Esther's Fine Fifteen NB Party

Esther’s Fine Fifteen Natural Beauty Party  

Quite a production again! It worked out nicely though with everyone's cooperation! .

Great decorating job, girls!

Yummy chocolate strawberry cake (thanks Sharon/Maria)

It was a lot of fun and they learned something useful too – tho I was winging it more and being kinda goofy & giggly - their giggling is contagious!  

Caught in a rare moment of seriousness:

 Thanks Mom for the delicious and artistic twist on our classic Salmon Ruby Potato Salad

 6 beautiful sister-cousins

March break and Anna's 13th Tea Party

March Break week began with a visit from Rachel and little brother David on Sunday between services and continued with 4 GD girls staying over for several days.

  What fun we had doing a PJ party, giving foot massages, with lots of giggling, girl talk (they even managed to get some tidbits out of Auntie!), eating, playing twister, making my dog do tricks, playing organ & singing, reading, playing with dolls, making bracelets, 

 doing hair, 

 sewing - great job, Sarah!

 exploring the woods, climbing fallen trees and sitting in trees, 

baking an amazing DF,GR Ruby Chocolate Cake decorated with coconut cream icing and raspberries...  

preparing for and having an elaborate Tea Party in honour of Anneke becoming a teenager!

I even took out my special Dutch Tea Set from (Great) Oma N with the Dutch Grandfather Clocks on it!

Opa played Butler as the 6 elegant ladies sat to Tea

The funnest part of the party was the twirling & dancing to classical Ballet music in swirly old-fashioned dresses of mine and costume dresses,   

The girls had a great time - without watching even one movie the whole 3 days!  

We were able to all that and more (and I still got some rest times in) b/c the girls didn’t just sit there and wait to be served & entertained! Rather, they got right in there and helped make things happen!

And they even helped put the house back in order before they left! Thank you!

Such sweet, well trained girls are a delight to have! 

The night of Betty's kid's Christmas program (Fri Dec 7), I got to babysit David & Bethany - which was quite uneventful & relaxing (phew). After story time on the couch and supper we still had time for Bethany to finish this pretty plastic wreath that a couple of the other kids had started previously.

This is the next morning (Sat Dec 8) and after showing off her wreath to Oma, she ran up stairs and put on a fancy dress & black stockings and we rushed off to her first piano recital!

 

Here she is with Heidi at the church where Heidi organized a recital for all her piano students! Very nice! So neat to be able to go and hear the children play and see Heidi encouraging, coaching or accompanying them.

Kenny

 

Maria, Andrew & Daniel played also.  Great job everyone!

 

 

 

Christmas flower basket arranging with Oma

Thurs Dec 20, John dropped off Esther & Sarah at Sharon's while in the area for business so they could stay for the weekend - so nice! Great that Heidi, with her busy schedule, was also able to make it for the morning - nice to have some time with the teens before the little girls came (oops, Esther's not so little anymore!) Here we are hanging out in my livingroom after lunch.

 

 

After supper, just as the snow began to fall in huge fluffy flakes, the girls went out, candle & flashlight in hand, to fill the air with their sweet melodious "Glor-o-ria, in Excelis Deo, Glor-o-o-ria, in Excelsis De-eo".... One delighted neighbour asked if we had ordered the snow just for this (it hadn't really snowed yet this winter!)

Sewing lessons with Oma

In July, Oma gave sewing lessons again - this time for Anneke & Sarah

The girls did a great job with their bunny pillows - completing them in 2 days

 

 

 in between playing outside and Sarah learning to roller skate!

They also found lots of time to take care of 2 little girls they rediscovered who were needing some attention

                                                                                                   Oma got more than she bargained for!

Bed time!

 

In case you haven't figured it out yet, these 2 are dolls!  - so life-like that even Tia was fooled at first! 

On first sight, Tia went eagerly to them waging her tail and reached forward to lick Emma's hand suddenly starting back in confusion when she realized something wasn't right about this! She hid and then cautiously approached again only to jump back again. So funny - we laughed ourselves silly!
In this photo she's finally figured out she could safely come near.


So nice to be able to have our special girls/cousins who are such great friends over for a couple days! (tho I was feeling a little left out they were so busy together!) ;)

 

Wednesday we brought Sarah home and on the way stopped to visit Klaas & Ann in their new place - as we had promised to do - and left Anna there with her grandparents since her mom (Rachel) was coming the next day. 

What a nice place they have so close to the lake!

Sarah & Anna even got in a dip - no bathing suit? no problem!

 

 It was nice to see K&A happily settled in and not so terribly far away!

These parting shots were taken at their last lunch visit to our place before they moved away 

We miss these dear people at church especially!

 

Christmas Traditions

Pakjes is one of our funnest Brink traditions and this year was no exception! Thanks all!

Grand-daughters day making Christmas baskets or wreaths has also become somewhat of a tradition here. This year we had 3 new participants but missed the oldest (Lizzi).
As usual they did a great job!

A couple guys snuck in to cheer/comment and gawk in admiration ;)

Here's close-ups of the lovely girls and their peices:

Betty and kids came for Maurice's milestone birthday the night before and were able to stay til Saturday so as to join in also of our Church Christmas program.