Michael's First Birthday!

On Saturday we celebrated Michael’s first birthday!  As usual we went totally overboard in planning this party!  

During the past 16 years, Christo and I have planned 37 birthday parties! Some themes are such a hit that we love to repeat them every now and then.  With Michael’s party we did it again!  It actually started with CJ. 

His 6th birthday was a Pirate party.  

Those days grandma still made the birthday cakes and she did an excellent job. 

We also made little treasure boxes for every friend and they had to dress up like pirates and princesses. 

My Dad was absolutely fond of his first and at that stage, only grandson.  He was running the tuck shop at the school where they were hostel parents.

So grandpa sponsored all the sweets in the treasure boxes!

  

It must have been a very memorable party for CJ,  as he suggested we repeat the theme of Pirates for Michael’s first birthday!

CJ designed the invitations. 

We added little sachets of chocolate coins to accompany the invitations.  

We made little treasure boxes too. 

CJ designed it a little smaller than 10 years ago.  I only had to duplicate the template, cut and glued it al together.  We sprayed different kinds of noodles with gold spay paint to decorate the boxes.

On Thursday we baked two rectangular cakes and Thursday evening, Christo and CJ designed the pirate boat!  

After many measurements and cuts, the two of them were satisfied with their creation and the rest of us, very impressed with the pirate boat!  Now it was over to me for the decoration on Friday!

Friday didn’t turn out as I planned, with a lot of unexpected interruptions and a little morning sickness (must have been stress!). In the afternoon was horse riding and ballet extra-murals and we only started by 17h00 decorating the cake.  Then the pasta maker broke, we had to wait for Christo to repair it (thank you Lord for a handy man for a husband!) and we could only eat by 19h30 - a little out of routine for the Lues children, resulting in grumpy little ones!  By 21h00 all the little ones was in bed and we could focus on finishing the cake.  But 30 minutes later, Michael started crying and I could hear by the sound of his cry, he wasn’t well.  My little Michael was seldom sick in his first year unless he cut a tooth! It turned out he had a blocked noise and had a slight fever.  It must be teething again, he had not cut a tooth in months!

After trying to make him asleep for another 30 minute I put him in the ergo on my back. 

In the meantime, Christo, CJ and Heidi-Mari took over decorating the cake. 

Josua and Danika was filling the treasure boxes. 

By 24h00 the cake was finished. I was exhausted, Michael was crying on and off and I wasn’t coping well.

During the night Michael was restless and still had a slight fever and a blocked nose. By 05h30 I decided to rather pick him up. With him sleeping in my arms, I had a quiet time with the Lord and read my encouraging mothering blogs, for which I haven’t had time  the past few days.  And was I blessed!  Large Family Mother had a posting that could just as well have been written for me.  It encouraged me so much and after repenting for a few bad attitudes the previous day, I was ready for a very special day with my precious family!  

Michael enjoyed opening his birthday presents with his siblings. 

But though he was making his exciting sounds and played along, his eyes wasn’t as bright and awake as usual and he still had the slight fever. We gave him Christo’s teething powder and a Viburcol suppository to control the fever.  

The morning was a blessing!

We invited two large families and all the children had friends to play with.  

The parents enjoyed the party just as much!

Michael is still fighting the fever and is not the busy baby boy we are used to, but I do think he enjoyed his first birthday!  

There are many beautiful pictures taken by CJ and a video taken by daddy!

I want to thank my beautiful family for all their creativity, support and helping hands, when mine hold little Micheal.  Without you Michael’s party wouldn’t have been!

With love

Linnie

A Blog Award!

Last week I got two unexpected blog surprises!

Firstly, Heidi-Mari (my Daughter) who has a crafting blog since December last year, received a blog award.

She has to pass it on to 5 other blogs and she honoured me with the Award!

What a special gift from my daughter: The “Cherry on Top Award” for Back to Ancient Ways!

