Are They ALL Yours?

This is the most common question I am asked, when we are out in public with our seven beautiful children and my pregnant tummy! This last week on our holiday, was no exception! We got the question several times a day. On our way down to the beach; at the beach playing in the sand; in the supermarket, walking at the Knysna Waterfront; in the coffee shop; in the restaurant etc.

When people notice the rather large group of people, you see the surprising look on their faces as they observe the different ages, next you will see them counting, then the question in their eyes and the words will just spill out - most of the time halfway through the question, you will see the sheepish look on their faces as they realize that it’s a rather silly question, and that you have obviously heard the question many times before!

How do I feel about the question? I absolutely love people asking: “Are they all yours?!”

There are two kinds of people asking The Question and even before they ask, I can tell in which of two categories they fall.

The first category are those people who just don't like children or they think you are stupid having children in this 'overpopulated' and evil world. They are mostly women in the age group between 40 and 65 years - sad and bitter....!

You will see the expression on their faces, the negative body language and the way they look down on the children, when asking The Question. I love to answer them - almost like having an opportunity to have victory over evil - my already smiling face will grow bigger and I will proudly declare: 'Yes they are ALL mine and they are such a blessing'!

Next you will see how irritated they become with the way you answered them, they will utter a sneering look at my children and try to find a flaw, a wrong move by one of the children - something that will confirm their believe that so many children can by no means be a blessing, only a unnecessary nuisance and exhausting. Then they will walk away and if in the supermarket, make sure they don't enter the same aisle as us again.

But, there is also another group. These are mostly younger women and older men (grandpa's). You immediately see their amazed faces, the delight when they look at, especially the little ones, the interesting look of adoration in their eyes when they look at or me and they cannot wait to ask The Question. The Question will most often be the introduction to a conversation about the children, admiration for people that have the courage to have large families, how seldom you see large families now days, how blessed big families are and bits and pieces of their own family and children. Often telling about their grandma or grandpa who where part of a large family. The conversation always end with applause to the well behaved children - taking in account more of half of them are six years and younger.

To answer The Question to the second group makes my day! It gives me the courage to keep going, to train my children to be even more well behaved, look out to help people in public wherever they can and to let their lights shine to the glory of God!

Every time we open our bus's doors and seven children pop out, I feel proud, but small too.

Proud that they are mine, proud to know I love being their Mom; proud that I'm a Life-giver; proud to know the Lord entrusted me with these eternal souls!

But small too. Small to see the love in my children's eyes when they look at me; small when I think God trusts me, a sinful human being, to train His children; small to know I'm no supermom, only moving one step at a time, but still He can use me to influence the world!

Yes, they are ALL mine! And you know what - often I cannot believe it myself!

David’s Very Special 3rd Birthday

Everyone was looking forward to David’s birthday! For weeks there was a count down, but not exactly to the day of his birthday, since David’s birthday was the day before we left on vacation. We decided to postpone his birthday to Saturday the 31st of October. We would then be able to totally focus on his special day, Dad would be with us and we could enjoy a day of fun at the beach.

I baked the birthday cake on Thursday night and wrapped it in brown paper for the trip to Brenton-On-Sea near Knysna.

On Friday night CJ and I decorated the cake. David wanted a cowboy cake and we kept the cake very simple, since I was exhausted after a week of preparation, packing and the long trip.

On Saturday morning, Daniel woke up at 5h30, not exactly what I would have preferred for the first day of my vacation and David woke up shortly after. Within a few minutes all the children were awake and appreciating the birthday cake and decorations Heidi-Mari brought along. We have never had a birthday party at 6h30 in the morning! But we have also never had a birthday during our vacation!

The children still in their pajamas but ready to blow the candles and enjoy the birthday cake for breakfast!

David blowing out the three candles!

David who just loves horses, showing one of his presents, a horse that is part of a car and horse box. Just the way brother CJ takes Silverball to his horse events.

After having cake for breakfast and trying to get some real food into their bodies, we headed for the beach! The Lord blessed us with the most beautiful day and we spent hours playing in the water and sand.

It has become a tradition to built airplanes in the sand. They will sit for hours in their sand airplanes, pretending to fly to different places and do all kinds of aerobatic tricks.

David, very true to the meaning of his name - Warrior for God - holding out his ‘sword’!

Little Daniel was only 9 weeks old when we were at Brenton-on-Sea last year. He was very suspicious of the sound and look of the waves, but after some time he started enjoying himself in the sand!

Josua, as always running, having the time of his life!

Danika and Andrew playing in a world of their own.

