Lots of Helpers

Our family's life in New Zealand

Timaru, Part 1

by Leave a Comment

We went to Timaru over Easter weekend for a conference—a weekend of church meetings. The Assembly in Timaru had invited a number of speakers, and four came, two from Australia and two from the north part of the North Island. It was a wonderful weekend of Scripture teaching and fellowshipping! We went last year, and enjoyed it so much that we had been talking all year of going again. (And now, the boys are talking about NEXT year already! So, if anyone from Timaru reads this, know that some people will be very much disappointed if you don’t hold the Easter Conference again!)

We left here about 8:00 on Good Friday morning, and didn’t have to stop once! We made it to Timaru in time for lunch at noon, and attended both the services in the afternoon. After tea at church, we returned to the house at which we were staying, and got our camp set up. Esther and I and the baby slept in the pop-top camper we borrowed for the trip, that night, and Gayle and all the boys slept in three tents in the yard. After the tents were pitched we visited in the house for awhile, and then just as we were getting ready to send the children out to bed, they found a distraction—stories read by the man of the house!

Saturday, there was only one service, mid afternoon, so everyone who stayed at the house we did went to a park and the beach in the morning. Timaru is beautiful! There was a fire in the late 1800s that wiped out the business district, so everything was rebuilt with stone. The buildings are gorgeous!The boys really enjoyed the park. A man was there with several miniature horses, which you could ride for $5. It was free to sit on them, though, and Mr. Imagination loved that.

The man in the red jersey here was one of the speakers. He had had to leave his wife and six children behind to come, and was missing them.The boys loved the playground equipment, too. Left to right are the man with the  horses, Gayle, Mr. Diligence, Mr. Intellectual, Mr. Sweetie, ?, Mr. Handy Man, and Mr. Inventor.

Mr. Sweetie on the swing.

Mr. Diligence and Mr. Imagination, upside down on the swings!

Left to right are Mr. Diligence, Mr. Inventor, ?, ?, and Mr. Handy Man.

One thing that fascinated me about the beach was how it is receding. When the port was built, it changed the currents. Now, sand is deposited in Caroline Bay.When Europeans first came, the beach was at the base of the cliffs those buildings are on! Our host remembers when it was about halfway between there and where it is now, over a quarter mile out!

The port was at the edge of the park, clearly visible from where we were, so after we left the park, we drove through what we could of the port before we went back for lunch. They were loading a couple of huge freight liners. The four cranes you can see in the middle of this picture are all on one ship!

This is a view of the beach and town from the port.

After leaving the port, we drove past this row of old warehouses.

More March Pictures

by Leave a Comment

Just a few more pictures I thought some of you might enjoy.

One morning, Esther looked out the window and thought she saw something white in the sheep’s water barrel. That seemed strange, so she called Mr. Intellectual to come see what he thought it was. They both had the same thought—a turkey—so he raced outside to see. Sure enough, one of the half-grown turkeys was in the water. It was still alive, so he pulled it out and they wrapped it in a towel, then put it in front of a heater for several hours till it recovered.

The eight baby turkeys only stayed in the house a few days, but we enjoyed them while they were there. It was nice to be able to send them out to the chicken coop after a week or two, though! That many babies fill up the box in a hurry. A couple of the boys built a new bridge across the dry creek in the front yard, using gates. This is Mr. Diligence on the bridge and Mr. Inventor in the creek.

Mr. Imagination had a birthday in March! He’s now three. That is him, as well, beside a barrel—just a random shot his sister got.

This was the first pumpkin we picked this year. The boys had fun bringing it in and cutting it open. Unfortunately, it didn’t taste that good. We raised some Atlantic Giants last year, and obviously the pumpkin we saved seed from had cross-pollinated with the Atlantic Giant, which is watery and tasteless. The cow likes these, though!

Three Months Old!

by Leave a Comment

I can’t believe my little girl is three months old already. How time flies! She’s really developing her own personality already. She has quite a repertoire of different tones of voice to get her point across—whether she’s sad, or feeling neglected, or hungry. Right now, she’s tired of sitting on her daddy’s knees and begging me, from across the room, to rescue her and give her some attention! She loves to cuddle, but she also likes to sit up straight so she can see around, and be held so she can stand up. She’d love to be able to get around by herself, but isn’t rolling yet. And, she keeps getting fatter and fatter!