Those individuals receiving this award, are asked to do 5 things:

1. Thank the person who gave you this award

Dear Heidi-Mari, it is a real honour for me to receive a blog award from my own daughter!  If it wasn’t for you and your siblings I wouldn’t have a blog like the one I have - you make it all possible for me to keep this blog going with real life testimonies!

Thank you so much, I love you lots and lots!

2. Copy the award and put it on your blog

3. List three things which you love about yourself

1. I love being the person God made me, with my specific personality, my gifts and talents, my strengths and weaknesses.  
2. I love being my husband’s helpmeet, created with the purpose to fill a need.
3. I love being the mother of my precious 8 children (hoping for more), they challenge me every day with their specific personalities and needs.

4. Post a picture you love

My whole family together on Table Mountain, Cape Town, South Africa.

CJ (16yrs); Danika (7yrs); Andrew (5yrs); Heidi-Mari (13yrs); Michael (6months); Daniel (2yrs), Christo (my husband for 19yrs); Josua (10yrs); David (3 1/2yrs)

It was such a beautiful, blessed, sunshine winter’s day - totally unexpected for our winter rainfall region.

There was a special for the cable car trip up the mountain - two children free per parent.  Children under 5yrs don’t pay.  Our whole family of 10 went up the mountain and only Christo and I needed to pay.  God is so Good - He always provide for this family and then He even spoil us - just because He can and it brings Him Joy and Honour!

5. Tag 5 people you'd like to give this award to

Marelize from Ek en My Huis .... Ons sal die Here Dien

Marelize is one of my blog friends I just love to meet in person (and God willing we will meet at the end of the year, when they visit Cape Town!) Marelize is a Home Schooling Mother of 4 children and they live on a farm in South Africa.

Marelize thank you for becoming a special, sweet friend, love you lots!

Sonja from ‘n Sagtelandingsplek

Sonja is another blog friend I would love to meet in person and I’m still praying for that to happen.

Sonja is a Home Schooling Mother of 4 children and her youngest was autistic, but through hours of prayer, lots and lots of reading, lifestyle changes, and that is only what I know of, she turned around her little boys life forever!

Sonja I’m so proud to know you and love you lots!

Sally from I Take Joy

Seven years ago I read the first book by Sally Clarkson - Mission of Motherhood.  As a result of reading Mission of Motherhood (over a holiday) I started an encouraging group for mothers and eventually started my blog.

Over the years I’ve read Ministry of Motherhood and Educating the Whole Hearted Child and got inspired and encouraged through these books.

Sally your blog, I Take Joy, continually challenge and inspire me!

Thank you so much!

Kelly from Generation Cedar

The thing I mostly value from Kelly’s blog, Generation Cedar, is her courage to speak the Truth and nothing but the truth!  

Every time she place a blog posting I want o shout YES! 

Thank you Kelly for not being ashamed to speak the truth and be such an inspiration for me and many, many women in the blog world!

Ladyofvirtue from Large Family Mothering

Ladyofvirtue is the mother of 15 Children and I admire her so much!

She is a true inspiration and when she gives practical advice in raising and home schooling her beautiful children, I know I can take it to heart.

Thank you so much for keeping your blog and be a roll model to me and many other women in these deceiving times.

This was so much fun!!

With love

Linnie

Welcome Michael Party and 'Me-Time"

When I was pregnant with Daniel, a special group of friends gave us a baby shower. Christo told me we were expecting a friend for the evening from Pretoria. As I opened the door, there were all my friends with a surprise party!  

Since I was convinced it was a girl and up to then, had never been wrong with any of my babies, they all blessed us with pink gifts!

Needles to say, there weren’t much blue clothes or blankets when little Daniel arrived. He was wrapped in a pink blanket the first hour of his life! 

So this time around we decided to rather have a ‘Welcome Baby Party” instead of a baby shower! 

One of the benefits of having a ‘baby shower’ after the birth is that everyone knows, baby is a boy or a girl, in terms of gifts,

and it makes it easier on the family to have one morning during which all my special friends can meet the new addition to our family.

So, on a beautiful Friday morning, in February, my special group of friends, blessed us with a ‘Welcome Michael Party’!  

