Learning through Living - the Seaside Town of Sedgefield

My  sisters and I have had a very full life and we have learnt so much over the past few years. We have lived almost all over South Africa and if we haven’t lived in a certain place, we might well have visited it on our travels!

We have seen beautiful countryside, long stretches of ocean, busy towns and hectic cities! We have seen so much and sometimes we forget to take moving around the country as a blessing – we have learnt things most of our friends haven’t!

I decided to take you through our travels, showing places in beautiful South Africa that you might not have visited before. I want to show you crazy things we have done but enjoyed so much! So now sit back and enjoy looking at the heap of photographs I have to show you! I know it might or might not inspire you to step out of your front door and tour the beautiful countryside that you live in! But we learnt and we are learning about life and the world around us through living!

Each week I will show you a different place we’ve lived in.

We moved back to coastal country to a seaside town called Sedgefield. It took some adjusting to for Nancy, Beth and I, but we enjoyed living there a lot. My dad wasn’t working for a couple of months while my mom was pregnant with Gabrielle. He and Beth spent that time bonding – something that Nancy and I had not had!

Beth the little lady

Our little house was right up on the hill, the barely visible one between the mansions!

Beth and my dad spent nearly every day at the beach while my mom rested at home and Nancy and I played our games.

Nancy, 7 years old

Beth learnt how to do chores.

And once Gabrielle was born, she learnt how to be a big sister and help take care of the new baby!

Sisters together

New Baby Gabrielle

Big sister Beth loving her new sister!

We did quite a few crafts!

Beth and her duck (P.S. when we lived in Knysna, a few months later we couldn’t find Beth, she was so quiet. We found a few yellow pieces of cardboard and feathers on the floor, but thought nothing of it...My mom and I were in the schoolroom a few mornings later and I stared at Beth’s duck and realised that BETH HAD CUT UP HER DUCK...she just gave it a slight haircut and trim !)

We made paper glasses!

Nancy and her baby sister...

She’s so cute!

Beth and her doll riding on her motorbike

Photo-shoot – mom and her girls

Four cute sisters!

Mom and her new baby

Dad and his new daughter

Baby Gabrielle

The Lord then opened miraculous doors and my dad got a job at a school in Knysna against all odds. We also got the house on the school’s property for us to stay in – a huge house with a massive garden!

More in the next post!

Blessings to all,

Kelly-Anne

Time for Tots - Activity #7

 

Hello there everyone, I hope you are well. My mom arrived home late Friday evening and all of us crowded around her to tell her of all our doings! As I am sure you can imagine, she was worn out, not only from her bus trip, but from all the chatterings of her girls who just wanted to tell Mommy everything!

Rebekah behaved herself and (should I tell my mom this?) didn’t ask about her once! Nancy and I kept her busy because, like all toddlers, if she was left to ‘do her own thing’ for too long she became miserable!

The other night while I was making supper she started complaining and Nancy was busy doing some of the farm chores. Rebekah is not quite old enough to play games with her older sisters (age 4 and 6) so she sometimes feels a bit left out. I set her up in her high-chair with bowls of flour, oats, noodles and maize, and a cup of water and some spoons to mix. She had a ball playing in her little kitchen, making her ‘supper’ (thank goodness she isn’t old enough to have her feelings hurt, because by the time she had finished making ‘her supper’ it didn’t look very appetizing anymore!). She loved being able to ‘cook’ with me and every now and then I topped up her cup with clean water or her bowl with more flour!

I would also like to say, I am adding to ‘Time for Tots’ by putting a list like this on each one:

Approximate time to set up: 2 minutes

Approximate playing time: 10-15 minutes

Moderately clean, messy, or very messy: Very messy!

Please don’t be put off by the ‘very messy’ factor...it isn’t too difficult to clean up and it is worth it to have the tots enjoy it so much!

So here are the photographs of Rebekah’s food activity and her ‘recipes for sweetness’!

Add a little water to the flour and mix...

Add a few noodles to the dough...

...And mix some more!

“Look at my hands!” Rebekah age 1.10months.

If you have a tot school activity idea, feel free to share it with me in my comments section...I am always looking for new things to do with Rebekah and Gabrielle. All you really need to do is create a post on your blog with your tot activity (tried and tested with photos, please!) and give a link to THIS post. Then come back to THIS posting and leave a comment, as I have said already with a link to your exact post. For the rest of the rules, go to THIS posting, please! I hope to see some really lovely ideas soon!

