Feather your Nest Friday, 12th July, 2024.

What a week!  Today I took my Grand daughters home after the week here.  It has rained.  The grass is growing,  the girls had a great time and were so lovely to have with me.   Also two of my Grandsons had birthdays!   Sidney turned four and Chase turned two.  So two little parties in two households.  

Before the girls arrived I planned.  We had lots of projects going and I set up the lounge room for painting.

As always I tried to teach the girls some new skills.   One of the projects was simple hand sewing.  

They made several different animals each.  They learned how to stuff a toy along the way.   Scarlett gave a dog to Tom and he was very happy!

Harper showed Tom how to do a cartwheel and asked if Tom would like to learn.  He said "no thank you" as it would "make his legs break and his knees catch on fire."  Dramatic.   However we settled on going on to the lawn and they could teach him to do a somersault.   They would demonstrate and they broke it down to step by step.  He watched and listened and Chloe and I looked on.  Oh my gosh it was hilarious. 

It was serious business.  And Tom nailed it!   They all ran around in the sunshine and wore themselves out. 

Our BIG project took almost a whole day.  And my helpers made it happen.  Tim and Andrew set up a flying fox... I bought a kit but we needed extra cable and a lot of work to set it up.  

The garden at the side of the house is quite steep.  There are gum trees up the top and more down the bottom.  I always thought I had the makings of a perfect flying fox! 

The boys had it in place and it needed a test out.  Harper volunteered with me holding on and running with her.   It was too low and needed adjusting.  This went on over a few tests.  

Harper must have heard what I had said to Tim as (on the phone that evening) she told to her Mum that the flying fox is amazing but at the end it throws you to Tasmania.   What every parent wants to hear! 

Ok,  so we modified that and made the decline less steep and added a bale of hay to land on.

This worked a treat! 

The girls found it necessary to run alongside each other.   All the tests and adjustments meant I went up and down that hill and lifting them on and off until we got it right...   phew!

Anyway they thought it was awesome.  Tom and Chase came and tried it out.  Then I ran down the hill with them several times each as well.   They loved it.

Then the inevitable happened and the cows broke into the front yard to eat the bale.   The girls were yelling at the cows and I am in my nightie chasing the cows with the car headlights.   😂

I never have success posting videos here but I will post them to instagram.  The perfect landing/dismount became the goal with a lot of celebrations!

Luckily we did all this before rain came.  So everyone was worn out... Scarlett needed a hot pack on her aching legs...  

We said our prayers and asked for rain for the farms which we named.  Here farms tend to have names  ie my farm is Windarra.  Anyway rain came and the next day we went for a drive to look over the paddocks.   I was telling the girls - see how our prayers were answered and that we must remember to say thank you.   Just then a rainbow appeared.  It was faint at first but we stopped the car and watched.  It got brighter and brighter.   We all said "wowww" together.   As we were saying wow a second rainbow appeared!   It was amazing!    

The photos don't do it justice but at least I got some.

We watched for a good ten or fifteen minutes.  It was so beautiful.  This turned into a Bible lesson on the first rainbow.  

Andy always said grace before dinner and we all held hands.  Last time I asked the girls if they would help me pray since Andy is not here to do it.  But they were too shy so I went ahead on my own.  This time they both offered to say grace.  Each day they prayed thanks for the lovely things of the day and I sat there and thought Andy would be just loving us sitting there, the girls praying out loud at the beautiful table he bought me.   These were moments I soaked in and won't forget.

Sidney was encouraged to blow out his candles by his adoring sisters.

Chase had one of Chloe's creative cakes! 

The girls are crazy over Lily.  They just keep saying "she is so cute."  

Lily seemed pretty keen on them too!

Lily also is 4 months old now.

For the party she wore a dress and had a giant bow headband but for some reason I don't have a good photo... you are probably tired of photos of my Grandkids by now!

I did get all my strawberry plants planted.  There turned out to be twenty!  This filled so many spaces!  

All the books I bought from the thrift store really paid off.  Scarlett took to two of them and read over 300 pages in two days!  I am sure this would be a record for her.  By the time she left she was on to book two.  The both took home an extra book for next week of the holidays.  The rest have gone into my little kids library here.   I will keep watching out and collecting.

The house is a bomb,  my legs are aching but it was a great week.  Count every moment and every goodness!  There is a song..  CeCe Winans... The Goodness of God.   If you haven't listened to that... do.  If you are going to look it up you might as well look for the one with Roman Collins at American Idol finale... it is just BEAUTIFUL.    I know the world is on fire.   I am still stocking, preserving, growing and doing but we have to soak in every goodness too.    I hope you had a wonderful week.   We would love to hear! xxx