By 14h00 we headed back to our log cabin, for lunch. Daniel fell asleep in my arms as we walked back and slept for two hours. The rest of the afternoon, the children played around the cottage and had fun.

By 18h00 we were looking for David, and found him on the couch - fast asleep! The birthday boy could only take so much fun and excitement.

I am sure he will never forget his 3rd birthday and neither will his siblings!

Pink Satin for us, Girls

This weekend I had a ball! I made pajamas for the girls and me, especially for our vacation!

I used pink lady bird T-shirt material and the softest pink satin!

Danika’s pajamas. Wearing this, she looks like a little doll.

Heidi-Mari’s pajamas. She always wanted satin pajamas!

And some pink, satin pajamas for the pregnant fairy!

I absolutely love the neck line with eyelet lace! The eyelet lace is repeated on the bottom of the pajama pants.

I also made myself two pairs of shorts and a pair of long pants. The long pants I made the previous weekend.

I wanted to do something different with the pants to give it an elegant look and put in a slit at the bottom half of the pants and laced some satin ribbon through silver eyelets. I could use Heidi-Mari’s scrapbook tool kit to put in the eyelets!

For the first time in my life I have a nice pair of pants and two pairs of shorts, comfortable to wear during pregnancy.

Home Schooling - Back to Basics!

Over the past few weeks, I’ve neglected the basics of home schooling a little - okay a lot.

There were a few reasons for this

1. We, especially me, are tired and in urgent need of a vacation (we are leaving in a few days!);
2. I am 6 ½ months pregnant and can feel the strain on my body;
3. When I’m tired I get distracted very easily (I am an ADD-adult!);
4. We were so busy learning the skill of growing our own vegetable garden and reading/forecasting the weather (we are busy with a cloud lapbook) that we didn’t have time for Maths and Language Arts; and
5. After a very long, cold and rainy winter, who wants to be between four walls, when the sun is shining warmly outside?

Since Monday I could see there was lack of commitment and self-control in the older children – Heidi-Mari, Josua and Danika. As always I took these attitudes to the Lord and asked Him to please show me what I am doing wrong. In His faithfulness the Lord answered my prayers and I sensed that we need to get back to basics.

And this is what we did:

I just love to use “Clever” to teach first language - Afrikaans.

To give you some back ground: my mother was a preschool teacher in the good old days, before the educational department of South Africa started experimenting with various curriculums. When we announced in 1999 we were going to home school CJ, she immediately dumped boxes of learning material on me! At that stage Martie du Plessis advised us to do unit studies and NO formal curriculum. I dived into the boxes of material my mom gave me and found worksheets for Grade 1 Afrikaans.
My mom also advised me to teach reading on the syllable method and not the whole word or sight word method. The Grade 1 Afrikaans worksheets were from Clever and taught reading and spelling by sounds / syllables. Over the years I could not find a better Afrikaans spelling curriculum and used it with every child as the basic for reading and writing.

On Wednesday morning, I pulled out Danika and Josua’s Clever worksheets.

I introduced Danika to the letter ‘b’. I slowly pronounced words beginning with the letter b, showing her the pictures in the worksheets, to help her get the rhythm of b as in bed, b as in ball, etc. (we obviously did this in Afrikaans) After a few words, I all of a sudden saw the “a-ha” in her eyes! That moment is always so special, seeing the understanding in her eyes.

She practiced the letter b, first in her Clever worksheets and then independently on lined writing paper (I’ve download this from the first school website). She also coloured some coloring pages on the letter b.











Josua also did his Afrikaans through Clever. I believe in “Better Late than Early”, especially with boys and give them a lot of playtime until they are 10 years old. He is currently halfway through the Grade 2 worksheets. Today I introduced the Afrikaans prefix ‘be-‘. The worksheets make use of pictures and he had to write in the words, according to the pictures. He did 4 worksheets, writing the words and I made sure he understood the meaning of each word.











I asked him to write the words on a separate piece of paper, to make sure he knows the spelling of each word. I then allowed him to choose 5 of the words and wrote sentences, illustrating the meaning of the word.

I also had to do some catch up with Maths. Danika struggle with writing the numbers zero to nine. With CJ we started with Maths-U-See. Over the years I have never found a maths program that is more visual or simple in explaining the concept, than Maths-U-See. In my opinion the main reason why Maths-U-See is such an excellent maths program is because it is based on the decimal system. Over the years I’ve observed, as long as you keep the decimal system in tact, the calculations itself is ‘chicken feed’!

