se7en

This week is our Blogaversary and we have things like the World Wide Web on our mind. And just recently we had this visitor who inspired us somewhat:

So in the middle of winter and glorious weather we took an afternoon off from the beach and we wove our own web, using natural goodies that we have collected and keep in our nature garden. Things like pine cones, sea shells, bark and seed pods. This is what you are aiming for:

Let’s Meet the Players:

• a pile of sticks/garden poles
• some strings and things
• ribbons, pipe cleaners and wire
• bits of bark, seed pods, sea shells

Let’s Play the Game:

Step 1: To begin with we hammered two poles into the ground where we would plant our web when we were done.

Step 2: Then we piled up our poles to make a base for our web. We tied our poles together using a most proficient knot (not!!!). Papa Bear from “the Berensteins Bear Scouts” would have been proud of our knotting!!!

Then we wrapped a string web around the poles…

Step 3: Then a whole lot of hammering and drilling went on.

Step 4: Followed by a whole lot of threading and knotting.

Step 5: Then a whole lot of tying onto our web.

Step 6: Threading and weaving and winding and our web got more and more intricate.

Step 7: We balanced our web against our upright poles and we were pretty much done – well except for a few more additions. I can see this is an ongoing project!

That’s it – Happy Threading!

Can you believe it?! Our blog is a whole year old. I always thought we would blog about a year and then see how it goes. I thought I would run out of ideas and things to post about. I didn’t expect to love blogging so much and I never expected that after about 450 posts we would still have something to say… but we do! In fact I don’t seem to have any fewer ideas now than I did when we began! So on we go…

And since we are a year older and wiser I thought we could play a bit of a swapping game. We used to travel a whole lot and collect tea-towels from wherever we had been, but we haven’t in a while and our tea towels are looking decidedly past tense – every time I look at them I feel a bit tragic!

I thought we could have a tea-towel swop to celebrate our blogaversary.

This is how it works: If you are keen and you want to play then leave a comment on this post and tell me if you are local (South African) or International (Anyone not South African) …

I will randomly match everyone up with another – hopefully a South African with an International to mix the bag up somewhat. And then you will send each other two dish towels specifically from your part of the world. Posting deadline will be the end of July so that everyone can get their dishtowels before they have forgotten they were participating!

Let’s say it again: If You want to Play

Step 1: Leave a comment on this post before next weekend (11/12 July 2009).

Step 2: Mention if you are local or international.

Step 3: Wait to hear from us.

Sounds easy enough! Comment Away!!!

Otherwise, in honor of this happy event we will send Se7en lucky commenters, who comment on any post on our blog in the next week a “collectors item of a handprinted handcrafted tea-towel by the Se7en” Wherever you are in the world… Its a bargain – get commenting, on any post in the next week!!!

P.S. If you haven’t entered this weeks giveaway then tomorrow is the final day to enter, follow the link to stand a chance.

We have had a week of serious Indian Summer (if you can call it that in the middle of winter) and the Hoods have been doing school in record time so that we can spend the afternoon dashing around on the storm swept beach. Well long hot afternoons on the beach and ice cream comes to mind… I remember seeing ice-cream cookies somewhere but couldn’t remember where and then I went googling and they all looked like far more work than I wanted to spend!

This is what you are aiming for – trust me you want to make these – the cookies are sticky rather than crunchy, more like brownie mixture. The ice cream is just any ice cream you have in stock.

Let’s Meet the Players:

• 1/2 cup of butter
• 1 cup of brown sugar – I used the sticky kind, I want slightly gooey cookies
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
• 100g slab of dark chocolate – Lindt of course!
• 2 and 1/2 cups of cake (all purpose) flour
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt

• ice cream of course! – we used about half a 2 litre tub.

Let’s Play the Game:

Step 1: Cream the butter and sugar together. Then add an egg and beat. And add the other egg and beat. Then add the vanilla essence and beat.

Step 2: Break up your chocolate in a bowl and microwave it on low until it is melted. Check it and stir it – you don’t want it to bubble at all.

