise my heart will break time and time again. I don't want to have all those feelings I first described. I don't want to feel inadequate as a woman, struggling to bring forth a next generation. But most of all, I don't want this to come inbetween my relationship with GOD, the way it has in the past year.

I want to be released from this continuous sadness and brokeness and inability to not let go of my 'control'. I want GOD to be the centre of my life, not my obsession? over the desire of having a child. And I want this not to interfere with my relationship with my husband...because marriage is not only about reproducing, but about building on a already wonderful relationship between two beings to experience fellowship with GOD on a completely new and elevated level.

GOD, help me to surrender completely, laying all at YOUR feet, relinquishing control and my will, and believing in YOUR perfect timing.

What a big, BIG God we serve!

This is once again a testimony of how awesome God is, and how He just knows when to provide! God has NEVER once failed me, and has always been faithful, even though I'm not always faithful!

About 3 weeks ago, my husband was curious about certain items on his internet banking site, and discovered this "Unit Trust" with a surplus amount of quite a bit of money in it! And then about 1 1/2 weeks ago, my back started acting up again (I've had back problems since the age of 9 years following doing long-jump). I suddenly could not sleep, and cried basically every morning due to a lack of sleep and a seriously hurting back. So Thinus (my husband) said we can use the money, if it indeed is available to us, to buy a proper bed.

Thus today we started our Saturday bright and early, to go to the bank and inquire about the unit trust. It turned out that this was a loan my husband took out about 5 years ago to pay off a Opel/Vauxhall Cadet that he had just bought. But he never stopped depositing money into the loan account / unit trust, and today he has about R3000-00 more in the account than he originally borrowed from the bank. Why? Cause it is an inflation-beater account, which means that when you deposit money into the account, every quarter the money builds interest with the current inflation rate + 3% above the inflation rate (this is where I basically become lost regarding the process). But what happened was that he kept depositing money into this account, even after paying off the loan, and thus building a serious nest-egg for us when we would need it.

Thus FIVE YEARS AGO God knew that we would need a new bed, and for that we required cold hard cash, cause we can't really buy anything else on account now (I don't like debt, and our cost of living has seriously increased since I have to travel approximately 2000km p/month for WORK ONLY (petrol is expensive)! How awesome is God! He is omnipresent, otherwise He would not have been able to know that 5 years in advance we would need a bed, and thus money to buy that bed!

So today we went bed-hunting, and although we are not loaded with money, we still wanted to buy a decent bed that would last for the next 10 - 15 years (by then I ought to be able to buy the next bed cash again!). So we looked at the Sealy Posturpedics, Slumberland's, Serta's, Rest Assured, Simmons', and FINALLY the Cloud Nine range. WOW! It was really difficult to find what we liked, and all the sales-people were so good at trying to convince us! We've now decided on a Cloud Nine, as it works with foam only, thus you don't get wear on Coil Springs as you would in other ranges. The foam just returns to its original state after you get off the bed, because it is memory-foam. And no coil springs, means a lesser chance to wear and tear the bed!

So ja, next week Wednesday we're buying the bed (when our money that we got from the unit trust is transferred), and by next weekend I shall be on Cloud Nine, there right next to Heaven's gate, telling God just how good He is to us, and how much His compassion for us means to me!

Keep well, and enjoy the rest of your weekend!