I let Danika count out loud, and then had her write the numbers 0 to 9. She has a tendency to turn around some of the numbers. So we practiced the two and seven. She also gets confused with the six and nine. So I told her a story about six and nine to give her an association with the number. Only then could she do a worksheet in her Math-U-See primary student book. She is a very eager learner and would do 3-4 sheets if I allow her.

With Josua I had to mark about two weeks’ work. Often when I’m busy with CJ or the young ones, I would ask Heidi-Mari to help Josua with his lesson. She is such a right hand in our home schooling and can explain Maths with great patience and often translates the word problems for Josua in Afrikaans.

Thankfully Heidi-Mari could work on her own this morning, doing her Maths-U-See and LLATL. We also started with LLATL years ago and since I am not very strong on English and it is our 2nd language, I’m very comfortable with LLATL. Heidi-Mari is doing her LLATL worksheets in the form of a lapbook and that gives her lot of satisfaction.

CJ is very much working on his own and he was the only one that stayed on track during these past few weeks. Every morning before doing his maths worksheet, he does a maths drill on the Maths-U-See website. Yesterday he finished the last two worksheets of his Math-U-See lesson, so I needed to mark the worksheets before he could do the test.

After the test we decided to watch a new lesson on the DVD. We want to finish his current workbook in less than 36 weeks (the work for one year), so we try to do two worksheets a day. I prefer to be present when a new Maths-concept is been explained. Every Maths-U-See workbook comes with a teacher’s manual and DVD. Steve Demme has the gifting to teach a new concept with great patience and fun on the DVD. So there is no need for me to get stressed out about division, decimals or algebra! After we watched the DVD and I was sure CJ understood the new concept, he did the first of the six worksheets in the new lesson.

By now it was 11h30 and Daniel had fallen asleep in my arms. Andrew and David was quietly playing with Lego the whole morning (this does not happen very often), but needed some attention by now. Heidi-Mari cut us some apples as snack while lunch was being prepared and I just sat with them – exhausted after the morning’s output.

I prefer to have lunch by 12h30, so Heidi-Mari and CJ started to prepare tuna and avocado sandwiches. After lunch, CJ finished a Science assignment, Heidi-Mari continued with her LLATL lapbook, Josua watered the vegetable garden and build a few extra pieces of his 300 piece puzzle, while I took a nap with Andrew, David and Danika. Daniel woke up, just before I took them for their nap, but between CJ, Heidi-Mari and Josua, they gave him his sandwich and kept him happy.

When I woke up at 14h00 I took Daniel from Heidi-Mari, I saw Josua was busy putting towels on the line and went to CJ to check on his LLATL. He works through each LLATL lesson on his own and then I check the assignments and make sure he understands the grammar rules. This afternoon we gave attention to prefixes and their meaning.

He is also doing the Excellence in spelling program. Since English is not our first language, we all struggle with the spelling rules and I’ve experienced very good results with this program. I took the last three lessons and dictated the spelling words and he did very well.

And here we stopped with our school day. CJ had to be dropped at the horse riding at 15h00, to give horse riding lessons for young riders. Meanwhile the little ones were waking up and wanted to play with Josua. I needed to get supper going as we eat at 18h00. In-between all this I’m trying to make shorts for myself to wear on our vacation. It is no easy task to get comfortable maternity pants. It seems like the market is for young women in their twenties, who don’t mind to wear uncomfortable pants, as long as they are in fashion!

We didn’t get to our weather lapbooks and I couldn’t do an art project with Andrew and David, but I feel good about the day. We cannot fit in everything, everyday. I’m definitely going to try and stay on this schedule for the next few days, before we leave for our vacation!

Principles I Live By

Sonja taged me to describe the principles I live by.

I like to think of the principles, as beliefs I’m living by. Many times a day I fall by at least one of these beliefs, but the love, grace and faithfulness of God is new every day.

1. I am a Bible believing Christian - I believe in the creation of the universe in six 24 hour days and I believe the Bible just as it is - literally, as well as spiritually;
   
   
2. I believe the Word of God is my highest authority and allow God to use it for my reproof, correction and instruction in righteousness;
   
   
3. I question everything in life, test everything according to the Word of God, pray for His wisdom and as a result do almost everything different to the modern norm;
   
   
4. I believe I was created to be Christo's greatest gift from God, his Helper, therefore I arrange my life under his authority and try to do everything as he likes it to be done and how he wants it to do be done;
   
   
5. I believe I was created in the mother image of God, physically and emotionally equipped to nurture and mother all the children God wanted to bless me with and arrange my life accordingly;
   