Step 3: add the melted chocolate to your sugar mixture and beat some more.

Step 4: Add your flour, baking powder and dash of salt. Beat it all together and you will end up with a sticky dough.

Step 5: Leave the dough to stiffen up in a the fridge for about half an hour. Then roll it out on a floured surface. Cut it into rectangles of roughly equal size and pop them onto a baking try. We pricked them with a fork for the aesthetic appeal. Bake them in a medium oven, 180 degrees Celsius (300 degrees Fahrenheit), for about 8 to ten minutes. Not any longer, they mustn’t get too crisp. Take them out of the oven and let them cool on the tray for five minutes before transferring them onto the cooling rack to cool completely.

Step 6: Now get your ice cream out of the freezer and cut it into slices about half an inch thick. Lay a biscuit on top of your ice-cream and cut the ice cream to size. Then turn your “cookie and ice cream” over and place a matching sized cookie on top. Place it on foil and wrap up tight. And repeat until you run out of cookies and/or ice cream. Store them in the freezer overnight or until you need them – whahhaha!!!

Step 7: You are done.

Happy Birthday Hood #6.

Thank-you for a great day at the beach!

Thank-you for being so keen for every project.

Thank-you for being such a curious creature.

Sorry you missed your three your old haircut! But you decided to do it yourself way early!

Thank-you for dreaming so many wild dreams.

Thank-you for your happy countenance.

Thank-you for being the first to try anything…

Thank-you for being the cutest blue-eyed creature we know.

And Thank-you for being you!

I hope three is a wonderfully busy year for you. And you get to try lots of new stuff. And explore many more things. And discover lots more projects. Have a good-one!!!

A new week and a new month with a whole lot of new days to celebrate…

• About.com’s Calendar.
• Crayola.com
• Enchanted Learning.
• Reading Activity Calendar.
• Teacher Vision.

And these are the days we will be looking at this week:

• 29 June: Camera Day
  • Se7en Do Photography – Camera Fun to have with your kids.
  • Printable Pinhole cameras – I always want to make these and never get round to it!
  • Camera coloring page.
  • How to make a paper camera.

• 30 June: Meteor Day
  • Definition of meteors from Enchanted Learning.
  • Meteorites from the Natural History Museum.
  • More about meteorites from the Australian kids Encyclopedia.
  • Meteorites from the World Almanac for kids.

• 1 July: Scarecrow Day
  • Love the Scarecrow cookies from Family Fun.
  • Heaps of scarecrow crafts from About.com
  • How to make a scarecrow from EHow.com
  • Here is an easy “How to Make a Scarecrow” from the Halloween-website.
• 1 July: Battle of Gettysburg (1-3 July 1863).
  • Gettysburg for kids.
  • Battle of Gettysburg from American Civil War.
  • Civil War for Kids – from Gettysburg National Military Park.
  • A Personal Journal from Gettysburg.

• 1 July: International Joke Day
  • Kids Jokes from Activity Village.
  • Knock Knock Jokes and more.
• 2 July: First Zeppelin Flew (1900).
  • First Zeppelin FLight from the Zeppelin Library.
  • The Zeppelin from Wikipedia.
  • Zeppelin Raids from Spartacus Schools.

• 2 July: Amelia Earhart disappeared (1937).
  • Follow the Amelia Earhart links in this past calendar post.
• 4 July: American Day of Independence (1776).
  • You have to look at this from Katherine Marie Photography
  • Everything you need from Family Fun.
  • And Kaboose of course.
  • The Crafty Crow – for Crafts.
  • Don’t miss One Pretty Thing’s Round-ups.

That’s it – Have a Great Week!

The Story of Ruth is one of those that is just lovely to share with your kids. We love it, and can read over and over again! It is only four chapters long – a very quick read and you can easily read it in a sitting.