Here she is at 2 1/2 months with her oldest brother, Mr. Handy Man. She already loves books and stories. Sleeping on her favorite chair…

enjoying a rare moment of peace with Mr. Imagination…

and a chat with Daddy…

coveting Daddy’s lunch…

and sharing an apple core with Mr. Diligence.

And now, a three months’ picture:

 

Giveaway! and, Announcing a New Website

by Leave a Comment

I am excited to be able to announce the launch, today, of a brand-new website! Esther had the inspiration, last October, to build a website of book reviews to help people make decisions about books for their families, and help moms find books to go along with their history studies or just for their children to read. Building a website turns out to be a lot more work than I ever imagined, but Learning Resource Directory is finally ready to go! Have a look at the website and its companion blog, Purposeful Learning. You can even enter a giveaway Esther is holding in celebration.

This website seems to be unique—at least, we haven’t found anything quite like it. Each book featured on the site has a several-paragraph review, so you know what the book is about. Each book also has warnings attached to it, so that if you are concerned about books containing violence, bad language, or romance for your children you’ll know about it. Esther has also created a search feature that I think is really great. If you want a book set in Ancient Greece, you can find it. She has the books sorted by genre, as well as historical period, location, and reading age level. You can also do a keyword search to find more specific topics. There are only 48 books featured on the website right now, but more are coming very soon (I think, between the two of us, we have another 50-100 reviews written that she hasn’t had time to post!), so come back for another look. And, if there are books you’d like our opinion on, let us know through the contact form on the website and maybe we’ll be able to read and review it. We have somewhere around a thousand books in our house, and friends with a lot more that we have access to.

This also fulfills a long-time dream of mine! Many years ago, I read a few books of book lists (Honey for a Child’s Heart, Books Children Love, for example), but they all included books I didn’t like and left out books I loved! Of course, that’s to be expected. However, I wanted to write my own book of recommendations. Life, and children, got in the way of that dream, though, and I hadn’t even thought about it for years. Then when Esther came up with the idea for this website, I was excited! This is much better than a book, because it can constantly be added to. Esther was happy to let me write reviews for her, and I’m sure enjoying doing so. When you’ve enjoyed a book, it’s fun to share it with someone. So, go over to Learning Resource Directory and have a look! Esther’s reviews are a lot of fun to read. You might find a book you want to take a closer look at!

Happy April 8th Day!

by Leave a Comment

You mean to say you have never heard of April 8th Day? Don’t worry, very few people have. Once upon a time, my dad decided we needed more celebration days. I think we had just read All of a Kind Family, about a Jewish family in New York City. They had a number of celebration days, and Dad thought we needed some. Therefore, he declared April 8th to be a family holiday! I’m not sure if we ever really celebrated, but it was a fun family joke.

On a different topic, I’ve been pondering for a long time how to refer to my boys on this blog. I don’t want to use their first names, to give them just a little more privacy, but for family and friend’s sake, I want some way to identify them. In the last several posts, I’ve said “Boy #1” or whatever, but it occured to me sometime since I last posted that I could say “Mr. Handy Man” or “Mr. Inventor”. Which would you like better? Please comment with your opinion.

And now I need to take care of a crying baby girl. Whenever I have time, I plan to post about our trip to Timaru over the weekend, and a walk up a river looking for fossils today. Sometime!

Encyclopedias

by 6 Comments

We had a good laugh at the dinner table tonight. We were discussing the fact that Esther’s boss just got another donkey yesterday, hoping to have a baby donkey eventually. That led to a discussion about how long various animals are pregnant, and when I mentioned that horses are pregnant for about a year, someone wondered how long elephants carry their babies. I said about two years, and then Esther asked about whales—five years, maybe? And what about mice? a month? Well, of course we had to check it out, so I suggested that someone get the encyclopedia to figure it out. We suggested looking under Gestation, so one of the boys ran to the other end of the house to fetch the G volume. It said, “See Pregnancy.” So, he ran to the other end of the house again to get the P encylopedia. It said, for animal gestation periods, “See Animals.” Bother! He ran to the other end of the house for a third time, to get the A encyclopedia! Finally, we had the information we needed. Did you know that a mouse produces babies after only 21-24 days? Elephants, on the other hand, take 20-22 months. We found this investigation very interesting.