   
6. I believe God bought me at a price and therefore I surrender everything, especially my womb, to Him and thus allow him to give me as many children as He wants to;
   
   
7. I believe my body is the temple of God and therefore I look after it as best as I can, giving it all the healthy food it needs and don't abuse it with bad habits, modern day chemical drugs and fast food;
   
   
8. I believe we live in the end times and God needs a Godly army to defeat the evil plans of Satan. My roll is to bear sons and daughters for the Lord, train them up in His truth with strength, so they will not fear when Satan come against them;
   
   
9. believe God needs men and women of influence in society to turn people to the Lord, and therefore teach my children life skills, so they can be used by the Lord in any position He needs them;
   
   
10. I believe God expects me to train the children He gave me, in His ways and to protect them from the influences of the world, to disciple them until they are strong in the Lord, to be able to choose correctly between good and evil;
    
    
11. believe God gave me talents, gifts and the knowledge to teach my children and I therefore home school them;
    
    
12. I believe there is a calling on my life, and I have to walk in that calling, giving God glory and fulfil my purpose in live. If I miss my calling, my live was mostly in vain and I may have harmed the Kingdom of God;
    
    
13. I believe in a life God will reward in heaven and that I will be judged and rewarded according to my works here on earth;
    
    
14. I believe the structured church is not far behind the world in their belief system and actions and therefore belong to a community of believers that chooses to believe and live life according to the Bible;
    
    
15. I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of Father God and that the only way to the Father is through accepting Jesus’ sacrificial death in my place for all sins I committed or may commit. The price He paid was enough and I believe that I was saved by the grace of God for a life of good work, for the glory of God the Father.

I now have to pass on this assignment.

I tag:
A different Journey;
Autumn Vine ; and
my young Friend, Kelly-Ann at Beautiful Girlhood

Planting our First Home-grown Seedlings

Last week we planted our first home-grown seedlings – Haricot and Valdor Yellow Bush Beans.

Heidi-Mari and Josua made us a light box to germinate our heirloom seeds. The light box was also part of their science activities in Exploring Creation with Botany.

We sowed our seeds in seedling trays on the 24th of September. We sowed beans, carrots, tomatoes and lettuce. We got our heirloom seeds from the Gravel Garden in Somerset.

Within two days the lettuce appeared above the ground. We could hardly control our excitement.

Then 4 days later the beans appeared.

The carrots and tomatoes appeared a few days later. I can’t wait to plant the carrots!The beans almost ready to plant in our raised vegetable bed.

And last week we planted them.

On the 27th of September we sowed some herbs (chives, chilies, peppadews and basil) to plant between our vegetables for pest control and on the 3rd of October some more beans and tomatoes.

For our already existing garden of lettuce and tomatoes, we bought yarrow, basil and parsley plants at the slow food market in Stellenbosch. Yarrow and basil are especially good companion plants for lettuce and tomatoes. Christo bought me a book from Margaret Roberts on Companion Planting.

You may remember that we planted two strawberry plants on Equinox day the 22nd of September. Here are the first strawberries starting to ripen. Never before have we seen such shiny, red strawberries. Luckily they are in hanging baskets, or we would never have seen them ripen – small hands would pick it at the first hint of red.











The whole week I was waiting to pick my first rose. This morning, after the rain I went out to have a look and I could pick the most perfect rose!

Living our Passions

Last weekend CJ’s Horse Riding School – Camelot – hosted a Show Jumping Event, at Cape Hunt and Polo Club in Durbanville. It was open for all horse riders in the Peninsula. The event started with poles on the ground, for the beginners and inexperienced riders up to an 80cm high Show Jump Competition for the more advanced riders.

Both Josua and CJ competed in this event. Though the day started out miserable, cloudy, windy and cold, after a Saturday that was the sunniest, spring day this year, we decided the little ones and I would also attend the event.

CJ competed in the 70cm Speed class and the 80cm Show Jumping Competition. In the 70 cm speed competition they had to clear 10 clear jumps in the fastest time possible. Now, let me tell you (and this may shock you), a jumping event is at its very best, boring! But this round was totally different. It was a nerve wrecking round from the start. Some very competent, experienced riders competed in this class and you could sense that they all had their eyes on the first prize. Every new rider entering the arena was watched (and timed) with great anticipation. With skill they compete in getting their horse to the jump as quick as possible, get over the jump with the greatest accuracy and complete the round in the fastest time.

CJ finished his round in 1.19 min. The very next rider finished hers in 1.15 min. Right after her was a 1.13 min. (The previous rider’s daughter!) And that was the course - one after the other there was a new leader. The winner ended with a time of 1.04 min and CJ shared the 5th place with another rider.