On a first glance it appears that the Book of Ruth is a romance tossed amongst the historical books of the Bible. There amidst the sagas of Judges, Samuel and Kings sits this four chapter book (and fewer pages) all about Ruth and her eventual marriage to Boaz. A second glance quite clearly demonstrates that Ruth was not some accidental tourist tripping through Boaz’s fields for gleanings. She was a non-Israelite in a distant land that God required for his plan in the family line of King David and ultimately Jesus.

This brings new meaning to random events. She had been through a miserable time, followed her mother-in-law by faith to a distant land and completely different culture. She was poverty stricken and had to really work for their basic food and yet she was the great great… great grandmother of Jesus. Even so, her life was a trial, it was hard, it was tough – she wasn’t given special privileges in fact she seemed to have been given a tougher load to bear than most. Not just anyone belonged in the dynasty, they were carefully chosen for their role and lets face it Ruth was a woman of faith!

Our GiveAway is another Day One Book, thanks to Christian Book Discounters. If I were ever to write a book then this is the sort of book I would so love to write a book. It has Snippets to read, Application blocks with examples that would apply to their lives, Think Tank Questions at the end of each chapter, and a couple of puzzles at the end of the book.

This book is geared towards kids – everyone in my house from Hood #3 up would love this book. This book is a kids/teen Bible Study Guide through the book of Ruth. It would be great for a group Bible Study or a study on their own. There are not a lot of Bible study resources for kids this age – most of them are topical and raise topics my kids haven’t even thought of yet. Really this is a good one, grab it!

I love the way the book guides the reader through the story of Ruth and explains the meaning of words and names within the book, providing depth and understanding to the story. It explains that Boaz didn’t have the perfect Israelite heritage either – his mother was Rahab after all! Yet through a series of events Boaz, under God’s direction manages rescued her from a life of poverty and despair!

Here are some things to do with your kids while you are reading the Book of Ruth:

• Ruth and Naomi were faithful friends: Make a friendship bracelet.
• Just like Ruth and Boaz’s meeting and resulting family was no accident neither is yours, make a family tree with your kids.
• An on-line Quiz of the book of Ruth, from A Kids Heart.
• An on-line Bible Study for Kids, From the Perkins Family Homepage.
• Here is a quick and easy Ruth craft from DLTK.

As usual I have to thank Christian Book Discounters who kindly supplied the books for this GiveAway…

The GiveAway works in the usual way, comment before the end of this coming Friday and I will draw and publish the winner next week on Sunday! – I won’t respond to your comments as I usually do because I don’t want to be included in our own giveaway!!! Good luck and get commenting!

A couple of months ago I joined the gym, hoping to swim my way through hood #8’s pregnancy. As the weeks went by my swimming costume appeared to be shrinking, but actually I was just expanding!

After weeks of searching and scrounging I sent out a desperate plea in last weeks “Week That Was Post.” Needless to say my loyal readers came to the party and I spent the week following your leads. Luckily I phoned them and I didn’t trail my se7en from pillar to post!

Finding a costume in the middle of winter is well alarming, try it when you are a number of months pregnant and it becomes quite impossible! One maternity shop I phoned sounded absolutely horrified – what was I thinking – “Swimming in my condition – in winter!!!” And my favorite comment was from the one maternity shop who said: “We don’t make maternity clothes for large ladies. Modern mothers are all tiny.” I of course am from the fourteenth century!!! And I might have been tiny for hood #1 but that was 11 years ago, not to mention se7en kids ago!

But the one lead – thanks to Carin – was for Oggi. And Oggi is the place to shop!!! Follow the link to find their address and contact number.

The lady serving was super helpful, she didn’t look at me and say “Oh my goodness they don’t make costumes for hippos!” There was an actual selection of costumes – like a range!!! I got one with lots and lots of tummy stretch and I was the happiest shopper in Cape Town and I will definitely be returning with all my hoods to buy their costumes before the next swimming season starts.

So should you be a “mom-to-be” in Cape Town desperate for something to swim in, even if it is just to sit in the pool during a long hot summer, then Oggi is the place to go. Don’t let it be the very last stop in a long list of guesses. Really get yourself to Oggi first!