I was reminded, when we had to keep getting a different volume of the encyclopedia, of a story my Dad once told. He would occasionally get in the mood to make up a story, and we would periodically get another installment of “The Great White Hunter.” I don’t remember much of these stories; the Great White Hunter would go around the world having adventures. The one story I do remember involved something about shooting a Snow Leopard out of season in Africa. This was a crime, and the Great White Hunter found himself clapped into jail. Now, an African jail is not a place you want to be. It’s terribly boring. The poor man was only allowed to order in one book a year! He wanted to figure out some way to get himself freed, so he decided he had to find out, first, if he really had shot a Snow Leopard, or if it was some other creature. So, the first year, he ordered the S encyclopedia, so he could look up Snow Leopard. Imagine his feelings when he got it and it said, “See Leopard, Snow.” And he had to wait an entire year before he could order the L encyclopedia! That’s all I remember of the Great White Hunter stories. What a fun memory of Dad, though!

And by the way, a whale’s gestation period is 12-17 months—but we still don’t know about Blue Whales, which was the particular species in question!

Early March Pictures (with cute little turkeys)

by Leave a Comment

Somebody (probably Joseph, but I’m not altogether sure) got hold of my camera during school the other day, so here are a couple of pictures in the school room.

This is our bedroom:

These cute baby turkeys hatched Saturday.  Boy #2 was excited when he discovered six babies from the nine eggs, and then two more appeared later! They can sure hide. We had to take them away from the mother, though. It’s not safe to let them free-range, since we have hawks and ferrets, and we couldn’t catch the mother to put them in a pen. So, we have eight baby turkeys in the kitchen. Their owner loves to swat flies and feed them to the babies, and they love the flies.

Our onion crop, 110 onions drying, waiting to be braided:

February Pictures

by Leave a Comment

I’m not sure what was happening in this picture, but I thought it was a cute one of James and Nathan.

A late-evening game of Dutch Blitz (thanks to one of my sisters, we can now all play at once—thank you!).Left to right are James, Elijah, Seth, Simon, and Joseph, and Esther.

Here are some pictures taken on the way to church by Joseph. Most of the pictures he took were too blurry or sideways, but there were a few good ones. The first is along the Kaikoura coast, with a railway tunnel on the left; the second is the Kaikoura airport; third is a creek just north of Kaikoura; fourth is a restaurant on the corner where we turn off the highway to go to church; and fifth is our church building with the new Kaikoura museum/library/council chambers building rising behind it.

And, last but not least, this is only part of the cabbage crop. We brought in and put up literally bushels of cabbage (probably about nine altogether).

 

Beans—or Zebras?

by Leave a Comment

You may think you know what these are. However, I guarantee you are wrong (according to a person in our family!).

I was preparing some beans to eat a week or so ago, and my little helper with the big imagination came along wanting to help. He got himself a table knife, and started cutting the beans, saying, “I cut off the body. I cut off the head.” I asked him what he was cutting up and he informed me, very seriously, “Zebras.”

 

Two Months Old!

by Leave a Comment

I’m staying home from church today because four boys have colds and sore throats. They wanted to watch Flywheel, after we listened to a sermon, so if Little Miss Two Months Old will cooperate, I’ll let you see some of the cuteness we get to enjoy!

Sitting in the laundry basket kept her entertained for awhile one day. I wish I had a Bumbo seat for her—I’m hoping I can find one used soon. She loves being able to look around, but we don’t have any kind of seat besides her carseat, which she hates. Meanwhile, this worked once at least!

Big brother Nathan (3) loves her! We have to watch, though, because he is still trying to learn how to show that love. (No, don’t poke her. Don’t lick her. Keep your fingers out of her mouth. Leave her eyes alone. Yes, give her a kiss!)

Ready for church again! This was made for Esther by Gayle’s second sister.

Big brother apparently wanted to do what little sister was doing!

I love how she sleeps with her hands up! This dress was made for Esther by Gayle’s youngest sister. She also made a doll, with a matching dress. The only problem is, I’m not sure where it is right now (we do still have it).