We all met at Meerendal in the Durbanville wine lands and had cake, coffee 

and such a special time together.  

Every one got a turn of meeting and holding little Michael, 

while he was totally unaware of all the attention. 

The oohs and the aahs, while adoring this perfect, tiny, human being! 

It was such a blessing to me to enjoy this special morning in the company of my friends!  Thank you, my dear Friends!

That doesn’t happened very often.  Being devoted to my family and their needs doesn’t give me much time to hang out with friends, not even receiving friends at home. I am totally at peace with it! This is the season in my life during which I devote every minute of my day to be close to my children and train them up in the way they should go.   I believe the success of raising Godly children depends on my priorities and how willing I am to separate my children from the world. 

The past few weeks I heard so many mothers complaining about their lack of ‘Me-Time”.  Where does this ‘Me-Time’ monster come from?  Everywhere I turn, and most of the time I’m around Christian Woman, I heard them long for more ‘Me-Time’ and asking each other how to work in more ‘Me-Time”.  I’ve observed in all these mothers that there longing for more ‘Me-Time’ is there biggest obstacle in raising Godly children in whom they could have a delight to be around.

We need to let go of this “Me-Time-Monster” that robs mothers of the pleasures of a close, loving relationship with godly, well-behaved children!  The “Me-Time-Monster” gives you the illusion that having time AWAY from your children will help you cope with the demands of being WITH your children!  Wrong thinking!  Dear mother we need to renew our minds, turning away from worldly thinking. The more mothers are AWAY from their children, the more undisciplined and ‘lonely’ children become, resulting in more demanding children!

Training our children’s hearts to think like God thinks is only possible if we Mothers keep them right by us.  

We need to keep our younger and most untrained ones by our side constantly. The older and more trained ones at least in the same room until they are absolutely trustworthy elsewhere.   We need to love, nurture, encourage and educate our children constantly. We need to watch them 24 hours a day!  We need to renew our minds to WILLINGLY make parenting our top priority!  It is our FULL TIME JOB!

My second motivation for being a ‘stay-at-home-homeschooling-mother’ is to separate my children from wrong influences, at least until they are very mature in their training and faith (and this maturity doesn’t come as quickly as most parents expect). 

We read in Matthew 6:24, 

"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other..." (NAS)

By allowing our children to be exposed to questionable outside influences, we’re pushing our children into the arms of a second master.  By removing TV from our home and homeschooling our children, we effectively keep our children from wrong influences.  But there is another more enjoyable and simple thing we can do to produce godly, loving children.

We DO more things TOGETHER as a family and let our children do fewer things with ‘friends’ outside the family.  We keep our children WITH us, and reject the popular mindset that my children ‘need’ to socialize outside their home.  It is often at these socializing events that our children will learn values, other than ours and pick up attitudes that are anti-family and anti-authority.  This is where our children will lose their loyalty toward us and God and turn their loyalty toward the world.

We read in 2 Cor. 6:17-18

"Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate," says the Lord. "And do not touch what is unclean; and I will welcome you. And I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me," says the Lord Almighty.

Our children never ask for friends and socializing outings!  They are content in their home and with each other.  In the security of their own home, with a mother who are devoted 24 hours a day, training them 7 days a week, it is possible to raise Godly Children and enjoy parenthood.

Then the picture of cooing infants who loves to be rocked to sleep, 

cute toddlers who enjoy playing peacefully for hours with blocks and toy trains. Grade school children who are always eager to learn and never bicker, 

helpful teens who look forward to sharing confidences with Mom and Dad, and finally young adults who are mature and trustworthy and prepared to start families of their own, is not completely unrealistic! 

Do I long sometimes to be in adult, friendly company?  Do I miss my friends?  

For sure I do!  I love my friends and enjoy every minute spent with them.  But for now, my family is the priority and I need to sacrifice my needs, for them.  I do believe the sacrifice will bear MUCH FRUIT in the future!  And there will always be time to be with friends again when this season is over... but I will NOT have time again to train my children, when they are grown up!