Christmas Day

We stuck to what has become our family tradition by having the turkey in the evening and once again the weather was glorious so we sat outside, jealous aren’t you! The day was mainly about the boys, sadly our church doesn’t tend to have a meeting on Christmas Day, so Joel & Eli opened their small stockings first and then over the course of the morning and afternoon opened their presents. Once again Joel was keen to play with each new toy before opening the next present, but he did get the hang of it and started to demand another present. Still, he’s nowhere near as materialistic as he would be if he were in the UK and we’re grateful for that!

Sport Quotes 2006

Quotes of the Year (stolen from BBC Sport)

If sport is not your thing, just move along and don't moan!

"She shouldn't be here. I know that sounds sexist but I am sexist. This is not park football, so what are women doing here? If you start bringing in women you have big problems. It is tokenism for the politically correct idiots."
Luton manager Mike Newell blames assistant referee Amy Rayner for the 3-2 defeat by QPR.

Happy Christmas

Emmanuel, God with us!

What better reason could there be to celebrate?

HAPPY CHRISTMAS

Lots of love

Dean, Paula, Joel &Eli

XXXX

CNP & Picnic

Having Grandad and Lesley to stay is a lot of fun but especially so for Joel. He seems to be loving every minute spent with Grandad and it's a real pleasure and privilege to watch the relationship blossom!

We've been really busy since they arrived and yesterday afternoon we went into Chris Nissen to meet some of our friends. This is always an emotional time, but yesterday was especially so as Vissy was really poorly, but seeing Eli brightened her up incredibly.

Grandad

Joel has been really excited for a while now as he knew Grandad was coming to see him. Grandad finally arrived on Eli's Birthday, so his first duty was to accompany Birthday Boy with the family for a fish & chip supper at a local chippy. Today was mainly about Joel as we left Eli at home with a friend and went with Grandad and Lesley to Cape Town. We went up Table Mountain then onto Boulders Beach to see the penguins before driving home exhausted and sunburnt. Joel and Grandad had a lot of fun!

Eli's First Birthday

WOW! A whole year went by very quickly, before we knew what had happened Eli turned 1! Eli has hit most of the developmental milestones early, he crawled (of a fashion)at 4½ months, sat up unaided at 5 months, was walking at 11 months and basically never looked back.

He's been and continues to be a very special blessing to us as a family and we thank God for bringing him into our lives. Joel & Eli really do adore each other which is brilliant.

Christmas Hampers

One of the things that we've been really busy with recently was the organisation and distribution of food hampers to our church folk in Chris Nissen. The planning for the hampers was immense as we received physical donations of food and cash donations.

Family Fun

In the midst of a very hectic time we've managed to take a bit of time out just to chill as a family and spend some quality time together. Thankfully, the paddling pool makes a great focal point for fun and being silly together and the boys love being in there - making containment of Eli very easy!

Joel is very very excited as he now only has ONE sleep until Grandad arrives!

Eli & Mummy

Mission Incredible

On Sunday evening we had our invitational service at church entitled 'Mission Incredible'. As explained during the evening, we couldn't call it Mission Impossible because with God, all things are possible! However, the Nativity is incredible and actually deeply shocking (we'll not expound on that right now). The evening was great and as ever at such events we were left marvelling at the sheer array of talent we have in the congregation. Wesley gave a short, simple but punchy gospel presentation so hopefully some of the many visitors will respond to the gospel at some point.

Paddling Pool

With the eventual arrival of Summer (although it's still not very hot yet) we dug out the paddling pool only to discover it was wrecked so Paula got a nice new one for a silly price. Joel remembers well the joys of the paddling pool - pagging pool as he calls it - and once in it is very hard to get him out again! Eli took some convincing that it was a good thing but he warmed up to the idea and by the end seemed to be enjoying himself.

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Afternoon's And Coffee Spoons

Or in this case, birthday cake and Christmas trees. Saturday was a busy old day, Paula had a practice session for our evening 'event' at church on Sunday, whilst Dean was running around getting stuff ready for our Mulled Wine evening - a tradition we started at Bible College and have maintained faithfully ever since!

Nobody has ever left disappointed! During the day, Eli had a good go at demolishing a huge slab of his birthday cake and made a wonderful mess in the process. Whilst Joel helped Daddy to decorate the Christmas tree.