‘To the tots’,

Kelly-Anne

Outing to the Kouga River

On Saturday my family went for a drive through the Kouga Mountain Range for the afternoon. Beth and I stayed at home because we weren’t feeling so well. Beth was very disappointed because they went with another family who are good friends of ours. Their daughter is the same age as Beth and she and Beth adore each other!

I asked my dad to please take lots of photographs so that I could feel like I was there too and of course, so that I could share them on my blog!

Signposts showing the way to the Kouga.

My dad took some gorgeous pictures on the drive:

My mom says that these photos don’t do justice to the beauty of the Kouga…

A lovely, long gravel road leading to the river...

Magnificent hills!

Look at this amazing piece of countryside!  We have lived in many different places here in South Africa and it has been wonderful to see the different vegetation and geological formations!

A little closer using the zoom...

Then they arrived at the Kouga River which is Port Elizabeth’s main water supply.

The river almost looks glossy or like glass...it is so romantic and beautiful!

A gurgling stream...

Everyone getting ready for a swim!

Miss Gabrielle getting ready to splash in the water...but, oh...it was cold!

Well done, she got in – look at her sweet face!

 

Rebekah waiting for her turn in the water

Then it was time to take the long, stunning road home...

A lovely afternoon, beautiful scenery and a cool swim...what a life!

Blessings,

Kelly-Anne

A Butterfly Tea Party and Beautiful Girlhood's 2nd Birthday!

On Saturday my friend, Abigail, celebrated her thirteenth birthday. She had a beautiful butterfly tea party with all her girl friends. She asked us all to please wear hats and gloves, but of course we went the extra mile and wore dresses, jewellery and pretty shoes too!

Her sister, Hannah, is a florist and also hires out dresses that she sews herself. Hannah is very talented in that area and helped Nancy and I jazz up our old hats. She also did our hair for us. It is wonderful to have your very own hair stylist living on the same property!

This tea party really encouraged us to be ladies. Often we just go about our daily lives not paying much attention to the beauty around us, and in actual fact our Father in Heaven loves beautiful things (read this article by Aunty Linnie from Back to Ancient Ways on this subject) but when do you have time to be a real lady? When do you take the time to dress up in a pretty dress or wear hats, and I’m not talking about the hats you wear to the beach or on a hike, I’m talking about the big old-fashioned ones with ever so many flowers, ribbons, etc!

So here are the photographs of our delicious tea party

The birthday girl in her hat and gloves waiting for tea time

I loved wearing my hat and gloves and I almost wish we could have lived in that time when all the ladies wore such things!

The tea table laden with good things to eat, pretty flowers and beautiful crockery!

The flowers were gorgeous and really added a sensation to the beautifully decorated tea table!

Abigail enjoying her tea.

What a lovely time we had and I so enjoyed seeing the different colours, styles and beauty of all the girls around me!

Abigail and her sister Hannah.

It was lovely to have tea and treats with all our friends who care for the same things as Nancy and I do – to be beautiful young girls for Jesus, to remain pure and holy and not date, but wait for the right man to cross our path...each of us are striving to be obedient to Christ Jesus and be respectful to our parents and loving to our siblings! We enjoyed our afternoon so much. After we had our fill of all the tea and fruit juice we could possibly have, we had a photo-shoot so that we could remember Abigail’s special day for many years to come!

I gave almost every girl a name of a flower, and to me, Nancy was our rose-bud, pink and serene. She wore pretty pearls

I don’t really know what flower I was...I dressed in white and brown and wore a mock diamond necklace...

I love my hat; it is an older lady’s gardening hat that Hannah transformed within seconds!

All the girls together, holding on to their hats!

‘Hats off’!

We then enjoyed another cup of tea before the party ended!

May I encourage you to enjoy being a young lady - don’t view it as a bad thing, but as a blessing! I said to the girls on Saturday: “isn’t it wonderful being a girl...we get to dress up and enjoy tea parties!”

Today is also my blog’s second birthday and I would like to thank all my readers, followers and the kind people who take time to leave lovely comments! I hope to have many more posts for you all to read in the future! Keep on becoming beautiful for Jesus! Lots of love and many, many blessings,

Kelly-Anne