The 80cm Show Jump was the final competition and the highlight of the event. It was a two leg competition, some prize money was involved and we knew CJ had actually put his hopes in winning this round. The same riders, of the previous round, competed in this round and I was just praying for the safety of my son (in the previous round he did some hair raising tricks to get Silverball over the jumps fast enough) and that he would enjoy it.

Here you could see, getting the horse over the jumps itself, was the challenge. Very few riders completed this class with a clear round and a lot of riders fell off their horses in an attempt to try every thing in their power to get their horses over the jumps. Nobody was injured seriously though! One of the challenges of Cape Hunt’s events is the grass surface. The surface at Stellenbosch - were CJ competed with great success in the past - was sand. On a grass surface the horse very often ‘glide’ through the jump, due to the speed with which the jump is approached. It takes a lot of skill to give the horse the right speed, angle and footage to be able to clear a jump. Then the horse has to be kept steady to get over the 80 cm high jump. The rider needs to know his horse very well and has to be in total control of his horse. All this, while the crowd wave and cheer from the side.








When it was CJ and Silverball’s turn I could just pray, I reminded myself to breathe in and breathe out and trusted the Lord with every breath I took. A few times you could see the hesitation in Silverball to get over a jump, but CJ was in total control and just knew how to get him over the jump. Great (and loud) was the joy of all the Camelot supporters when CJ finished with a clear round.

This meant he needed to do the second leg, the jump-off at 90 cm, in the shortest time without knocking off a pole. Eish! Wasn’t the stress for the day more than enough, now to go through another round?! To our surprise there were only three riders that finished with clear rounds! For me that was enough, he didn’t need to do the jump-off. He would at least be third, and that was more than what I hoped for. But who am I to say anything – CJ has a very competitive spirit.

He competed second, but I was so bound up in the jumps, that I didn’t register the first rider or CJ’s time, I was just thankful that he went through the jumps in a clear and safe round! I didn’t know what to expect and almost lost my balance when the third rider finished his round and I saw everyone started to congratulate Christo, who was taking photos a few meters away from me. Did CJ win the final round…? Next they announced CJ as the winner! Wow! All his supporters (me being the biggest) were overjoyed with excitement! This was the first time CJ had clear rounds at Cape Hunt and on top of it, won the most important class of the day. I’ve never before seen my son so overjoyed!

And while I’m writing this, I’m filled with thankfulness towards the Lord. Thankfulness that my son is discovering and starting to live his dream, his passion, his calling in life, at such a young age! He already went through some tough challenges with his dream of horse riding. Read more about it here and here.

A few years ago, Bruce Wilkinson, our mentor in discipleship, wrote a book, The Dream Giver. The bottom line of the book is that God has a calling on your life – a dream for you - and you must do everything to fulfill that calling, to live you dream, your passion. In his book he compares following your God-given Destiny with a journey. A journey with some tough challenges, a journey through waste lands and valleys of giants, but if you endure this journey, you will reach your dream and thrive. Until you decide to pursue your Dream, you are never going to live your life the way you were meant to.

Yet, millions of people never take the first step towards their dream. People are so caught up in the demands of life. In my opinion the biggest lie is people believing they cannot integrate their job with their calling or dream. People believe they must work and earn money to make a living and put their dream on hold for later. That is not what God intended for us. He wants us to integrate our job with our passion. It is so much easier to endure the hardships in your job if it is your passion, your God given dream. That is why God put us on earth in the first place!

And it is possible. Christo is now living his calling, his dream, and his passion for 10 years. God put the dream in Christo to educate and heal people through healthy eating patterns and natural medicine. God receives the glory since people are taking better care of their bodies, the only body He gave them to serve Him with. Since it is Christo’s passion he can endure through hardships. God put this calling on his live and therefore he can also provide for his family. For when you are in your calling, you are in God’s will and then God bless you and you will be fulfilled.

I’m also living my calling. My passion is teaching. Where can I make a bigger difference in the world, than teach my own children – the next generation? Compare with my passion of teaching, the nurturing, mother heart of God, which is present in every women and I can endure the hardships of home schooling and training my many blessings. (What is your passion? How can you use your passion, alongside the nurturing, mother heart of God, to raise Godly children?)

There is only one thing we want our children to understand before they leave their nest – They must know God’s calling on their lives, their passion and dream and pursue it. In doing so they will find fulfillment in life and do great and mighty things to the Glory of the Lord!

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
Eph 2:10