Operation Christmas Child

A skirt I made to go in a box.
I almost wanted to keep it for one of my sisters!

Back in October (OCC's national collection month), my dad came with my friend Becks and me (and a few other home-schoolers) to volunteer at Operation Christmas Child for a few hours one Saturday.

Operation Christmas Child, a project of Samaritan's Purse, provides underprivelaged children aged 2-14yrs with a shoebox containing various gifts for Christmas. Some of the impact stories are very moving!

My boxes all packed up!

I figured since we were going to the warehouse anyway, we should take the boxes I was filling, rather than having to drop them somewhere else. So on the Friday we went from one shop to another, buying the rest of the fillers I needed; I ended up spending most of the day working on the boxes! 

Becks and me

We left home around 9am Saturday morning, so we could be at the (OCC) warehouse in Henderson by 10 o'clock. We spent the next few hours unpacking boxes, checking the contents for anything that wasn't supposed to be in them, making sure (as best we could) that there was something from each of the listed categories, removing unnecessary packaging, and filling (from stocks they have there) any that didn't have enough 'stuff' in them. 

2 o'clock came all too soon and we left since we didn't want to be home too late. We stopped in at The Coffee Club for afternoon tea before dropping Becks home. :)

Afternoon tea...

And I won't mention what the house looked like when we got back...suffice it to say my mum and siblings were in the midst of a massive cleanup/out, which involved taking everything out from under the beds in the girls room...!

Yesterday

To the Americans on here...
Happy thanksgiving for yesterday!

Some things I am thankful for:

• blog readers ;)
• family
• friends (love you :))
• computers/internet
• pets
• music

Ummm . . .

Mum

Happy Birthday Mum!

Highlights from the past year:

• Arrival of eighth child
• Two teenaged children
• 20th wedding anniversary

2 1/2 years old

Ambury Farm Park Visit

The actual reason for our (August) trip to Ambury Farm Park was so the little ones could see the cows being milked (some of us older ones have helped milk by machine, but that was three of four years or so ago). And get this . . . right now, I can't find any photos of that! And . . . Mum's camera hasn't been downloaded yet so I can't use any of her pics either :(

So anyways, you'll just have to enjoy the photos I have got at the moment:

We spent ages by the lambs;
they were really friendly so the little ones could pat them through the fence

This goat is allowed to roam free on the walking tracks throughout the park

Laura (5 months)

Group photo
Left to right: Monique (11), Bryce (4), Diana (7), Me, Amelia (6), Mum & Laura, Owen (2), Mrs. Smith, Maria (2), Danielle (9)
Front: Jarrod (13)

Jago children

Ah yeah, we took a heap of random pics in the frame!
This one is actually photoshopped; someone was crouching underneath so he's gone, and I've taken the green piece out from the bottom right corner of the frame.

My new portrait :P

This is how we found Diana and Bryce when we got back...oops!

My Sweet 16th :)

I wanted a memorable celebration for my sixteenth this year, and initially I thought something 'big'. Time slipped away on me though (and I couldn't really think of anything...), so we didn't actually finish organising this until the day before it all took place! 

In the end, the Sonnevelds came to our place around 12:30, and we piled into our people-mover {which I cleaned the night before - go me! :P} to pick up Middy and Becks before heading out to the Hunua Falls/Ranges.

Because we didn't end up having enough time for a long walk, we just went to the falls and then up to the lookout. Afterwards we got the food out of the car and headed for one of the picnic tables. Despite being somewhat gloomy, the weather held up throughout the afternoon, allowing us to enjoy ourselves without getting drenched!

Middy had previously committed to something else later in the afternoon, so dropped her home, then went to Manna Christian Bookstore while we waited for Anne Roos to be ready (she flew back to Auckland that afternoon), at which point we met her at Tenpin Manukau.

Two games later a tired lot of us came back to my place for the rest of the evening. 

While we had been all over town, my mum and siblings had been busy getting the house ready for us to arrive. They made beef casserole for dinner, along with dessert and cake (which we didn't end up icing or eating...oops!). They also pulled out our second dining table and set it up in the lounge for us {since you can't exactly fit five extra people around one!}. 

After dinner and dessert we claimed the lounge suite to watch Saving Sarah Cain. The food leftover from afternoon tea was completely forgotten but near the end we remembered the drinks ;)

By then end of the movie it was 10-ish and time for home and bed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This was actually from another day;
it's the mud cake I made and decorated myself.
Yep, tough stuff making my own birthday cake! lol

Gifts from my family

Gifts from friends
See, 16 really is sweet!!!! :P :P